Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents
Author: Robert Green Ingersoll
Editor: David Widger
Release date: February 9, 2012 [eBook #38813]
Most recently updated: June 3, 2021
Language: English
Credits: David Widger
| VOLUME I. | VOLUME II. | VOLUME III. | VOLUME IV. | VOLUME V. |
VOLUME VI. |
| VOLUME VII. | VOLUME VIII. | VOLUME IX. | VOLUME X. | VOLUME XI. |
VOLUME XII. |
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
I. WHAT WE MUST DO TO BE SAVED
(1872.)
An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man—Resemblance of Gods to
their Creators—Manufacture and Characteristics of Deities—Their
Amours—Deficient in many Departments of Knowledge—Pleased with the
Butchery of Unbelievers—A Plentiful Supply—Visitations—One God's
Laws of War—The Book called the Bible—Heresy of Universalism—Faith
an unhappy mixture of Insanity and Ignorance—Fallen Gods, or
Devils—Directions concerning Human Slavery—The first Appearance of
the Devil—The Tree of Knowledge—Give me the Storm and Tempest of
Thought—Gods and Devils Natural Productions—Personal Appearance
of Deities—All Man's Ideas suggested by his Surroundings—Phenomena
Supposed to be Produced by Intelligent Powers—Insanity and Disease
attributed to Evil Spirits—Origin of the Priesthood—Temptation of
Christ—Innate Ideas—Divine Interference—Special Providence—The
Crane and the Fish—Cancer as a proof of Design—Matter and
Force—Miracle—Passing the Hat for just one Fact—Sir William Hamilton
on Cause and Effect—The Phenomena of Mind—Necessity and Free Will—The
Dark Ages—The Originality of Repetition—Of what Use have the Gods been
to Man?—Paley and Design—Make Good Health Contagious—Periodicity of
the Universe and the Commencement of Intellectual Freedom—Lesson of
the ineffectual attempt to rescue the Tomb of Christ from the
Mohammedans—The Cemetery of the Gods—Taking away Crutches—Imperial
Reason
(1869.)
The Universe is Governed by Law—The Self-made Man—Poverty generally
an Advantage—Humboldt's Birth-place—His desire for Travel—On what
Humboldt's Fame depends—His Companions and Friends—Investigations
in the New World—A Picture—Subjects of his Addresses—Victory of the
Church over Philosophy—Influence of the discovery that the World is
governed by Law—On the term Law—Copernicus—Astronomy—Aryabhatta—
Descartes—Condition of the World and Man when the morning of Science
Dawned—Reasons for Honoring Humboldt—The World his Monument
(1870.)
With his Name left out the History of Liberty cannot be Written—Paine's
Origin and Condition—His arrival in America with a Letter of
Introduction by Franklin—Condition of the Colonies—"Common Sense"—A
new Nation Born—Paine the Best of Political Writers—The "Crisis"—War
not to the Interest of a trading Nation—Paine's Standing at the Close
of the Revolution—Close of the Eighteenth Century in France-The
"Rights of Man"—Paine Prosecuted in England—"The World is my
Country"—Elected to the French Assembly—Votes against the Death of
the King—Imprisoned—A look behind the Altar—The "Age of Reason"—His
Argument against the Bible as a Revelation—Christianity of Paine's
Day—A Blasphemy Law in Force in Maryland—The Scotch "Kirk"—Hanging
of Thomas Aikenhead for Denying the Inspiration of the
Scriptures—"Cathedrals and Domes, and Chimes and Chants"—Science—"He
Died in the Land his Genius Defended,"
(1873.)
"His Soul was like a Star and Dwelt Apart"—Disobedience one of the
Conditions of Progress.—Magellan—The Monarch and the Hermit-Why
the Church hates a Thinker—The Argument from Grandeur and
Prosperity-Travelers and Guide-boards—A Degrading Saying—Theological
Education—Scotts, Henrys and McKnights—The Church the Great
Robber—Corrupting the Reason of Children—Monotony of Acquiescence: For
God's sake, say No—Protestant Intolerance: Luther and Calvin—Assertion
of Individual Independence a Step toward Infidelity—Salute to
Jupiter—The Atheistic Bug-Little Religious Liberty in America—God in
the Constitution, Man Out—Decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois
that an Unbeliever could not testify in any Court—Dissimulation—Nobody
in this Bed—The Dignity of a Unit
(1874.)
Liberty, a Word without which all other Words are Vain—The Church, the
Bible, and Persecution—Over the wild Waves of War rose and fell
the Banner of Jesus Christ—Highest Type of the Orthodox
Christian—Heretics' Tongues and why they should be Removed before
Burning—The Inquisition Established—Forms of Torture—Act of Henry
VIII for abolishing Diversity of Opinion—What a Good Christian was
Obliged to Believe—The Church has Carried the Black Flag—For what Men
and Women have been Burned—John Calvin's Advent into the
World—His Infamous Acts—Michael Servetus—Castalio—Spread of
Presbyterianism—Indictment of a Presbyterian Minister in Illinois for
Heresy—Specifications—The Real Bible
(1877.)
Dedication to Ebon C. Ingersoll—Preface—Mendacity of the Religious
Press—"Materialism"—Ways of Pleasing the Ghosts—The Idea of
Immortality not Born of any Book—Witchcraft and Demon-ology—Witch
Trial before Sir Matthew Hale—John Wesley a Firm Believer in
Ghosts—"Witch-spots"—Lycanthropy—Animals Tried and Convicted—The
Governor of Minnesota and the Grasshoppers—A Papal Bull against
Witchcraft—Victims of the Delusion—Sir William Blackstone's
Affirmation—Trials in Belgium—Incubi and Succubi—A Bishop
Personated by the Devil—The Doctrine that Diseases are caused by
Ghosts—Treatment—Timothy Dwight against Vaccination—Ghosts as
Historians—The Language of Eden—Leibnitz, Founder of the Science
of Language—Cosmas on Astronomy—Vagaries of Kepler and Tycho
Brahe—Discovery of Printing, Powder, and America—Thanks to the
Inventors—The Catholic Murderer and the Meat—Let the Ghosts Go
THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
(1877.)
Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does to
Matter—The History of Man a History of Slavery—The Infidel Our
Fathers in the good old Time—The iron Arguments that Christians
Used—Instruments of Torture—A Vision of the Inquisition—Models of
Man's Inventions—Weapons, Armor, Musical Instruments, Paintings,
Books, Skulls—The Gentleman in the Dug-out—Homage to Genius and
Intellect—Abraham Lincoln—What I mean by Liberty—The Man who cannot
afford to Speak his Thought is a Certificate of the Meanness of the
Community in which he Resides—Liberty of Woman—Marriage and the
Family—Ornaments the Souvenirs of Bondage-The Story of the Garden of
Eden—Adami and Heva—Equality of the Sexes-The word "Boss"—The Cross
Man-The Stingy Man—Wives who are Beggars—How to Spend Money—By
the Tomb of the Old Napoleon—The Woman you Love will never Grow
Old—Liberty of Children—When your Child tells a Lie—Disowning
Children—Beating your own Flesh and Blood—Make Home Pleasant—Sunday
when I was a Boy—The Laugh of a Child—The doctrine of Eternal
Punishment—Jonathan Edwards on the Happiness of Believing Husbands
whose Wives are in Hell—The Liberty of Eating and Sleeping—Water in
Fever—Soil and Climate necessary to the production of Genius—Against
Annexing Santo Domingo—Descent of Man—Conclusion
(1877.)
To Plow is to Pray; to Plant is to Prophesy, and the Harvest Answers and
Fulfills—The Old Way of Farming—Cooking an Unknown Art-Houses, Fuel,
and Crops—The Farmer's Boy—What a Farmer should Sell—Beautifying
the Home—Advantages of Illinois as a Farming State—Advantages of the
Farmer over the Mechanic—Farm Life too Lonely-On Early Rising—Sleep
the Best Doctor—Fashion—Patriotism and Boarding Houses—The Farmer and
the Railroads—Money and Confidence—Demonetization of Silver-Area of
Illinois—Mortgages and Interest—Kindness to Wives and Children—How
a Beefsteak should be Cooked—Decorations and Comfort—Let the Children
Sleep—Old Age
(1880.)
Preface—The Synoptic Gospels—Only Mark Knew of the Necessity of
Belief—Three Christs Described—The Jewish Gentleman and the Piece of
Bacon—Who Wrote the New Testament?—Why Christ and the Apostles wrote
Nothing—Infinite Respect for the Man Christ—Different Feeling for
the Theological Christ—Saved from What?—Chapter on the Gospel of
Matthew—What this Gospel says we must do to be Saved—Jesus and the
Children—John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards conceived of as Dimpled
Darlings—Christ and the Man who inquired what Good Thing he should
do that he might have Eternal Life—Nothing said about Belief—An
Interpolation—Chapter on the Gospel of Mark—The Believe or be Damned
Passage, and why it was written—The last Conversation of Christ with
his Disciples—The Signs that Follow them that Believe—Chapter on
the Gospel of Luke—Substantial Agreement with Matthew and Mark—How
Zaccheus achieved Salvation—The two Thieves on the Cross—Chapter
on the Gospel of John—The Doctrine of Regeneration, or the New
Birth—Shall we Love our Enemies while God Damns His?—Chapter on the
Catholics—Communication with Heaven through Decayed Saints—Nuns and
Nunneries—Penitentiaries of God should be Investigated—The
Athanasian Creed expounded—The Trinity and its Members—Chapter on the
Episcopalians—Origin of the Episcopal Church—Apostolic Succession
an Imported Article—Episcopal Creed like the Catholic, with a
few Additional Absurdities—Chapter on the Methodists—Wesley and
Whitfield—Their Quarrel about Predestination—Much Preaching for Little
Money—Adapted to New Countries—Chapter on the Presbyterians—John
Calvin, Murderer—Meeting between Calvin and Knox—The Infamy of
Calvinism—Division in the Church—The Young Presbyterian's Resignation
to the Fate of his Mother—A Frightful, Hideous, and Hellish
Creed—Chapter on the Evangelical Alliance—Jeremy Taylor's Opinion of
Baptists—Orthodoxy not Dead—Creed of the Alliance—Total Depravity,
Eternal Damnation—What do You Propose?—The Gospel of Good-fellowship,
Cheerfulness, Health, Good Living, Justice—No Forgiveness—God's
Forgiveness Does not Pay my Debt to Smith—Gospel of Liberty, of
Intelligence, of Humanity—One World at a Time—"Upon that Rock I
Stand"
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
(1879.)
Preface—I. He who endeavors to control the Mind by Force is a
Tyrant, and he who submits is a Slave—All I Ask—When a Religion
is Founded—Freedom for the Orthodox Clergy—Every Minister an
Attorney—Submission to the Orthodox and the Dead—Bounden Duty of
the Ministry—The Minister Factory at Andover—II. Free Schools—No
Sectarian Sciences—Religion and the Schools—Scientific
Hypocrites—III. The Politicians and the Churches—IV. Man and Woman the
Highest Possible Titles—Belief Dependent on Surroundings—Worship of
Ancestors—Blindness Necessary to Keeping the Narrow Path—The Bible the
Chain that Binds—A Bible of the Middle Ages and the Awe it Inspired—V.
The Pentateuch—Moses Not the Author—Belief out of which Grew
Religious Ceremonies—Egypt the Source of the Information of Moses—VI.
Monday—Nothing, in the Light of Raw Material—The Story of Creation
Begun—The Same Story, substantially, Found in the Records of Babylon,
Egypt, and India—Inspiration Unnecessary to the Truth—Usefulness of
Miracles to Fit Lies to Facts—Division of Darkness and Light—VII.
Tuesday—The Firmament and Some Biblical Notions about it—Laws of
Evaporation Unknown to the Inspired Writer—VIII. Wednesday—The Waters
Gathered into Seas—Fruit and Nothing to Eat it—Five Epochs in the
Organic History of the Earth—Balance between the Total Amounts of
Animal and Vegetable Life—Vegetation Prior to the Appearance of the
Sun—IX. Thursday—Sun and Moon Manufactured—Magnitude of the Solar
Orb—Dimensions of Some of the Planets—Moses' Guess at the Size of Sun
and Moon—Joshua's Control of the Heavenly Bodies—A Hypothesis Urged
by Ministers—The Theory of "Refraction"—Rev. Henry Morey—Astronomical
Knowledge of Chinese Savants—The Motion of the Earth Reversed by
Jehovah for the Reassurance of Ahaz—"Errors" Renounced by Button—X.
"He made the Stars Also"—Distance of the Nearest Star—XI.
Friday—Whales and Other Living Creatures Produced—XII.
Saturday—Reproduction Inaugurated—XIII. "Let Us Make Man"—Human
Beings Created in the Physical Image and Likeness of God—Inquiry as
to the Process Adopted—Development of Living Forms According to
Evolution—How Were Adam and Eve Created?—The Rib Story—Age of
Man Upon the Earth—A Statue Apparently Made before the World—XIV.
Sunday—Sacredness of the Sabbath Destroyed by the Theory of Vast
"Periods"—Reflections on the Sabbath—XV. The Necessity for a Good
Memory—The Two Accounts of the Creation in Genesis I and II—Order
of Creation in the First Account—Order of Creation in the Second
Account—Fastidiousness of Adam in the Choice of a Helpmeet—Dr.
Adam Clark's Commentary—Dr. Scott's Guess—Dr. Matthew Henry's
Admission—The Blonde and Brunette Problem—The Result of Unbelief and
the Reward of Faith—"Give Him a Harp"—XVI. The Garden—Location of
Eden—The Four Rivers—The Tree of Knowledge—Andover Appealed
To—XVII. The Fall—The Serpent—Dr. Adam Clark Gives a Zoological
Explanation—Dr. Henry Dissents—Whence This Serpent?—XVIII.
Dampness—A Race of Giants—Wickedness of Mankind—An Ark Constructed—A
Universal Flood Indicated—Animals Probably Admitted to the Ark—How Did
They Get There?—Problem of Food and Service—A Shoreless Sea Covered
with Innumerable Dead—Drs. Clark and Henry on the Situation—The Ark
Takes Ground—New Difficulties—Noah's Sacrifice—The Rainbow as a
Memorandum—Babylonian, Egyptian, and Indian Legends of a Flood—XIX.
Bacchus and Babel—Interest Attaching to Noah—Where Did Our First
Parents and the Serpent Acquire a Common Language?—Babel and the
Confusion of Tongues—XX. Faith in Filth—Immodesty of Biblical
Diction—XXI. The Hebrews—God's Promises to Abraham—The Sojourning
of Israel in Egypt—Marvelous Increase—Moses and Aaron—XXII.
The Plagues—Competitive Miracle Working—Defeat of the Local
Magicians—XXIII. The Flight Out of Egypt—Three Million People in a
Desert—Destruction of Pharaoh ana His Host—Manna—A Superfluity of
Quails—Rev. Alexander Cruden's Commentary—Hornets as Allies of the
Israelites—Durability of the Clothing of the Jewish People—An Ointment
Monopoly—Consecration of Priests—The Crime of Becoming a Mother—The
Ten Commandments—Medical Ideas of Jehovah—Character of the God of
the Pentateuch—XXIV. Confess and Avoid—XXV. "Inspired" Slavery—XXVI.
"Inspired" Marriage-XXVII. "Inspired" War-XXVIII. "Inspired" Religious
Liberty—XXIX. Conclusion.
(1881.)
I—Religion makes Enemies—Hatred in the Name of Universal
Benevolence—No Respect for the Rights of Barbarians—Literal
Fulfillment of a New Testament Prophecy—II. Duties to God—Can we
Assist God?—An Infinite Personality an Infinite Impossibility-Ill.
Inspiration—What it Really Is—Indication of Clams—Multitudinous
Laughter of the Sea—Horace Greeley and the Mammoth Trees—A Landscape
Compared to a Table-cloth—The Supernatural is the Deformed—Inspiration
in the Man as well as in the Book—Our Inspired Bible—IV. God's
Experiment with the Jews—Miracles of One Religion never astonish the
Priests of Another—"I am a Liar Myself"—V. Civilized Countries—Crimes
once regarded as Divine Institutions—What the Believer in the
Inspiration of the Bible is Compelled to Say—Passages apparently
written by the Devil—VI. A Comparison of Books—Advancing a Cannibal
from Missionary to Mutton—Contrast between the Utterances of Jehovah
and those of Reputable Heathen—Epictetus, Cicero, Zeno,
Seneca—the Hindu, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius—The Avesta—VII.
Monotheism—Egyptians before Moses taught there was but One God
and Married but One Wife—Persians and Hindoos had a Single Supreme
Deity—Rights of Roman Women—Marvels of Art achieved without the
Assistance of Heaven—Probable Action of the Jewish Jehovah incarnated
as Man—VIII. The New Testament—Doctrine of Eternal Pain brought to
Light—Discrepancies—Human Weaknesses cannot be Predicated of
Divine Wisdom—Why there are Four Gospels according to Irenæus—The
Atonement—Remission of Sins under the Mosaic Dispensation—Christians
say, "Charge it"—God's Forgiveness does not Repair an Injury—Suffering
of Innocence for the Guilty—Salvation made Possible by Jehovah's
Failure to Civilize the Jews—Necessity of Belief not taught in the
Synoptic Gospels—Non-resistance the Offspring of Weakness—IX. Christ's
Mission—All the Virtues had been Taught before his Advent—Perfect and
Beautiful Thoughts of his Pagan Predecessors—St. Paul Contrasted
with Heathen Writers—"The Quality of Mercy"—X. Eternal Pain—An
Illustration of Eternal Punishment—Captain Kreuger of the Barque
Tiger—XI. Civilizing Influence of the Bible—Its Effects on the
Jews—If Christ was God, Did he not, in his Crucifixion, Reap what
he had Sown?—Nothing can add to the Misery of a Nation whose King is
Jehovah
(1884.)
Orthodox Religion Dying Out—Religious Deaths and Births—The Religion
of Reciprocity—Every Language has a Cemetery—Orthodox Institutions
Survive through the Money invested in them—"Let us tell our Real
Names"—The Blows that have Shattered the Shield and Shivered the Lance
of Superstition—Mohammed's Successful Defence of the Sepulchre of
Christ—The Destruction of Art—The Discovery of America—Although
he made it himself, the Holy Ghost was Ignorant of the Form of this
Earth—Copernicus and Kepler—Special Providence—The Man and the Ship
he did not Take—A Thanksgiving Proclamation Contradicted—Charles
Darwin—Henry Ward Beecher—The Creeds—The Latest Creed—God as
a Governor—The Love of God—The Fall of Man—We are Bound
by Representatives without a Chance to Vote against Them—The
Atonement—The Doctrine of Depravity a Libel on the Human Race—The
Second Birth—A Unitarian Universalist—Inspiration of the
Scriptures—God a Victim of his own Tyranny—In the New Testament
Trouble Commences at Death—The Reign of Truth and Love—The Old
Spaniard who Died without an Enemy—The Wars it Brought—Consolation
should be Denied to Murderers—At the Rate at which Heathen are being
Converted, how long will it take to Establish Christ's Kingdom on
Earth?—The Resurrection—The Judgment Day—Pious Evasions—"We shall
not Die, but we shall all be Hanged"—"No Bible, no Civilization"
Miracles of the New Testament—Nothing Written by Christ or his
Contemporaries—Genealogy of Jesus—More Miracles—A Master of
Death—Improbable that he would be Crucified—The Loaves and Fishes—How
did it happen that the Miracles Convinced so Few?—The Resurrection—The
Ascension—Was the Body Spiritual—Parting from the Disciples—Casting
out Devils—Necessity of Belief—God should be consistent in the
Matter of forgiving Enemies—Eternal Punishment—Some Good Men who are
Damned—Another Objection—Love the only Bow on Life's dark Cloud—"Now
is the accepted Time"—Rather than this Doctrine of Eternal Punishment
Should be True—I would rather that every Planet should in its Orbit
wheel a barren Star—What I Believe—Immortality—It existed long before
Moses—Consolation—The Promises are so Far Away, and the Dead are so
Near—Death a Wall or a Door—A Fable—Orpheus and Eurydice.
(1885.)
I. Happiness the true End and Aim of Life—Spiritual People and
their Literature—Shakespeare's Clowns superior to Inspired
Writers—Beethoven's Sixth Symphony Preferred to the Five Books of
Moses—Venus of Milo more Pleasing than the Presbyterian Creed—II.
Religions Naturally Produced—Poets the Myth-makers—The Sleeping
Beauty—Orpheus and Eurydice—Red Riding Hood—The Golden Age—Elysian
Fields—The Flood Myth—Myths of the Seasons—III. The Sun-god—Jonah,
Buddha, Chrisnna, Horus, Zoroaster—December 25th as a Birthday of
Gods—Christ a Sun-God—The Cross a Symbol of the Life to Come—When
Nature rocked the Cradle of the Infant World—IV. Difference between
a Myth and a Miracle—Raising the Dead, Past and Present—Miracles
of Jehovah—Miracles of Christ—Everything Told except the Truth—The
Mistake of the World—V. Beginning of Investigation—The Stars as
Witnesses against Superstition—Martyrdom of Bruno—Geology—Steam and
Electricity—Nature forever the Same—Persistence of Force—Cathedral,
Mosque, and Joss House have the same Foundation—Science the
Providence of Man—VI. To Soften the Heart of God—Martyrs—The God was
Silent—Credulity a Vice—Develop the Imagination—"The Skylark" and
"The Daisy"—VII. How are we to Civilize the World?—Put Theology out
of Religion—Divorce of Church and State—Secular Education—Godless
Schools—VIII. The New Jerusalem—Knowledge of the Supernatural
possessed by Savages—Beliefs of Primitive Peoples—Science is
Modest—Theology Arrogant—Torque-mada and Bruno on the Day of
Judgment—IX. Poison of Superstition in the Mother's Milk—Ability
of Mistakes to take Care of Themselves—Longevity of Religious
Lies—Mother's religion pleaded by the Cannibal—The Religion of
Freedom—O Liberty, thou art the God of my Idolatry
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.
(1891.)
I. The Greatest Genius of our World—Not of Supernatural Origin or
of Royal Blood—Illiteracy of his Parents—Education—His Father—His
Mother a Great Woman—Stratford Unconscious of the Immortal
Child—Social Position of Shakespeare—Of his Personal
Peculiarities—Birth, Marriage, and Death—What we Know of Him—No Line
written by him to be Found—The Absurd Epitaph—II. Contemporaries
by whom he was Mentioned—III. No direct Mention of any of his
Contemporaries in the Plays—Events and Personages of his Time—IV.
Position of the Actor in Shakespeare's Time—Fortunately he was Not
Educated at Oxford—An Idealist—His Indifference to Stage-carpentry
and Plot—He belonged to All Lands—Knew the Brain and Heart of Man—An
Intellectual Spendthrift—V. The Baconian Theory—VI. Dramatists before
and during the Time of Shakespeare—Dramatic Incidents Illustrated in
Passages from "Macbeth" and "Julius Cæsar"—VII. His Use of the Work of
Others—The Pontic Sea—A Passage from "Lear"—VIII. Extravagance that
touches the Infinite—The Greatest Compliment—"Let me not live after
my flame lacks oil"—Where Pathos almost Touches the Grotesque—IX.
An Innovator and Iconoclast—Disregard of the "Unities"—Nature
Forgets—Violation of the Classic Model—X. Types—The Secret of
Shakespeare—Characters who Act from Reason and Motive—What they Say
not the Opinion of Shakespeare—XI. The Procession that issued from
Shakespeare's Brain—His Great Women—Lovable Clowns—His Men—Talent
and Genius—XII. The Greatest of all Philosophers—Master of the
Human Heart—Love—XIII. In the Realm of Comparison—XIV. Definitions:
Suicide, Drama, Death, Memory, the Body, Life, Echo, the
World, Rumor—The Confidant of Nature—XV. Humor and
Pathos—Illustrations—XVI. Not a Physician, Lawyer, or Botanist—He was
a Man of Imagination—He lived the Life of All—The Imagination had a
Stage in Shakespeare's Brain.
(1878.)
Poetry and Poets—Milton, Dante, Petrarch—Old-time Poetry in
Scotland—Influence of Scenery on Literature—Lives that are
Poems—Birth of Burns—Early Life and Education—Scotland Emerging from
the Gloom of Calvinism—A Metaphysical Peasantry—Power of the Scotch
Preacher—Famous Scotch Names—John Barleycorn vs. Calvinism—Why Robert
Burns is Loved—His Reading—Made Goddesses of Women—Poet of Love: His
"Vision," "Bonnie Doon," "To Mary in Heaven"—Poet of Home:
"Cotter's Saturday Night," "John Anderson, My Jo"—Friendship: "Auld
Lang-Syne"—Scotch Drink: "Willie brew'd a peck o' maut"—Burns the
Artist: The "Brook," "Tam O'Shanter"—A Real Democrat: "A man's a man
for a' that"—His Theology: The Dogma of Eternal Pain, "Morality,"
"Hypocrisy," "Holy Willie's Prayer"—On the Bible—A Statement of his
Religion—Contrasted with Tennyson—From Cradle to Coffin—His Last
words—Lines on the Birth-place of Burns.
(1894.)
I. Simultaneous Birth of Lincoln and Darwin—Heroes of Every
Generation—Slavery—Principle Sacrificed to Success—Lincoln's
Childhood—His first Speech—A Candidate for the Senate against
Douglass—II. A Crisis in the Affairs of the Republic—The South Not
Alone Responsible for Slavery—Lincoln's Prophetic Words—Nominated for
President and Elected in Spite of his Fitness—III. Secession and
Civil War—The Thought uppermost in his Mind—IV. A Crisis in the
North—Proposition to Purchase the Slaves—V. The Proclamation of
Emancipation—His Letter to Horace Greeley—Waited on by Clergymen—VI.
Surrounded by Enemies—Hostile Attitude of Gladstone, Salisbury,
Louis Napoleon, and the Vatican—VII. Slavery the Perpetual
Stumbling-block—Confiscation—VIII. His Letter to a Republican
Meeting in Illinois—Its Effect—IX. The Power of His Personality—The
Embodiment of Mercy—Use of the Pardoning Power—X. The Vallandigham
Affair—The Horace Greeley Incident—Triumphs of Humor—XI. Promotion of
General Hooker—A Prophecy and its Fulfillment—XII.—States Rights vs.
Territorial Integrity—XIII. His Military Genius—The Foremost Man in
all the World: and then the Horror Came—XIV. Strange Mingling of Mirth
and Tears—Deformation of Great Historic Characters—Washington now
only a Steel Engraving—Lincoln not a Type—Virtues Necessary in a
New Country—Laws of Cultivated Society—In the Country is the Idea
of Home—Lincoln always a Pupil—A Great Lawyer—Many-sided—Wit and
Humor—As an Orator—His Speech at Gettysburg contrasted with the
Oration of Edward Everett—Apologetic in his Kindness—No Official
Robes—The gentlest Memory of our World.
(1894.)
I. Changes wrought by Time—Throne and Altar Twin Vultures—The King and
the Priest—What is Greatness?—Effect of Voltaire's Name on Clergyman
and Priest—Born and Baptized—State of France in 1694—The Church
at the Head—Efficacy of Prayers and Dead Saints—Bells and Holy
Water—Prevalence of Belief in Witches, Devils, and Fiends—Seeds of
the Revolution Scattered by Noble and Priest—Condition in England—The
Inquisition in full Control in Spain—Portugal and Germany burning
Women—Italy Prostrate beneath the Priests, the Puritans in America
persecuting Quakers, and stealing Children—II. The Days of Youth—His
Education—Chooses Literature as a Profession and becomes a Diplomat—In
Love and Disinherited—Unsuccessful Poem Competition—Jansenists
and Molinists—The Bull Unigenitus—Exiled to Tulle—Sent to the
Bastile—Exiled to England—Acquaintances made there—III. The Morn
of Manhood—His Attention turned to the History of the Church—The
"Triumphant Beast" Attacked—Europe Filled with the Product of his
Brain—What he Mocked—The Weapon of Ridicule—His Theology—His
"Retractions"—What Goethe said of Voltaire—IV. The Scheme of
Nature—His belief in the Optimism of Pope Destroyed by the Lisbon
Earthquake—V. His Humanity—Case of Jean Calas—The Sirven Family—The
Espenasse Case—Case of Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde—Voltaire
Abandons France—A Friend of Education—An Abolitionist—Not
a Saint—VI. The Return—His Reception—His Death—Burial at
Romilli-on-the-Seine—VII. The Death-bed Argument—Serene Demise of
the Infamous—God has no Time to defend the Good and protect the
Pure—Eloquence of the Clergy on the Death-bed Subject—The
Second Return—Throned upon the Bastile—The Grave Desecrated by
Priests—Voltaire.
A Testimonial to Walt Whitman—Let us put Wreaths on the Brows of the
Living—Literary Ideals of the American People in 1855—"Leaves of
Grass"—Its reception by the Provincial Prudes—The Religion of the
Body—Appeal to Manhood and Womanhood—Books written for the
Market—The Index Expurgatorius—Whitman a believer in
Democracy—Individuality—Humanity—An Old-time Sea-fight—What is
Poetry?—Rhyme a Hindrance to Expression—Rhythm the Comrade of
the Poetic—Whitman's Attitude toward Religion—Philosophy—The Two
Poems—"A Word Out of the Sea"—"When Lilacs Last in the Door"—"A Chant
for Death"—
The History of Intellectual Progress is written in the Lives of
Infidels—The King and the Priest—The Origin of God and Heaven, of
the Devil and Hell—The Idea of Hell born of Ignorance, Brutality,
Cowardice, and Revenge—The Limitations of our Ancestors—The Devil
and God—Egotism of Barbarians—The Doctrine of Hell not an Exclusive
Possession of Christianity—The Appeal to the Cemetery—Religion and
Wealth, Christ and Poverty—The "Great" not on the Side of Christ and
his Disciples—Epitaphs as Battle-cries—Some Great Men in favor of
almost every Sect—Mistakes and Superstitions of Eminent Men—Sacred
Books—The Claim that all Moral Laws came from God through
the Jews—Fear—Martyrdom—God's Ways toward Men—The Emperor
Constantine—The Death Test—Theological Comity between Protestants and
Catholics—Julian—A childish Fable still Believed—Bruno—His Crime,
his Imprisonment and
(1890.)
"Old Age"—"Leaves of Grass"
(1881.)
Martyrdom—The First to die for Truth without Expectation of Reward—The
Church in the Time of Voltaire—Voltaire—Diderot—David Hume—Benedict
Spinoza—Our Infidels—Thomas Paine—Conclusion.
(1884.)
I. The Natural and the Supernatural—Living for the Benefit of
your Fellow-Man and Living for Ghosts—The Beginning of Doubt—Two
Philosophies of Life—Two Theories of Government—II. Is our God
superior to the Gods of the Heathen?—What our God has done—III. Two
Theories about the Cause and Cure of Disease—The First Physician—The
Bones of St. Anne Exhibited in New York—Archbishop Corrigan and
Cardinal Gibbons Countenance a Theological Fraud—A Japanese Story—The
Monk and the Miraculous Cures performed by the Bones of a Donkey
represented as those of a Saint—IV.—Two Ways of accounting for Sacred
Books and Religions—V-Two Theories about Morals—Nothing Miraculous
about Morality—The Test of all Actions—VI. Search for the
Impossible—Alchemy—"Perpetual Motion"—Astrology—Fountain of Perpetual
Youth—VII. "Great Men" and the Superstitions in which they have
Believed—VIII. Follies and Imbecilities of Great Men—We do not know
what they Thought, only what they Said—Names of Great Unbelievers—Most
Men Controlled by their Surroundings—IX. Living for God in Switzerland,
Scotland, New England—In the Dark Ages—Let us Live for Man—X. The
Narrow Road of Superstition—The Wide and Ample Way—Let us Squeeze the
Orange Dry—This Was, This Is, This Shall Be.
(1894.)
The Truth about the Bible Ought to be Told—I. The Origin of the
Bible—Establishment of the Mosaic Code—Moses not the Author of the
Pentateuch—Some Old Testament Books of Unknown Origin—II. Is the Old
Testament Inspired?—What an Inspired Book Ought to Be—What the Bible
Is—Admission of Orthodox Christians that it is not Inspired as to
Science—The Enemy of Art—III. The Ten Commandments—Omissions and
Redundancies—The Story of Achan—The Story of Elisha—The Story of
Daniel—The Story of Joseph—IV. What is it all Worth?—Not True, and
Contradictory—Its Myths Older than the Pentateuch—Other Accounts
of the Creation, the Fall, etc.—Books of the Old Testament Named
and Characterized—V. Was Jehovah a God of Love?—VI. Jehovah's
Administration—VII. The New Testament—Many Other Gospels besides
our Four—Disagreements—Belief in Devils—Raising of the Dead—Other
Miracles—Would a real Miracle-worker have been Crucified?—VIII.
The Philosophy of Christ—Love of
Enemies—Improvidence—Self-Mutilation—The Earth as a
Footstool—Justice—A Bringer of War—Division of Families—IX. Is Christ
our Example?—X. Why should we place Christ at the Top and Summit of the
Human Race?—How did he surpass Other Teachers?—What he left Unsaid,
and Why—Inspiration—Rejected Books of the New Testament—The Bible and
the Crimes it has Caused.
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.
(1896.)
I. Influence of Birth in determining Religious Belief—Scotch, Irish,
English, and Americans Inherit their Faith—Religions of Nations
not Suddenly Changed—People who Knew—What they were Certain
About—Revivals—Character of Sermons Preached—Effect of Conversion—A
Vermont Farmer for whom Perdition had no Terrors—The Man and his
Dog—Backsliding and Re-birth—Ministers who were Sincere—A Free Will
Baptist on the Rich Man and Lazarus—II. The Orthodox God—The
Two Dispensations—The Infinite Horror—III. Religious Books—The
Commentators—Paley's Watch Argument—Milton, Young, and Pollok—IV.
Studying Astronomy—Geology—Denial and Evasion by the Clergy—V. The
Poems of Robert Burns—Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare—VI.
Volney, Gibbon, and Thomas Paine—Voltaire's Services to Liberty—Pagans
Compared with Patriarchs—VII. Other Gods and Other Religions—Dogmas,
Myths, and Symbols of Christianity Older than our Era—VIII. The Men
of Science, Humboldt, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel—IX. Matter and
Force Indestructible and Uncreatable—The Theory of Design—X. God an
Impossible Being—The Panorama of the Past—XI. Free from Sanctified
Mistakes and Holy Lies.
(1897.)
I. The Martyrdom of Man—How is Truth to be Found—Every Man should be
Mentally Honest—He should be Intellectually Hospitable—Geologists,
Chemists, Mechanics, and Professional Men are Seeking for the Truth—II.
Those who say that Slavery is Better than Liberty—Promises are not
Evidence—Horace Greeley and the Cold Stove—III. "The Science of
Theology" the only Dishonest Science—Moses and Brigham Young—Minds
Poisoned and Paralyzed in Youth—Sunday Schools and Theological
Seminaries—Orthodox Slanderers of Scientists—Religion has nothing
to do with Charity—Hospitals Built in Self-Defence—What Good has the
Church Accomplished?—Of what use are the Orthodox Ministers, and
What are they doing for the Good of Mankind—The Harm they are
Doing—Delusions they Teach—Truths they Should Tell about the
Bible—Conclusions—Our Christs and our Miracles.
(1896.)
I. "There is no Darkness but Ignorance"—False Notions Concerning
All Departments of Life—Changed Ideas about Science, Government and
Morals—II. How can we Reform the World?—Intellectual Light the First
Necessity—Avoid Waste of Wealth in War—III. Another Waste—Vast Amount
of Money Spent on the Church—IV. Plow can we Lessen Crime?—Frightful
Laws for the Punishment of Minor Crimes—A Penitentiary should be a
School—Professional Criminals should not be Allowed to Populate the
Earth—V. Homes for All-Make a Nation of Householders—Marriage
and Divorce-VI. The Labor Question—Employers cannot Govern
Prices—Railroads should Pay Pensions—What has been Accomplished
for the Improvement of the Condition of Labor—VII. Educate the
Children—Useless Knowledge—Liberty cannot be Sacrificed for the Sake
of Anything—False worship of Wealth—VIII. We must Work and Wait.
(1897.)
I. Our fathers Ages Ago—From Savagery to Civilization—For the
Blessings we enjoy, Whom should we Thank?—What Good has the Church
Done?-Did Christ add to the Sum of Useful Knowledge—The Saints—What
have the Councils and Synods Done?—What they Gave us, and What they
did Not—Shall we Thank them for the Hell Here and for the Hell of
the Future?—II. What Does God Do?—The Infinite Juggler and his
Puppets—What the Puppets have Done—Shall we Thank these
Gods?—Shall we Thank Nature?—III. Men who deserve our Thanks—The
Infidels, Philanthropists and Scientists—The Discoverers and
Inventors—Magellan—Copernicus—Bruno—Galileo—Kepler, Herschel,
Newton, and LaPlace—Lyell—What the Worldly have Done—Origin and
Vicissitudes of the Bible—The Septuagint—Investigating the Phenomena
of Nature—IV. We thank the Good Men and Good Women of the Past—The
Poets, Dramatists, and Artists—The Statesmen—Paine, Jefferson,
Ericsson, Lincoln. Grant—Voltaire, Humboldt, Darwin.
(1886.)
Prayer of King Lear—When Honesty wears a Rag and Rascality a Robe-The
Nonsense of "Free Moral Agency "—Doing Right is not Self-denial-Wealth
often a Gilded Hell—The Log House—Insanity of Getting
More—Great Wealth the Mother of Crime—Separation of Rich and
Poor—Emulation—Invention of Machines to Save Labor—Production and
Destitution—The Remedy a Division of the Land—Evils of Tenement
Houses—Ownership and Use—The Great Weapon is the Ballot—Sewing
Women—Strikes and Boycotts of No Avail—Anarchy, Communism, and
Socialism—The Children of the Rich a Punishment for Wealth—Workingmen
Not a Danger—The Criminals a Necessary Product—Society's Right
to Punish—The Efficacy of Kindness—Labor is Honorable—Mental
Independence.
(1895.)
I. The Old Testament—Story of the Creation—Age of the Earth and
of Man—Astronomical Calculations of the Egyptians—The Flood—The
Firmament a Fiction—Israelites who went into Egypt—Battles of the
Jews—Area of Palestine—Gold Collected by David for the Temple—II. The
New Testament—Discrepancies about the Birth of Christ—Herod and
the Wise Men—The Murder of the Babes of Bethlehem—When was Christ
born—Cyrenius and the Census of the World—Genealogy of Christ
according to Matthew and Luke—The Slaying of Zacharias—Appearance of
the Saints at the Crucifixion—The Death of Judas Iscariot—Did
Christ wish to be Convicted?—III. Jehovah—IV. The Trinity—The
Incarnation—Was Christ God?—The Trinity Expounded—"Let us pray"—V.
The Theological Christ—Sayings of a Contradictory Character—Christ a
Devout Jew—An ascetic—His Philosophy—The Ascension—The Best that Can
be Said about Christ—The Part that is beautiful and Glorious—The Other
Side—VI. The Scheme of Redemption—VII. Belief—Eternal Pain—No Hope
in Hell, Pity in Heaven, or Mercy in the Heart of God—VIII. Conclusion.
(1898.)
I. What is Superstition?—Popular Beliefs about the Significance
of Signs, Lucky and Unlucky Numbers, Days, Accidents, Jewels,
etc.—Eclipses, Earthquakes, and Cyclones as Omens—Signs and Wonders
of the Heavens—Efficacy of Bones and Rags of Saints—Diseases and
Devils—II. Witchcraft—Necromancers—What is a Miracle?—The Uniformity
of Nature—III. Belief in the Existence of Good Spirits or Angels—God
and the Devil—When Everything was done by the Supernatural—IV. All
these Beliefs now Rejected by Men of Intelligence—The Devil's Success
Made the Coming of Christ a Necessity—"Thou shalt not Suffer a Witch
to Live"—Some Biblical Angels—Vanished Visions—V. Where are Heaven
and Hell?—Prayers Never Answered—The Doctrine of Design—Why Worship
our Ignorance?—Would God Lead us into Temptation?—President McKinley's
Thanks giving for the Santiago Victory—VI. What Harm Does Superstition
Do?—The Heart Hardens and the Brain Softens—What Superstition has Done
and Taught—Fate of Spain—Of Portugal, Austria, Germany—VII. Inspired
Books—Mysteries added to by the Explanations of Theologians—The
Inspired Bible the Greatest Curse of Christendom—VIII. Modifications
of Jehovah—Changing the Bible—IX. Centuries of Darkness—The Church
Triumphant—When Men began to Think—X. Possibly these Superstitions are
True, but We have no Evidence—We Believe in the Natural—Science is the
Real Redeemer.
(1899.)
I. If the Devil should Die, would God Make Another?—How was the Idea
of a Devil Produced—Other Devils than Ours—Natural Origin of these
Monsters—II. The Atlas of Christianity is The Devil—The Devil of the
Old Testament—The Serpent in Eden—"Personifications" of Evil—Satan
and Job—Satan and David—III. Take the Devil from the Drama
of Christianity and the Plot is Gone—Jesus Tempted by the Evil
One—Demoniac Possession—Mary Magdalene—Satan and Judas—Incubi
and Succubi—The Apostles believed in Miracles and Magic—The Pool of
Bethesda—IV. The Evidence of the Church—The Devil was forced to
Father the Failures of God—Belief of the Fathers of the Church
in Devils—Exorcism at the Baptism of an Infant in the Sixteenth
Century—Belief in Devils made the Universe a Madhouse presided over by
an Insane God—V. Personifications of the Devil—The Orthodox Ostrich
Thrusts his Head into the Sand—If Devils are Personifications so are
all the Other Characters of the Bible—VI. Some Queries about the
Devil, his Place of Residence, his Manner of Living, and his Object in
Life—Interrogatories to the Clergy—VII. The Man of Straw the Master
of the Orthodox Ministers—His recent Accomplishments—VIII. Keep the
Devils out of Children—IX. Conclusion.—Declaration of the Free.
(1860-64.)
The Prosperity of the World depends upon its Workers—Veneration for the
Ancient—Credulity and Faith of the Middle Ages—Penalty for Reading
the Scripture in the Mother Tongue—Unjust, Bloody, and Cruel Laws—The
Reformers too were Persecutors—Bigotry of Luther and Knox—Persecution
of Castalio—Montaigne against Torture in France—"Witchcraft" (chapter
on)—Confessed Wizards—A Case before Sir Matthew Hale—Belief
in Lycanthropy—Animals Tried and Executed—Animals received
as Witnesses—The Corsned or Morsel of Execution—Kepler an
Astrologer—Luther's Encounter with the Devil—Mathematician
Stoefflers, Astronomical Prediction of a Flood—Histories Filled with
Falsehood—Legend about the Daughter of Pharaoh invading Scotland and
giving the Country her name—A Story about Mohammed—A History of the
Britains written by Archdeacons—Ingenuous Remark of Eusebius—Progress
in the Mechanic Arts—England at the beginning of the Eighteenth
Century—Barbarous Punishments—Queen Elizabeth's Order Concerning
Clergymen and Servant Girls—Inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and
Others—Solomon's Deprivations—Language (chapter on)—Belief that the
Hebrew was< the original Tongue—Speculations about the Language
of Paradise—Geography (chapter on)—The Works of Cosmas—Printing
Invented—Church's Opposition to Books—The Inquisition—The
Reformation—"Slavery" (chapter on)—Voltaire's Remark on Slavery as
a Contract—White Slaves in Greece, Rome, England, Scotland, and
France—Free minds make Free Bodies—Causes of the Abolition of White
Slavery in Europe—The French Revolution—The African Slave Trade,
its Beginning and End—Liberty Triumphed (chapter head)—Abolition of
Chattel Slavery—Conclusion.
(1899.)
I. Belief in God and Sacrifice—Did an Infinite God Create the Children
of Men and is he the Governor of the Universe?—II. If this God Exists,
how do we Know he is Good?—Should both the Inferior and the Superior
thank God for their Condition?—III. The Power that Works for
Righteousness—What is this Power?—The Accumulated Experience of the
World is a Power Working for Good?—Love the Commencement of the Higher
Virtues—IV. What has our Religion Done?—Would Christians have been
Worse had they Adopted another Faith?—V. How Can Mankind be Reformed
Without Religion?—VI. The Four Corner-stones of my Theory—VII. Matter
and Force Eternal—Links in the Chain of Evolution—VIII. Reform—The
Gutter as a Nursery—Can we Prevent the Unfit from Filling the World
with their Children?—Science must make Woman the Owner and Mistress
of Herself—Morality Born of Intelligence—IX. Real Religion and Real
Worship.
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME V.
INGERSOLL'S INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.
A VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
INGERSOLL'S SIX INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.
(1882.)
Preface—First Interview: Great Men as Witnesses
to the Truth of the Gospel—No man should quote
the Words of Another unless he is willing to
Accept all the Opinions of that Man—Reasons of
more Weight than Reputations—Would a general
Acceptance of Unbelief fill the Penitentiaries?—
My Creed—Most Criminals Orthodox—Relig-ion and
Morality not Necessarily Associates—On the
Creation of the Universe out of Omnipotence—Mr.
Talmage's Theory about the Pro-duction of Light
prior to the Creation of the Sun—The Deluge and
the Ark—Mr. Talmage's tendency to Belittle the
Bible Miracles—His Chemical, Geological, and
Agricultural Views—His Disregard of Good Manners-
-Second Interview: An Insulting Text—God's Design
in Creating Guiteau to be the Assassin of
Garfield—Mr. Talmage brings the Charge of
Blasphemy—Some Real Blasphemers—The Tabernacle
Pastor tells the exact Opposite of the Truth about
Col. Ingersoll's Attitude toward the Circulation
of Immoral Books—"Assassinating" God—Mr.
Talmage finds Nearly All the Invention of Modern
Times Mentioned in the Bible—The Reverend
Gentleman corrects the Translators of the Bible in
the Matter of the Rib Story—Denies that Polygamy
is permitted by the Old Testament—His De-fence of
Queen Victoria and Violation of the Grave of
George Eliot—Exhibits a Christian Spirit—Third
Interview: Mr. Talmage's Partiality in the
Bestowal of his Love—Denies the Right of Laymen
to Examine the Scriptures—Thinks the Infidels
Victims of Bibliophobia —He explains the Stopping
of the Sun and Moon at the Command of Joshua—
Instances a Dark Day in the Early Part of the
Century—Charges that Holy Things are Made Light
of—Reaffirms his Confidence in the Whale and
Jonah Story—The Commandment which Forbids the
making of Graven Images—Affirmation that the
Bible is the Friend of Woman—The Present
Condition of Woman—Fourth Interview: Colonel
Ingersoll Compared by Mr. Talmage tojehoiakim, who
Consigned Writings of Jeremiah to the Flames—An
Intimation that Infidels wish to have all copies
of the Bible Destroyed by Fire—Laughter
Deprecated—Col. Ingersoll Accused of Denouncing
his Father—Mr. Talmage holds that a Man may be
Perfectly Happy in Heaven with His Mother in Hell-
-Challenges the Infidel to Read a Chapter from St.
John—On the "Chief Solace of the World"—Dis-
covers an Attempt is being made to Put Out the
Light-houses of the Farther Shore—Affirms our
Debt to Christianity for Schools, Hospitals,
etc.—Denies that Infidels have ever Done any
Good—
Fifth Interview: Inquiries if Men gather Grapes of
Thorns, or Figs of Thistles, and is Answered in
the Negative—Resents the Charge that the Bible is
a Cruel Book—Demands to Know where the Cruelty of
the Bible Crops out in the Lives of Christians—
Col. Ingersoll Accused of saying that the Bible
is a Collection of Polluted Writings—Mr. Talmage
Asserts the Orchestral Harmony of the Scriptures
from Genesis to Revelation, and Repudiates the
Theory of Contradictions—His View of Mankind
Indicated in Quotations from his Confession of
Faith—He Insists that the Bible is Scientific—
Traces the New Testament to its Source with St.
John—Pledges his Word that no Man ever Died for a
Lie Cheerfully and Triumphantly—As to Prophecies
and Predictions—Alleged "Prophetic" Fate of the
Jewish People—Sixth Interview: Dr. Talmage takes
the Ground that the Unrivalled Circulation of the
Bible Proves that it is Inspired—Forgets' that a
Scientific Fact does not depend on the Vote of
Numbers—Names some Christian Millions—His
Arguments Characterized as the Poor-est, Weakest,
and Best Possible in Support of the Doctrine of
Inspira-tion—Will God, in Judging a Man, take
into Consideration the Cir-cumstances of that
Man's Life?—Satisfactory Reasons for Not Believ-
ing that the Bible is inspired.
THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.
The Pith and Marrow of what Mr. Talmage has been
Pleased to Say, set forth in the form of a Shorter
Catechism.
A VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
(1877.)
Letter to the New York Observer—An Offer to Pay
One Thousand Dollars in Gold for Proof that Thomas
Paine or Voltaire Died in Terror because of any
Religious Opinions Either had Expressed—
Proposition to Create a Tribunal to Hear the
Evidence—The Ob-server, after having Called upon
Col. Ingersoll to Deposit the Money, and
Characterized his Talk as "Infidel 'Buncombe,'"
Denies its Own Words, but attempts to Prove them—
Its Memory Refreshed by Col. Ingersoll and the
Slander Refuted—Proof that Paine did Not Recant -
-Testimony of Thomas Nixon, Daniel Pelton, Mr.
Jarvis, B. F. Has-kin, Dr. Manley, Amasa
Woodsworth, Gilbert Vale, Philip Graves, M. D.,
Willet Hicks, A. C. Hankinson, John Hogeboom, W.
J. Hilton, Tames Cheetham, Revs. Milledollar and
Cunningham, Mrs. Hedden, Andrew A. Dean, William
Carver,—The Statements of Mary Roscoe and Mary
Hindsdale Examined—William Cobbett's Account of a
Call upon Mary Hinsdale—Did Thomas Paine live the
Life of a Drunken Beast, and did he Die a Drunken,
Cowardly, and Beastly Death?—Grant Thorbum's
Charges Examined—Statement of the Rev. J. D.
Wickham, D.D., shown to be Utterly False—False
Witness of the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D.—W. H.
Ladd, James Cheetham, and Mary Hinsdale—Paine's
Note to Cheetham—Mr-Staple, Mr. Purdy, Col. John
Fellows, James Wilburn, Walter Morton, Clio
Rickman, Judge Herttell, H. Margary, Elihu Palmer,
Mr.
XV
Lovett, all these Testified that Paine was a
Temperate Man—Washington's Letter to Paine—
Thomas Jefferson's—Adams and Washing-ton on
"Common Sense"—-James Monroe's Tribute—
Quotations from Paine—Paine's Estate and His
Will—The Observer's Second Attack (p. 492):
Statements of Elkana Watson, William Carver, Rev.
E. F. Hatfield, D.D., James Cheetham, Dr. J. W.
Francis, Dr. Manley, Bishop Fenwick—Ingersoll's
Second Reply (p. 516): Testimony Garbled by the
Editor of the Observer—Mary Roscoeand Mary Hins-
dale the Same Person—Her Reputation for Veracity-
-Letter from Rev. A. W. Cornell—Grant Thorburn
Exposed by James Parton—The Observer's Admission
that Paine did not Recant—Affidavit of
William B. Barnes.
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; INGERSOLL'S OPENING PAPER
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY JEREMIAH S. BLACK.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.
A REPLY TO THE REV. HENRY M. FIELD, D.D.
A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE.
THE CHURCH ITS OWN WITNESS, By Cardinal Manning.
ROME OR REASON: A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; INGERSOLL'S OPENING PAPER
(1881.)
I. Col. Ingersoll's Opening Paper—Statement of the Fundamental Truths
of Christianity—Reasons for Thinking that Portions of the Old Testament
are the Product of a Barbarous People—Passages upholding
Slavery, Polygamy, War, and Religious Persecution not Evidences of
Inspiration—If the Words are not Inspired, What Is?—Commands of
Jehovah compared with the Precepts of Pagans and Stoics—Epictetus,
Cicero, Zeno, Seneca, Brahma—II. The New Testament—Why were
Four Gospels Necessary?—Salvation by Belief—The Doctrine of
the Atonement—The Jewish System Culminating in the Sacrifice of
Christ—Except for the Crucifixion of her Son, the Virgin Mary would be
among the Lost—What Christ must have Known would Follow the Acceptance
of His Teachings—The Wars of Sects, the Inquisition, the Fields of
Death—Why did he not Forbid it All?—The Little that he Revealed—The
Dogma of Eternal Punishment—Upon Love's Breast the Church has Placed
the Eternal Asp—III. The "Inspired" Writers—Why did not God furnish
Every Nation with a Bible?
II. Judge Black's Reply—His Duty that of a Policeman—The Church not
in Danger—Classes who Break out into Articulate Blasphemy—The
Sciolist—Personal Remarks about Col. Ingersoll—Chief-Justice Gibson of
Pennsylvania Quoted—We have no Jurisdiction or Capacity to Rejudge the
Justice of God—The Moral Code of the Bible—Civil Government of the
Jews—No Standard of Justice without Belief in a God—Punishments for
Blasphemy and Idolatry Defended—Wars of Conquest—Allusion to Col.
Ingersoll's War Record—Slavery among the Jews—Polygamy Discouraged by
the Mosaic Constitution—Jesus of Nazareth and the Establishment of
his Religion—Acceptance of Christianity and Adjudication upon its
Divinity—The Evangelists and their Depositions—The Fundamental Truths
of Christianity—Persecution and Triumph of the Church—Ingersoll's
Propositions Compressed and the Compressions Answered—Salvation as a
Reward of Belief—Punishment of Unbelief—The Second Birth, Atonement,
Redemption, Non-resistance, Excessive Punishment of Sinners, Christ and
Persecution, Christianity and Freedom of Thought, Sufficiency of the
Gospel, Miracles, Moral Effect of Christianity.
III. Col. Ingersoll's Rejoinder—How this Discussion Came About—Natural
Law—The Design Argument—The Right to Rejudge the Justice even of a
God—Violation of the Commandments by Jehovah—Religious Intolerance
of the Old Testament—Judge Black's Justification of Wars of
Extermination—His Defence of Slavery—Polygamy not "Discouraged" by the
Old Testament—Position of Woman under the Jewish System and under that
of the Ancients—a "Policeman's" View of God—Slavery under Jehovah
and in Egypt—The Admission that Jehovah gave no Commandment against
Polygamy—The Learned and Wise Crawl back in Cribs—Alleged Harmony of
Old and New Testaments—On the Assertion that the Spread of Christianity
Proves the Supernatural Origin of the Gospel—The Argument applicable to
All Religions—Communications from Angels ana Gods—Authenticity of
the Statements of the Evangelists—Three Important Manuscripts—Rise
of Mormonism—Ascension of Christ—The Great Public Events alleged
as Fundamental Truths of Christianity—Judge Black's System
of "Compression"—"A Metaphysical Question"—Right and
Wrong—Justice—Christianity and Freedom of Thought—Heaven and
Hell—Production of God and the Devil—Inspiration of the Bible
dependent on the Credulity of the Reader—Doubt of Miracles—The
World before Christ's Advent—Respect for the Man Christ—The Dark
Ages—Institutions of Mercy—Civil Law.
THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.
(1887.)
An Open Letter to Robert G. Ingersoll—Superstitions—Basis of
Religion—Napoleon's Question about the Stars—The Idea of God—Crushing
out Hope—Atonement, Regeneration, and Future Retribution—Socrates and
Jesus—The Language of Col. Ingersoll characterized as too Sweeping—The
Sabbath—But a Step from Sneering at Religion to Sneering at Morality.
A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D. D.—Honest Differences of
Opinion—Charles Darwin—Dr. Field's Distinction between Superstition
and Religion—The Presbyterian God an Infinite Torquemada—Napoleon's
Sensitiveness to the Divine Influence—The Preference of Agassiz—The
Mysterious as an Explanation—The Certainty that God is not what he
is Thought to Be—Self-preservation the Fibre of Society—Did
the Assassination of Lincoln Illustrate the Justice of God's
Judgments?—Immortality—Hope and the Presbyterian Creed—To a Mother
at the Grave of Her Son—Theological Teaching of Forgiveness—On
Eternal Retribution—Jesus and Mohammed—Attacking the Religion of
Others—Ananias and Sapphira—The Pilgrims and Freedom to Worship—The
Orthodox Sabbath—Natural Restraints on Conduct—Religion and
Morality—The Efficacy of Prayer—Respect for Belief of Father and
Mother—The "Power behind Nature"—Survival of the Fittest—The Saddest
Fact—"Sober Second Thought."
A Last Word to Robert G. Ingersoll, by Dr. Field—God not a
Presbyterian—Why Col. Ingersoll's Attacks on Religion are Resented—God
is more Merciful than Man—Theories about the Future Life—Retribution
a Necessary Part of the Divine Law—The Case of Robinson
Crusoe—Irresistible Proof of Design—Col. Ingersoll's View of
Immortality—An Almighty Friend.
Letter to Dr. Field—The Presbyterian God—What the Presbyterians
Claim—The "Incurably Bad"—Responsibility for not seeing Things
Clearly—Good Deeds should Follow even Atheists—No Credit in
Belief—Design Argument that Devours Itself—Belief as a Foundation
of Social Order—No Consolation in Orthodox Religion—The "Almighty
Friend" and the Slave Mother—a Hindu Prayer—Calvinism—Christ not the
Supreme Benefactor of the Race.
COLONEL INGERSOLL ON CHRISTIANITY.
(1888.)
Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field by the Hon. Wm. E.
Gladstone—External Triumph and Prosperity of the Church—A Truth Half
Stated—Col. Ingersoll's Tumultuous Method and lack of Reverential
Calm—Jephthah's Sacrifice—Hebrews xii Expounded—The Case of
Abraham—Darwinism and the Scriptures—Why God demands Sacrifices of
Man—Problems admitted to be Insoluble—Relation of human Genius
to Human Greatness—Shakespeare and Others—Christ and the Family
Relation—Inaccuracy of Reference in the Reply—Ananias and
Sapphira—The Idea of Immortality—Immunity of Error in Belief from
Moral Responsibility—On Dishonesty in the Formation of Opinion—A
Plausibility of the Shallowest kind—The System of Thuggism—Persecution
for Opinion's Sake—Riding an Unbroken Horse.
Col. Ingersoll to Mr. Gladstone—On the "Impaired" State of the human
Constitution—Unbelief not Due to Degeneracy—Objections to the
Scheme of Redemption—Does Man Deserve only Punishment?—"Reverential
Calm"—The Deity of the Ancient Jews—Jephthah and Abraham—Relation
between Darwinism and the Inspiration of the Scriptures—Sacrifices to
the Infinite—What is Common Sense?—An Argument that will Defend every
Superstition—The Greatness of Shakespeare—The Absolute Indissolubility
of Marriage—Is the Religion of Christ for this Age?—As to Ananias and
Sapphira—Immortality and People of Low Intellectual Development—Can
we Control our Thought?—Dishonest Opinions Cannot be Formed—Some
Compensations for Riding an "Unbroken Horse."
(1888.)
"The Church Its Own Witness," by Cardinal Manning—Evidence
that Christianity is of Divine Origin—The Universality of the
Church—Natural Causes not Sufficient to Account for the Catholic
Church—-The World in which Christianity Arose—Birth of Christ—From
St Peter to Leo XIII.—The First Effect of Christianity—Domestic
Life's Second Visible Effect—Redemption of Woman from traditional
Degradation—Change Wrought by Christianity upon the Social, Political
and International Relations of the World—Proof that Christianity is of
Divine Origin and Presence—St. John and the Christian Fathers—Sanctity
of the Church not Affected by Human Sins.
A Reply to Cardinal Manning—I. Success not a Demonstration of either
Divine Origin or Supernatural Aid—Cardinal Manning's Argument
More Forcible in the Mouth of a Mohammedan—Why Churches Rise and
Flourish—Mormonism—Alleged Universality of the Catholic Church—Its
"inexhaustible Fruitfulness" in Good Things—The Inquisition and
Persecution—Not Invincible—Its Sword used by Spain—Its Unity not
Unbroken—The State of the World when Christianity was Established—The
Vicar of Christ—A Selection from Draper's "History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe"—Some infamous Popes—Part II. How the Pope
Speaks—Religions Older than Catholicism and having the Same Rites
and Sacraments—Is Intellectual Stagnation a Demonstration of Divine
Origin?—Integration and Disintegration—The Condition of the World 300
Years Ago—The Creed of Catholicism—The "One true God" with a Knowledge
of whom Catholicism has "filled the World"—Did the Catholic Church
overthrow Idolatry?—Marriage—Celibacy—Human Passions—The Cardinal's
Explanation of Jehovah's abandonment of the Children of Men for
four thousand Years—Catholicism tested by Paganism—Canon Law
and Convictions had Under It—Rival Popes—Importance of a Greek
"Inflection"—The Cardinal Witnesses.
(1889.)
Preface by the Editor of the North American Review—Introduction, by the
Rev. S. W. Dike, LL. D.—A Catholic View by Cardinal Gibbons—Divorce
as Regarded by the Episcopal Church, by Bishop, Henry C. Potter—Four
Questions Answered, by Robert G. Ingersoll.
Reply to Cardinal Gibbons—Indissolubility of Marriage a Reaction
from Polygamy—Biblical Marriage—Polygamy Simultaneous and
Successive—Marriage and Divorce in the Light of Experience—Reply
to Bishop Potter—Reply to Mr. Gladstone—Justice Bradley—Senator
Dolph—The argument Continued in Colloquial Form—Dialogue between
Cardinal Gibbons and a Maltreated Wife—She Asks the Advice of Mr.
Gladstone—The Priest who Violated his Vow—Absurdity of the Divorce
laws of Some States.
REPLY TO DR. LYMAN ABBOTT.
(1890)
Dr. Abbott's Equivocations—Crimes Punishable by Death under Mosaic
and English Law—Severity of Moses Accounted for by Dr. Abbott—The
Necessity for the Acceptance of Christianity—Christians should be
Glad to Know that the Bible is only the Work of Man and that the New
Testament Life of Christ is Untrue—All the Good Commandments, Known
to the World thousands of Years before Moses—Human Happiness of
More Consequence than the Truth about God—The Appeal to Great
Names—Gladstone not the Greatest Statesman—What the Agnostic Says—The
Magnificent Mistakes of Genesis—The Story of Joseph—Abraham as a
"self-Exile for Conscience's Sake."
REPLY TO ARCHDEACON FARRAR.
(1890.)
Revelation as an Appeal to Man's "Spirit"—What is Spirit and what is
"Spiritual Intuition"?—The Archdeacon in Conflict with St. Paul—II.
The Obligation to Believe without Evidence—III. Ignorant Credulity—IV.
A Definition of Orthodoxy—V. Fear not necessarily Cowardice—Prejudice
is Honest—The Ola has the Advantage in an Argument—St.
Augustine—Jerome—the Appeal to Charlemagne—Roger Bacon—Lord Bacon
a Defender of the Copernican System—The Difficulty of finding out
what Great Men Believed—Names Irrelevantly Cited—Bancroft on the
Hessians—Original Manuscripts of the Bible—VI. An Infinite Personality
a Contradiction in Terms—VII. A Beginningless Being—VIII. The
Cruelties of Nature not to be Harmonized with the Goodness of a
Deity—Sayings from the Indian—Origen, St. Augustine, Dante, Aquinas.
IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?
(1890.)
A Reply to the Dean of St. Paul—Growing Confidence in the Power of
Kindness—Crimes against Soldiers and Sailors—Misfortunes Punished
as Crimes—The Dean's Voice Raised in Favor of the Brutalities of the
Past—Beating of Children—Of Wives—Dictum of Solomon.
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII.
THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.
A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.
AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.
A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.
A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.
A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.
A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.
(1877.)
Answer to San Francisco Clergymen—Definition of Liberty, Physical
and Mental—The Right to Compel Belief—Woman the Equal of Man—The
Ghosts—Immortality—Slavery—Witchcraft—Aristocracy of the
Air—Unfairness of Clerical Critics—Force and Matter—Doctrine of
Negation—Confident Deaths of Murderers—Childhood Scenes returned to
by the Dying—Death-bed of Voltaire—Thomas Paine—The First
Sectarians Were Heretics—Reply to Rev. Mr. Guard—Slaughter of
the Canaanites—Reply to Rev. Samuel Robinson—Protestant
Persecutions—Toleration—Infidelity and Progress—The
Occident—Calvinism—Religious Editors—Reply to the Rev. Mr.
Ijams—Does the Bible teach Man to Enslave his Brothers?—Reply to
California Christian Advocate—Self-Government of French People at
and Since the Revolution—On the Site of the Bastile—French
Peasant's Cheers for Jesus Christ—Was the World created in Six
Days—Geology—What is the Astronomy of the Bible?—The Earth the Centre
of the Universe—Joshua's Miracle—Change of Motion into Heat—Geography
and Astronomy of Cosmas—Does the Bible teach the Existence of
that Impossible Crime called Witchcraft?—Saul and the Woman of
Endor—Familiar Spirits—Demonology of the New Testament—Temptation of
Jesus—Possession by Devils—Gadarene Swine Story—Test of Belief—Bible
Idea of the Rights of Children—Punishment of the Rebellious
Son—Jephthah's Vow and Sacrifice—Persecution of Job—The Gallantry
of God—Bible Idea of the Rights of Women—Paul's Instructions to
Wives—Permission given to Steal Wives—Does the Bible Sanction
Polygamy and Concubinage?—Does the Bible Uphold and Justify Political
Tyranny?—Powers that be Ordained of God—Religious Liberty of
God—Sun-Worship punishable with Death—Unbelievers to be damned—Does
the Bible describe a God of Mercy?—Massacre Commanded—Eternal
Punishment Taught in the New Testament—The Plan of Salvation—Fall
and Atonement Moral Bankruptcy—Other Religions—Parsee
Sect—Brahmins—Confucians—Heretics and Orthodox.
(1879.)
Rev. Robert Collyer—Inspiration of the Scriptures—Rev. Dr.
Thomas—Formation of the Old Testament—Rev. Dr. Kohler—Rev. Mr.
Herford—Prof. Swing—Rev. Dr. Ryder.
TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.
(1882.)
Rev. David Walk—Character of Jesus—Two or Three Christs Described
in the Gospels—Christ's Change of Opinions—Gospels Later than the
Epistles—Divine Parentage of Christ a Late Belief—The Man Christ
probably a Historical Character—Jesus Belittled by his Worshipers—He
never Claimed to be Divine—Christ's Omissions—Difference between
Christian and other Modern Civilizations—Civilization not Promoted
by Religion—Inventors—French and American Civilization: How
Produced—Intemperance and Slavery in Christian Nations—Advance due to
Inventions and Discoveries—Missionaries—Christian Nations Preserved by
Bayonet and Ball—Dr. T. B. Taylor—Origin of Life on this Planet—Sir
William Thomson—Origin of Things Undiscoverable—Existence after
Death—Spiritualists—If the Dead Return—Our Calendar—Christ and
Christmas-The Existence of Pain—Plato's Theory of Evil—Will God do
Better in Another World than he does in this?—Consolation—Life Not a
Probationary Stage—Rev. D.O'Donaghue—The Case of Archibald Armstrong
and Jonathan Newgate—Inequalities of Life—Can Criminals live a
Contented Life?—Justice of the Orthodox God Illustrated.
(1883.)
Are the Books of Atheistic or Infidel Writers Extensively
Read?—Increase in the Number of Infidels—Spread of Scientific
Literature—Rev. Dr. Eddy—Rev. Dr. Hawkins—Rev. Dr. Haynes—Rev.
Mr. Pullman—Rev. Mr. Foote—Rev. Mr. Wells—Rev. Dr. Van Dyke—Rev.
Carpenter—Rev. Mr. Reed—Rev. Dr. McClelland—Ministers Opposed to
Discussion—Whipping Children—Worldliness as a Foe of the Church—The
Drama—Human Love—Fires, Cyclones, and Other Afflictions as Promoters
of Spirituality—Class Distinctions—Rich and Poor—Aristocracies—The
Right to Choose One's Associates—Churches Social Affairs—Progress
of the Roman Catholic Church—Substitutes for the Churches—Henry
Ward Beecher—How far Education is Favored by the Sects—Rivals of the
Pulpit—Christianity Now and One Hundred Years Ago—French Revolution
produced by the Priests—Why the Revolution was a Failure—Infidelity
of One Hundred Years Ago—Ministers not more Intellectual than a Century
Ago—Great Preachers of the Past—New Readings of Old Texts—Clerical
Answerers of Infidelity—Rev. Dr. Baker—Father Fransiola—Faith and
Reason—Democracy of Kindness—Moral Instruction—Morality Born of Human
Needs—The Conditions of Happiness—The Chief End of Man.
THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.
(1888.)
Discussion between Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon. Frederic R. Coudert,
and ex-Gov. Stewart L. Woodford before the Nineteenth Century Club of
New York—Propositions—Toleration not a Disclaimer but a Waiver of the
Right to Persecute—Remarks of Courtlandt Palmer—No Responsibility for
Thought—Intellectual Hospitality—Right of Free Speech—Origin of the
term "Toleration"—Slander and False Witness—Nobody can Control his own
Mind: Anecdote—Remarks of Mr. Coudert—Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, and
Ingersoll—General Woodford's Speech—Reply by Colonel Ingersoll—A
Catholic Compelled to Pay a Compliment to Voltaire—Responsibility for
Thoughts—The Mexican Unbeliever and his Reception in the Other Country.
(1891.)
Christianity's Message of Grief—Christmas a Pagan Festival—Reply
to Dr. Buckley—Charges by the Editor of the Christian Advocate—The
Tidings of Christianity—In what the Message of Grief Consists—Fear
and Flame—An Everlasting Siberia—Dr. Buckley's Proposal to Boycott the
Telegram—Reply to Rev. J. M. King and Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr. Cana Day
be Blasphemed?—Hurting Christian feelings—For Revenue only What is
Blasphemy?—Balaam's Ass wiser than the Prophet—The Universalists—Can
God do Nothing for this World?—The Universe a Blunder if Christianity
is true—The Duty of a Newspaper—Facts Not Sectarian—The Rev.
Mr. Peters—What Infidelity Has Done—Public School System not
Christian—Orthodox Universities—Bruno on Oxford—As to Public
Morals—No Rewards or Punishments in the Universe—The Atonement
Immoral—As to Sciences and Art—Bruno, Humboldt, Darwin—Scientific
Writers Opposed by the Church—As to the Liberation of Slaves—As to
the Reclamation of Inebriates—Rum and Religion—The Humanity
of Infidelity—What Infidelity says to the Dying—The Battle
Continued—Morality not Assailed by an Attack on Christianity—The
Inquisition and Religious Persecution—Human Nature Derided by
Christianity—Dr. DaCosta—"Human Brotherhood" as exemplified by
the History of the Church—The Church and Science, Art and
Learning——Astronomy's Revenge—Galileo and Kepler—Mrs. Browning:
Science Thrust into the Brain of Europe—Our Numerals—Christianity and
Literature—Institution's of Learning—Stephen Girard—James Lick—Our
Chronology—Historians—Natural Philosophy—Philology—Metaphysical
Research—Intelligence, Hindoo, Egyptian—Inventions—John
Ericsson—Emancipators—Rev. Mr. Ballou—The Right of Goa to
Punish—Rev. Dr. Hillier—Rev. Mr. Haldeman—George A. Locey—The "Great
Physician"—Rev. Mr. Talmage—Rev. J. Benson Hamilton—How Voltaire
Died—The Death-bed of Thomas Paine—Rev. Mr. Holloway—Original
Sin—Rev. Dr. Tyler—The Good Samaritan a Heathen—Hospitals and
Asylums—Christian Treatment of the Insane—Rev. Dr. Buckley—The
North American Review Discussion—Judge Black, Dr. Field,
Mr. Gladstone—Circulation of Obscene Literature—Eulogy of
Whiskey—Eulogy of Tobacco—Human Stupidity that Defies the Gods—Rev.
Charles Deems—Jesus a Believer in a Personal Devil—The Man Christ.
(1892.)
Reply to the Western Watchman—Henry D'Arcy—Peter's
Prevarication-Some Excellent Pagans-Heartlessness of a
Catholic—Wishes do not Affect the Judgment—Devout Robbers—Penitent
Murderers—Reverential Drunkards—Luther's Distich—Judge
Normile—Self-destruction.
(1894.)
Col. Ingersoll's First Letter in The New York World—Under what
Circumstances a Man has the Right to take his Own Life—Medicine and the
Decrees of God—Case of the Betrayed Girl—Suicides not Cowards—Suicide
under Roman Law—Many Suicides Insane—Insanity Caused by Religion—The
Law against Suicide Cruel and Idiotic—Natural and Sufficient Cause for
Self-destruction—Christ's Death a Suicide—Col. Ingersoll's Reply to his
Critics—Is Suffering the Work of God?—It is not Man's Duty to
Endure Hopeless Suffering—When Suicide is Justifiable—The
Inquisition—Alleged Cowardice of Suicides—Propositions
Demonstrated—Suicide the Foundation of the Christian
Religion—Redemption and Atonement—The Clergy on Infidelity
and Suicide—Morality and Unbelief—Better injure yourself than
Another—Misquotation by Opponents—Cheerful View the Best—The
Wonder is that Men endure—Suicide a Sin (Interview in The New
York Journal)—Causes of Suicide—Col. Ingersoll Does Not Advise
Suicide—Suicides with Tracts or Bibles in their Pockets—Suicide a Sin
(Interview in The New York Herald)—Comments on Rev. Alerle St. Croix
Wright's Sermon—Suicide and Sanity (Interview in The York World)—As to
the Cowardice of Suicide—Germany and the Prevalence of Suicide—Killing
of Idiots and Defective Infants—Virtue, Morality, and Religion.
(1891.)
Reply to General Rush Hawkins' Article, "Brutality and Avarice
Triumphant"—Croakers and Prophets of Evil—Medical Treatment
for Believers in Universal Evil—Alleged Fraud in Army
Contracts—Congressional Extravagance—Railroad "Wreckers"—How
Stockholders in Some Roads Lost Their Money—The Star-Route
Trials—Timber and Public Lands—Watering Stock—The Formation
of Trusts—Unsafe Hotels: European Game and Singing Birds—Seal
Fisheries—Cruelty to Animals—Our Indians—Sensible and Manly
Patriotism—Days of Brutality—Defence of Slavery by the Websters,
Bentons, and Clays—Thirty Years' Accomplishment—Ennobling Influence of
War for the Right—The Lady ana the Brakeman—American Esteem of Honesty
in Business—Republics do not Tend to Official Corruption—This the Best
Country in the World.
A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.
(1878.)
Defence of the Lecture on Moses—How Biblical Miracles are sought to
be Proved—Some Non Sequiturs—A Grammatical Criticism—Christianity
Destructive of Manners—Cuvier and Agassiz on Mosaic Cosmogony—Clerical
Advance agents—Christian Threats and Warnings—Catholicism the Upas
Tree—Hebrew Scholarship as a Qualification for Deciding Probababilities
—Contradictions and Mistranslations of the Bible—Number of Errors in
the Scriptures—The Sunday Question.
AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.
(1881.)
Charged with Blasphemy in the State of Delaware—Can a Conditionless
Deity be Injured?—Injustice the only Blasphemy—The Lecture
in Delaware—Laws of that State—All Sects in turn Charged with
Blasphemy—Heresy Consists in making God Better than he is Thought
to Be—A Fatal Biblical Passage—Judge Comegys—Wilmington
Preachers—States with Laws against Blasphemy—No Danger of Infidel
Mobs—No Attack on the State of Delaware Contemplated—Comegys a
Resurrection—Grand Jury's Refusal to Indict—Advice about the Cutting
out of Heretics' Tongues—Objections to the Whipping-post—Mr. Bergh's
Bill—One Remedy for Wife-beating.
A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.
(1882.)
Solemnity—Charged with Being Insincere—Irreverence—Old Testament
Better than the New—"Why Hurt our Feelings?"—Involuntary Action of
the Brain—Source of our Conceptions of Space—Good and Bad—Right and
Wrong—The Minister, the Horse and the Lord's Prayer—Men Responsible
for their Actions—The "Gradual" Theory Not Applicable to
the Omniscient—Prayer Powerless to Alter Results—Religious
Persecution—Orthodox Ministers Made Ashamed of their
Creed—Purgatory—Infidelity and Baptism Contrasted—Modern Conception
of the Universe—The Golden Bridge of Life—"The Only Salutation"—The
Test for Admission to Heaven—"Scurrility."
A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.
(1892.)
Dr. Hall has no Time to Discuss the subject of Starving
Workers—Cloakmakers' Strike—Warner Van Norden of the Church Extension
Society—The Uncharitableness of Organized Charity—Defence of the
Cloakmakers—Life of the Underpaid—On the Assertion that Assistance
encourages Idleness and Crime—The Man without Pity an Intellectual
Beast—Tendency of Prosperity to Breed Selfishness—Thousands Idle
without Fault—Egotism of Riches—Van Norden's Idea of Happiness—The
Worthy Poor.
A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.
(1898.)
Interview in a Boston Paper—Why should a Minister call this a "Poor"
World?—Would an Infinite God make People who Need a Redeemer?—Gospel
Gossip—Christ's Sayings Repetitions—The Philosophy of Confucius—Rev.
Mr. Mills—The Charge of "Robbery"—The Divine Plan.
A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.
(1898.)
Interview in the New York Journal—Rev. Roberts. MacArthur—A
Personal Devil—Devils who held Conversations with Christ not simply
personifications of Evil—The Temptation—The "Man of Straw"—Christ's
Mission authenticated by the Casting Out of Devils—Spain—God
Responsible for the Actions of Man—Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Parks—Rev. Dr. E.
F. Moldehnke—Patience amidst the Misfortunes of Others—Yellow Fever
as a Divine Agent—The Doctrine that All is for the Best—Rev. Mr.
Hamlin—Why Did God Create a Successful Rival?—A Compliment by the
Rev. Mr. Belcher—Rev. W. C. Buchanan—No Argument Old until it is
Answered—Why should God Create sentient Beings to be Damned?—Rev. J.
W. Campbell—Rev. Henry Frank—Rev. E. C.J. Kraeling on Christ and the
Devil—Would he make a World like This?
EUROPEAN TRIP AND GREENBACK QUESTION
THE PRE-MILLENNIAL CONFERENCE.
THE SOLID SOUTH AND RESUMPTION.
THE SUNDAY LAWS OF PITTSBURG.*
POLITICS, RELIGION AND THOMAS PAINE.
MR. BEECHER, MOSES AND THE NEGRO.
HADES, DELAWARE AND FREETHOUGHT.
A REPLY TO THE REV. MR. LANSING.*
BEACONSFIELD, LENT AND REVIVALS.
ANSWERING THE NEW YORK MINISTERS.*
FUNERAL OF JOHN G. MILLS AND IMMORTALITY.*
THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO.
JUSTICE HARLAN AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.
POLITICS, MORMONISM AND MR. BEECHER
WENDELL PHILLIPS, FITZ JOHN PORTER AND BISMARCK.
POLITICS AND BRITISH COLUMBIA.
RELIGION, PROHIBITION, AND GEN. GRANT.
HELL OR SHEOL AND OTHER SUBJECTS.
INTERVIEWING, POLITICS AND SPIRITUALISM.
REPLY TO THE REV. B. F. MORSE.*
TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS.
THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1888.
SUMMER RECREATION—MR. GLADSTONE.
PROTECTION FOR AMERICAN ACTORS.
THE SACREDNESS OF THE SABBATH.
THE WESTMINSTER CREED AND OTHER SUBJECTS.
GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY, AND PRESBYTERIANISM.
THE TENDENCY OF MODERN THOUGHT.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE, HORSE RACING, AND MONEY.
WORD PAINTING AND COLLEGE EDUCATION.
PERSONAL MAGNETISM AND THE SUNDAY QUESTION.
MIRACLES, THEOSOPHY AND SPIRITUALISM.
STRIKES, EXPANSION AND OTHER SUBJECTS.
CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM. THE POPE, THE A. P. A., AGNOSTICISM
SENATOR SHERMAN AND HIS BOOK.*
REPLY TO THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORERS.
IS LIFE WORTH LIVING—CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND POLITICS.
MUSIC, NEWSPAPERS, LYNCHING AND ARBITRATION.
THE VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISCUSSION AND THE WHIPPING-POST.
COLONEL SHEPARD'S STAGE HORSES.*
A REPLY TO THE REV. L. A. BANKS.
JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG AND EXPANSION.
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE BIBLE.*
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE WHIPPING-POST.
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME IX.
AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.
COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.
ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.
THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.
(1867.)
Slavery and its Justification by Law and Religion—Its Destructive
Influence upon Nations—Inauguration of the Modern Slave Trade by the
Portuguese Gonzales—Planted upon American Soil—The Abolitionists,
Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Others—The Struggle in England—Pioneers
in San Domingo, Oge and Chevannes—Early Op-posers of Slavery in
America—William Lloyd Garrison—Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John
Brown—The Fugitive Slave Law—The Emancipation Proclamation—Dread of
Education in the South—Advice to the Colored People.
(1868.)
Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus—Precedent Established by the
Revolutionary Fathers—Committees of Safety appointed by the
Continental Congress—Arrest of Disaffected Persons in Pennsylvania
and Delaware—Interference with Elections—Resolution of Continental
Congress with respect to Citizens who Opposed the sending of Deputies
to the Convention of New York—Penalty for refusing to take Continental
Money or Pray for the American Cause—Habeas Corpus Suspended during the
Revolution—Interference with Freedom of the Press—Negroes Freed and
allowed to Fight in the Continental Army—Crispus Attacks—An Abolition
Document issued by Andrew Jackson—Majority rule—Slavery and the
Rebellion—Tribute to General Grant.
SPEECH NOMINATING BLAINE.
(1876.)
Note descriptive of the Occasion—Demand of the Republicans of the
United States—Resumption—The Plumed Knight.
(1876.)
One Hundred Years ago, our Fathers retired the Gods from Politics—The
Declaration of Independence—Meaning of the Declaration—The Old Idea
of the Source of Political Power—Our Fathers Educated by their
Surroundings—The Puritans—Universal Religious Toleration declared by
the Catholics of Maryland—Roger Williams—Not All of our Fathers in
favor of Independence—Fortunate Difference in Religious Views—Secular
Government—Authority derived from the People—The Declaration and
the Beginning of the War—What they Fought For—Slavery—Results of
a Hundred Years of Freedom—The Declaration Carried out in Letter and
Spirit.
(1876.)
The Hayes Campaign—Reasons for Voting the Republican Ticket—Abolition
of Slavery—Preservation of the Union—Reasons for Not Trusting the
Democratic Party—Record of the Republican Party—Democrats Assisted
the South—Paper Money—Enfranchisement of the Negroes—Samuel J.
Tilden—His Essay on Finance.
COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.
COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.
(1876.)
All Citizens Stockholders in the United States of America—The
Democratic Party a Hungry Organization—Political Parties
Contrasted—The Fugitive Slave Law a Disgrace to Hell in its Palmiest
Days—Feelings of the Democracy Hurt on the Subject of Religion—Defence
of Slavery in a Resolution of the Presbyterians, South—State of the
Union at the Time the Republican Party was Born—Jacob Thompson—The
National Debt—Protection of Citizens Abroad—Tammany Hall: Its Relation
to the Penitentiary—The Democratic Party of New York City—"What
Hands!"—Free Schools.
(1876.)
Address to the Veteran Soldiers of the Rebellion—Objections to
the Democratic Party—The Men who have been Democrats—Why I am a
Republican—Free Labor and Free Thought—A Vision of War—Democratic
Slander of the Greenback—Shall the People who Saved the Country Rule
It?—On Finance—Government Cannot Create Money—The Greenback Dollar
a Mortgage upon the Country—Guarantees that the Debt will be Paid-'The
Thoroughbred and the Mule—The Column of July, Paris—The Misleading
Guide Board, the Dismantled Mill, and the Place where there had been a
Hotel,
(1876.)
The Plea of "Let Bygones be Bygones"—Passport of the Democratic
Party—Right of the General Government to send Troops into Southern
States for the Protection of Colored People—Abram S. Hewitt's
Congratulatory Letter to the Negroes—The Demand for Inflation of the
Currency—Record of Rutherford B. Hayes—Contrasted with Samuel J.
Tilden—Merits of the Republican Party—Negro and Southern White—The
Superior Man—"No Nation founded upon Injustice can Permanently Stand."
(1877.)
On the Electoral Commission—Reminiscences of the Hayes-Tilden Camp—
Constitution of the Electoral College—Characteristics of the Members—
Frauds at the Ballot Box Poisoning the Fountain of Power—Reforms
Suggested—Elections too Frequent—The Professional Office-seeker—A
Letter on Civil Service Reform—Young Men Advised against Government
Clerkships—Too Many Legislators and too Much Legislation—Defect in the
Constitution as to the Mode of Electing a President—Protection of
Citizens by State and General Governments—The Dual Government in South
Carolina—Ex-Rebel Key in the President's Cabinet—Implacables and
Bourbons South and North—"I extend to you each and all the Olive Branch
of Peace."
(1878.)
Capital and Labor—What is a Capitalist?—The Idle and the Industrious
Artisans—No Conflict between Capital and Labor—A Period of Inflation
and Speculation—Life and Fire Insurance Agents—Business done on
Credit—The Crash, Failure, and Bankruptcy—Fall in the Price of Real
Estate a Form of Resumption—Coming back to Reality—Definitions of
Money Examined—Not Gold and Silver but Intelligent Labor the Measure
of Value—Government cannot by Law Create Wealth—A Bill of Fare not
a Dinner—Fiat Money—American Honor Pledged to the Maintenance of the
Greenbacks—The Cry against Holders of Bonds—Criminals and Vagabonds to
be supported—Duty of Government to Facilitate Enterprise—More Men must
Cultivate the Soil—Government Aid for the Overcoming of Obstacles too
Great for Individual Enterprise—The Palace Builders the Friends of
Labor—Extravagance the best Form of Charity—Useless to Boost a Man
who is not Climbing—The Reasonable Price for Labor—The Vagrant and his
strange and winding Path—What to tell the Working Men.
(1880.)
The Right to Vote—All Women who desire the Suffrage should have
It—Shall the People of the District of Columbia Manage their Own
Affairs—Their Right to a Representative in Congress and an Electoral
Vote—Anomalous State of Affairs at the Capital of the Republic—Not the
Wealthy and Educated alone should Govern—The Poor as Trustworthy as the
Rich—Strict Registration Laws Needed.
(1880.)
Obligation of New York to Protect the Best Interests of the
Country—Treason and Forgery of the Democratic Party in its Appeal to
Sword and Pen—The One Republican in the Penitentiary of Maine—The
Doctrine of State Sovereignty—Protection for American Brain and
Muscle—Hancock on the Tariff—A Forgery (the Morey letter) Committed
and upheld—The Character of James A. Garfield.
(1880.)
Introduced by Henry Ward Beecher (note)—Some Patriotic
Democrats—Freedom of Speech North and South—An Honest Ballot—
ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.
THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME X.
ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE MUNN TRIAL.
CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
OPENING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
CLOSING ADDRESS IN SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL
ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE DAVIS WILL CASE.
ARGUMENT BEFORE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE RUSSELL CASE.
ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE MUNN TRIAL.
Demoralization caused by Alcohol—Note from the Chicago
Times—Prejudice—Review of the Testimony of Jacob Rehm—Perjury
Characterized—The Defendant and the Offence Charged (p. 21)—Testimony
of Golsen Reviewed—Rehm's Testimony before the Grand Jury—Good
Character (p. 29)—Suspicion not Evidence.
CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Note from the Washington Capital—The Assertion Denied that we are
a Demoralized Country and that our Country is Distinguished among
the Nations only for Corruption—Duties of Jurors and Duties of
Lawyers—Section under which the Indictment is Found—Cases cited to
Show that Overt Acts charged and also the Crime itself must be Proved
as Described—Routes upon which Indictments are Based and Overt Acts
Charged (pp. 54-76)—Routes on which the Making of False Claims is
Alleged—Authorities on Proofs of Conspiracy (pp. 91-94)—Examination
of the Evidence against Stephen W. and John W. Dorsey (pp. 96-117)—The
Corpus Delicti in a Case of Conspiracy and the Acts Necessary to be Done
in Order to Establish Conspiracy (pp. 120-123)—Testimony of Walsh
and the Confession of Rerdell—Extravagance in Mail Carrying (p.
128)—Productiveness of Mail Routes (p. 131)—Hypothesis of Guilt and
Law of Evidence—Dangerous Influence of Suspicion—Terrorizing the
Jury—The Woman at Her Husband's Side.
OPENING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Juries the Bulwark of Civil Liberty—Suspicion Not Evidence—Brief
Statement of the Case—John M. Peck, John W. Dorsey, Stephen W. Dorsey,
John R. Miner, Mr. (A. E. ) Boone (p.p. 150-156)—The Clendenning
Bonds—Miner's, Peck's, and Dorsey's Bids—Why they Bid on Cheap
Routes—Number of Routes upon which there are Indictments—The
Arrangement between Stephen W. Dorsey and John R. Miner—Appearance
of Mr. Vaile in the Contracts—Partnership Formed—The Routes
Divided—Senator Dorsey's Course after Getting the Routes—His Routes
turned over to James W. Bosler—Profits of the Business (p. 181)—The
Petitions for More Mails—Productive and Unproductive Post-offices—Men
who Add to the Wealth of the World—Where the Idea of the Productiveness
of Post routes was Hatched—Cost of Letters to Recipients in 1843—The
Overland Mail (p. 190)—Loss in Distributing the Mail in the District
of Columbia and Other Territories—Post-office the only Evidence
of National Beneficence—Profit and Loss of Mail Carrying—Orders
Antedated, and Why—Routes Increased and Expedited—Additional Bonds for
Additional Trips—The Charge that Pay was Received when the Mail was
not Carried—Fining on Shares—Subcontracts for Less than the Original
Contracts—Pay on Discontinued Routes—Alleged False Affidavits—Right
of Petition—Reviewing the Ground.
CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Scheme of the Indictment—Story of the Case—What Constitutes Fraudulent
Bidding—How a Conspiracy Must be Proved—The Hypothesis of Guilt and
Law of Evidence—Conversation Unsatisfactory Evidence—Fallibility of
Memory—Proposition to Produce Mr. Dorsey's Books—Interruption of the
Court to Decide that Primary Evidence, having Once been Refused, can not
afterwards be Introduced to Contradict Secondary Evidence—A Defendant
may not be Presumed into the Penitentiary—A Decision by Justice
Field—The Right of Petition—Was there a Conspiracy?—Dorsey's
Benevolence (p. 250)—The Chico Springs Letter—Evidence of Moore
Reviewed—Mr. Ker's Defective Memory—The Informer System—Testimony
of Rerdell Reviewed—His Letter to Dorsey (p. 304)—The Affidavit of
Rerdell and Dorsey—Petitions for Faster Time—Uncertainty Regarding
Handwriting—Government Should be Incapable of Deceit—Rerdell's
withdrawal of the Plea of Not Guilty (p. 362)—Informers, their Immunity
and Evidence—Nailing Down the Lid of Rerdell's Coffin—Mistakes of
Messrs. Ker and Merrick and the Court—Letter of H. M. Vaile to the
Sixth Auditor—Miner's Letter to Carey—Miner, Peck & Co. to Frank A.
Tuttle—Answering Points Raised by Mr. Bliss (396 et seq.)—Evidence
regarding the Payment of Money by Dorsey to Brady—A. E. Boone's
Testimony Reviewed—Secrecy of Contractors Regarding the Amount of their
Bids—Boone's Partnership Agreement with Dorsey—Explanation of Bids
in Different Names—Omission of Instructions from Proposals (p.
450)—Accusation that Senator Mitchell was the Paid Agent of
the Defendants—Alleged Sneers at Things held Sacred—What is a
Conspiracy?—The Theory that there was a Conspiracy—Dorsey's Alleged
Interest—The Two Affidavits in Evidence—Inquiry of General Miles—Why
the Defendant's Books were not Produced—Tames W. Bosler's Testimony
Read (p. 500)—The Court shown to be Mistaken Regarding a Decision
Previously Made (pp. 496-502)—No Logic in Abuse—Charges against John
W. Miner—Testimony of A. W. Moore Reviewed-The Verdict Predicted—The
Defendants in the Case—What is left for the Jury to Say—Remarks of
Messrs. Henkle and Davidge—The Verdict.
ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE DAVIS WILL CASE.
Note from the Anaconda Standard—Senator Sander's Warning to the Jury
Not to be Enticed by Sinners—Evidence, based on Quality of Handwriting,
that Davis did not Write the Will—Evidence of the Spelling—Assertion
that the Will was Forged—Peculiarities of Eddy's Handwriting—Holes
in Sconce's Signature and Reputation—His Memory—Business Sagacity
of Davis—His Alleged Children—Date of his Death—Testimony of Mr.
Knight—Ink used in Writing the Will—Expert Evidence—Speechlessness
of John A. Davis—Eddy's Failure to take the Stand—Testimony of
Carruthers—Relatives of Sconce—Mary Ann Davis's Connections—The
Family Tree—The Signature of the Will—What the Evidence Shows—Duty
and Opportunity of the Jury.
ARGUMENT BEFORE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE RUSSELL CASE.
Antenuptial Waiving of Dower by Women—A Case from Illinois—At What
Age Men and Women Cease to Feel the Tender Flame—Russell's Bargain with
Mrs. Russell—Antenuptial Contract and Parole Agreement—Definition
of "Liberal Provision "—The Woman not Bound by a Contract Made in
Ignorance of the Facts—Contract Destroyed by Deception.
DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME XI.
ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.
TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.
THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.
TOLSTOÏ AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."
SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?
CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," AND "AN AFRICAN FARM."
REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.
HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?
THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.
CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.
SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?
WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL GUIDE?
GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.
A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.
A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.
ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.
Introduction by Frederick Douglass("Abou Ben Adhem")—Decision of
the United States Supreme Court pronouncing the Civil Rights Act
Unconstitutional—Limitations of Judges—Illusion Destroyed by the
Decision in the Dred Scott Case—Mistake of Our Fathers in adopting
the Common Law of England—The 13th Amendment to the Constitution
Quoted—The Clause of the Constitution upholding Slavery—Effect of
this Clause—Definitions of a State by Justice Wilson and Chief Justice
Chase—Effect of the Thirteenth Amendment—Justice Field on Involuntary
Servitude—Civil Rights Act Quoted—Definition of the Word Servitude by
the Supreme Court—Obvious Purpose of the Amendment—Justice Miller
on the 14th Amendment—Citizens Created by this Amendment—Opinion
of Justice Field—Rights and Immunities guaranteed by the
Constitution—Opinion delivered by Chief-Justice Waite—Further Opinions
of Courts on the question of Citizenship—Effect of the 13th, 14th and
15th Amendments—"Corrective" Legislation by Congress—Denial of equal
"Social" Privileges—Is a State responsible for the Action of its Agent
when acting contrary to Law?—The Word "State" must include the People
of the State as well as the Officers of the State—The Louisiana Civil
Rights Law, and a Case tried under it—Uniformity of Duties essential to
the Carrier—Congress left Powerless to protect Rights conferred by the
Constitution—Definition of "Appropriate Legislation"—Propositions laid
down regarding the Sovereignty of the State, the powers of the General
Government, etc.—A Tribute to Justice Harlan—A Denial that Property
exists by Virtue of Law—Civil Rights not a Question of Social
Equality—Considerations upon which Social Equality depends—Liberty not
a Question of Social Equality—The Superior Man—Inconsistencies of the
Past—No Reason why we should Hate the Colored People—The Issues that
are upon Us.
TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.
ADDRESS TO THE JURY.
Report of the Case from the New York Times (note)—The Right to express
Opinions—Attempts to Rule the Minds of Men by Force—Liberty the
Greatest Good—Intellectual Hospitality Defined—When the Catholic
Church had Power—Advent of the Protestants—The Puritans, Quakers.
Unitarians, Universalists—What is Blasphemy?—Why this Trial should not
have Taken Place—Argument cannot be put in Jail—The Constitution of
New Jersey—A higher Law than Men can Make—The Blasphemy Statute
Quoted and Discussed—Is the Statute Constitutional?—The Harm done
by Blasphemy Laws—The Meaning of this Persecution—Religions are
Ephemeral—Let us judge each other by our Actions—Men who have braved
Public Opinion should be Honored—The Blasphemy Law if enforced would
rob the World of the Results of Scientific Research—It declares the
Great Men of to-day to be Criminals—The Indictment Read and Commented
upon—Laws that go to Sleep—Obsolete Dogmas the Denial of which was
once punished by Death—Blasphemy Characterized—On the Argument
that Blasphemy Endangers the Public Peace—A Definition of real
Blasphemy—Trials for Blasphemy in England—The case of Abner
Kneeland—True Worship, Prayer, and Religion—What is Holy and
Sacred—What is Claimed in this Case—For the Honor of the State—The
word Liberty—Result of the Trial (note).
The Feudal System—Office and Purpose of our Constitution—Which God
shall we Select?—The Existence of any God a Matter of Opinion—What is
entailed by a Recognition of a God in the Constitution—Can the Infinite
be Flattered with a Constitutional Amendment?—This government is
Secular—The Government of God a Failure—The Difference between the
Theological and the Secular Spirit—A Nation neither Christian nor
Infidel—The Priest no longer a Necessity—Progress of Science and the
Development of the Mind.
On God in the Constitution—Why the Constitutional Convention ignored
the Question of Religion—The Fathers Misrepresented—Reasons why the
Attributes of God should not form an Organic Part of the Law of the
Land—The Effect of a Clause Recognizing God.
The Three Pests of a Community—I. Forms of Punishment and Torture—More
Crimes Committed than Prevented by Governments—II. Are not Vices
transmitted by Nature?—111. Is it Possible for all People to be
Honest?—Children of Vice as the natural Product of Society—Statistics:
the Relation between Insanity, Pauperism, and Crime—IV. The Martyrs of
Vice—Franklin's Interest in the Treatment of Prisoners—V. Kindness
as a Remedy—Condition of the Discharged Prisoner—VI. Compensation
for Convicts—VII. Professional Criminals—Shall the Nation take
Life?—Influence of Public Executions on the Spectators—Lynchers
for the Most Part Criminals at Heart—VIII. The Poverty of the Many a
perpetual Menace—Limitations of Land-holding.—IX. Defective Education
by our Schools—Hands should be educated as well as Head—Conduct
improved by a clearer Perception of Consequences—X. The Discipline of
the average Prison Hardening and Degrading—While Society cringes before
Great Thieves there will be Little Ones to fill the Jails—XI. Our
Ignorance Should make us Hesitate.
On Christian and Chinese worship—Report of the Select Committee
on Chinese Immigration—The only true God as contrasted with
Joss—Sacrifices to the "Living God"—Messrs. Wright, Dickey, O'Connor
and Murch on the "Religious System" of the American Union—How to prove
that Christians are better than Heathens—Injustice in the Name of
God—An honest Merchant the best Missionary—A Few Extracts from
Confucius—The Report proves that the Wise Men of China who predicted
that Christians could not be Trusted were not only Philosophers but
Prophets.
A New Party and its Purpose—The Classes that Exist in every
Country—Effect of Education on the Common People—Wants Increased by
Intelligence—The Dream of 1776—The Monopolist and the Competitor—The
War between the Gould and Mackay Cables—Competition between
Monopolies—All Advance in Legislation made by Repealing Laws—Wages
and Values not to be fixed by Law—Men and Machines—The Specific of
the Capitalist: Economy—The poor Man and Woman devoured by
their Fellow-men—Socialism one of the Worst Possible forms of
Slavery—Liberty not to be exchanged for Comfort—Will the Workers
always give their Earnings for the Useless?—Priests, Successful Frauds,
and Robed Impostors.
The Origin of Man's Thoughts—The imaginative Man—"Medicinal View" of
Poetry—Rhyme and Religion—The theological Poets and their Purpose in
Writing—Moral Poets and their "Unwelcome Truths"—The really Passionate
are the Virtuous—Difference between the Nude and the Naked—Morality
the Melody of Conduct—The inculcation of Moral Lessons not contemplated
by Artists or great Novelists—Mistaken Reformers—Art not a
Sermon—Language a Multitude of Pictures—Great Pictures and Great
Statues painted and chiseled with Words—Mediocrity moral from a
Necessity which it calls Virtue—Why Art Civilizes—The Nude—The Venus
de Milo—This is Art.
THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.
The Way in which Theological Seminaries were Endowed—Religious
Guide-boards—Vast Interests interwoven with Creeds—Pretensions of
Christianity—Kepler's Discovery of his Three Great Laws—Equivocations
and Evasions of the Church—Nature's Testimony against the
Bible—The Age of Man on the Earth—"Inspired" Morality of the
Bible—Miracles—Christian Dogmas—What the church has been Compelled to
Abandon—The Appeal to Epithets, Hatred and Punishment—"Spirituality"
the last Resource of the Orthodox—What is it to be Spiritual?—Two
Questions for the Defenders of Orthodox Creeds.
Part I. Inharmony of Nature and the Lot of Man with the Goodness and
Wisdom of a supposed Deity—Why a Creator is Imagined—Difficulty of the
Act of Creation—Belief in Supernatural Beings—Belief and Worship among
Savages—Questions of Origin and Destiny—Progress impossible without
Change of Belief—Circumstances Determining Belief—How may the
True Religion be Ascertained?—Prosperity of Nations nor Virtue
of Individuals Dependent on Religions or Gods—Uninspired Books
Superior—Part II. The Christian Religion—Credulity—Miracles cannot
be Established—Effect of Testimony—Miraculous Qualities of all
Religions—Theists and Naturalists—The Miracle of Inspiration—How
can the alleged Fact of Inspiration be Established?—God's work and
Man's—Rewards for Falsehood offered by the Church.
Statement by the Principal of King's College—On the Irrelevancy of a
Lack of Scientific Knowledge—Difference between the Agnostic and
the Christian not in Knowledge but in Credulity—The real name of
an Agnostic said to be "Infidel"—What an Infidel is—"Unpleasant"
significance of the Word—Belief in Christ—"Our Lord and his Apostles"
possibly Honest Men—Their Character not Invoked—Possession by evil
spirits—Professor Huxley's Candor and Clearness—The splendid Dream
of Auguste Comte—Statement of the Positive Philosophy—Huxley and
Harrison.
His Rearing and his Anticipated Biography—The complex Character of the
Christ of the Gospels—Regarded as a Man by Renan—The Sin against the
Holy Ghost—Renan on the Gospels—No Evidence that they were written
by the Men whose Names they Bear—Written long after the Events they
Describe—Metaphysics of the Church found in the Gospel of John—Not
Apparent why Four Gospels should have been Written—Regarded as
legendary Biographies—In "flagrant contradiction one with another"—The
Divine Origin of Christ an After-growth—Improbable that he intended to
form a Church—Renan's Limitations—Hebrew Scholarship—His "People of
Israel"—His Banter and Blasphemy.
TOLSTOY AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."
Tolstoy's Belief and Philosophy—His Asceticism—His View of Human
Love—Purpose of "The Kreutzer Sonata"—Profound Difference between the
Love of Men and that of Women—Tolstoy cannot now found a Religion, but
may create the Necessity for another Asylum—The Emotions—The Curious
Opinion Dried Apples have of Fruit upon the Tree—Impracticability of
selling All and giving to the Poor—Love and Obedience—Unhappiness in
the Marriage Relation not the fault of Marriage.
Life by Moncure D. Conway—Early Advocacy of Reforms against Dueling
and Cruelty to Animals—The First to write "The United States of
America"—Washington's Sentiment against Separation from Great
Britain—Paine's Thoughts in the Declaration of Independence—Author of
the first Proclamation of Emancipation in America—Establishment of a
Fund for the Relief of the Army—H's "Farewell Address"—The "Rights of
Man"—Elected to the French Convention—Efforts to save the Life of the
King—His Thoughts on Religion—Arrested—The "Age of Reason" and the
Weapons it has furnished "Advanced Theologians"—Neglect by Gouverneur
Morris and Washington—James Monroe's letter to Paine and to the
Committee of General Safety—The vaunted Religious Liberty of
Colonial Maryland—Orthodox Christianity at the Beginning of the 19th
Century—New Definitions of God—The Funeral of Paine.
I. Mr. A., the Professional Philanthropist, who established a Colony
for the Enslavement of the Poor who could not take care of themselves,
amassed a large Fortune thereby, built several churches, and earned
the Epitaph, "He was the Providence of the Poor"—II. Mr. B.,
the Manufacturer, who enriched himself by taking advantage of the
Necessities of the Poor, paid the lowest Rate of Wages, considered
himself one of God's Stewards, endowed the "B Asylum" and the "B
College," never lost a Dollar, and of whom it was recorded, "He Lived
for Others." III. Mr. C., who divided his Profits with the People who had
earned it, established no Public Institutions, suppressed Nobody; and
those who have worked for him said, "He allowed Others to live for
Themselves."
SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?
SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?
Trampling on the Rights of Inferiors—Rise of the Irish and Germans
to Power—The Burlingame Treaty—Character of Chinese Laborers—Their
Enemies in the Pacific States—Violation of Treaties—The Geary Law—The
Chinese Hated for their Virtues—More Piety than Principle among the
People's Representatives—Shall we go back to Barbarism?
What the Educated Man Knows—Necessity of finding out the Facts
of Nature—"Scholars" not always Educated Men; from necessaries to
luxuries; who may be called educated; mental misers; the first duty of
man; university education not necessary to usefulness, no advantage in
learning useless facts.
Would have the Kings and Emperors resign, the Nobility drop their
Titles, the Professors agree to teach only What they Know, the
Politicians changed to Statesmen, the Editors print only the
Truth—Would like to see Drunkenness and Prohibition abolished,
Corporal Punishment done away with, and the whole World free.
The Fool Friend believes every Story against you, never denies a Lie
unless it is in your Favor, regards your Reputation as Common Prey,
forgets his Principles to gratify your Enemies, and is so friendly that
you cannot Kick him.
Nature tells a different Story to all Eyes and Ears—Horace Greeley and
the Big Trees—The Man who "always did like rolling land"—What the
Snow looked like to the German—Shakespeare's different Story for each
Reader—As with Nature so with the Bible.
People who live by Lying—A Case in point—H. Hodson Rugg's Account of
the Conversion of Ingersoll and 5,000 of his Followers—The "Identity of
Lost Israel with the British Nation"—Old Falsehoods about Infidels—The
New York Observer and Thomas Paine—A Rascally English Editor—The
Charge that Ingersoll's Son had been Converted—The Fecundity of
Falsehood.
The Editor should not narrow his Horizon so that he can see only
One Thing—To know the Defects of the Bible is but the Beginning of
Wisdom—The Liberal Paper should not discuss Theological Questions
Alone—A Column for Children—Candor and Kindness—Nothing should be
Asserted that is not Known—Above All, teach the Absolute Freedom of the
Mind.
The religion of Humanity; what it Embraces and what it Advocates—A
Protest against Ecclesiastical Tyranny—Believes in Building a Home
here—Means Food and Fireside—The Right to express your Thought—Its
advice to every Human Being—A Religion without Mysteries, Miracles, or
Persecutions.
CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," AND "AN AFRICAN FARM."
Religion unsoftened by Infidelity—The Orthodox Minister whose Wife has
a Heart—Honesty of Opinion not a Mitigating Circumstance—Repulsiveness
of an Orthodox Life—John Ward an Object of Pity—Lyndall of the
"African Farm"—The Story of the Hunter—Death of Waldo—Women the
Caryatides of the Church—Attitude of Christianity toward other
Religions—Egotism of the ancient Jews.
All Articles appearing in a newspaper should be Signed by the
Writer—The Law if changed should throw greater Safeguards around the
Reputation of the Citizen—Pains should be taken to give Prominence to
Retractions—The Libel Laws like a Bayonet in War.
REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.
REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.
Mr. Newton not Regarded as a Sceptic—New Meanings given to Old
Words—The vanishing Picture of Hell—The Atonement—Confidence being
Lost in the Morality of the Gospel—Exclusiveness of the Churches—The
Hope of Immortality and Belief in God have Nothing to do with Real
Religion—Special Providence a Mistake.
The Day regarded as a Holiday—A Festival far older
than Christianity—Relics of Sun-worship in Christian
Ceremonies—Christianity furnished new Steam for an old Engine—Pagan
Festivals correspond to Ours—Why Holidays are Popular—They must be for
the Benefit of the People.
HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?
The Object of Freethought—what the Religionist calls "Affirmative
and Positive"—The Positive Side of Freethought—Constructive Work of
Christianity.
He will be in Favor of universal Liberty, neither Master nor Slave; of
Equality and Education; will develop in the Direction of the Beautiful;
will believe only in the Religion of this World—His Motto—Will not
endeavor to change the Mind of the "Infinite"—Will have no Bells or
Censers—Will be satisfied that the Supernatural does not exist—Will be
Self-poised, Independent, Candid and Free.
The Working People should be protected by Law—Life of no particular
Importance to the Man who gets up before Daylight and works till
after Dark—A Revolution probable in the Relations between Labor and
Capital—Working People becoming Educated and more Independent—The
Government can Aid by means of Good Laws—Women the worst Paid—There
should be no Resort to Force by either Labor or Capital.
Much like People of other Religions—Teaching given Christian Children
about those who die in the Faith of Abraham—Dr. John Hall on
the Persecution of the Jews in Russia as the Fulfillment of
Prophecy—Hostility of Orthodox early Christians excited by Jewish
Witnesses against the Faith—An infamous Chapter of History—Good
and bad Men of every Faith—Jews should outgrow their own
Superstitions—What the intelligent Jew Knows.
CRUMBLING CREEDS.
The Common People called upon to Decide as between the Universities and
the Synods—Modern Medicine, Law, Literature and Pictures as against the
Old—Creeds agree with the Sciences of their Day—Apology the Prelude
to Retreat—The Presbyterian Creed Infamous, but no worse than
the Catholic—Progress begins when Expression of Opinion is
Allowed—Examining the Religions of other Countries—The Pulpit's
Position Lost—The Dogma of Eternal Pain the Cause of the orthodox
Creeds losing Popularity—Every Church teaching this Infinite Lie must
Fall.
OUR SCHOOLS.
Education the only Lever capable of raising Mankind—The
School-house more Important than the Church—Criticism of New York's
School-Buildings—The Kindergarten System Recommended—Poor Pay of
Teachers—The great Danger to the Republic is Ignorance.
The Hell of Science—Brutal Curiosity of Vivisectors—The Pretence that
they are working for the Good of Man—Have these scientific Assassins
added to useful Knowledge?—No Good to the Race to be Accomplished by
Torture—The Tendency to produce a Race of intelligent Wild Beasts.
THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.
Right of the Government to ask Questions and of the Citizen to refuse
to answer them—Matters which the Government has no Right to pry
into—Exposing the Debtor's financial Condition—A Man might decline to
tell whether he has a Chronic Disease or not.
Natural Phenomena and Myths celebrated—The great Day of the first
Religion, Sun-worship—A God that Knew no Hatred nor Sought Revenge—The
Festival of Light.
A much-abused Word—The Early Christians too Spiritual to be
Civilized—Calvin and Knox—Paine, Voltaire and Humboldt not
Spiritual—Darwin also Lacking—What it is to be really Spiritual—No
connection with Superstition.
What were thereby blown into Rags and Ravelings—The Birth of a
new Epoch announced—Lincoln made the most commanding Figure of the
Century—Story of its Echoes.
What might have been Asked of a Christian 100 years after
Christ—Hospitals and Asylums not all built for Charity—Girard
College—Lick Observatory—Carnegie not an Orthodox Christian—Christian
Colleges—Give us Time.
CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.
Brockway a Savage—The Lash will neither develop the Brain nor cultivate
the Heart—Brutality a Failure—Bishop Potter's apostolical Remark.
The Object of a Trial—Justice can afford to Wait—The right of
Appeal—Case of Mrs. Maybrick—Life Imprisonment for Murderers—American
Courts better than the English.
BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.
Universities naturally Conservative—Kansas State University's
Objection to Ingersoll as a commencement Orator—Comment by Mr. Depew
(note)—Action of Cornell and the University of Missouri.
The Chances a few Years ago—Capital now Required—Increasing
competition in Civilized Life—Independence the first Object—If he has
something to say, there will be plenty to listen.
Science goes hand in hand with Imagination—Artistic and Ethical
Development—Science destroys Superstition, not true Religion—Education
preferable to Legislation—Our Obligation to our Children.
"SOWING AND REAPING."
Moody's Belief accounted for—A dishonest and corrupting Doctrine—A
want of Philosophy and Sense—Have Souls in Heaven no Regrets?—Mr.
Moody should read some useful Books.
SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?
Teachings of orthodox Sunday Schools—The ferocious God of the
Bible—Miracles—A Christian in Constantinople would not send his
Child to a Mosque—Advice to all Agnostics—Strangle the Serpent of
Superstition.
WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL GUIDE?
Character of the Bible—Men and Women not virtuous because of any
Book—The Commandments both Good and Bad—Books that do not help
Morality—Jehovah not a moral God—What is Morality?—Intelligence the
only moral guide.
GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.
Decline of the Christian Religion in New Hampshire—Outgrown
Beliefs—Present-day Views of Christ and the Holy Ghost—Abandoned
Notions about the Atonement—Salvation for Credulity—The Miracles
of the New Testament—The Bible "not true but inspired"—The "Higher
Critics" riding two Horses—Infidelity in the Pulpit—The "restraining
Influences of Religion" as illustrated by Spain and Portugal—Thinking,
Working and Praying—The kind of Faith that has Departed.
A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.
The Truth Seeker congratulated on its Twenty-fifth Birthday—Teachings
of Twenty-five Years ago—Dodging and evading—The Clerical Assault
on Darwin—Draper, Buckle, Hegel, Spencer, Emerson—Comparison
of Prejudices—Vanished Belief in the Devil—Matter and
Force—Contradictions Dwelling in Unity—Substitutes for Jehovah—A
Prophecy.
Argument in the contested Election Case of Strobach against Herbert—The
Importance of Honest Elections—Poisoning the Source of Justice—The
Fraudulent Voter a Traitor to his Sovereign, the Will of the
People—Political Morality Imperative.
A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.
Date and Manner of Composing the Old Testament—Other Books not now in
Existence, and Disagreements about the Canon—Composite Character of
certain Books—Various Versions—Why was God's message given to the Jews
alone?—The Story of the Creation, of the Flood, of the Tower, and
of Lot's wife—Moses and Aaron and the Plagues of Egypt—Laws of
Slavery—Instructions by Jehovah Calculated to excite Astonishment and
Mirth—Sacrifices and the Scapegoat—Passages showing that the Laws of
Moses were made after the Jews had left the Desert—Jehovah's dealings
with his People—The Sabbath Law—Prodigies—Joshua's Miracle—Damned
Ignorance and Infamy—Jephthah's Sacrifice—Incredible Stories—The
Woman of Endor and the Temptation of David—Elijah and Elisha—Loss of
the Pentateuch from Moses to Josiah—The Jews before and after being
Abandoned by Jehovah—Wealth of Solomon and other Marvels.
PROF. VAN BUREN DENSLOW'S "MODERN THINKERS."
PREFACE TO DR. EDGAR C. BEALL'S "THE BRAIN AND THE BIBLE."
PREFACE TO "MEN, WOMEN AND GODS."
PREFACE TO "FOR HER DAILY BREAD."
PREFACE TO "AGNOSTICISM AND OTHER ESSAYS."
GENERAL GRANT'S BIRTHDAY DINNER
LOTOS CLUB DINNER, TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY.
MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.
THE LIEDERKRANZ CLUB, SEIDL-STANTON BANQUET.
THE FRANK B. CARPENTER DINNER.
WESTERN SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC BANQUET.
LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF ANTON SEIDL.
LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF REAR ADMIRAL SCHLEY.
ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.
THE CIRCULATION OF OBSCENE LITERATURE.
CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL LIBERAL LEAGUE.
CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN SECULAR UNION.
THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
IS IT EVER RIGHT FOR HUSBAND OR WIFE TO KILL RIVAL?
EFFECT OF THE WORLD'S FAIR ON THE HUMAN RACE.
A TRIBUTE TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
AT THE GRAVE OF BENJAMIN W. PARKER.
A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL
A TRIBUTE TO THE REV. ALEXANDER CLARK.
A TRIBUTE TO MRS. IDA WHITING KNOWLES.
A TRIBUTE TO HENRY WARD BEECHER.
A TRIBUTE TO RICHARD H. WHITING.
A TRIBUTE TO COURTLANDT PALMER.
A TRIBUTE TO MRS. MARY H. FISKE.
A TRIBUTE TO LAWRENCE BARRETT.
A TRIBUTE TO PHILO D. BECKWITH.
A TRIBUTE TO DR. THOMAS SETON ROBERTSON.
"The Destroyer Of Weeds, Thistles And Thorns Is A Benefactor, Whether He Soweth Grain Or Not."
TO EVA A. INGERSOLL, MY WIFE, A WOMAN WITHOUT SUPERSTITION, THIS VOLUME
IS DEDICATED. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. FOR THE USE OF MAN,
THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
I. WHAT WE MUST DO TO BE SAVED
THE GODS.
(1872.)
An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man—Resemblance of Gods to
their Creators—Manufacture and Characteristics of Deities—Their
Amours—Deficient in many Departments of Knowledge—Pleased with the
Butchery of Unbelievers—A Plentiful Supply—Visitations—One God's
Laws of War—The Book called the Bible—Heresy of Universalism—Faith
an unhappy mixture of Insanity and Ignorance—Fallen Gods, or
Devils—Directions concerning Human Slavery—The first Appearance of
the Devil—The Tree of Knowledge—Give me the Storm and Tempest of
Thought—Gods and Devils Natural Productions—Personal Appearance
of Deities—All Man's Ideas suggested by his Surroundings—Phenomena
Supposed to be Produced by Intelligent Powers—Insanity and Disease
attributed to Evil Spirits—Origin of the Priesthood—Temptation of
Christ—Innate Ideas—Divine Interference—Special Providence—The
Crane and the Fish—Cancer as a proof of Design—Matter and
Force—Miracle—Passing the Hat for just one Fact—Sir William Hamilton
on Cause and Effect—The Phenomena of Mind—Necessity and Free Will—The
Dark Ages—The Originality of Repetition—Of what Use have the Gods been
to Man?—Paley and Design—Make Good Health Contagious—Periodicity of
the Universe and the Commencement of Intellectual Freedom—Lesson of
the ineffectual attempt to rescue the Tomb of Christ from the
Mohammedans—The Cemetery of the Gods—Taking away Crutches—Imperial
Reason
HUMBOLDT.
(1869.)
The Universe is Governed by Law—The Self-made Man—Poverty generally
an Advantage—Humboldt's Birth-place—His desire for Travel—On what
Humboldt's Fame depends—His Companions and Friends—Investigations
in the New World—A Picture—Subjects of his Addresses—Victory of the
Church over Philosophy—Influence of the discovery that the World is
governed by Law—On the term Law—Copernicus—Astronomy—Aryabhatta—
Descartes—Condition of the World and Man when the morning of Science
Dawned—Reasons for Honoring Humboldt—The World his Monument
THOMAS PAINE.
(1870.)
With his Name left out the History of Liberty cannot be Written—Paine's
Origin and Condition—His arrival in America with a Letter of
Introduction by Franklin—Condition of the Colonies—"Common Sense"—A
new Nation Born—Paine the Best of Political Writers—The "Crisis"—War
not to the Interest of a trading Nation—Paine's Standing at the Close
of the Revolution—Close of the Eighteenth Century in France-The
"Rights of Man"—Paine Prosecuted in England—"The World is my
Country"—Elected to the French Assembly—Votes against the Death of
the King—Imprisoned—A look behind the Altar—The "Age of Reason"—His
Argument against the Bible as a Revelation—Christianity of Paine's
Day—A Blasphemy Law in Force in Maryland—The Scotch "Kirk"—Hanging
of Thomas Aikenhead for Denying the Inspiration of the
Scriptures—"Cathedrals and Domes, and Chimes and Chants"—Science—"He
Died in the Land his Genius Defended,"
INDIVIDUALITY.
(1873.)
"His Soul was like a Star and Dwelt Apart"—Disobedience one of the
Conditions of Progress.—Magellan—The Monarch and the Hermit-Why
the Church hates a Thinker—The Argument from Grandeur and
Prosperity-Travelers and Guide-boards—A Degrading Saying—Theological
Education—Scotts, Henrys and McKnights—The Church the Great
Robber—Corrupting the Reason of Children—Monotony of Acquiescence: For
God's sake, say No—Protestant Intolerance: Luther and Calvin—Assertion
of Individual Independence a Step toward Infidelity—Salute to
Jupiter—The Atheistic Bug-Little Religious Liberty in America—God in
the Constitution, Man Out—Decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois
that an Unbeliever could not testify in any Court—Dissimulation—Nobody
in this Bed—The Dignity of a Unit
HERETICS AND HERESIES.
(1874.)
Liberty, a Word without which all other Words are Vain—The Church, the
Bible, and Persecution—Over the wild Waves of War rose and fell
the Banner of Jesus Christ—Highest Type of the Orthodox
Christian—Heretics' Tongues and why they should be Removed before
Burning—The Inquisition Established—Forms of Torture—Act of Henry
VIII for abolishing Diversity of Opinion—What a Good Christian was
Obliged to Believe—The Church has Carried the Black Flag—For what Men
and Women have been Burned—John Calvin's Advent into the
World—His Infamous Acts—Michael Servetus—Castalio—Spread of
Presbyterianism—Indictment of a Presbyterian Minister in Illinois for
Heresy—Specifications—The Real Bible
THE GHOSTS.
(1877.)
Dedication to Ebon C. Ingersoll—Preface—Mendacity of the Religious
Press—"Materialism"—Ways of Pleasing the Ghosts—The Idea of
Immortality not Born of any Book—Witchcraft and Demon-ology—Witch
Trial before Sir Matthew Hale—John Wesley a Firm Believer in
Ghosts—"Witch-spots"—Lycanthropy—Animals Tried and Convicted—The
Governor of Minnesota and the Grasshoppers—A Papal Bull against
Witchcraft—Victims of the Delusion—Sir William Blackstone's
Affirmation—Trials in Belgium—Incubi and Succubi—A Bishop
Personated by the Devil—The Doctrine that Diseases are caused by
Ghosts—Treatment—Timothy Dwight against Vaccination—Ghosts as
Historians—The Language of Eden—Leibnitz, Founder of the Science
of Language—Cosmas on Astronomy—Vagaries of Kepler and Tycho
Brahe—Discovery of Printing, Powder, and America—Thanks to the
Inventors—The Catholic Murderer and the Meat—Let the Ghosts Go
THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
(1877.)
Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does to
Matter—The History of Man a History of Slavery—The Infidel Our
Fathers in the good old Time—The iron Arguments that Christians
Used—Instruments of Torture—A Vision of the Inquisition—Models of
Man's Inventions—Weapons, Armor, Musical Instruments, Paintings,
Books, Skulls—The Gentleman in the Dug-out—Homage to Genius and
Intellect—Abraham Lincoln—What I mean by Liberty—The Man who cannot
afford to Speak his Thought is a Certificate of the Meanness of the
Community in which he Resides—Liberty of Woman—Marriage and the
Family—Ornaments the Souvenirs of Bondage-The Story of the Garden of
Eden—Adami and Heva—Equality of the Sexes-The word "Boss"—The Cross
Man-The Stingy Man—Wives who are Beggars—How to Spend Money—By
the Tomb of the Old Napoleon—The Woman you Love will never Grow
Old—Liberty of Children—When your Child tells a Lie—Disowning
Children—Beating your own Flesh and Blood—Make Home Pleasant—Sunday
when I was a Boy—The Laugh of a Child—The doctrine of Eternal
Punishment—Jonathan Edwards on the Happiness of Believing Husbands
whose Wives are in Hell—The Liberty of Eating and Sleeping—Water in
Fever—Soil and Climate necessary to the production of Genius—Against
Annexing Santo Domingo—Descent of Man—Conclusion
ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.
(1877.)
To Plow is to Pray; to Plant is to Prophesy, and the Harvest Answers and
Fulfills—The Old Way of Farming—Cooking an Unknown Art-Houses, Fuel,
and Crops—The Farmer's Boy—What a Farmer should Sell—Beautifying
the Home—Advantages of Illinois as a Farming State—Advantages of the
Farmer over the Mechanic—Farm Life too Lonely-On Early Rising—Sleep
the Best Doctor—Fashion—Patriotism and Boarding Houses—The Farmer and
the Railroads—Money and Confidence—Demonetization of Silver-Area of
Illinois—Mortgages and Interest—Kindness to Wives and Children—How
a Beefsteak should be Cooked—Decorations and Comfort—Let the Children
Sleep—Old Age
WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?
(1880.)
Preface—The Synoptic Gospels—Only Mark Knew of the Necessity of
Belief—Three Christs Described—The Jewish Gentleman and the Piece of
Bacon—Who Wrote the New Testament?—Why Christ and the Apostles wrote
Nothing—Infinite Respect for the Man Christ—Different Feeling for
the Theological Christ—Saved from What?—Chapter on the Gospel of
Matthew—What this Gospel says we must do to be Saved—Jesus and the
Children—John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards conceived of as Dimpled
Darlings—Christ and the Man who inquired what Good Thing he should
do that he might have Eternal Life—Nothing said about Belief—An
Interpolation—Chapter on the Gospel of Mark—The Believe or be Damned
Passage, and why it was written—The last Conversation of Christ with
his Disciples—The Signs that Follow them that Believe—Chapter on
the Gospel of Luke—Substantial Agreement with Matthew and Mark—How
Zaccheus achieved Salvation—The two Thieves on the Cross—Chapter
on the Gospel of John—The Doctrine of Regeneration, or the New
Birth—Shall we Love our Enemies while God Damns His?—Chapter on the
Catholics—Communication with Heaven through Decayed Saints—Nuns and
Nunneries—Penitentiaries of God should be Investigated—The
Athanasian Creed expounded—The Trinity and its Members—Chapter on the
Episcopalians—Origin of the Episcopal Church—Apostolic Succession
an Imported Article—Episcopal Creed like the Catholic, with a
few Additional Absurdities—Chapter on the Methodists—Wesley and
Whitfield—Their Quarrel about Predestination—Much Preaching for Little
Money—Adapted to New Countries—Chapter on the Presbyterians—John
Calvin, Murderer—Meeting between Calvin and Knox—The Infamy of
Calvinism—Division in the Church—The Young Presbyterian's Resignation
to the Fate of his Mother—A Frightful, Hideous, and Hellish
Creed—Chapter on the Evangelical Alliance—Jeremy Taylor's Opinion of
Baptists—Orthodoxy not Dead—Creed of the Alliance—Total Depravity,
Eternal Damnation—What do You Propose?—The Gospel of Good-fellowship,
Cheerfulness, Health, Good Living, Justice—No Forgiveness—God's
Forgiveness Does not Pay my Debt to Smith—Gospel of Liberty, of
Intelligence, of Humanity—One World at a Time—"Upon that Rock I
Stand"
IN presenting to the public this edition of the late Robert G. Ingersoll's works, it has been the aim of the publisher to make it worthy of the author and a pleasure to his friends and admirers. No one can be more conscious than he of the magnitude of the task undertaken, or more keenly feel how far short it must fall of adequate accomplishment.
When it is remembered that countless utterances of the author were never caught from his eloquent lips, it is matter for congratulation that so much has been preserved. The authorized addresses, arguments and articles that have already appeared in print and passed the review of the authors more or less careful inspection, will be readily recognized as accurate and complete; but in this latest and fullest compilation are many emanations from his heart and brain that have never had his scrutiny, were not revised by him, and that yet, by general judgment, should not be lost to the world.
These unedited sundries consist of fragments of speeches and incompleted articles discovered amongst the authors literary remains and for unknown reasons left in more or less unfinished form. It has been the publisher's ambition to gather these fugitive pieces and place them in this edition by the side of the saved treasures. Whether the work has been well or ill done a generous public must decide, while the sole responsibility must rest with, as it has been assumed by, the publisher.
In carrying out the design of the present edition, the publisher gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Mr. Ingersoll's family, who have freely placed at his disposal many papers, inscriptions, monographs, memoranda and pages of valuable material.
Recognition is also here made of the kind courtesy of the press and of publishers of magazines who have generously permitted the publication of articles originally written for them.
Finally, the publisher gives his thanks to all the devoted friends of the author who in many ways, by suggestion and unselfish labor, have aided in getting out this work. Of these, none have been more unremitting in service, and to none is the publisher more indebted, than to Mr. I. Newton Baker, Mr. Ingersoll's former private secretary, to Dr. Edgar C. Beall, and to Mr. George E. Macdonald for the fine Tables of Contents and the very valuable Index to this edition.
C. P. FARRELL.
New York, July, 1900.
EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together.
These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some have wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy Ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. Some were married—all ought to have been—and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshiped as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment.
These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat Some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were wofully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents.
These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust Of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters.
Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their existence.
Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. These gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and everything. They attended to every department. All was supposed to be under their immediate control. Nothing was too small—nothing too large; the falling of sparrows and the motions of the planets were alike attended to by these industrious and observing deities. From their starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information to man. It is related of one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the people that they should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. Some left their shining abodes to tell women that they should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird.
When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag them into slavery—to sell their wives and children; but generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their first-born. The priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them.
These gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. Each of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves, and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his existence or suspected that some other god might be his superior; but to deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. Redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell—an immortal vagrant—an eternal outcast—a deathless convict.
One of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and our worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship, gave to his chosen people for their guidance, the following laws of war: "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.
"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth"
Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous? Can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an infinite fiend? Remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of invasion. Peace was offered upon condition that the people submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have the courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none—not even the prattling, dimpled babe.
And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify ourselves—refuse to become liars—we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the god threaten—we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him.
The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!
Strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the Universalist for saying "God is love." It has always been considered as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. It has always been heresy to say, "God will at last save all."
We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air.
The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action.
The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God? And yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.
Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race.
Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is inestimable.
As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book is his master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief—the result of free thought.
All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention—of barbarian invention—is to read it Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition—then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity.
Our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they made devils as well. These devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. Some had headed unsuccessful revolts; some had been caught sweetly reclining in the shadowy folds of some fleecy cloud, kissing the wife of the god of gods. These devils generally sympathized with man. There is in regard to them a most wonderful fact: In nearly all the theologies, mythologies and religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the gods. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbarities were always ordered by the good gods. The pestilences were sent by the most merciful gods. The frightful famine, during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving gods. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality.
One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world, with the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful and the helpless were remorsely devoured by the shoreless sea. This, the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived, was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom men ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would leave upon the character of a devil! One of the prophets of one of these gods, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such savagery?
One of these gods is reported to have given the following directions concerning human slavery: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."
According to this, a man was given liberty upon condition that he would desert forever his wife and children. Did any devil ever force upon a husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? Who can worship such a god? Who can bend the knee to such a monster? Who can pray to such a fiend?
All these gods threatened to torment forever the souls of their enemies. Did any devil ever make so infamous a threat? The basest thing recorded of the devil, is what he did concerning Job and his family, and that was done by the express permission of one of these gods, and to decide a little difference of opinion between their serene highnesses as to the character of "my servant Job." The first account we have of the devil is found in that purely scientific book called Genesis, and is as follows: "Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.... And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life."
According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the very letter. Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good and evil.
The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil." For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods.
If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
Some nations have borrowed their gods; of this number, we are compelled to say, is our own. The Jews having ceased to exist as a nation, and having no further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him and adopted their devil at the same time. This borrowed god is still an object of some adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the apprehensions of our people. He is still supposed to be setting his traps and snares for the purpose of catching our unwary souls, and is still, with reasonable success, waging the old war against our God.
To me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and devils. They are a perfectly natural production. Man has created them all, and under the same circumstances would create them again. Man has not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by which he has been surrounded. Generally he has modeled them after himself, and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech. Each nation made its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the people. No god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. The negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. The Mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. The Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect Greek, and Jove looked as though a member of the Roman senate. The gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. The gods of India were often mounted upon elephants; those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of the Arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber. Nearly all people have carved or painted representations of their gods, and these representations were, by the lower classes, generally treated as the real gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice.
In some countries? even at this day, if the people after long praying do not obtain their desires, they turn their images off as impotent gods, or upbraid them in a most reproachful manner, loading them with blows and curses. 'How now, dog of a spirit,' they say, 'we give you lodging in a magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with the choicest food, and offer incense to you; yet, after all this care, you are so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.'
Hereupon they will pull the god down and drag him through the filth of the street. If, in the meantime, it happens that they obtain their request, then, with a great deal of ceremony, they wash him clean, carry him back and place him in his temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for what they have done. 'Of a truth,' they say, 'we were a little too hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant. Why should you bring this beating on yourself. But what is done cannot be undone. Let us not think of it any more. If you will forget what is past, we will gild you over brighter again than before.
Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has worshiped almost everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. He has worshiped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of ages prostrated himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes often make gods of articles they get from civilized people. The Todas worship a cow-bell. The Kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts.
Man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had woman been the physical superior, the powers supposed to be the rulers of Nature would have been women, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man, they would have luxuriated in trains, lownecked dresses, laces and back-hair.
Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives to his god his personal peculiarities.
Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has seen or felt. He can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform, beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium of the senses; but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of power, he can say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can say, immortality. Knowing something of time, he can say, eternity. Conceiving something of intelligence, he can say, God. Having seen exhibitions of malice, he can say, devil. A few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom of his life, he can say, heaven. Pain, in its numberless forms, having been experienced, he can say, hell. Yet all these ideas have a foundation in fact, and only a foundation. The superstructure has been reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming, beautifying, improving or multiplying realities, so that the edifice or fabric is but the incongruous grouping of what man has perceived through the medium of the senses. It is as though we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the trunk of an elephant. We have in imagination created an impossible monster. And yet the various parts of this monster really exist So it is with all the gods that man has made.
Beyond nature man cannot go even in thought—above nature he cannot rise—below nature he cannot fall.
Man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by some intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. To preserve friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all religions. Man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through gratitude for some favor which he supposed had been rendered. He endeavored by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason, had, as he believed, become enraged. The lightning and thunder terrified him. In the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. The great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous serpents crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and, more than all, the perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he was the sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. The strange and frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild, terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. For some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in power—that they were not all alike malevolent—that the higher controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful. For this purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship and to sacrifice.
These ideas appear to have been almost universal in savage man.
For ages all nations supposed that the sick and insane were possessed by evil spirits. For thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted in frightening these spirits away. Usually the priests would make the loudest and most discordant noises possible. They would blow horns, beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells. If the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid of some more powerful spirit.
To pacify these spirits was considered of infinite importance. The poor barbarian, knowing that men could be softened by gifts, gave to these spirits that which to him seemed of the most value. With bursting heart he would offer the blood of his dearest child. It was impossible for him to conceive of a god utterly unlike himself, and he naturally supposed that these powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight of so great and so deep a sorrow. It was with the barbarian then as with the civilized now—one class lived upon and made merchandise of the fears of another. Certain persons took it upon themselves to appease the gods, and to instruct the people in their duties to these unseen powers. This was the origin of the priesthood. The priest pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. He was man's attorney at the court of heaven. He carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. He came back with a command, with authority and with power. Man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave. Even Christ, the supposed son of God, taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits, and frequently, according to the account, gave proof of his divine origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his unfortunate countrymen. Casting out devils was his principal employment, and the devils thus banished generally took occasion to acknowledge him as the true Messiah; which was not only very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him. The religious people have always regarded the testimony of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and the writers of the New Testament quote the words of these imps of darkness with great satisfaction.
The fact that Christ could withstand the temptations of the devil was considered as conclusive evidence that he was assisted by some god, or at least by some being superior to man. St. Matthew gives an account of an attempt made by the devil to tempt the supposed son of God; and it has always excited the wonder of Christians that the temptation was so nobly and heroically withstood. The account to which I refer is as follows:
"Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when the tempter came to him, he said: 'If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread.' But he answered, and said: 'It is written: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and setteth him upon a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him: 'If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone,'Jesus said unto him: 'It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him: 'All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'"
The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he was God, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil took 'the omnipotent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth. Failing in that, he took the creator, owner and governor of the universe up into an exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world—this grain of sand—if he, the God of all the worlds, would fall down and worship him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! Is it possible the devil was such an idiot? Should any great credit be given to this deity for not being caught with such chaff? Think of it! The devil—the prince of sharpers—the king of cunning—the master of finesse, trying to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged to God!
Is there in all the religious literature of the world anything more grossly absurd than this?
These devils, according to the Bible, were of various kinds—some could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. All could not be cast out in the same way. The deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with. St. Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to Christ. The boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples had no control. "Jesus said unto the spirit: 'Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.'" Whereupon, the deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and immediately vacated the premises. The ease with which Christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. To whom he replied: "This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting." Is there a Christian in the whole world who would believe such a story if found in any other book? The trouble is, these pious people shut up their reason, and then open their Bible.
In the olden times the existence of devils was universally admitted. The people had no doubt upon that subject, and from such belief it followed as a matter of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these devils, had either to be a god, or to be assisted by one. All founders of religions have established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits and suspending the laws of nature. Casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. A prophet, unable to cope with the powers of darkness was regarded with contempt The utterance of the highest and noblest sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command spirits.
This belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the fact that man was surrounded by what he was pleased to call good and evil phenomena. Phenomena affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously, were ascribed to evil spirits. It being admitted that all phenomena were produced by spirits, the spirits were divided according to the phenomena, and the phenomena were good or bad as they affected man.
Good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good phenomena, and evil spirits of the evil—so that the idea of a devil has been as universal as the idea of a god.
Many writers maintain that an idea to become universal must be true; that all universal ideas are innate, and that innate ideas cannot be false. If the fact that an idea has been universal proves that it is innate, and if the fact that an idea is innate proves that it is correct, then the believers in innate ideas must admit that the evidence of a god superior to nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is exactly the same, and that the existence of such a devil must be as self-evident as the existence of such a god. The truth is, a god was inferred from good, and a devil from bad, phenomena. And it is just as natural and logical to suppose that a devil would cause happiness as to suppose that a god would produce misery. Consequently, if an intelligence, infinite and supreme, is the immediate author of all phenomena, it is difficult to determine whether such intelligence is the friend or enemy of man. If phenomena were all good, we might say they were all produced by a perfectly beneficent being. If they were all bad, we might say they were produced by a perfectly malevolent power; but, as phenomena are, as they affect man, both good and bad, they must be produced by different and antagonistic spirits; by one who is sometimes actuated by kindness, and sometimes by malice; or all must be produced of necessity, and without reference to their consequences upon man.
The foolish doctrine that all phenomena can be traced to the interference of good and evil spirits, has been, and still is, almost universal. That most people still believe in some spirit that can change the natural order of events, is proven by the fact that nearly all resort to prayer. Thousands, at this very moment, are probably imploring some supposed power to interfere in their behalf. Some want health restored; some ask that the loved and absent be watched over and protected, some pray for riches, some for rain, some want diseases stayed, some vainly ask for food, some ask for revivals, a few ask for more wisdom, and now and then one tells the Lord to do as he may think best. Thousands ask to be protected from the devil; some, like David, pray for revenge, and some implore even God, not to lead them into temptation. All these prayers rest upon, and are produced by, the idea that some power not only can, but probably will, change the order of the universe. This belief has been among the great majority of tribes and nations. All sacred books are filled with the accounts of such interferences, and our own Bible is no exception to this rule.
If we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this world. If there is no interference, of what practical use can such power be? The Scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine interference: Animals talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones; the sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that General Joshua may have more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees to convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die of a boil; fire refuses to burn; water positively declines to seek its level, but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents, and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams, laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years, following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic; prophecy becomes altogether easier than history; the sons of God become enamored of the world's girls; women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a great event fresh in the minds of men; an excellent article of brimstone is imported from heaven free of duty; clothes refuse to wear out for forty years; birds keep restaurants and feed wandering prophets free of expense; bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without wigs; muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair; dead people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed, and God himself becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after having been a tailor and dressmaker.
The veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. The shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell mixed and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he really inhabited. Man dwelt in an unreal world. He mistook his ideas, his dreams, for real things. His fears became terrible and malicious monsters. He lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and naiads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks, deities and devils. The obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw and wing—with beak and hoof—with leering looks and sneering mouths—with the malice of deformity—with the cunning of hatred, and with all the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas of the dark.
It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in the long night has suffered; of the tortures he has endured, surrounded, as he supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms of the air. No wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees—that he built altars and reddened them even with his own blood. No wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians for aid. No wonder that he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's door, and there, in the insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of agony and fear.
The savage as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a multitude of spirits. As he advances in knowledge, he generally discards the petty spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom he supposes to be infinite and supreme. Supposing this great spirit to be superior to nature, he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. At last, finding that he obtains no aid from this supposed deity—: finding that every search after the absolute must of necessity end in failure—finding that man cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless—he begins to investigate the facts by which he is surrounded, and to depend upon himself.
The people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. Slowly, painfully, but surely, the gods are being driven from the earth. Only upon rare occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed to interfere in the affairs of men. In most matters we are at last supposed to be free. Since the invention of steamships and railways, so that the products of all countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have quit the business of producing famine. Now and then they kill a child because it is idolized by its parents. As a rule they have given up causing accidents on railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene lamps. Cholera, yellow fever, and small-pox are still considered heavenly weapons; but measles, itch and ague are now attributed to natural causes. As a general thing, the gods have stopped drowning children, except as a punishment for violating the Sabbath. They still pay some attention to the affairs of kings, men of genius and persons of great wealth; but ordinary people are left to shirk for themselves as best they may. In wars between great nations, the gods still interfere; but in prize fights, the best man with an honest referee, is almost sure to win.
The church cannot abandon the idea of special providence. To give up that doctrine is to give up all. The church must insist that prayer is answered—that some power superior to nature hears and grants the request of the sincere and humble Christian, and that this same power in some mysterious way provides for all.
A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact, that God takes care of all his creatures; that the falling sparrow attracts his attention, and that his loving kindness is over all his works. Happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "See," said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! What a long slender bill he has! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." "My son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of subsistence." "Yes," replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned; but after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?"
Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks, that in the beginning, some god made the laws governing the universe. He believes that in consequence of these laws a man can lift a greater weight with, than without, a lever; that this god so made matter, and so established the order of things, that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time; so that a body once put in motion will keep moving until it is stopped; so that it is a greater distance around, than across a circle; so that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of five or seven. He insists that it took a direct interposition of Providence to make the whole greater than a part, and that had it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one might have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had only one end apiece. Like the old Scotch divine, he thanks God that Sunday comes at the end instead of in the middle of the week, and that death comes at the close instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving us time to prepare for that holy day and that most solemn event These religious people see nothing but design everywhere, and personal, intelligent interference in everything. They insist that the universe has been created, and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly apparent. They point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the April rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. Did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest rose? That what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the April rain? How beautiful the process of digestion! By what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! By what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer! See by what admirable instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surrounding quivering, dainty flesh! See how it gradually but surely expands and grows! By what marvelous mechanism it is supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the most secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life! What beautiful colors it presents! Seen through the microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. All the ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. Think of the amount of thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer? Is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good?
We are told that the universe was designed and created, and that it is absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity, but that it is perfectly self-evident that a god has.
If a god created the universe, then, there must have been a time when he commenced to create. Back of that time there must have been an eternity, during which there had existed nothing—absolutely nothing—except this supposed god. According to this theory, this god spent an eternity, so to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness.
Admitting that a god did create the universe, the question then arises, of what did he create it? It certainly was not made of nothing. Nothing, considered in the light of a raw material, is a most decided failure. It follows, then, that the god must have made the universe out of himself, he being the only existence. The universe is material, and if it was made of god, the god must have been material. With this very thought in his mind, Anaximander of Miletus said: "Creation is the decomposition of the infinite."
It has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to the sun, only for the fact, that it is attracted by other worlds, and those worlds must be attracted by other worlds still beyond them, and so on, without end. This proves the material universe to be infinite. If an infinite universe has been made out of an infinite god, how much of the god is left?
The idea of a creative deity is gradually being abandoned, and nearly all truly scientific minds admit that matter must have existed from eternity. It is indestructible, and the indestructible cannot be created. It is the crowning glory of our century to have demonstrated the indestructibility and the eternal persistence of force. Neither matter nor force can be increased nor diminished. Force cannot exist apart from matter. Matter exists only in connection with force, and consequently, a force apart from matter, and superior to nature, is a demonstrated impossibility.
Force, then, must have also existed from eternity, and could not have been created. Matter in its countless forms, from dead earth to the eyes of those we love, and force, in all its manifestations, from simple motion to the grandest thought, deny creation and defy control.
Thought is a form of force. We walk with the same force with which we think. Man is an organism, that changes several forms of force into thought-force. Man is a machine into which we put what we call food, and produce what we call thought. Think of that wonderful chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine tragedy of Hamlet!
A god must not only be material, but he must be an organism, capable of changing other forms of force into thought-force. This is what we call eating. Therefore, if the god thinks, he must eat, that is to say, he must of necessity have some means of supplying the force with which to think. It is impossible to conceive of a being who can eternally impart force to matter, and yet have no means of supplying the force thus imparted.
If neither matter nor force were created, what evidence have we, then, of the existence of a power superior to nature? The theologian will probably reply, "We have law and order, cause and effect, and beside all this, matter could not have put itself in motion."
Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there is no being superior to nature, and that matter and force have existed from eternity. Now, suppose that two atoms should come together, would there be an effect? Yes. Suppose they came in exactly opposite directions with equal force, they would be stopped, to say the least. This would be an effect. If this is so, then you have matter, force and effect without a being superior to nature. Now, suppose that two other atoms, just like the first two, should come together under precisely the same circumstances, would not the effect be exactly the same? Yes. Like causes, producing like effects, is what we mean by law and order. Then we have matter, force, effect, law and order without a being superior to nature. Now, we know that every effect must also be a cause, and that every cause must be an effect. The atoms coming together did produce an effect, and as every effect must also be a cause, the effect produced by the collision of the atoms, must as to something else have been a cause. Then we have matter, force, law, order, cause and effect without a being superior to nature. Nothing is left for the supernatural but empty space. His throne is a void, and his boasted realm is without matter, without force, without law, without cause, and without effect.
But what put all this matter in motion? If matter and force have existed from eternity, then matter must have always been in motion. There can be no force without motion. Force is forever active, and there is, and there can be no cessation. If, therefore, matter and force have existed from eternity, so has motion. In the whole universe there is not even one atom in a state of rest.
A deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is nothing. Nature embraces with infinite arms all matter and all force. That which is beyond her grasp is destitute of both, and can hardly be worth the worship and adoration even of a man.
There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the continuity of cause and effect Pluck from the endless chain of existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession, and you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. Change the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears.
The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine—cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle—that is to say, a violation of nature—that is to say, a falsehood.
No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to and independent of nature.
The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions.
We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. Their reputation for "truth and veracity" in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living in this world. Do not send us to Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines. We demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the church furnish at least one, or forever after hold her peace.
In the olden time, the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the existence of her God. At that time miracles were performed with the most astonishing ease. They became so common that the church ordered her priests to desist. And now this same church—the people having found some little sense—admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle, but insists that the absence of miracle—the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect, proves the existence of a power superior to nature. The fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary.
Sir William Hamilton, one of the pillars of modern theology, in discussing this very subject, uses the following language: "The phenomena of matter taken by themselves, so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a god, would on the contrary ground even an argument to his negation. The phenomena of the material world are subjected to immutable laws; are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succession, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical necessity."
Nature is but an endless series of efficient causes. She cannot create, but she eternally transforms. There was no beginning, and there can be no end.
The best minds, even in the religious world, admit that in material nature there is no evidence of what they are pleased to call a god. They find their evidence in the phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently assert that intelligence is above, and in fact, opposed to nature. They insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that he has somewhere in his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the "Great First Cause." They say that matter cannot produce thought; but that thought can produce matter. They tell us that man has intelligence, and therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his. Why not say, God has intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his? So far as we know, there is no intelligence apart from matter. We cannot conceive of thought, except as produced within a brain.
The science, by means of which they demonstrate the existence of an impossible intelligence, and an incomprehensible power is called, metaphysics or theology. The theologians admit that the phenomena of matter tend, at least, to disprove the existence of any power superior to nature, because in such phenomena we see nothing but an endless chain of efficient causes—nothing but the force of a mechanical necessity. They therefore appeal to what they denominate the phenomena of mind to establish this superior power.
The trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we find the same endless chain of efficient causes; the same mechanical necessity. Every thought must have had an efficient cause. Every motive, every desire, every fear, hope and dream must have been necessarily produced. There is no room in the mind of man for providence or chance. The facts and forces governing thought are as absolute as those governing the motions of the planets. A poem is produced by the forces of nature, and is as necessarily and naturally produced as mountains and seas. You will seek in vain for a thought in man's brain without its efficient cause. Every mental operation is the necessary result of certain facts and conditions. Mental phenomena are considered more complicated than those of matter, and consequently more mysterious. Being more mysterious, they are considered better evidence of the existence of a god. No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and, incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.
When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of interference will be lost. The real priest will then be, not the mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. From that moment the church ceases to exist. The tapers will die out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew; the Bible will take its place with the Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas, Sagas and Korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds of men.
"But," says the religionist, "you cannot explain everything; you cannot understand everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you do not comprehend, is my God."
We are explaining more every day. We are understanding more every day; consequently your God is growing smaller every day.
Nothing daunted, the religionist then insists that nothing can exist without a cause, except cause, and that this uncaused cause is God.
To this we again reply: Every cause must produce an effect, because until it does produce an effect, it is not a cause. Every effect must in its turn become a cause. Therefore, in the nature of things, there cannot be a last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would necessarily produce an effect, and that effect must of necessity becomes a cause. The converse of these propositions must be true. Every effect must have had a cause, and every cause must have been an effect. Therefore there could have been no first cause. A first cause is just as impossible as a last effect.
Beyond the universe there is nothing, and within the universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist.
The moment these great truths are understood and admitted, a belief in general or special providence become impossible. From that instant men will cease their vain efforts to please an imaginary being, and will give their time and attention to the affairs of this world. They will abandon the idea of attaining any object by prayer and supplication. The element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the domain of the future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of victories over the obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the disciples of any superstition. The plans of mankind will no longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omnipotence, and no one will believe that nations or individuals are protected or destroyed by any deity whatever. Science, freed from the chains of pious custom and evangelical prejudice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. The mind will investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusions without fear. Agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the Mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demonstrated truths of geology, and will cease pretending any reverence for the Jewish Scriptures. The moment science succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real thinkers will be outspoken. The little flags of truce carried by timid philosophers will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give place to victory—lasting and universal.
If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed.
Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By this time he should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. The present is the necessary child of all the past. There has been no chance, and there can be no interference.
If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenceless are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone.
Nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and without intention, forms, transforms, and retransforms forever. She neither weeps nor rejoices. She produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without regret. She knows no distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful. Poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are alike to her. She is neither merciful nor cruel. She cannot be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. She does not know even the attitude of prayer. She appreciates no difference between poison in the fangs of snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. Only through man does nature take cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and, so far as we know, man is the highest intelligence.
And yet man continues to believe that there is some power independent of and superior to nature, and still endeavors, by form, ceremony, supplication, hypocrisy and sacrifice, to obtain its aid. His best energies have been wasted in the service of this phantom. The horrors of witchcraft were all born of an ignorant belief in the existence of a totally depraved being superior to nature, acting in perfect independence of her laws; and all religious superstition has had for its basis a belief in at least two beings, one good and the other bad, both of whom could arbitrarily change the order of the universe. The history of religion is simply the story of man's efforts in all ages to avoid one of these powers, and to pacify the other. Both powers have inspired little else than abject fear. The cold, calculating sneer of the devil, and the frown of God, were equally terrible. In any event, man's fate was to be arbitrarily fixed forever by an unknown power superior to all law, and to all fact. Until this belief is thrown aside, man must consider himself the slave of phantom masters—neither of whom promise liberty in this world nor in the next.
Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires, and clothing will. To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world.
Although many eminent men have endeavored to harmonize necessity and free will, the existence of evil, and the infinite power and good ness of God, they have succeeded only in producing learned and ingenious failures. Immense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly inconsistent with the facts by which we are surrounded, and all persons who have failed to perceive the pretended reconciliation, have been denounced as infidels, atheists and scoffers. The whole power of the church has been brought to bear against philosophers and scientists in order to compel a denial of the authority of demonstration, and to induce some Judas to betray Reason, one of the saviors of mankind.
During that frightful period known as the "Dark Ages," Faith reigned, with scarcely a rebellious subject. Her temples were "carpeted with knees," and the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. The great painters prostituted their genius to immortalize her vagaries, while the poets enshrined them in song. At her bidding, man covered the earth with blood. The scales of Justice were turned with her gold, and for her use were invented all the cunning instruments of pain. She built cathedrals for God, and dungeons for men. She peopled the clouds with angels and the earth with slaves. For centuries the world was retracing its steps—going steadily back toward barbaric night! A few infidels—a few heretics cried, "Halt!" to the great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to revolutionize the cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind.
The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. Under the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely solving a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another. As long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator and God? Under such circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth?
The originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are all that we have any right to expect from the Christian world. As long as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply impossible. As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge.
It is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall and rise of nations by saying, "It is the will of God." Such an explanation puts ignorance and education upon an exact equality, and does away with the idea of really accounting for anything whatever.
Will the religionist pretend that the real end of science is to ascertain how and why God acts? Science, from such a standpoint would consist in investigating the law of arbitrary action, and in a grand endeavor to ascertain the rules necessarily obeyed by infinite caprice.
From a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws of life; of the conditions of happiness; of the facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things—by means of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain.
A belief in special providence does away with the spirit of investigation, and is inconsistent with personal effort. Why should man endeavor to thwart the designs of God? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature? Under the influence of this belief, man, basking in the sunshine of a delusion, considers the lilies of the field and refuses to take any thought for the morrow. Believing himself in the power of an infinite being, who can, at any moment, dash him to the lowest hell or raise him to the highest heaven, he necessarily abandons the idea of accomplishing anything by his own efforts. As long as this belief was general, the world was filled with ignorance, superstition and misery. The energies of man were wasted in a vain effort to obtain the aid of this power, supposed to be superior to nature. For countless ages, even men were sacrificed upon the altar of this impossible god. To please him, mothers have shed the blood of their own babes; martyrs have chanted triumphant songs in the midst of flame; priests have gorged themselves with blood; nuns have forsworn the ecstasies of love; old men have tremblingly implored; women have sobbed and entreated; every pain has been endured, and every horror has been perpetrated.
Through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more than can be conceived. Most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving and the innocent Women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. Numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood of babes; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents; whole races of men doomed to centuries of slavery, and everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power of genius to express. During all these years the suffering have supplicated; the withered lips of famine have prayed; the pale victims have implored, and Heaven has been deaf and blind.
Of what use have the gods been to man?
It is no answer to say that some god created the world, established certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving his children weak, ignorant and unaided, to fight the battle of life alone. It is no solution to declare that in some, other world this god will render a few, or even all, his subjects happy. What right have we to expect that a perfectly wise, good and powerful being will ever do better than he has done, and is doing? The world is filled with imperfections. If it was made by an infinite being, what reason have we for saying that he will render it nearer perfect than it now is? If the infinite "Father" allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever improve their condition? Will God have more power? Will he become more merciful? Will his love for his poor creatures increase? Can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power and love ever change? Is the infinite capable of any improvement whatever?
We are informed by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing our souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong, virtuous and grand.
Supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in infancy? The little children, according to this philosophy, can never be developed. They were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to an eternity of mental inferiority. If the clergy are right on this question, none are so unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only the suffering and distressed. If evil is necessary to the development of man, in this life, how is it possible for the soul to improve in the perfect joy of Paradise?
Since Paley found his watch, the argument of "design" has been relied upon as unanswerable. The church teaches that this world, and all that it contains, were created substantially as we now see them; that the grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were special creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to each other. The most orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed into the sea; that the sea has encroached a little upon the land, and that some mountains may be a trifle lower than in the morning of creation. The theory of gradual development was unknown to our fathers; the idea of evolution did not occur to them. Our fathers looked upon the then arrangement of things as the primal arrangement. The earth appeared to them fresh from the hands of a deity. They knew nothing of the slow evolutions of countless years, but supposed that the almost infinite variety of vegetable and animal forms had existed from the first.
Suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of age, and suppose that we should find him in the possession of a most beautiful carriage, constructed upon the most perfect model. And suppose, further, that he should tell us that it was the result of several hundred thousand years of labor and of thought; that for fifty thousand years he used as flat a log as he could find, before it occurred to him, that by splitting the log, he could have the same surface with only half the weight; that it took him many thousand years to invent wheels for this log; that the wheels he first used were solid, and that fifty thousand years of thought suggested the use of spokes and tire; that for many centuries he used the wheels without linch-pins; that it took a hundred thousand years more to think of using four wheels, instead of two; that for ages he walked behind the carriage, when going down hill, in order to hold it back, and that only by a lucky chance he invented the tongue; would we conclude that this man, from the very first, had been an infinitely ingenious and perfect mechanic? Suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years before he thought of putting on a roof, and that he had but recently invented windows and doors; would we say that from the beginning he had been an infinitely accomplished and scientific architect?
Does not an improvement in the things created, show a corresponding improvement in the creator?
Would an infinitely wise, good and powerful God, intending to produce man, commence with the lowest possible forms of life; with the simplest organism that can be imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time, slowly and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude beginning, until man was evolved? Would countless ages thus be wasted in the production of awkward forms, afterwards abandoned? Can the intelligence of man discover the least wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creeping horrors, that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others? Can we see the propriety of so constructing the earth, that only an insignificant portion of its surface is capable of producing an intelligent man? Who can appreciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals devour animals; so that every mouth is a slaughterhouse, and every stomach a tomb? Is it possible to discover infinite intelligence and love in universal and eternal carnage?
What would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his children, and before giving them possession should plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines; should stock it with ferocious beasts, and poisonous reptiles; should take pains to put a few swamps in the neighborhood to breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? Suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound secret; would we pronounce him angel or fiend?
And yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has done.
According to the theologians, God prepared this globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame.
Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. The next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary God.
A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said the world was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. Upon being informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be guilty of such presumption. He said that, in his judgment, it was impossible to point out an imperfection. "Be kind enough," said he, "to name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power." "Well," said I, "I would make good health catching, instead of disease." The truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent God, who is superior to and independent of nature.
The clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life with the expected joys of the next. We are assured that all is perfection in heaven—there the skies are cloudless—there all is serenity and peace. Here empires may be overthrown; dynasties may be extinguished in blood; millions of slaves may toil 'neath the fierce rays of the sun, and the cruel strokes of the lash; yet all is happiness in heaven. Pestilences may strew the earth with corpses of the loved; the survivors may bend above them in agony—yet the placid bosom of heaven is unruffled. Children may expire vainly asking for bread; babes may be devoured by serpents, while the gods sit smiling in the clouds. The innocent may languish unto death in the obscurity of dungeons; brave men and heroic women may be changed to ashes at the bigot's stake, while heaven is filled with song and joy. Out on the wide sea, in darkness and in storm, the shipwrecked struggle with the cruel waves while the angels play upon their golden harps. The streets of the world are filled with the diseased, the deformed and the helpless; the chambers of pain are crowded with the pale forms of the suffering, while the angels float and fly in the happy realms of day. In heaven they are too happy to have sympathy; too busy singing to aid the imploring and distressed. Their eyes are blinded; their ears are stopped and their hearts are turned to stone by the infinite selfishness of joy. The saved mariner is too happy when he touches the shore to give a moment's thought to his drowning brothers. With the indifference of happiness, with the contempt of bliss, heaven barely glances at the miseries of earth. Cities are devoured by the rushing lava; the earth opens and thousands perish; women raise their clasped hands towards heaven, but the gods are too happy to aid their children. The smiles of the deities are unacquainted with the tears of men. The shouts of heaven drown the sobs of earth.
Having shown how man created gods, and how he became the trembling slave of his own creation, the questions naturally arise: How did he free himself even a little, from these monarchs of the sky, from these despots of the clouds, from this aristocracy of the air? How did he, even to the extent that he has, outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and throw off the yoke of superstition?
Probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his mind was the discovery of order, of regularity, of periodicity in the universe. From this he began to suspect that everything did not happen purely with reference to him. He noticed, that whatever he might do, the motions of the planets were always the same; that eclipses were periodical, and that even comets came at certain intervals. This convinced him that eclipses and comets had nothing to do with him, and that his conduct had nothing to do with them. He perceived that they were not caused for his benefit or injury. He thus learned to regard them with admiration instead of fear. He began to suspect that famine was not sent by some enraged and revengeful deity, but resuited often from the neglect and ignorance of man. He learned that diseases were not produced by evil spirits. He found that sickness was occasioned by natural causes, and could be cured by natural means. He demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least, that prayer is not a medicine. He found by sad experience that his gods were of no practical use, as they never assisted him, except when he was perfectly able to help himself. At last, he began to discover that his individual action had nothing whatever to do with strange appearances in the heavens; that it was impossible for him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, or good enough to stop one. After many centuries of thought, he about half concluded that making mouths at a priest would not necessarily cause an earthquake. He noticed, and no doubt with considerable astonishment, that very good men were occasionally struck by lightning, while very bad ones escaped. He was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it is the most painful to which any human being ever was forced) that the right did not always prevail. He noticed that the gods did not interfere in behalf of the weak and innocent. He was now and then astonished by seeing an unbeliever in the enjoyment of most excellent health. He finally ascertained that there could be no possible connection between an unusually severe winter and his failure to give a sheep to a priest. He began to suspect that the order of the universe was not constantly being changed to assist him because he repeated a creed. He observed that some children would steal after having been regularly baptized. He noticed a vast difference between religion and justice, and that the worshipers of the same god, took delight in cutting each other's throats. He saw that these religious disputes filled the world with hatred and slavery. At last he had the courage to suspect, that no god at any time interferes with the order of events. He learned a few facts, and these facts positively refused to harmonize with the ignorant superstitions of his fathers. Finding his sacred books incorrect and false in some particulars, his faith in their authenticity began to be shaken; finding his priests ignorant upon some points, he began to lose respect for the cloth. This was the commencement of intellectual freedom.
The civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that religious power has decreased. The intellectual advancement of man depends upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. The church never enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them. In spite, however, of the church, man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. By reading his Bible, he found that the ideas of his God were more cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved savage. He also discovered that this holy book was filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are surrounded; and now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts. In every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man and truth. These divine men were generally torn in pieces by the worshipers of the gods. Socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the crime of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than to destroy his enemies at the command of God. Religious persecution springs from a due admixture of love towards God and hatred towards man.
The terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful people began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. A few began to compare Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They also found that other nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. They began to suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real value.
For three hundred years the Christian world endeavored to rescue from the "Infidel" the empty sepulchre of Christ. For three hundred years the armies of the cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts of an impudent impostor. This immense fact sowed the seeds of distrust throughout all Christendom, and millions began to lose confidence in a God who had been vanquished by Mohammed. The people also found that commerce made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals. They discovered that those who loved the gods most were apt to love men least; that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was amazing; that the most malicious had the effrontery to pray for their enemies, and that humility and tyranny were the fruit of the same tree.
For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!"
The first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first doubt, man has continued to advance. Men began to investigate, and the church began to oppose. The astronomer scanned the heavens, while the church branded his grand forehead with the word, "Infidel;" and now, not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a Christian name. In spite of all religion, the geologist penetrated the earth, read her history in books of stone, and found, hidden within her bosom, souvenirs of all the ages. Old ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, and useful truths took their places. One by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. A new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from without.
These are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw off the yoke of superstition. These are the splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of authority from the hands of priests.
In that vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of men, and there, too, are nearly all their gods. The sacred temples of India were ruins long ago. Over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms; Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls; Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; Kali, the goddess; Draupadi, the white-armed, and Chrishna, the Christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven desolate. Along the banks of the sacred Nile, Isis no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. The shadow of Typhons scowl falls no more upon the waves. The sun rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but Mem-non is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead. Odin, the author of life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant Ymir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the North; and Thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more. Broken are the circles and cromlechs of the ancient Druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss, are the sacred cairns. The divine fires of Persia and of the Aztecs, have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown aside; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. The streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. The gods have flown from high Olympus. Not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and Danæ lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. Hushed forever are the thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets, and the land once flowing with milk and honey, is but a desert waste. One by one, the myths have faded from the clouds: one by one, the phantom host has disappeared, and one by one, facts, truths and realities have taken their places. The supernatural has almost gone, but the natural remains. The gods have fled, but man is here.
Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. Religions are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them all. The gods created by the nations must perish with their creators. They were created by men, and like men, they must pass away. The deities of one age are the by-words of the next The religion of our day, and country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than the others have been. When India was supreme, Brahma sat upon the world's throne. When the sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and Zeus put on the purple of authority. The earth trembled with the tread of Rome's intrepid sons, and Jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. Rome fell, and Christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now Christ sits upon the old throne. Who will be his successor?
Day by day, religious conceptions grow less and less intense. Day by day, the old spirit dies out of book and creed. The burning enthusiasm, the quenchless zeal of the early church have gone, never, never to return. The ceremonies remain, but the ancient faith is fading out of the human heart. The worn-out arguments fail to convince, and denunciations that once blanched the faces of a race, excite in us only derision and disgust. As time rolls on, the miracles grow mean and small, and the evidences our fathers thought conclusive utterly fail to satisfy us. There is an "irrepressible conflict" between religion and science, and they cannot peaceably occupy the same brain nor the same world.
While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men; but for those who heartlessly try to prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost certain; that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill life with fear and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn.
Reason, Observation and Experience—the Holy Trinity of Science—have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect.
Notwithstanding the fact that infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice, we are constantly charged by the church with tearing down without building again. The church should by this time know that it is utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. The history of religious persecution fully establishes the fact that the mind necessarily resists and defies every attempt to control it by violence. The mind necessarily clings to old ideas until prepared for the new. The moment we comprehend the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity cast aside.
A surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and kindly offered to render him any assistance in his power. The surgeon began to discourse very learnedly upon the nature and origin of disease; of the curative properties of certain medicines; of the advantages of exercise, air and light, and of the various ways in which health and strength could be restored. These remarks were so full of good sense, and discovered so much profound thought and accurate knowledge, that the cripple, becoming thoroughly alarmed, cried out, "Do not, I pray you, take away my crutches. They are my only support, and without them I should be miserable indeed!" "I am not going," said the surgeon, "to take away your crutches. I am going to cure you, and then you will throw the crutches away yourself."
For the vagaries of the clouds the infidels propose to substitute the realities of earth; for superstition, the splendid demonstrations and achievements of science; and for theological tyranny, the chainless liberty of thought.
We do not say that we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the all in all of truth. We know of no end to the development of man. We cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. The history of one monad is as unknown as that of the universe; one drop of water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf, as all the forests; and one grain of sand, as all the stars.
We are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. We are not forging fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought This of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought. We do not pretend to have circumnavigated everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to an end: the real end being the happiness of man.
Felling forests is not the end of agriculture. Driving pirates from the sea is not all there is of commerce.
We are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the future—not the temple of all the gods, but of all the people—wherein, with appropriate rites, will be celebrated the religion of Humanity. We are doing what little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease producing millionaires and mendicants—gorged indolence and famished industry—truth in rags, and superstition robed and crowned. We are looking for the time when the useful shall be the honorable; and when Reason, throned upon the world's brain, shall be the King of Kings, and God of Gods.
GREAT men seem to be a part of the infinite—brothers of the mountains and the seas.
Humboldt was one of these. He was one of those serene men, in some respects like our own Franklin, whose names have all the lustre of a star. He was one of the few, great enough to rise above the superstition and prejudice of his time, and to know that experience, observation, and reason are the only basis of knowledge.
He became one of the greatest of men in spite of having been born rich and noble—in spite of position. I say in spite of these things, because wealth and position are generally the enemies of genius, and the destroyers of talent.
It is often said of this or that man, that he is a self-made man—that he was born of the poorest and humblest parents, and that with every obstacle to overcome he became great. This is a mistake. Poverty is generally an advantage. Most of the intellectual giants of the world have been nursed at the sad and loving breast of poverty. Most of those who have climbed highest on the shining ladder of fame commenced at the lowest round. They were reared in the straw-thatched cottages of Europe; in the log-houses of America; in the factories of the great cities; in the midst of toil; in the smoke and din of labor, and on the verge of want. They were rocked by the feet of mothers whose hands, at the same time, were busy with the needle or the wheel.
It is hard for the rich to resist the thousand allurements of pleasure, and so I say, that Humboldt, in spite of having been born to wealth and high social position, became truly and grandly great.
In the antiquated and romantic castle of Tegel, by the side of the pine forest, on the shore of the charming lake, near the beautiful city of Berlin, the great Humboldt, one hundred years ago to-day, was born, and there he was educated after the method suggested by Rousseau,—Campe, the philologist and critic, and the intellectual Kunth being his tutors. There he received the impressions that determined his career; there the great idea that the universe is governed by law, took possession of his mind, and there he dedicated his life to the demonstration of this sublime truth.
He came to the conclusion that the source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of nature.
After having received the most thorough education at that time possible, and having determined to what end he would devote the labors of his life, he turned his attention to the sciences of geology, mining, mineralogy, botany, the distribution of plants, the distribution of animals, and the effect of climate upon man. All grand physical phenomena were investigated and explained. From his youth he had felt a great desire for travel. He felt, as he says, a violent passion for the sea, and longed to look upon nature in her wildest and most rugged forms. He longed to give a physical description of the universe—a grand picture of nature; to account for all phenomena; to discover the laws governing the world; to do away with that splendid delusion called special providence, and to establish the fact that the universe is governed by law.
To establish this truth was, and is, of infinite importance to mankind. That fact is the death-knell of superstition; it gives liberty to every soul, annihilates fear, and ushers in the Age of Reason.
The object of this illustrious man was to comprehend the phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces.
For this purpose he turned his attention to descriptive botany, traversing distant lands and mountain ranges to ascertain with certainty the geographical distribution of plants. He investigated the laws regulating the differences of temperature and climate, and the changes of the atmosphere. He studied the formation of the earth's crust, explored the deepest mines, ascended the highest mountains, and wandered through the craters of extinct volcanoes.
He became thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with terrestrial magnetism; and as the investigation of one subject leads to all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a necessary connection between all facts, so Humboldt became acquainted with all the known sciences.
His fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he discovered enough to make hundreds of reputations) as upon his vast and splendid generalizations.
He was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.
He found, so to speak, the world full of unconnected facts—all portions of a vast system—parts of a great machine; he discovered the connection that each bears to all; put them together, and demonstrated beyond all contradiction that the earth is governed by law.
He knew that to discover the connection of phenomena is the primary aim of all natural investigation. He was infinitely practical.
Origin and destiny were questions with which he had nothing to do.
His surroundings made him what he was.
In accordance with a law not fully comprehended, he was a production of his time.
Great men do not live alone; they are surrounded by the great; they are the instruments used to accomplish the tendencies of their generation; they fulfill the prophecies of their age.
Nearly all of the scientific men of the eighteenth century had the same idea entertained by Humboldt, but most of them in a dim and confused way. There was, however, a general belief among the intelligent that the world is governed by law, and that there really exists a connection between all facts, or that all facts are simply the different aspects of a general fact, and that the task of science is to discover this connection; to comprehend this general fact or to announce the laws of things.
Germany was full of thought, and her universities swarmed with philosophers and grand thinkers in every department of knowledge.
Humboldt was the friend and companion of the greatest poets, historians, philologists, artists, statesmen, critics, and logicians of his time.
He was the companion of Schiller, who believed that man would be regenerated through the influence of the Beautiful; of Goethe, the grand patriarch of German literature; of Weiland, who has been called the Voltaire of Germany; of Herder, who wrote the outlines of a philosophical history of man; of Kotzebue, who lived in the world of romance; of Schleiermacher, the pantheist; of Schlegel, who gave to his countrymen the enchanted realm of Shakespeare; of the sublime Kant, author of the first work published in Germany on Pure Reason; of Fichte, the infinite idealist; of Schopenhauer, the European Buddhist who followed the great Gautama to the painless and dreamless Nirwana, and of hundreds of others, whose names are familiar to and honored by the scientific world.
The German mind had been grandly roused from the long lethargy of the dark ages of ignorance, fear, and faith. Guided by the holy light of reason, every department of knowledge was investigated, enriched and illustrated.
Humboldt breathed the atmosphere of investigation; old ideas were abandoned; old creeds, hallowed by centuries, were thrown aside; thought became courageous; the athlete, Reason, challenged to mortal combat the monsters of superstition.
No wonder that under these influences Humboldt formed the great purpose of presenting to the world a picture of Nature, in order that men might, for the first time, behold the face of their Mother.
Europe becoming too small for his genius, he visited the tropics in the new world, where in the most circumscribed limits he could find the greatest number of plants, of animals, and the greatest diversity of climate, that he might ascertain the laws governing the production and distribution of plants, animals and men, and the effects of climate upon them all. He sailed along the gigantic Amazon—the mysterious Orinoco—traversed the Pampas—climbed the Andes until he stood upon the crags of Chimborazo, more than eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and climbed on until blood flowed from his eyes and lips. For nearly five years he pursued his investigations in the new world, accompanied by the intrepid Bonpland. Nothing escaped his attention. He was the best intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. He was calm, reflective and eloquent; filled with a sense of the beautiful, and the love of truth. His collections were immense, and valuable beyond calculation to every science. He endured innumerable hardships, braved countless dangers in unknown and savage lands, and exhausted his fortune for the advancement of true learning.
Upon his return to Europe he was hailed as the second Columbus; as the scientific discoverer of America; as the revealer of a new world; as the great demonstrator of the sublime truth, that the universe is governed by law.
I have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon a mountain side—above him the eternal snow—below, the smiling valley of the tropics, filled with vine and palm; his chin upon his breast, his eyes deep, thoughtful and calm—his forehead majestic—grander than the mountain upon which he sat—crowned with the snow of his whitened hair, he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world.
Not satisfied with his discoveries in America, he crossed the steppes of Asia, the wastes of Siberia, the great Ural range, adding to the knowledge of mankind at every step. His energy acknowledged no obstacle, his life knew no leisure; every day was filled with labor and with thought.
He was one of the apostles of science, and he served his divine master with a self-sacrificing zeal that knew no abatement; with an ardor that constantly increased, and with a devotion unwavering and constant as the polar star.
In order that the people at large might have the benefit of his numerous discoveries, and his vast knowledge, he delivered at Berlin a course of lectures, consisting of sixty-one free addresses, upon the following subjects:
Five, upon the nature and limits of physical geography.
Three, were devoted to a history of science.
Two, to inducements to a study of natural science.
Sixteen, on the heavens.
Five, on the form, density, latent heat, and magnetic power of the earth, and to the polar light.
Four, were on the nature of the crust of the earth, on hot springs earthquakes, and volcanoes.
Two, on mountains and the type of their formation.
Two, on the form of the earth's surface, on the connection of continents, and the elevation of soil over ravines.
Three, on the sea as a globular fluid surrounding the earth.
Ten, on the atmosphere as an elastic fluid surrounding the earth, and on the distribution of heat.
One, on the geographic distribution of organ ized matter in general.
Three, on the geography of plants.
Three, on the geography of animals, and
Two, on the races of men.
These lectures are what is known as the Cosmos, and present a scientific picture of the world—of infinite diversity in unity—of ceaseless motion in the eternal grasp of law.
These lectures contain the result of his investigation, observation, and experience; they furnish the connection between phenomena; they disclose some of the changes through which the earth has passed in the countless ages; the history of vegetation, animals and men, the effects of climate upon individuals and nations, the relation we sustain to other worlds, and demonstrate that all phenomena, whether insignificant or grand, exist in accordance with inexorable law.
There are some truths, however, that we never should forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom.
Since the murder of Hypatia in the fifth century, when the polished blade of Greek philosophy was broken by the club of ignorant Catholicism, until to-day, superstition has detested every effort of reason.
It is almost impossible to conceive of the completeness of the victory that the church achieved over philosophy. For ages science was utterly ignored; thought was a poor slave; an ignorant priest was master of the world; faith put out the eyes of the soul; the reason was a trembling coward; the imagination was set on fire of hell; every human feeling was sought to be suppressed; love was considered infinitely sinful; pleasure was the road to eternal fire, and God was supposed to be happy only when his children were miserable. The world was governed by an Almighty's whim; prayers could change the order of things, halt the grand procession of nature, could produce rain, avert pestilence, famine and death in all its forms. There was no idea of the certain; all depended upon divine pleasure or displeasure rather; heaven was full of inconsistent malevolence, and earth of ignorance. Everything was done to appease the divine wrath; every public calamity was caused by the sins of the people; by a failure to pay tithes, or for having, even in secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. To the poor multitude, the earth was a kind of enchanted forest, full of demons ready to devour, and theological serpents lurking with infinite power to fascinate and torture the unhappy and impotent soul. Life to them was a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and lost, guided by priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at every step the Ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue.
The very heavens were full of death; the lightning was regarded as the glittering vengeance of God, and the earth was thick with snares for the unwary feet of man. The soul was supposed to be crowded with the wild beasts of desire; the heart to be totally corrupt, prompting only to crime; virtues were regarded as deadly sins in disguise; there was a continual warfare being waged between the Deity and the Devil, for the possession of every soul; the latter generally being considered victorious. The flood, the tornado, the volcano, were all evidences of the displeasure of heaven, and the sinfulness of man. The blight that withered, the frost that blackened, the earthquake that devoured, were the messengers of the Creator.
The world was governed by Fear.
Against all the evils of nature, there was known only the defence of prayer, of fasting, of credulity, and devotion. Man in his helplessness endeavored to soften the heart of God. The faces of the multitude were blanched with fear, and wet with tears; they were the prey of hypocrites, kings and priests.
My heart bleeds when I contemplate the sufferings endured by the millions now dead; of those who lived when the world appeared to be insane; when the heavens were filled with an infinite Horror who snatched babes with dimpled hands and rosy cheeks from the white breasts of mothers, and dashed them into an abyss of eternal flame.
Slowly, beautifully, like the coming of the dawn, came the grand truth, that the universe is governed by law; that disease fastens itself upon the good and upon the bad; that the tornado cannot be stopped by counting beads; that the rushing lava pauses not for bended knees, the lightning for clasped and uplifted hands, nor the cruel waves of the sea for prayer; that paying tithes causes, rather than prevents famine; that pleasure is not sin; that happiness is the only good; that demons and gods exist only in the imagination; that faith is a lullaby sung to put the soul to sleep; that devotion is a bribe that fear offers to supposed power; that offering rewards in another world for obedience in this, is simply buying a soul on credit; that knowledge consists in ascertaining the laws of nature, and that wisdom is the science of happiness. Slowly, grandly, beautifully, these truths are dawning upon mankind.
From Copernicus we learned that this earth is only a grain of sand on the infinite shore of the universe; that everywhere we are surrounded by shining worlds vastly greater than our own, all moving and existing in accordance with law. True, the earth began to grow small, but man began to grow great.
The moment the fact was, established that other worlds are governed by law, it was only natural to conclude that our little world was also under its dominion. The old theological method of accounting for physical phenomena by the pleasure and displeasure of the Deity was, by the intellectual, abandoned. They found that disease, death, life, thought, heat, cold, the seasons, the winds, the dreams of man, the instinct of animals,—in short, that all physical and mental phenomena are governed by law, absolute, eternal and inexorable.
Let it be understood that by the term Law is meant the same invariable relations of succession and resemblance predicated of all facts springing from like conditions. Law is a fact—not a cause. It is a fact, that like conditions produce like results: this fact is Law. When we say that the universe is governed by law, we mean that this fact, called law, is incapable of change; that it is, has been, and forever will be, the same inexorable, immutable Fact, inseparable from all phenomena. Law, in this sense, was not enacted or made. It could not have been otherwise than as it is. That which necessarily exists has no creator.
Only a few years ago this earth was considered the real center of the universe; all the stars were supposed to revolve around this insignificant atom. The German mind, more than any other, has done away with this piece of egotism. Purbach and Mullerus, in the fifteenth century, contributed most to the advancement of astronomy in their day. To the latter, the world is indebted for the introduction of decimal fractions, which completed our arithmetical notation, and formed the second of the three steps by which, in modern times, the science of numbers has been so greatly improved; and yet, both of these men believed in the most childish absurdities, at least in enough of them, to die without their orthodoxy having ever been suspected.
Next came the great Copernicus, and he stands at the head of the heroic thinkers of his time, who had the courage and the mental strength to break the chains of prejudice, custom, and authority, and to establish truth on the basis of experience, observation and reason. He removed the earth, so to speak, from the centre of the universe, and ascribed to it a two-fold motion, and demonstrated the true position which it occupies in the solar system.
At his bidding the earth began to revolve. At the command of his genius it commenced its grand flight mid the eternal constellations round the sun.
For fifty years his discoveries were disregarded. All at once, by the exertions of Galileo, they were kindled into so grand a conflagration as to consume the philosophy of Aristotle, to alarm the hierarchy of Rome, and to threaten the existence of every opinion not founded upon experience, observation, and reason.
The earth was no longer considered a universe, governed by the caprices of some revengeful Deity, who had made the stars out of what he had left after completing the world, and had stuck them in the sky simply to adorn the night.
I have said this much concerning astronomy because it was the first splendid step forward! The first sublime blow that shattered the lance and shivered the shield of superstition; the first real help that man received from heaven; because it was the first great lever placed beneath the altar of a false religion; the first revelation of the infinite to man; the first authoritative declaration, that the universe is governed by law; the first science that gave the lie direct to the cosmogony of barbarism, and because it is the sublimest victory that the reason has achieved.
In speaking of astronomy, I have confined myself to the discoveries made since the revival of learning. Long ago, on the banks of the Ganges, ages before Copernicus lived, Aryabhatta taught that the earth is a sphere, and revolves on its own axis. This, however, does not detract from the glory of the great German. The discovery of the Hindu had been lost in the midnight of Europe—in the age of faith, and Copernicus was as much a discoverer as though Aryabhatta had never lived.
In this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and to point out the particular evidence furnished by each, to establish the dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of Descartes, the first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the phenomena of the universe to the same law; of Montaigne, one of the heroes of common sense; of Galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph to the world; of Voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance; of August Comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still touches the stars; of Guttenberg, Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, all soldiers of science, in the grand army of the dead kings.
The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul—breaking the mental manacles—getting the brain out of bondage—giving courage to thought—filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.
Science found agriculture plowing with a stick reaping with a sickle—commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds—a world without books—without schools man denying the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals. It found the land filled with malicious monks—with persecuting Protestants, and the burners of men. It found a world full of fear; ignorance upon its knees; credulity the greatest virtue; women treated like beasts of burden; cruelty the only means of reformation.
It found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. It found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on Sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. It found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without reason in the world.
Such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the universe is governed by law.
For the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science—the only lever capable of raising mankind. Abject faith is barbarism; reason is civilization. To obey is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation perceived by the reason, is noble. Ignorance worships mystery; Reason explains it: the one grovels, the other soars.
No wonder that fable is the enemy of knowledge. A man with a false diamond shuns the society of lapidaries, and it is upon this principle that superstition abhors science.
In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
Imposture has always worn a crown.
The world is beginning to change because the people are beginning to think. To think is to advance. Everywhere the great minds are investigating the creeds and the superstitions of men—the phenomena of nature, and the laws of things. At the head of this great army of investigators stood Humboldt—the serene leader of an intellectual host—a king by the suffrage of Science, and the divine right of Genius.
And to-day we are not honoring some butcher called a soldier—some wily politician called a statesman—some robber called a king, nor some malicious metaphysician called a saint We are honoring the grand Humboldt, whose victories were all achieved in the arena of thought; who destroyed prejudice, ignorance and error—not men; who shed light—not blood, and who contributed to the knowledge, the wealth, and the happiness of all mankind.
His life was pure, his aims lofty, his learning varied and profound, and his achievements vast.
We honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has contributed as much as any man living or dead to the real prosperity of the world. We honor him because he honored us—because he labored for others—because he was the most learned man of the most learned nation—because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. For these reasons he is honored throughout the world. Millions are doing homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence and recounting what he accomplished.
We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains, and volcanoes—with the great palms—the wide deserts—the snow-lipped craters of the Andes—with primeval forests and European capitals—with wildernesses and universities—with savages and savans—with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes—with peaks and pampas, and steppes, and cliffs and crags—with the progress of the world—with every science known to man, and with every star glittering in the immensity of space.
Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; wasted none of his time in the stupidities, inanities and contradictions of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth century. Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. He was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the grand tranquil column of Reason. He was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of Nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom—upon the bosom of the universal Mother—and with her loving arms around him, sank into that slumber called Death.
History added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals.
The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there upon everlasting stone his genius wrote this, the sublimest of truths:
"The Universe is Governed by Law!"
TO speak the praises of the brave and thoughtful dead, is to me a labor of gratitude and love.
Through all the centuries gone, the mind of man has been beleaguered by the mailed hosts of superstition. Slowly and painfully has advanced the army of deliverance. Hated by those they wished to rescue, despised by those they were dying to save, these grand soldiers, these immortal deliverers, have fought without thanks, labored without applause, suffered without pity, and they have died execrated and abhorred. For the good of mankind they accepted isolation, poverty, and calumny. They gave up all, sacrificed all, lost all but truth and self-respect.
One of the bravest soldiers in this army was Thomas Paine; and for one, I feel indebted to him for the liberty we are enjoying this day. Born among the poor, where children are burdens; in a country where real liberty was unknown; where the privileges of class were guarded with infinite jealousy, and the rights of the individual trampled beneath the feet of priests and nobles; where to advocate justice was treason; where intellectual freedom was Infidelity, it is wonderful that the idea of true liberty ever entered his brain. .
Poverty was his mother—Necessity his master.
He had more brains than books; more sense than education; more courage than politeness; more strength than polish. He had no veneration for old mistakes—no admiration for ancient lies. He loved the truth for the truth's sake, and for man's sake. He saw oppression on every hand; injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong—of the enslaved many against the titled few.
In England he was nothing. He belonged to the lower classes. There was no avenue open for him. The people hugged their chains, and the whole power of the government was ready to crush any man who endeavored to strike a blow for the right.
At the age of thirty-seven, Thomas Paine left England for America, with the high hope of being instrumental in the establishment of a free government. In his own country he could accomplish nothing. Those two vultures—Church and State—were ready to tear in pieces and devour the heart of any one who might deny their divine right to enslave the world.
Upon his arrival in this country, he found himself possessed of a letter of introduction, signed by another Infidel, the illustrious Franklin. This, and his native genius, constituted his entire capital; and he needed no more. He found the colonies clamoring for justice; whining about their grievances; upon their knees at the foot of the throne, imploring that mixture of idiocy and insanity, George the III., by the grace of God, for a restoration of their ancient privileges. They were not endeavoring to become free men, but were trying to soften the heart of their master. They were perfectly willing to make brick if Pharaoh would furnish the straw. The colonists wished for, hoped for, and prayed for reconciliation They did not dream of independence.
Paine gave to the world his "Common Sense." It was the first argument for separation, the first assault upon the British form of government, the first blow for a republic, and it aroused our fathers like a trumpet's blast.
He was the first to perceive the destiny of the New World.
No other pamphlet ever accomplished such wonderful results. It was filled with argument, reason, persuasion, and unanswerable logic. It opened a new world. It filled the present with hope and the future with honor. Everywhere the people responded, and in a few months the Continental Congress declared the colonies free and independent States.
A new nation was born.
It is simple justice to say that Paine did more to cause the Declaration of Independence than any other man. Neither should it be forgotten that his attacks upon Great Britain were also attacks upon monarchy; and while he convinced the people that the colonies ought to separate from the mother country, he also proved to them that a free government is the best that can be instituted among men.
In my judgment, Thomas Paine was the best political writer that ever lived. "What he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever went together." Ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of power, had no effect upon him. He examined into the why and wherefore of things. He was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. Nothing short of the bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes of the Revolution, never for one moment did he despair. Year after year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of "Common Sense," filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause of Freedom.
Paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence, but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. He was with the army. He shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory. When the situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he gave them the "Crisis." It was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and glory. He shouted to them, "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier, and the sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
To those who wished to put the war off to some future day, with a lofty and touching spirit of self-sacrifice he said: "Every generous parent should say, 'If there must be war let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.'" To the cry that Americans were rebels, he replied: "He that rebels against reason is a real rebel; but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny, has a better title to 'Defender of the Faith' than George the Third."
Some said it was not to the interest of the colonies to be free. Paine answered this by saying, "To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be independent, we need ask only this simple, easy question: 'Is it the interest of a man to be a boy all his life?'" He found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said, "That to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead." This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox church.
There is a world of political wisdom in this: "England lost her liberty in a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles"; and there is real discrimination in saying, "The Greeks and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at the time that they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind."
In his letter to the British people, in which he tried to convince them that war was not to their interest, occurs the following passage brimful of common sense: "War never can be the interest of a trading nation any more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in business. But to make war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog upon a customer at the shop-door."
The writings of Paine fairly glitter with simple, compact, logical statements, that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudiced. He had the happiest possible way of putting the case; in asking questions in such a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his premises so clearly that the deduction could not be avoided.
Day and night he labored for America; month after month, year after year, he gave himself to the Great Cause, until there was "a government of the people and for the people," and until the banner of the stars floated over a continent redeemed, and consecrated to the happiness of mankind.
At the close of the Revolution, no one stood higher in America than Thomas Paine. The best, the wisest, the most patriotic, were his friends and admirers; and had he been thinking only of his own good he might have rested from his toils and spent the remainder of his life in comfort and in ease. He could have been what the world is pleased to call "respectable." He could have died surrounded by clergymen, warriors and statesmen. At his death there would have been an imposing funeral, miles of carriages, civic societies, salvos of artillery, a nation in mourning, and, above all, a splendid monument covered with lies.
He chose rather to benefit mankind.
At that time the seeds sown by the great Infidels were beginning to bear fruit in France. The people were beginning to think.
The Eighteenth Century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of Progress.
On every hand Science was bearing testimony against the Church. Voltaire had filled Europe with light; D'Holbach was giving to the élite of Paris the principles contained in his "System of Nature." The Encyclopedists had attacked superstition with information for the masses. The foundation of things began to be examined. A few had the courage to keep their shoes on and let the bush burn. Miracles began to get scarce. Everywhere the people began to inquire. America had set an example to the world. The word Liberty was in the mouths of men, and they began to wipe the dust from their knees.
The dawn of a new day had appeared.
Thomas Paine went to France. Into the new movement he threw all his energies. His fame had gone before him, and he was welcomed as a friend of the human race, and as a champion of free government.
He had never relinquished his intention of pointing out to his countrymen the defects, absurdities and abuses of the English government For this purpose he composed and published his greatest political work, "The Rights of Man." This work should be read by every man and woman. It is concise, accurate, natural, convincing, and unanswerable. It shows great thought; an intimate knowledge of the various forms of government; deep insight into the very springs of human action, and a courage that compels respect and admiration. The most difficult political problems are solved in a few sentences. The venerable arguments in favor of wrong are refuted with a question—answered with a word. For forcible illustration, apt comparison, accuracy and clearness of statement, and absolute thoroughness, it has never been excelled.
The fears of the administration were aroused, and Paine was prosecuted for libel and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the entire work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized man. It is a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an honor, not only to Thomas Paine, but to human nature itself. It could have been written only by the man who had the generosity, the exalted patriotism, the goodness to say, "The world is my country, and to do good my religion."
There is in all the utterances of the world no grander, no sublimer sentiment. There is no creed that can be compared with it for a moment. It should be wrought in gold, adorned with jewels, and impressed upon every human heart: "The world is my country, and to do good my religion."
In 1792, Paine was elected by the department of Calais as their representative in the National Assembly. So great was his popularity in France that he was selected about the same time by the people of no less than four departments.
Upon taking his place in the Assembly he was appointed as one of a committee to draft a constitution for France. Had the French people taken the advice of Thomas Paine there would have been no "reign of terror." The streets of Paris would not have been filled with blood The Revolution would have been the grandest success of the world. The truth is that Paine was too conservative to suit the leaders of the French Revolution. They, to a great extent, were carried away by hatred, and a desire to destroy. They had suffered so long, they had borne so much, that it was impossible for them to be moderate in the hour of victory.
Besides all this, the French people had been so robbed by the government, so degraded by the church, that they were not fit material with which to construct a republic. Many of the leaders longed to establish a beneficent and just government, but the people asked for revenge.
Paine was filled with a real love for mankind. His philanthropy was boundless. He wished to destroy monarchy—not the monarch. He voted for the destruction of tyranny, and against the death of the king. He wished to establish a government on a new basis; one that would forget the past; one that would give privileges to none, and protection to all.
In the Assembly, where nearly all were demanding the execution of the king—where to differ from the majority was to be suspected, and, where to be suspected was almost certain death Thomas Paine had the courage, the goodness and the justice to vote against death. To vote against the execution of the king was a vote against his own life. This was the sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested, imprisoned, and doomed to death.
Search the records of the world and you will find but few sublimer acts than that of Thomas Paine voting against the kings death. He, the hater of despotism, the abhorrer of monarchy, the champion of the rights of man, the republican, accepting death to save the life of a deposed tyrant—of a throneless king. This was the last grand act of his political life—the sublime conclusion of his political career.
All his life he had been the disinterested friend of man. He had labored—not for money, not for fame, but for the general good. He had aspired to no office; had asked no recognition of his services, but had ever been content to labor as a common soldier in the army of Progress. Confining his efforts to no country, looking upon the world as his field of action, filled with a genuine love for the right, he found himself imprisoned by the very people he had striven to save.
Had his enemies succeeded in bringing him to the block, he would have escaped the calumnies and the hatred of the Christian world. In this country, at least, he would have ranked with the proudest names. On the anniversary of the Declaration his name would have been upon the lips of all the orators, and his memory in the hearts of all the people.
Thomas Paine had not finished his career.
He had spent his life thus far in destroying the power of kings, and now he turned his attention to the priests. He knew that every abuse had been embalmed in Scripture—that every outrage was in partnership with some holy text. He knew that the throne skulked behind the altar, and both behind a pretended revelation from God. By this time he had found that it was of little use to free the body and leave the mind in chains. He had explored the foundations of despotism, and had found them infinitely rotten. He had dug under the throne, and it occurred to him that he would take a look behind the altar.
The result of his investigations was given to the world in the "Age of Reason." From the moment of its publication he became infamous. He was calumniated beyond measure. To slander him was to secure the thanks of the church. All his services were instantly forgotten, disparaged or denied. He was shunned as though he had been a pestilence. Most of his old friends forsook him. He was regarded as a moral plague, and at the bare mention of his name the bloody hands of the church were raised in horror. He was denounced as the most despicable of men.
Not content with following him to his grave, they pursued him after death with redoubled fury, and recounted with infinite gusto and satisfaction the supposed horrors of his death-bed; gloried in the fact that he was forlorn and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what they supposed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely death.
It is wonderful that all his services were thus forgotten. It is amazing that one kind word did not fall from some pulpit; that some one did not accord to him, at least—honesty. Strange, that in the general denunciation some one did not remember his labor for liberty, his devotion to principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men. He had, by brave and splendid effort, associated his name with the cause of Progress. He had made it impossible to write the history of political freedom with his name left out He was one of the creators of light; one of the heralds of the dawn. He hated tyranny in the name of kings, and in the name of God, with every drop of his noble blood. He believed in liberty and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equality. Under these divine banners he fought the battle of his life. In both worlds he offered his blood for the good of man. In the wilderness of America, in the French Assembly, in the sombre cell waiting for death, he was the same unflinching, unwavering friend of his race; the same undaunted champion of universal freedom. And for this he has been hated; for this the church has violated even his grave.
This is enough to make one believe that nothing is more natural than for men to devour their benefactors. The people in all ages have crucified and glorified. Whoever lifts his voice against abuses, whoever arraigns the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the king to show his commission, or questions the authority of the priest, will be denounced as the enemy of man and God. In all ages reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so pleasing to the Deity as a total denial of the authority of your own mind. Self-reliance has been thought a deadly sin; and the idea of living and dying without the aid and consolation of superstition has always horrified the church. By some unaccountable infatuation, belief has been and still is considered of immense importance. All religions have been based upon the idea that God will forever reward the true believer, and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. Belief is regarded as the one essential thing. To practice justice, to love mercy, is not enough. You must believe in some incomprehensible creed. You must say, "Once one is three, and three times one is one." The man who practiced every virtue, but failed to believe, was execrated. Nothing so outrages the feelings of the church as a moral unbeliever—nothing so horrible as a charitable Atheist.
When Paine was born, the world was religious, the pulpit was the real throne, and the churches were making every effort to crush out of the brain the idea that it had the right to think.
The splendid saying of Lord Bacon, that "the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, are the sovereign good of human nature," has been, and ever will be, rejected by religionists. Intellectual liberty, as a matter of necessity, forever destroys the idea that belief is either praise or blame-worthy, and is wholly inconsistent with every creed in Christendom. Paine recognized this truth. He also saw that as long as the Bible was considered inspired, this infamous doctrine of the virtue of belief would be believed and preached. He examined the Scriptures for himself, and found them filled with cruelty, absurdity and immorality.
He again made up his mind to sacrifice himself for the good of his fellow-men.
He commenced with the assertion, "That any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system." What a beautiful, what a tender sentiment! No wonder the church began to hate him. He believed in one God, and no more. After this life he hoped for happiness. He believed that true religion consisted in doing justice, loving mercy, in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy, and in offering to God the fruit of the heart. He denied the inspiration of the Scriptures. This was his crime.
He contended that it is a contradiction in terms to call anything a revelation that comes to us second-hand, either verbally or in writing. He asserted that revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication, and that after that it is only an account of something which another person says was a revelation to him. We have only his word for it, as it was never made to us. This argument never has been and probably never will be answered. He denied the divine origin of Christ, and showed conclusively that the pretended prophecies of the Old Testament had no reference to him whatever; and yet he believed that Christ was a virtuous and amiable man; that the morality he taught and practiced was of the most benevolent and elevated character, and that it had not been exceeded by any. Upon this point he entertained the same sentiments now held by the Unitarians, and in fact by all the most enlightened Christians.
In his time the church believed and taught that every word in the Bible was absolutely true. Since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology, false in its history, and so far as the Old Testament is concerned, false in almost everything. There are but few, if any, scientific men who apprehend that the Bible is literally true. Who on earth at this day would pretend to settle any scientific question by a text from the Bible? The old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. The church itself will before long be driven to occupy the position of Thomas Paine. The best minds of the orthodox world, to-day, are endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal Deity. All other questions occupy a minor place. You are no longer asked to swallow the Bible whole, whale, Jonah and all; you are simply required to believe in God, and pay your pew-rent. There is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that Samson's strength was in his hair, or that the necromancers of Egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. These follies have passed away, and the only reason that the religious world can now have for disliking Paine is that they have been forced to adopt so many of his opinions.
Paine thought the barbarities of the Old Testament inconsistent with what he deemed the real character of God. He believed that murder, massacre and indiscriminate slaughter had never been commanded by the Deity. He regarded much of the Bible as childish, unimportant and foolish The scientific world entertains the same opinion. Paine attacked the Bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions of kings. He used the same weapons. All the pomp in the world could not make him cower. His reason knew no "Holy of Holies," except the abode of Truth. The sciences were then in their infancy. The attention of the really learned had not been directed to an impartial examination of our pretended revelation. It was accepted by most as a matter of course. The church was all-powerful, and no one, unless thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, thought for a moment of disputing the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. The infamous doctrines that salvation depends upon belief—upon a mere intellectual conviction—was then believed and preached. To doubt was to secure the damnation of your soul. This absurd and devilish doctrine shocked the common sense of Thomas Paine, and he denounced it with the fervor of honest indignation. This doctrine, although infinitely ridiculous, has been nearly universal, and has been as hurtful as senseless. For the overthrow of this infamous tenet, Paine exerted all his strength. He left few arguments to be used by those who should come after him, and he used none that have been refuted. The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought. Neither can they show why any one should be punished, either in this world or another, for acting honestly in accordance with reason; and yet a doctrine with every possible argument against it has been, and still is, believed and defended by the entire orthodox world. Can it be possible that we have been endowed with reason simply that our souls may be caught in its toils and snares, that we may be led by its false and delusive glare out of the narrow path that leads to joy into the broad way of everlasting death? Is it possible that we have been given reason simply that we may through faith ignore its deductions, and avoid its conclusions? Ought the sailor to throw away his compass and depend entirely upon the fog? If reason is not to be depended upon in matters of religion, that is to say, in respect of our duties to the Deity, why should it be relied upon in matters respecting the rights of our fellows? Why should we throw away the laws given to Moses by God himself and have the audacity to make some of our own? How dare we drown the thunders of Sinai by calling the ayes and noes in a petty legislature? If reason can determine what is merciful, what is just, the duties of man to man, what more do we want either in time or eternity?
Down, forever down, with any religion that requires upon its ignorant altar the sacrifice of the goddess Reason, that compels her to abdicate forever the shining throne of the soul, strips from her form the imperial purple, snatches from her hand the sceptre of thought and makes her the bond-woman of a senseless faith!
If a man should tell you that he had the most beautiful painting in the world, and after taking you where it was should insist upon having your eyes shut, you would likely suspect, either that he had no painting or that it was some pitiable daub. Should he tell you that he was a most excellent performer on the violin, and yet refuse to play unless your ears were stopped, you would think, to say the least of it, that he had an odd way of convincing you of his musical ability. But would his conduct be any more wonderful than that of a religionist who asks that before examining his creed you will have the kindness to throw away your reason? The first gentleman says, "Keep your eyes shut, my picture will bear everything but being seen;" "Keep your ears stopped, my music objects to nothing but being heard." The last says, "Away with your reason, my religion dreads nothing but being understood."
So far as I am concerned, I most cheerfully admit that most Christians are honest, and most ministers sincere. We do not attack them; we attack their creed. We accord to them the same rights that we ask for ourselves. We believe that their doctrines are hurtful. We believe that the frightful text, "He that believes shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned," has covered the earth with blood. It has filled the heart with arrogance, cruelty and murder. It has caused the religious wars; bound hundreds of thousands to the stake; founded inquisitions; filled dungeons; invented instruments of torture; taught the mother to hate her child; imprisoned the mind; filled the world with ignorance; persecuted the lovers of wisdom; built the monasteries and convents; made happiness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance a blasphemy. It has poisoned the springs of learning; misdirected the energies of the world; filled all countries with want; housed the people in hovels; fed them with famine; and but for the efforts of a few brave Infidels it would have taken the world back to the midnight of barbarism, and left the heavens without a star.
The maligners of Paine say that he had no right to attack this doctrine, because he was unacquainted with the dead languages; and for this reason, it was a piece of pure impudence in him to investigate the Scriptures.
Is it necessary to understand Hebrew in order to know that cruelty is not a virtue, that murder is inconsistent with infinite goodness, and that eternal punishment can be inflicted upon man only by an eternal fiend? Is it really essential to conjugate the Greek verbs before you can make up your mind as to the probability of dead people getting out of their graves? Must one be versed in Latin before he is entitled to express his opinion as to the genuineness of a pretended revelation from God? Common sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. Logic is not confined to, nor has it been buried with, the dead languages. Paine attacked the Bible as it is translated. If the translation is wrong, let its defenders correct it.
The Christianity of Paine's day is not the Christianity of our time. There has been a great improvement since then. One hundred and fifty years ago the foremost preachers of our time would have perished at the stake. A Universalist would have been torn in pieces in England, Scotland, and America. Unitarians would have found themselves in the stocks, pelted by the rabble with dead cats, after which their ears would have been cut off, their tongues bored, and their foreheads branded. Less than one hundred and fifty years ago the following law was in force in Maryland:
"Be it enacted by the Right Honorable, the Lord Proprietor, by and with the advice and consent of his Lordship's governor, and the upper and lower houses of the Assembly, and the authority of the same:
"That if any person shall hereafter, within this province, wittingly, maliciously, and advisedly, by writing or speaking, blaspheme or curse God, or deny our Saviour, Jesus Christ, to be the Son of God, or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the three persons, or the unity of the Godhead, or shall utter any profane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or any of the persons thereof, and shall thereof be convict by verdict, shall, for the first offence, be bored through the tongue, and fined twenty pounds to be levied of his body. And for the second offence, the offender shall be stigmatized by burning in the forehead with the letter B, and fined forty pounds. And that for the third offence the offender shall suffer death without the benefit of clergy."
The strange thing about this law is, that it has never been repealed, and is still in force in the District of Columbia. Laws like this were in force in most of the colonies, and in all countries where the church had power.
In the Old Testament, the death penalty is attached to hundreds of offences. It has been the same in all Christian countries. To-day, in civilized governments, the death penalty is attached only to murder and treason; and in some it has been entirely abolished. What a commentary upon the divine systems of the world!
In the day of Thomas Paine, the church was ignorant, bloody and relentless. In Scotland the "Kirk" was at the summit of its power. It was a full sister of the Spanish Inquisition. It waged war upon human nature. It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the despiser of religious liberty. It taught parents to murder their children rather than to allow them to propagate error. If the mother held opinions of which the infamous "Kirk" disapproved, her children were taken from her arms, her babe from her very bosom, and she was not allowed to see them, or to write them a word. It would not allow shipwrecked sailors to be rescued from drowning on Sunday. It sought to annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling it with religious cruelty and gloom, and to change mankind into a vast horde of pious, heartless fiends. One of the most famous Scotch divines said: "The Kirk holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy." And this same Scotch Kirk denounced, beyond measure, the man who had the moral grandeur to say, "The world is my country, and to do good my religion." And this same Kirk abhorred the man who said, "Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system."
At that time nothing so delighted the church as the beauties of endless torment, and listening to the weak wailings of damned infants struggling in the slimy coils and poison-folds of the worm that never dies.
About the beginning of the nineteenth century, a boy by the name of Thomas Aikenhead, was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for having denied the inspiration of the Scriptures, and for having, on several occasions, when cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm. Notwithstanding the poor boy recanted and begged for mercy, he was found guilty and hanged. His body was thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold and covered with stones.
Prosecutions and executions like this were common in every Christian country, and all of them were based upon the belief that an intellectual conviction is a crime.
No wonder the church hated and traduced the author of the "Age of Reason."
England was filled with Puritan gloom and Episcopal ceremony. All religious conceptions were of the grossest nature. The ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts. Milton had clothed Christianity in the soiled and faded finery of the gods—had added to the story of Christ the fables of Mythology. He gave to the Protestant Church the most outrageously material ideas of the Deity. He turned all the angels into soldiers—made heaven a battlefield, put Christ in uniform, and described God as a militia general. His works were considered by the Protestants nearly as sacred as the Bible itself, and the imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by the horrible imagery, the sublime absurdity of the blind Milton.
Heaven and hell were realities—the judgment-day was expected—books of account would be opened. Every man would hear the charges against him read. God was supposed to sit on a golden throne, surrounded by the tallest angels, with harps in their hands and crowns on their heads. The goats would be thrust into eternal fire on the left, while the orthodox sheep, on the right, were to gambol on sunny slopes forever and forever.
The nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequently extremely religious, so far as belief was concerned.
In Europe, Liberty was lying chained in the Inquisition—her white bosom stained with blood. In the New World the Puritans had been hanging and burning in the name of God, and selling white Quaker children into slavery in the name of Christ, who said, "Suffer little children to come unto me."
Under such conditions progress was impossible. Some one had to lead the way. The church is, and always has been, incapable of a forward movement. Religion always looks back. The church has already reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand-organ, and Ireland to exile.
Some one not connected with the church had to attack the monster that was eating out the heart of the world. Some one had to sacrifice himself for the good of all. The people were in the most abject slavery; their manhood had been taken from them by pomp, by pageantry and power. Progress is born of doubt and inquiry.
The church never doubts—never inquires. To doubt is heresy—to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the church does neither.
More than a century ago Catholisism, wrapped in robes red with the innocent blood of millions, holding in her frantic clutch crowns and scepters, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, trampling beneath her feet the liberties of nations, in the proud moment of almost universal dominion, felt within her heartless breast the deadly dagger of Voltaire. From that blow the church never can recover. Livid with hatred she launched her eternal anathema at the great destroyer, and ignorant Protestants have echoed the curse of Rome.
In our country the church was all-powerful, and although divided into many sects, would instantly unite to repel a common foe.
Paine struck the first grand blow.
The "Age of Reason" did more to undermine the power of the Protestant Church than all other books then known. It furnished an immense amount of food for thought. It was written for the average mind, and is a straightforward, honest investigation of the Bible, and of the Christian system.
Paine did not falter, from the first page to the last. He gives you his candid thought, and candid thoughts are always valuable.
The "Age of Reason" has liberalized us all. It put arguments in the mouths of the people; it put the church on the defensive; it enabled somebody in every village to corner the parson; it made the world wiser, and the church better; it took power from the pulpit and divided it among the pews.
Just in proportion that the human race has advanced, the church has lost power. There is no exception to this rule.
No nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of its founders.
No nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the church without losing its power, its honor, and existence.
Every church pretends to have found the exact truth. This is the end of progress. Why pursue that which you have? Why investigate when you know?
Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bullying the enlightened Present.
The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. Science is too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. They demand completeness. A sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to them. They demand the complete circle—the entire structure.
In music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured periods. In religion they insist upon immediate answers to the questions of creation and destiny. The alpha and omega of all things must be in the alphabet of their superstition. A religion that cannot answer every question, and guess every conundrum is, in their estimation, worse than worthless. They desire a kind of theological dictionary—a religious ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at all crossings and turns. They mistake impudence for authority, solemnity for wisdom, and bathos for inspiration. The beginning and the end are what they demand. The grand flight of the eagle is nothing to them. They want the nest in which he was hatched, and especially the dry limb upon which he roosts. Anything that can be learned is hardly worth knowing. The present is considered of no value in itself. Happiness must not be expected this side of the clouds, and can only be attained by self-denial and faith; not selfdenial for the good of others, but for the salvation of your own sweet self.
Paine denied the authority of bibles and creeds; this was his crime, and for this the world shut the door in his face, and emptied its slops upon him from the windows.
I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever wrote one line, one word in favor of tyranny—in favor of immorality; one line, one word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interest of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity, or liberty, and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell. His memory has been execrated as though he had murdered some Uriah for his wife; driven some Hagar into the desert to starve with his child upon her bosom; defiled his own daughters; ripped open with the sword the sweet bodies of loving and innocent women; advised one brother to assassinate another; kept a harem with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, or had persecuted Christians even unto strange cities.
The church has pursued Paine to deter others. No effort has been in any age of the world spared to crush out opposition. The church used painting, music and architecture, simply to degrade mankind. But there are men that nothing can awe. There have been at all times brave spirits that dared even the gods. Some proud head has always been above the waves. In every age some Diogenes has sacrificed to all the gods. True genius never cowers, and there is always some Samson feeling for the pillars of authority.
Cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants.—temples frescoed and groined and carved, and gilded with gold—altars and tapers, and paintings of virgin and babe—censer and chalice—chasuble, paten and alb—organs, and anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest—maniple, amice and stole—crosses and crosiers, tiaras and crowns—mitres and missals and masses—rosaries, relics and robes—martyrs and saints, and windows stained as with the blood of Christ—never, never for one moment awed the brave, proud spirit of the Infidel. He knew that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with Liberty—that priceless jewel of the soul. In looking at the cathedral he remembered the dungeon. The music of the organ was not loud enough to drown the clank of fetters. He could not forget that the taper had lighted the fagot. He knew that the cross adorned the hilt of the sword, and so where others worshiped, he wept and scorned.
The doubter, the investigator, the Infidel, have been the saviors of liberty. This truth is beginning to be realized, and the truly intellectual are honoring the brave thinkers of the past.
But the church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any Infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power.
I will tell the church why.
You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty; you have burned us at the stake—wasted us upon slow fires—torn our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains—treated us as outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded us with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial. In the name of your religion, you have robbed us of every right; and after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored your God to torment us forever.
Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines—that we despise your creeds—that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power—that we are free in spite of you—that we can express our honest thought, and that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light?
Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that Infidelity has ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience, and for the happiness of all?
Can you wonder that we are proud to know that we have always been disciples of Reason, and soldiers of Freedom; that we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human blood?
We deny that religion is the end or object of this life. When it is so considered it becomes destructive of happiness—the real end of life. It becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible coils from the heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men. It devours their substance, builds palaces for God, (who dwells not in temples made with hands,) and allows his children to die in huts and hovels. It fills the earth with mourning, heaven with hatred, the present with fear, and all the future with despair.
Virtue is a subordination of the passions to the intellect. It is to act in accordance with your highest convictions. It does not consist in believing, but in doing. This is the sublime truth that the Infidels in all ages have uttered. They have handed the torch from one to the other through all the years that have fled. Upon the altar of Reason they have kept the sacred fire, and through the long midnight of faith they fed the divine flame.
Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery. In every creed man is the slave of God—woman is the slave of man and the sweet children are the slaves of all.
We do not want creeds; we want knowledge—we want happiness.
And yet we are told by the church that we have accomplished nothing; that we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without building again.
Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science? Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? Is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream; to see the dull eyes open and grow slowly bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice?
Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of day—to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word—Freedom?
Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of pity—to unbind the martyr from the stake—break all the chains—put out the fires of civil war—stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science?
Is it a small thing to make men truly free—to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice and power—the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of Fear?
It does seem as though the most zealous Christian must at times entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. For more than a thousand years the church had, to a great extent, the control of the civilized world, and what has been the result? Are the Christian nations patterns of charity and forbearance? On the contrary, their principal business is to destroy each other. More than five millions of Christians are trained, educated, and drilled to murder their fellow-christians. Every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred in carrying on war against other Christians, or defending itself from Christian assault. The world is covered with forts to protect Christians from Christians, and every sea is covered with iron monsters ready to blow Christian brains into eternal froth. Millions upon millions are annually expended in the effort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of death. Industry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of Christian warfare. There must be some other way to reform this world. We have tried creed, and dogma and fable, and they have failed; and they have failed in all the nations dead.
The people perish for the lack of knowledge.
Nothing but education—scientific education—can benefit mankind. We must find out the laws of nature and conform to them.
We need free bodies and free minds,—free labor and free thought,—chainless hands and fetterless brains. Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will give us truth.
We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. We need have no fear of being too radical. The future will verify all grand and brave predictions. Paine was splendidly in advance of his time; but he was orthodox compared with the Infidels of to-day.
Science, the great Iconoclast, has been busy since 1809, and by the highway of Progress are the broken images of the Past.
On every hand the people advance. The Vicar of God has been pushed from the throne of the Caesars, and upon the roofs of the Eternal City falls once more the shadow of the Eagle.
All has been accomplished by the heroic few. The men of science have explored heaven and earth, and with infinite patience have furnished the facts. The brave thinkers have used them. The gloomy caverns of superstition have been transformed into temples of thought, and the demons of the past are the angels of to-day.
Science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it explored the starry depths of heaven. Science wrested from the gods their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark, freighted with thought and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea. Science took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, created a giant that turns with tireless arm, the countless wheels of toil.
Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual heroes—one of the men to whom we are indebted. His name is associated forever with the Great Republic. As long as free government exists he will be remembered, admired and honored.
He lived a long, laborious and useful life. The world is better for his having lived. For the sake of truth he accepted hatred and reproach for his portion. He ate the bitter bread of sorrow. His friends were untrue to him because he was true to himself, and true to them. He lost the respect of what is called society, but kept his own. His life is what the world calls failure and what history calls success.
If to love your fellow-men more than self is goodness, Thomas Paine was good.
If to be in advance of your time—to be a pioneer in the direction of right—is greatness, Thomas Paine was great.
If to avow your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of death is heroic, Thomas Paine was a hero.
At the age of seventy-three, death touched his tired heart. He died in the land his genius defended—under the flag he gave to the skies. Slander cannot touch him now—hatred cannot reach him more. He sleeps in the sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars.
A few more years—a few more brave men—a few more rays of light, and mankind will venerate the memory of him who said:
"ANY SYSTEM OF RELIGION THAT SHOCKS THE MIND OF A CHILD CANNOT BE A TRUE SYSTEM;"
"The world is my Country, and to do good my Religion."
ON every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom. Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. We are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training can be summed up in the word—suppression. Our desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. At every turn we run against cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance to the Eden of our desire. We are allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost freedom. We are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superstition. Society offers continual rewards for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some are paid.
We have all read accounts of Christian gentlemen remarking, when about to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had only followed a mother's advice. But after all, how fortunate it is for the world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. How fortunate it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human being to obey. Universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience is one of the conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. Suppose the church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would not the words liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech? In defiance of advice, the world has advanced.
Suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had been left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken the advice of Paul, who said, "be subject to the powers that be, because they are ordained of God;" suppose the church could control the world to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. Philosophy would be branded as infamous; Science would again press its pale and thoughtful face against the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot's flame.
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,—some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church." On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.
The trouble with most people is, they bow to what is called authority; they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time. They think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best of all mankind. All these things they implicitly believe because it is popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very small, and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book. It is hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the direction of superstition. You first teach children that a certain book is true—that it was written by God himself—that to question its truth is a sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without believing that book they will be forever damned without benefit of clergy. The consequence is, that long before they read that book, they believe it to be true. When they do read it their minds are wholly unfitted to investigate its claims. They accept it as a matter of course.
In this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity are blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even justice throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge, and charity, with bloody hands, applauds a deed of murder. In this way we are taught that the revenge of man is the justice of God; that mercy is not the same everywhere. In this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. In this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. In this way the brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings of nature, superstition has scrawled her countless lies. One great trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. They teach as certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. They do not say, "we think this is so," but "we know this is so." They do not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. They keep all doubts to themselves; they do not explain, they assert. All this is infamous. In this way you may make Christians, but you cannot make men; you cannot make women. You can make followers, but no leaders; disciples, but no Christs. You may promise power, honor, and happiness to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise.
A monarch said to a hermit, "Come with me and I will give you power."
"I have all the power that I know how to use" replied the hermit.
"Come," said the king, "I will give you wealth."
"I have no wants that money can supply," said the hermit.
"I will give you honor," said the monarch.
"Ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned," was the hermit's answer.
"Come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and I will give you happiness."
"No," said the man of solitude, "there is no happiness without liberty, and he who follows cannot be free."
"You shall have liberty too," said the king.
"Then I will stay where I am," said the old man.
And all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool.
Now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood, and has the courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious get together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. Wealth sneers, and fashion laughs, and respectability passes by on the other side, and scorn points with all her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superstition writhe and hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury her oath, and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the church kills.
The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. Tyranny likes courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. The church demands worship—the very thing that man should give to no being, human or divine. To worship another is to degrade yourself. Worship is awe and dread and vague fear and blind hope. It is the spirit of worship that elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for robbers, erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its own hands. The spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. The worshiper always regrets that he is not the worshiped. We should all remember that the intellect has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the body may be, the brave soul is always found erect. Whoever worships, abdicates. Whoever believes at the command of power, tramples his own individuality beneath his feet, and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to the brute.
The despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that Christian countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. At one time the same thing could have been truly said in India, in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the world, swept to empire. This argument proves too much not only, but the assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. Numberless circumstances and countless conditions have produced the prosperity of the Christian world. The truth is, we have advanced in spite of religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. The church has won no victories for the rights of man. Luther labored to reform the church—Voltaire, to reform men. Over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the banner of the church. Wherever brave blood has been shed, the sword of the church has been wet. On every chain has been the sign of the cross. The altar and throne have leaned against and supported each other.
All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention, discovery, art, and science. The church has been the enemy of progress, for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man thinking for himself. To prevent thought is to prevent all advancement except in the direction of faith.
Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church assuming to think for the human race? Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church that pretends to be the mouthpiece of God, and in his name threatens to inflict eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and scorn its pretensions? By what right does a man, or an organization of men, or a god, claim to hold a brain in bondage? When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, an appeal to force is infamous. In the presence of the unknown all have an equal right to think.
Over the vast plain, called life, we are all travelers, and not one traveler is perfectly certain that he is going in the right direction. True it is that no other plain is so well supplied with guide-boards. At every turn and crossing you will find them, and upon each one is written the exact direction and distance. One great trouble is, however, that these boards are all different, and the result is that most travelers are confused in proportion to the number they read. Thousands of people are around each of these signs, and each one is doing his best to convince the traveler that his particular board is the only one upon which the least reliance can be placed, and that if his road is taken the reward for so doing will be infinite and eternal, while all the other roads are said to lead to hell, and all the makers of the other guide-boards are declared to be heretics, hypocrites and liars. "Well," says a traveler, "you may be right in what you say, but allow me at least to read some of the other directions and examine a little into their claims. I wish to rely a little upon my own judgment in a matter of so great importance." "No, sir," shouts the zealot, "that is the very thing you are not allowed to do. You must go my way without investigation, or you are as good as damned already." "Well," says the traveler, "if that is so, I believe I had better go your way." And so most of them go along, taking the word of those who know as little as themselves. Now and then comes one who, in spite of all threats, calmly examines the claims of all, and as calmly rejects them all. These travelers take roads of their own, and are denounced by all the others, as infidels and atheists.
Around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the ground is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and bleaching in the rain and sun. They are the bones of murdered men and women—fathers, mothers and babes.
In my judgment, every human being should take a road of his own. Every mind should be true to itself—should think, investigate and conclude for itself. This is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. Every soul should repel dictation and tyranny, no matter from what source they come—from earth or heaven, from men or gods. Besides, every traveler upon this vast plain should give to every other traveler his best idea as to the road that should be taken. Each is entitled to the honest opinion of all. And there is but one way to get an honest opinion upon any subject whatever. The person giving the opinion must be free from fear. The merchant must not fear to lose his custom, the doctor his practice, nor the preacher his pulpit There can be no advance without liberty. Suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression, and must end in intellectual night. The tendency of orthodox religion to-day is toward mental slavery and barbarism. Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.
Is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious convictions? Is any such thing possible? Do we not know that there are no two persons alike in the whole world? No two, trees, no two leaves, no two anythings that are alike? Infinite diversity is the law. Religion tries to force all minds into one mould. Knowing that all cannot believe, the church endeavors to make all say they believe. She longs for the unity of hypocrisy, and detests the splendid diversity of individuality and freedom.
Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. In this sense, every church is a cemetery and every creed an epitaph.
We should all remember that to be like other people is to be unlike ourselves, and that nothing can be more detestable in character than servile imitation. The great trouble with imitation is, that we are apt to ape those who are in reality far below us. After all, the poorest bargain that a human being can make, is to give his individuality for what is called respectability.
There is no saying more degrading than this: "It is better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a dog." It is a responsibility to think and act for yourself. Most people hate responsibility; therefore they join something and become the tail of some lion. They say, "My party can act for me—my church can do my thinking. It is enough for me to pay taxes and obey the lion to which I belong, without troubling myself about the right, the wrong, or the why or the wherefore of anything whatever." These people are respectable. They hate reformers, and dislike exceedingly to have their minds disturbed. They regard convictions as very disagreeable things to have. They love forms, and enjoy, beyond everything else, telling what a splendid tail their lion has, and what a troublesome dog their neighbor is. Besides this natural inclination to avoid personal responsibility, is and always has been, the fact, that every religionist has warned men against the presumption and wickedness of thinking for themselves. The reason has been denounced by all Christendom as the only unsafe guide. The church has left nothing undone to prevent man following the logic of his brain. The plainest facts have been covered with the mantle of mystery. The grossest absurdities have been declared to be self-evident facts. The order of nature has been, as it were, reversed, that the hypocritical few might govern the honest many. The man who stood by the conclusion of his reason was denounced as a scorner and hater of God and his holy church. From the organization of the first church until this moment, to think your own thoughts has been inconsistent with membership. Every member has borne the marks of collar, and chain, and whip. No man ever seriously attempted to reform a church without being cast out and hunted down by the hounds of hypocrisy. The highest crime against a creed is to change it. Reformation is treason.
Thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various churches. What for? In order that they may be prepared to investigate the phenomena by which we are surrounded? No! The object, and the only object, is that they may be prepared to defend a creed; that they may learn the arguments of their respective churches, and repeat them in the dull ears of a thoughtless congregation. If one, after being thus trained at the expense of the Methodists, turns Presbyterian or Baptist, he is denounced as an ungrateful wretch. Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you. The consequence of this is, that most of the theological literature is the result of suppression, of fear, tyranny and hypocrisy.
Every orthodox writer necessarily said to himself, "If I write that, my wife and children may want for bread. I will be covered with shame and branded with infamy; but if I write this, I will gain position, power, and honor. My church rewards defenders, and burns reformers."
Under these conditions all your Scotts, Hen-rys, and McKnights have written; and weighed in these scales, what are their commentaries worth? They are not the ideas and decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms of the paid attorneys of superstition. Who can tell what the world has lost by this infamous system of suppression? How many grand thinkers have died with the mailed hand of superstition upon their lips? How many splendid ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in the poison-coils of that python, the Church!
For thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped convict. To him who had braved the church, every door was shut, every knife was open. To shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust when dying, to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips; these were all crimes, not one of which the church ever did forgive; and with the justice taught of her God, his helpless children were exterminated as scorpions and vipers.
Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to brave the church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of fire,—to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell—her devil and her God? They were the noblest sons of earth. They were the real saviors of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the creators of Science. They were the real Titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods.
The church has been, and still is, the great robber. She has rifled not only the pockets but the brains of the world. She is the stone at the sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man has withered; the Gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned to stone. Under her influence even the Protestant mother expects to be happy in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights of man, shall writhe in hell.
It is said that some of the Indian tribes place the heads of their children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is permanently changed. To us this seems a most shocking custom; and yet, after all, is it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the strait-jacket of a creed? to so utterly deform their minds that they regard the God of the Bible as a being of infinite mercy, and really consider it a virtue to believe a thing just because it seems unreasonable? Every child in the Christian world has uttered its wondering protest against this outrage. All the machinery of the church is constantly employed in corrupting the reason of children. In every possible way they are robbed of their own thoughts and forced to accept the statements of others. Every Sunday school has for its object the crushing out of every germ of individuality. The poor children are taught that nothing can be more acceptable to God than unreasoning obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe God did an impossible act, is far better than to do a good one yourself. They are told that all religions have been simply the John-the-Baptists of ours; that all the gods of antiquity have withered and shrunken into the Jehovah of the Jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are realized in the motto of the Evangelical Alliance, "Liberty in non-essentials", that all there is, or ever was, of religion can be found in the apostles' creed; that there is nothing left to be discovered; that all the thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers; that we have only to repeat the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that grave-yards are the best possible universities, and that the children must be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers.
It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. He certainly would now and then be tempted to make the same remark made by an English gentleman to his poor guest. The gentleman had invited a man in humble circumstances to dine with him. The man was so overcome with the honor that to everything the gentleman said he replied "Yes." Tired at last with the monotony of acquiescence, the gentleman cried out, "For God's sake, my good man, say 'No,' just once, so there will be two of us."
Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish them; that all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist barnacles, petrified Presbyterians and Methodist mummies? I want no heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar even of a god.
Religion does not, and cannot, contemplate man as free. She accepts only the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand erect. She cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. The wide and sunny fields belong not to her domain. The star-lit heights of genius and individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. Her subjects cringe at her feet, covered with the dust of obedience.
They are not athletes standing posed by rich life and brave endeavor like antique statues, but shriveled deformities, studying with furtive glance the cruel face of power.
No religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. There is this difference between thought and action: for our actions we are responsible to ourselves and to those injuriously affected; for thoughts, there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to gods or men, here or hereafter. And yet the Protestant has vied with the Catholic in denouncing freedom of thought; and while I was taught to hate Catholicism with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to say, that in all essential particulars it is precisely the same as every other religion. Luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and brutal vigor of his nature; Calvin despised, from the very bottom of his petrified heart, anything that even looked like religious toleration, and solemnly declared that to advocate it was to crucify Christ afresh. All the founders of all the orthodox churches have advocated the same infamous tenet. The truth is, that what is called religion is necessarily inconsistent with free thought A believer is a bird in a cage, a Freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.
At present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious liberty. Of these churches, we will ask this question: How can a man, who conscientiously believes in religious liberty, worship a God who does not? They say to us: "We will not imprison you on account of your belief, but our God will." "We will not burn you because you throw away the sacred Scriptures, but their author will." "We think it an infamous crime to persecute our brethren for opinion's sake,—but the God, whom we ignorantly worship, will on that account, damn his own children forever."
Why is it that these Christians not only detest the infidels, but cordially despise each other? Why do they refuse to worship in the temples of each other? Why do they care so little for the damnation of men, and so much for the baptism of children? Why will they adorn their churches with the money of thieves and flatter vice for the sake of subscriptions? Why will they attempt to bribe Science to certify to the writings of God? Why do they torture the words of the great into an acknowledgment of the truth of Christianity? Why do they stand with hat in hand before presidents, kings, emperors, and scientists, begging, like Lazarus, for a few crumbs of religious comfort? Why are they so delighted to find an allusion to Providence in the message of Lincoln? Why are they so afraid that some one will find out that Paley wrote an essay in favor of the Epicurean philosophy, and that Sir Isaac Newton was once an infidel? Why are they so anxious to show that Voltaire recanted; that Paine died palsied with fear; that the Emperor Julian cried out "Galilean, thou hast conquered"; that Gibbon died a Catholic; that Agassiz had a little confidence in Moses; that the old Napoleon was once complimentary enough to say that he thought Christ greater than himself or Cæsar; that Washington was caught on his knees at Valley Forge; that blunt old Ethan Allen told his child to believe the religion of her mother; that Franklin said, "Don't unchain the tiger," and that Volney got frightened in a storm at sea?
Is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its fall, and because Science has written over the high altar its mene, mene, tekel, upharsin—the old words, destined to be the epitaph of all religions?
Every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt,—Wesley, toward John Stuart Mill. To really reform the church is to destroy it. Every new religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of Science is but a question of time.
I will not say the church has been an unmitigated evil in all respects. Its history is infamous and glorious. It has delighted in the production of extremes. It has furnished murderers for its own martyrs. It has sometimes fed the body, but has always starved the soul. It has been a charitable highwayman—a profligate beggar—a generous pirate. It has produced some angels and a multitude of devils. It has built more prisons than asylums. It made a hundred orphans while it cared for one. In one hand it has carried the alms-dish and in the other a sword. It has founded schools and endowed universities for the purpose of destroying true learning. It filled the world with hypocrites and zealots, and upon the cross of its own Christ it crucified the individuality of man. It has sought to destroy the independence of the soul and put the world upon its knees. This is its crime. The commission of this crime was necessary to its existence. In order to compel obedience it declared that it had the truth, and all the truth; that God had made it the keeper of his secrets; his agent and his vicegerent. It declared that all other religions were false and infamous. It rendered all compromise impossible and all thought superfluous. Thought was its enemy, obedience was its friend. Investigation was fraught with danger; therefore investigation was suppressed. The holy of holies was behind the curtain. All this was upon the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an expert, and that imposture detests curiosity.
"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," has always been the favorite text of the church.
In short, Christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the human race. Across the highway of progress it has always been building breastworks of Bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayer-books, creeds, dogmas and platforms, and at every advance the Christians have gathered together behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of malice at the soldiers of freedom.
And even the liberal Christian of to-day has his holy of holies, and in the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. He still clings to a part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. We associate the memory of those we love with the religion of our childhood. It seems almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers worshiped, and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the fables of barbarism. Some throw away the Old Testament and cling to the New, while others give up everything except the idea that there is a personal God, and that in some wonderful way we are the objects of his care.
Even this, in my opinion, as Science, the great iconoclast, marches onward, will have to be abandoned with the rest. The great ghost will surely share the fate of the little ones. They fled at the first appearance of the dawn, and the other will vanish with the perfect day. Until then the independence of man is little more than a dream. Overshadowed by an immense personality, in the presence of the irresponsible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and he falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. Beneath the frown of the absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave,—beneath his smile he is at best only a fortunate serf. Governed by a being whose arbitrary will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the pleasure of the unknown. Under these circumstances, what wretched object can he have in lengthening out his aimless life?
And yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of the gods—a shrinking from the malice of the skies. Our fathers were slaves, and nearly all their children are mental serfs. The enfranchisement of the soul is a slow and painful process. Superstition, the mother of those hideous twins, Fear and Faith, from her throne of skulls, still rules the world, and will until the mind of woman ceases to be the property of priests.
When women reason, and babes sit in the lap of philosophy, the victory of reason over the shadowy host of darkness will be complete.
In the minds of many, long after the intellect has thrown aside as utterly fabulous the legends of the church, there still remains a lingering suspicion, born of the mental habits contracted in childhood, that after all there may be a grain of truth in these mountains of theological mist, and that possibly the superstitious side is the side of safety.
A gentleman, walking among the ruins of Athens, came upon a fallen statue of Jupiter; making an exceedingly low bow he said: "O Jupiter! I salute thee." He then added: "Should you ever sit upon the throne of heaven again, do not, I pray you, forget that I treated you politely when you were prostrate."
We have all been taught by the church that nothing is so well calculated to excite the ire of the Deity as to express a doubt as to his existence, and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin. Numerous well-attested instances are referred to of atheists being struck dead for denying the existence of God. According to these religious people, God is infinitely above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and yet he cannot bear to hear a poor finite man honestly question his existence. Knowing, as he does, that his children are groping in darkness and struggling with doubt and fear; knowing that he could enlighten them if he would, he still holds the expression of a sincere doubt as to his existence, the most infamous of crimes. According to orthodox logic, God having furnished us with imperfect minds, has a right to demand a perfect result.
Suppose Mr. Smith should overhear a couple of small bugs holding a discussion as to the existence of Mr. Smith, and suppose one should have the temerity to declare, upon the honor of a bug, that he had examined the whole question to the best of his ability, including the argument based upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the name of Smith had ever lived. Think then of Mr. Smith flying into an ecstasy of rage, crushing the atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while he exclaimed, "I will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that Smith is a diabolical fact!" What then can we think of a God who would open the artillery of heaven upon one of his own children for simply expressing his honest thought? And what man who really thinks can help repeating the words of Ennius: "If there are gods they certainly pay no attention to the affairs of man."
Think of the millions of men and women who have been destroyed simply for loving and worshiping this God. Is it possible that this God, having infinite power, saw his loving and heroic children languishing in the darkness of dungeons; heard the clank of their chains when they lifted their hands to him in the agony of prayer; saw them stretched upon the bigot's rack, where death alone had pity; saw the serpents of flame crawl hissing round their shrinking forms—-saw all this for sixteen hundred years, and sat as silent as a stone?
From such a God, why should man expect assistance? Why should he waste his days in fruitless prayer? Why should he fall upon his knees and implore a phantom—a phantom that is deaf, and dumb, and blind?
Although we live in what is called a free government,—and politically we are free,—there is but little religious liberty in America. Society demands, either that you belong to some church, or that you suppress your opinions. It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon that book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. And yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the infamous laws of Jehovah. Such judges are the Jeffries of the church. They believe that decisions, made by hirelings at the bidding of kings, are binding upon man forever. They regard old law as far superior to modern justice. They are what might be called orthodox judges. They spend their days in finding out, not what ought to be, but what has been. With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night. There is only one future event with which they concern themselves, and that is their reelection. No honest court ever did, or ever will, decide that our Constitution is Christian. The Bible teaches that the powers that be, are ordained of God. The Bible teaches that God is the source of all authority, and that all kings have obtained their power from him. Every tyrant has claimed to be the agent of the Most High. The Inquisition was founded, not in the name of man, but in the name of God. All the governments of Europe recognize the greatness of God, and the littleness of the people. In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings.
The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of slavery—through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the acknowledged ruler of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone him.
To Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, are we indebted, more than to all others, for a human government, and for a Constitution in which no God is recognized superior to the legally expressed will of the people.
They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality and liberty of all; to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.
Notwithstanding all this, the spirit of persecution still lingers in our laws. In many of the States, only those who believe in the existence of some kind of God, are under the protection of the law.
The supreme court of Illinois decided, in the year of grace 1856, that an unbeliever in the existence of an intelligent First Cause could not be allowed to testify in any court. His wife and children might have been murdered before his very face, and yet in the absence of other witnesses, the murderer could not have even been indicted. The atheist was a legal outcast. To him, Justice was not only blind, but deaf. He was liable, like other men, to support the Government, and was forced to contribute his share towards paying the salaries of the very judges who decided that under no circumstances could his voice be heard in any court. This was the law of Illinois, and so remained until the adoption of the new Constitution. By such infamous means has the church endeavored to chain the human mind, and protect the majesty of her God. The fact is, we have no national religion, and no national God; but every citizen is allowed to have a religion and a God of his own, or to reject all religions and deny the existence of all gods. The church, however, never has, and never will understand and appreciate the genius of our Government.
Last year, in a convention of Protestant bigots, held in the city of New York for the purpose of creating public opinion in favor of a religious amendment to the Federal Constitution, a reverend doctor of divinity, speaking of atheists, said: "What are the rights of the atheist? I would tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic. I would tolerate him as I would tolerate a conspirator. He may live and go free, hold his lands and enjoy his home—he may even vote; but for any higher or more advanced citizenship, he is, as I hold, utterly disqualified." These are the sentiments of the church to-day.
Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men.
In religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and steady development At the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern times) is Catholicism, and at the top is Science. The intermediate rounds of this ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is legion.
But whatever may be the truth upon any subject has nothing to do with-our right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may form. All that I ask, is the same right I freely accord to all others.
A few years ago a Methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a piece of friendly advice. "Although you may disbelieve the Bible," said he, "you ought not to say so. That, you should keep to yourself."
"Do you believe the Bible," said I.
He replied, "Most assuredly".
To which I retorted, "Your answer conveys no information to me. You may be following your own advice. You told me to suppress my opinions. Of course a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be particular about telling the truth himself."
There can be nothing more utterly subversive of all that is really valuable than the suppression of honest thought. No man, worthy of the form he bears, will at the command of church or state solemnly repeat a creed his reason scorns.
It is the duty of each and every one to maintain his individuality. "This above all, to thine ownself be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." It is a magnificent thing to be the sole proprietor of yourself. It is a terrible thing to wake up at night and say, "There is nobody in this bed." It is humiliating to know that your ideas are all borrowed; that you are indebted to your memory for your principles; that your religion is simply one of your habits, and that you would have convictions if they were only contagious. It is mortifying to feel that you belong to a mental mob and cry "crucify him," because the others do; that you reap what the great and brave have sown, and that you can benefit the world only by leaving it.
Surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the unit. Surely it is worth something to be one, and to feel that the census of the universe would be incomplete without counting you. Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee and upon no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself.
WHOEVER has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. This word was born of the hatred, arrogance and cruelty of those who love their enemies, and who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. This word was born of intellectual slavery in the feudal ages of thought It was an epithet used in the place of argument. From the commencement of the Christian era, every art has been exhausted and every conceivable punishment inflicted to force all people to hold the same religious opinions. This effort was born of the idea that a certain belief was necessary to the salvation of the soul. Christ taught, and the church still teaches, that unbelief is the blackest of crimes. God is supposed to hate with an infinite and implacable hatred, every heretic upon the earth, and the heretics who have died are supposed at this moment to be suffering the agonies of the damned. The church persecutes the living and her God burns the dead.
It is claimed that God wrote a book called the Bible, and it is generally admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand. As long as the church had all the copies of this book, and the people were not allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in the world; but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to differ as to its meaning. A few were independent and brave enough to give the world their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these men the church used all her power. Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in the work of enslaving the human mind. For ages they were rivals in the infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people. They infested every country, every city, town, hamlet and family. They appealed to the worst passions of the human heart They sowed the seeds of discord and hatred in every land. Brother denounced brother, wives informed against their husbands, mothers accused their children, dungeons were crowded with the innocent; the flesh of the good and true rotted in the clasp of chains; the flames devoured the heroic, and in the name of the most merciful God, his children were exterminated with famine, sword, and fire. Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus Christ. For sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. The ingenuity of Christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever.
Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power. Why should the church pity a man whom her God hates? Why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her God will burn in eternal fire? Why should a Christian be better than his God? It is impossible for the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity than has been perpetrated by the church. Every nerve in the human body capable of pain has been sought out and touched by the church.
Let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted heretics to the extent of their power. Toleration has increased only when and where the power of the church has diminished. From Augustine until now the spirit of the Christians has remained the same. There has been the same intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves, and the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge inconsistent with an ignorant creed.
Every church pretends that it has a revelation from God, and that this revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with a revelation—not from God—but from the church. Had the people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have been but one church, and that church never could have advanced. It might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think or investigate in order to forget. Without heresy there could have been no progress.
The highest type of the orthodox Christian does not forget; neither does he learn. He neither advances nor recedes. He is a living fossil embedded in that rock called faith. He makes no effort to better his condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other people from improving theirs. The supreme desire of his heart is to force all others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this object he denounces free thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy. When he had power, heresy was the most terrible and formidable of words. It meant confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death.
In those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. Across the open Bible lay the sword and fagot. Not content with burning such heretics as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order that the church might rob their wives and children. The property of all heretics was confiscated, and on this account they charged the dead with being heretical—indicted, as it were, their dust—to the end that the church might clutch the bread of orphans. Learned divines discussed the propriety of tearing out the tongues of heretics before they were burned, and the general opinion was, that this ought to be done so that the heretics should not be able, by uttering blasphemies, to shock the Christians who were burning them. With a mixture of ferocity and Christianity, the priests insisted that heretics ought to be burned at a slow fire, giving as a reason that more time was given them for repentance.
No wonder that Jesus Christ said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword."
Every priest regarded himself as the agent of God. He answered all questions by authority, and to treat him with disrespect was an insult offered to God. No one was asked to think, but all were commanded to obey.
In 1208 the Inquisition was established. Seven years afterward, the fourth council of the Lateran enjoined all kings and rulers to swear an oath that they would exterminate heretics from their dominions. The sword of the church was unsheathed, and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted upon the agonies they inflicted. Acting, as they believed, or pretended to believe, under the command of God; stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world—hating heretics with every drop of their bestial blood; savage beyond description; merciless beyond conception,—these infamous priests, in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. They crushed their bones in iron boots; tore their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pincers; cut off their lips and eyelids; pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles; tore out their tongues; extinguished their eyes; stretched them upon racks; flayed them alive; crucified them with their heads downward; exposed them to wild beasts; burned them at the stake; mocked their cries and groans; ravished their wives; robbed their children, and then prayed God to finish the holy work in hell.
Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. The Catholic burned the Lutheran, the Lutheran burned the Catholic, the Episcopalian tortured the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the Episcopalian. Every denomination killed all it could of every other; and each Christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other Christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed.
In the reign of Henry VIII.—that pious and moral founder of the apostolic Episcopal Church,—there was passed by the parliament of England an act entitled "An act for abolishing of diversity of opinion." And in this act was set forth what a good Christian was obliged to believe: First, That in the sacrament was the real body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Second, That the body and blood of Jesus Christ was in the bread, and the blood and body of Jesus Christ was in the wine.
Third, That priests should not marry.
Fourth, That vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation.
Fifth, That private masses ought to be continued; and,
Sixth, That auricular confession to a priest must be maintained.
This creed was made by law, in order that all men might know just what to believe by simply reading the statute. The church hated to see the people wearing out their brains in thinking upon these subjects. It was thought far better that a creed should be made by parliament, so that whatever might be lacking in evidence might be made up in force. The punishment for denying the first article was death by fire. For the denial of any other article, imprisonment, and for the second offence—death.
Your attention is called to these six articles, established during the reign of Henry VIII., and by the Church of England, simply because not one of these articles is believed by that church to-day. If the law then made by the church could be enforced now, every Episcopalian would be burned at the stake.
Similar laws were passed in most Christian countries, as all orthodox churches firmly believed that mankind could be legislated into heaven. According to the creed of every church, slavery leads to heaven, liberty leads to hell. It was claimed that God had founded the church, and that to deny the authority of the church was to be a traitor to God, and consequently an ally of the devil. To torture and destroy one of the soldiers of Satan was a duty no good Christian cared to neglect. Nothing can be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of God by killing your own enemies. Such a mingling of profit and revenge, of heaven for yourself and damnation for those you dislike, is a temptation that your ordinary Christian never resists.
According to the theologians, God, the Father of us all, wrote a letter to his children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land, where this letter from God has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has been measured only by her power. During all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of a serpent: such is the history of the Church of God.
I do not say, and I do not believe, that Christians are as bad as their creeds. In spite of church and dogma, there have been millions and millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous promptings of the human heart. They have been true to their convictions, and, with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none, have labored and suffered for the salvation of men. Imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could rescue at least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have cheerfully endured every hardship and scorned every danger. And yet, notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error was a crime. They knew that the Bible so declared, and they believed that all unbelievers would be eternally lost. They believed that religion was of God, and all heresy of the devil. They killed heretics in defence of their own souls and the souls of their children. They killed them because, according to their idea, they were the enemies of God, and because the Bible teaches that the blood of the unbeliever is a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven.
Nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her child into the Ganges. Nature never prompted men to exterminate each other for a difference of opinion concerning the baptism of infants. These crimes have been produced by religions filled with all that is illogical, cruel and hideous. These religions were produced for the most part by ignorance, tyranny and hypocrisy. Under the impression that the infinite ruler and creator of the universe had commanded the destruction of heretics and infidels, the church perpetrated all these crimes.
Men and women have been burned for thinking there is but one God; that there was none; that the Holy Ghost is younger than God; that God was somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a man without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be burned eternally, because its parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as though he had a nose; for denying that Christ was his own father; for contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that God is an essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing at irresistible grace, predestination and particular redemption; for denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for pretending that the pope was not managing this world for God, and in the place of God; for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for thinking the Virgin Mary was born like other people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good-sized woman; for denying that God used his finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not answered, that diseases are not sent to punish unbelief; for denying the authority of the Bible; for having a Bible in their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend; for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a Catholic, and for being a Protestant; for being an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Baptist, and for being a Quaker. In short, every virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. The church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy. And all this, because it was commanded by a book—a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long, before they knew one word that was in it They had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book—to examine it, even—was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next The Bible was the real persecutor. The Bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men.
How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?
Unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, a man by the name of Gerard Chauvin was married to Jeanne Lefranc, and still more unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this marriage was a son, called John Chauvin, who afterwards became famous as John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church.
This man forged five fetters for the brain. These fetters he called points. That is to say, predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. About the neck of each follower he put a collar bristling with these five iron points. The presence of all these points on the collar is still the test of orthodoxy in the church he founded. This man, when in the flush of youth, was elected to the office of preacher in Geneva. He at once, in union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of the Presbyterian doctrine, and all the citizens of Geneva, on pain of banishment, were compelled to take an oath that they believed this statement. Of this proceeding Calvin very innocently remarked that it produced great satisfaction. A man named Caroli had the audacity to dispute with Calvin. For this outrage he was banished.
To show you what great subjects occupied the attention of Calvin, it is only necessary to state that he furiously discussed the question as to whether the sacramental bread should be leavened or unleavened. He drew up laws regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and prescribing their diet, and all those whose garments were not in the Calvin fashion were refused the sacrament. At last, the people becoming tired of this petty theological tyranny, banished Calvin. In a few years, however, he was recalled and received with great enthusiasm. After this he was supreme, and the will of Calvin became the law of Geneva.
Under his benign administration, James Gruet was beheaded because he had written some profane verses. The slightest word against Calvin or his absurd doctrines was punished as a crime.
In 1553 a man was tried at Vienne by the Catholic Church for heresy. He was convicted and sentenced to death by burning. It was apparently his good fortune to escape. Pursued by the sleuth hounds of intolerance he fled to Geneva for protection. A dove flying from hawks, sought safety in the nest of a vulture. This fugitive from the cruelty of Rome asked shelter from John Calvin, who had written a book in favor of religious toleration. Servetus had forgotten that this book was written by Calvin when in the minority; that it was written in weakness to be forgotten in power; that it was produced by fear instead of principle. He did not know that Calvin had caused his arrest at Vienne, in France, and had sent a copy of his work, which was claimed to be blasphemous, to the archbishop. He did not then know that the Protestant Calvin was acting as one of the detectives of the Catholic Church, and had been instrumental in procuring his conviction for heresy. Ignorant of all this unspeakable infamy, he put himself in the power of this very Calvin. The maker of the Presbyterian creed caused the fugitive Serve-tus to be arrested for blasphemy. He was tried. Calvin was his accuser. He was convicted and condemned to death by fire. On the morning of the fatal day, Calvin saw him, and Servetus, the victim, asked forgiveness of Calvin, the murderer. Servetus was bound to the stake, and the fagots were lighted. The wind carried the flames somewhat away from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. Vainly he implored a speedy death. At last the flames climbed round his form; through smoke and fire his murderers saw a white heroic face. And there they watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass.
Liberty was banished from Geneva, and nothing but Presbyterianism was left. Honor, justice, mercy, reason and charity were all exiled, but the five points of predestination, particular redemption, irresistible grace, total depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints remained instead.
Calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the Old Testament, and succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed, except the one from which it was copied.
Against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised his voice. The name of this man should never be forgotten. It was Castalio. This brave man had the goodness and the courage to declare the innocence of honest error. He was the first of the so-called reformers to take this noble ground. I wish I had the genius to pay a fitting tribute to his memory. Perhaps it would be impossible to pay him a grander compliment than to say, Castalio was in all things the opposite of Calvin. To plead for the right of individual judgment was considered a crime, and Castalio was driven from Geneva by John Calvin. By him he was denounced as a child of the devil, as a dog of Satan, as a beast from hell, and as one who, by this horrid blasphemy of the innocence of honest error, crucified Christ afresh, and by him he was pursued until rescued by the hand of death.
Upon the name of Castalio, Calvin heaped every epithet, until his malice was nearly satisfied and his imagination entirely exhausted. It is impossible to conceive how human nature can become so frightfully perverted as to pursue a fellow-man with the malignity of a fiend, simply because he is good, just, and generous.
Calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless, and infamous. He was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. In other words, he was as near like the God of the Old Testament as his health permitted.
The best thing, however, about the Presbyterians of Geneva was, that they denied the power of the Pope, and the best thing about the Pope was, that he was not a Presbyterian.
The doctrines of Calvin spread rapidly, and were eagerly accepted by multitudes on the continent; but Scotland, in a few years, became the real fortress of Presbyterianism. The Scotch succeeded in establishing the same kind of theocracy that flourished in Geneva. The clergy took possession and control of everybody and everything. It is impossible to exaggerate the mental degradation, the abject superstition of the people of Scotland during the reign of Presbyterianism. Heretics were hunted and devoured as though they had been wild beasts. The gloomy insanity of Presbyterianism took possession of a great majority of the people. They regarded their ministers as the Jews did Moses and Aaron. They believed that they were the especial agents of God, and that whatsoever they bound in Scotland would be bound in heaven. There was not one particle of intellectual freedom. No man was allowed to differ with the church, or to even contradict a priest. Had Presbyterianism maintained its ascendency, Scotland would have been peopled by savages to-day.
The revengeful spirit of Calvin took possession of the Puritans, and caused them to redden the soil of the New World with the brave blood of honest men. Clinging to the five points of Calvin, they too established governments in accordance with the teachings of the Old Testament. They too attached the penalty of death to the expression of honest thought. They too believed their church supreme, and exerted all their power to curse this continent with a spiritual despotism as infamous as it was absurd. They believed with Luther that universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal hell. Toleration was denounced as a crime.
Fortunately for us, civilization has had a softening effect even upon the Presbyterian Church. To the ennobling influence of the arts and sciences the savage spirit of Calvinism has, in some slight degree, succumbed. True, the old creed remains substantially as it was written, but by a kind of tacit understanding it has come to be regarded as a relic of the past. The cry of "heresy" has been growing fainter and fainter, and, as a consequence, the ministers of that denomination have ventured, now and then, to express doubts as to the damnation of infants, and the doctrine of total depravity. The fact is, the old ideas became a little monotonous to the people. The fall of man, the scheme of redemption and irresistible grace, began to have a familiar sound. The preachers told the old stories while the congregations slept Some of the ministers became tired of these stories themselves. The five points grew dull, and they felt that nothing short of irresistible grace could bear this endless repetition. The outside world was full of progress, and in every direction men advanced, while this church, anchored to a creed, idly rotted at the shore. Other denominations, imbued some little with the spirit of investigation, were springing up on every side, while the old Presbyterian ark rested on the Ararat of the past, filled with the theological monsters of another age.
Lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by the achievements of science, longing to feel the throb and beat of the mighty march of the human race, a few of the ministers of this conservative denomination were compelled, by irresistible sense, to say a few words in harmony with the splendid ideas of to-day.
These utterances have upon several occasions so nearly wakened some of the members that, rubbing their eyes, they have feebly inquired whether these grand ideas were not somewhat heretical. These ministers found that just in the proportion that their orthodoxy decreased, their congregations increased. Those who dealt in the pure unadulterated article found themselves demonstrating the five points to a less number of hearers than they had points. Stung to madness by this bitter truth, this galling contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox have raised the cry of heresy, and expect with this cry to seal the lips of honest men. One of the Presbyterian ministers, and one who has been enjoying the luxury of a little honest thought, and the real rapture of expressing it, has already been indicted, and is about to be tried by the Presbytery of Illinois. He is charged—
First. With having neglected to preach that most comforting and consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul.
Surely, that man must be a monster who could wish to blot this blessed doctrine out and rob earth's wretched children of this blissful hope!
Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted—of the tears it has caused—of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in the universe. Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. Lower than this the soul can never sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate of the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men.
Second. With having spoken a few kind words of Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill.
I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with Robert Collyer. I have read with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. He has a brain full of the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet and the sincere heart of a child.
Is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and candid adversary? Is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an advocate of liberty; one who devotes his life to the elevation of man, the discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believes to be right?
Can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying and heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave of John Stuart Mill? Is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute to departed worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the sanctity of the tomb, dig open the grave and ask his God to curse the silent dust? Is Presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its barbaric creed? Does it still retain within its stony heart all the malice of its founder? Is it still warming its fleshless hands at the flames that consumed Servetus? Does it still glory in the damnation of infants, and does it still persist in emptying the cradle in order that perdition may be filled? Is it still starving the soul and famishing the heart? Is it still trembling and shivering, crouching and crawling before its ignorant Confession of Faith?
Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill been present at the burning of Servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their tears. Had the presbytery of Chicago been there, they would have quietly turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat tails, and warmed themselves.
Third. With having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of predestination.
If there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination is that doctrine. Surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing, to one who is laboring, struggling, and suffering in this weary world, to think that before he existed; before the earth was; before a star had glittered in the heavens; before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain.
Fourth. With failing to preach the efficacy of a "vicarious sacrifice."
Suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be hanged—the governor acting as the executioner; and suppose that just as the doomed man was about to suffer death some one in the crowd should step forward and say, "I am willing to die in the place of that murderer. He has a family, and I have none." And suppose further, that the governor should reply, "Come forward, young man, your offer is accepted. A murder has been committed and somebody must be hung, and your death will satisfy the law just as well as the death of the murderer." What would you then think of the doctrine of "vicarious sacrifice"?
This doctrine is the consummation of two outrages—forgiving one crime and committing another.
Fifth. With having inculcated a phase of the doctrine commonly known as "evolution," or "development".
The church believes and teaches the exact opposite of this doctrine. According to the philosophy of theology, man has continued to degenerate for six thousand years. To teach that there is that in nature which impels to higher forms and grander ends, is heresy, of course. The Deity will damn Spencer and his "Evolution," Darwin and his "Origin of Species," Bastian and his "Spontaneous Generation," Huxley and his "Protoplasm," Tyndall and his "Prayer Gauge," and will save those, and those only, who declare that the universe has been cursed, from the smallest atom to the grandest star; that everything tends to evil and to that only, and that the only perfect thing in nature is the Presbyterian Confession of Faith.
Sixth. With having intimated that the reception of Socrates and Penelope at heaven's gate was, to say the least, a trifle more cordial than that of Catharine II.
Penelope, waiting patiently and trustfully for her lord's return, delaying her suitors, while sadly weaving and unweaving the shroud of Laertes, is the most perfect type of wife and woman produced by the civilization of Greece.
Socrates, whose life was above reproach and whose death was beyond all praise, stands to-day, in the estimation of every thoughtful man, at least the peer of Christ.
Catharine II. assassinated her husband. Stepping upon his corpse, she mounted the throne. She was the murderess of Prince Iwan, grand nephew of Peter the Great, who was imprisoned for eighteen years, and who during all that time saw the sky but once. Taken all in all, Catharine was probably one of the most intellectual beasts that ever wore a crown.
Catharine, however, was the head of the Greek Church, Socrates was a heretic and Penelope lived and died without having once heard of "particular redemption" or of "irresistible grace."
Seventh. With repudiating the idea of a "call" to the ministry, and pretending that men were "called" to preach as they were to the other avocations of life.
If this doctrine is true, God, to say the least of it, is an exceedingly poor judge of human nature. It is more than a century since a man of true genius has been found in an orthodox pulpit. Every minister is heretical just to the extent that intellect is above the average. The Lord seems to be satisfied with mediocrity; but the people are not.
An old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular preacher, advised him to give up the ministry and turn his attention to something else. The preacher replied that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit, as he had had a "call" to the ministry. To which the deacon replied, "That may be so, but it's very unfortunate for you, that when God called you to preach, he forgot to call anybody to hear you."
There is nothing more stupidly egotistic than the claim of the clergy that they are, in some divine sense set apart to the service of the Lord; that they have been chosen, and sanctified; that there is an infinite difference between them and persons employed in secular affairs. They teach us that all other professions must take care of themselves; that God allows anybody to be a doctor, a lawyer, statesman, soldier, or artist; that the Motts and Coopers—the Mansfields and Marshalls—the Wilberforces and Sumners—the Angelos and Raphaels, were never honored by a "call." They chose their professions and won their laurels without the assistance of the Lord. All these men were left free to follow their own inclinations, while God was busily engaged selecting and "calling" priests, rectors, elders, ministers and exhorters.
Eighth. With having doubted that God was the author of the 109th Psalm.
The portion of that psalm which carries with it the clearest and most satisfactory evidences of inspiration, and which has afforded almost unspeakable consolation to the Presbyterian Church, is as follows:
Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand.
When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin.
Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the stranger spoil his labor.
Let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
Let his posterity be cut off: and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for Thy name's sake; because Thy mercy is good, deliver Thou me.... I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth.
Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer. Think of one infamous enough to answer it.
Had this inspired psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments.
No wonder that the author of this inspired psalm coldly received Socrates and Penelope, and reserved his sweetest smiles for Catharine the Second.
Ninth. With having said that the battles in which the Israelites engaged, with the approval and command of Jehovah, surpassed in cruelty those of Julius Cæsar.
Was it Julius Cæsar who said, "And the Lord our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain"?
Did Julius Cæsar send the following report to the Roman senate? "And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, three-score cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many. And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city."
Did Cæsar take the city of Jericho "and utterly destroy all that was in the city, both men and women, young and old"? Did he smite "all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings, and leave none remaining that breathed, as the Lord God had commanded"?
Search the records of the whole world, find out the history of every barbarous tribe, and you can find no crime that touched a lower depth of infamy than those the Bible's God commanded and approved. For such a God I have no words to express my loathing and contempt, and all the words in all the languages of man would scarcely be sufficient. Away with such a God! Give me Jupiter rather, with Io and Europa, or even Siva with his skulls and snakes.
Tenth. With having repudiated the doctrine of "total depravity."
What a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity of the human heart! How sweet it is to believe that the lives of all the good and great were continual sins and perpetual crimes; that the love a mother bears her child is, in the sight of God, a sin; that the gratitude of the natural heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity are impure; that for the unconverted to live and labor for others is an offence to heaven; that the noblest aspirations of the soul are low and groveling in the sight of God; that man should fall upon his knees and ask forgiveness, simply for loving his wife and child, and that even the act of asking forgiveness is in fact a crime!
Surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glowing gulf of hell.
Take from the Christian the history of his own church—leave that entirely out of the question—and he has no argument left with which to substantiate the total depravity of man.
Eleventh. With having doubted the "perseverance of the saints."
I suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is, that Presbyterians are just as sure of going to heaven as all other folks are of going to hell. The real idea being, that it all depends upon the will of God, and not upon the character of the person to be damned or saved; that God has the weakness to send Presbyterians to Paradise, and the justice to doom the rest of mankind to eternal fire.
It is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the least particle of sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all who have not been the recipients of a "new heart;" that only the perfectly good can justify the perfectly infamous.
It is contended that the saints do not persevere of their own free will—that they are entitled to no credit for persevering; but that God forces them to persevere, while on the other hand, every crime is committed in accordance with the secret will of God, who does all things for his own glory.
Compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea, that has ever been believed by man, that can properly be called absurd.
Twelfth. With having spoken and written somewhat lightly of the idea of converting the heathen with doctrinal sermons.
Of all the failures of which we have any history or knowledge, the missionary effort is the most conspicuous. The whole question has been decided here, in our own country, and conclusively settled. We have nearly exterminated the Indians, but we have converted none. From the days of John Eliot to the execution of the last Modoc, not one Indian has been the subject of irresistible grace or particular redemption. The few red men who roam the western wilderness have no thought or care concerning the five points of Calvin. They are utterly oblivious to the great and vital truths contained in the Thirty-nine Articles, the Saybrook platform, and the resolutions of the Evangelical Alliance. No Indian has ever scalped another on account of his religious belief. This of itself shows conclusively that the missionaries have had no effect Why should we convert the heathen of China and kill our own? Why should we send missionaries across the seas, and soldiers over the plains? Why should we send Bibles to the east and muskets to the west? If it is impossible to convert Indians who have no religion of their own; no prejudice for or against the "eternal procession of the Holy Ghost," how can we expect to convert a heathen who has a religion; who has plenty of gods and Bibles and prophets and Christs, and who has a religious literature far grander than our own? Can we hope with the story of Daniel in the lions' den to rival the stupendous miracles of India? Is there anything in our Bible as lofty and loving as the prayer of the Buddhist? Compare your "Confession of Faith" with the following: "Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation—never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. Until all are delivered, never will I leave the world of sin, sorrow, and struggle, but will remain where I am."
Think of sending an average Presbyterian to convert a man who daily offers this tender, this infinitely generous, this incomparable prayer. Think of reading the 109th Psalm to a heathen who has a Bible of his own in which is found this passage: "Blessed is that man and beloved of all the gods, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid."
Why should you read even the New Testament to a Hindu, when his own Chrishna has said, "If a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again"? Why send a Presbyterian to a Sufi, who says, "Better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love, than seventy thousand years of outward worship"? "Whoso would carelessly tread one worm that crawls on earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from God; but he that, living, embraceth all things in his love, to live with him God bursts all bounds above, below." Why should we endeavor to thrust our cruel and heartless theology upon one who prays this prayer: "O God, show pity toward the wicked; for on the good thou hast already bestowed thy mercy by having created them virtuous"?
Compare this prayer with the curses and cruelties of the Old Testament—with the infamies commanded and approved by the being whom we are taught to worship as a God—and with the following tender product of Presbyterianism: "It may seem absurd to human wisdom that God should harden, blind, and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense; that he should first deliver them over to evil, and then condemn them for that evil; but the believing spiritual man sees no absurdity in all this, knowing that God would be never a whit less good even though he should destroy all men."
Of all the religions that have been produced by the egotism, the malice, the ignorance and ambition of man, Presbyterianism is the most hideous.
But what shall I say more, for the time would fail me to tell of Sabellianism, of a "Modal Trinity," and the "Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost"?
Upon these charges, a minister is to be tried, here in Chicago; in this city of pluck and progress—this marvel of energy—this miracle of nerve. The cry of "heresy," here, sounds like a wail from the Dark Ages—a shriek from the Inquisition, or a groan from the grave of Calvin.
Another effort is being made to enslave a man.
It is claimed that every member of the church has solemnly agreed never to outgrow the creed; that he has pledged himself to remain an intellectual dwarf. Upon this condition the church agrees to save his soul, and he hands over his brains to bind the bargain. Should a fact be found inconsistent with the creed, he binds himself to deny the fact and curse the finder. With scraps of dogmas and crumbs of doctrine, he agrees that his soul shall be satisfied forever. What an intellectual feast the Confession of Faith must be! It reminds one of the dinner described by Sydney Smith, where everything was cold except the water, and everything sour except the vinegar.
Every member of a church promises to remain orthodox, that is to say—stationary. Growth is heresy. Orthodox ideas are the feathers that have been moulted by the eagle of progress. They are the dead leaves under the majestic palm, while heresy is the bud and blossom at the top.
Imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at the other. The end that grows is heresy, the end that rots is orthodox The dead are orthodox, and your cemetery is the most perfect type of a well regulated church. No thought, no progress, no heresy there. Slowly and silently, side by side, the satisfied members peacefully decay. There is only this difference—the dead do not persecute.
And what does a trial for heresy mean? It means that the church says to a heretic, "Believe as I do, or I will withdraw my support. I will not employ you. I will pursue you until your garments are rags; until your children cry for bread; until your cheeks are furrowed with tears. I will hunt you to the very portals of the tomb, and then my God will do the rest I will not imprison you. I will not burn you. The law prevents my doing that. I helped make the law, not however to protect you, nor to deprive me of the right to exterminate you but in order to keep other churches from exterminating me." A trial for heresy means that the spirit of persecution still lingers in the church; that it still denies the right of private judgment; that it still thinks more of creed than truth, and that it is still determined to prevent the intellectual growth of man. It means that churches are shambles in which are bought and sold the souls of men. It means that the church is still guilty of the barbarity of opposing thought with force. It means that if it had the power, the mental horizon would be bounded by a creed; that it would bring again the whips and chains and dungeon keys, the rack and fagot of the past.
But let me tell the church it lacks the power. There have been, and still are, too many men who own themselves—too much thought, too much knowledge for the church to grasp again the sword of power. The church must abdicate. For the Eglon of superstition Science has a message from Truth.
The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light. Not in vain did Voltaire, that great man, point from the foot of the Alps the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Europe. Not in vain were the splendid utterances of the infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of science.
The church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot stop the onward march of the human race. Heresy cannot be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved. It laughs at presbyteries and synods, at ecumenical councils and the impotent thunders of Sinai. Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress.
Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought.
Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.
Why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts?
Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that a man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? Is it possible that a god delights in threatening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and renown a god must win on such a field! The ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly.
Go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! Thrust the heretics out of the church—that is to say, throw away your brains,—put out your eyes. The infidels will thank you. They are willing to adopt your exiles. Every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. Cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the 109th Psalm; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and babes; thank God for total depravity; shower your honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with that heresy called genius.
Be true to your history. Turn out the astronomers, the geologists, the naturalists, the chemists, and all the honest scientists. With a whip of scorpions, drive them all out. We want them all. Keep the ignorant, the superstitious, the bigoted, and the writers of charges and specifications.
Keep them, and keep them all. Repeat your pious platitudes in the drowsy ears of the faithful, and read your Bible to heretics, as kings read some forgotten riot-act to stop and stay the waves of revolution. You are too weak to excite anger. We forgive your efforts as the sun forgives a cloud—as the air forgives the breath you waste.
How long, O how long, will man listen to the threats of God, and shut his eyes to the splendid possibilities of Nature? How long, O how long will man remain the cringing slave of a false and cruel creed?
By this time the whole world should know that the real Bible has not yet been written, but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march, or ceases to exist.
The real Bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth.
TO
EBON C. INGERSOLL,
MY BROTHER,
FROM WHOSE LIPS I HEARD THE FIRST APPLAUSE,
AND WITH WHOSE NAME I WISH MY OWN
ASSOCIATED UNTIL BOTH ARE FORGOTTEN,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED.
These lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice; have been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who mistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in simple justice to myself I concluded to publish them.
Most of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of discussing anything in a fair and catholic spirit. They appeal, not to reason, but to prejudice; not to facts, but to passages of Scripture. They can conceive of no goodness, of no spiritual exaltation beyond the horizon of their creed. Whoever differs with them upon what they are pleased to call "fundamental truths," is, in their opinion, a base and infamous man. To re-enact the tragedies of the sixteenth century, they lack only the power. Bigotry in all ages has been the same. Christianity simply transferred the brutality of the Colosseum to the Inquisition. For the murderous combat of the gladiators, the saints substituted the auto de fe. What has been called religion is, after all, but the organization of the wild beast in man. The perfumed blossom of arrogance is heaven. Hell is the consummation of revenge.
The chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy the joy of life, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures of death and perdition. They have polluted the heart and paralyzed the brain; and upon the ignorant altars of the Past and the Dead, they have endeavored to sacrifice the Present and the Living.
Nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I have had some little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that until I read the religious papers, I did not know what malicious and slimy falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. The ingenuity with which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of language, is simply amazing. The average religious editor is intolerant and insolent; he knows nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure, the malice of impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous actions of unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives.
By this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect of the nineteenth century needs no guardian. They should cease to regard themselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and fearful sheep from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. By this time they should know that the religion of the ignorant and brutal Past no longer satisfies the heart and brain; that the miracles have become contemptible; that the "evidences" have ceased to convince; that the spirit of investigation cannot be stopped nor stayed; that the church is losing her power; that the young are holding in a kind of tender contempt the sacred follies of the old; that the pulpit and pews no longer represent the culture and morality of the world, and that the brand of intellectual inferiority is upon the orthodox brain.
Men should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. Every chain of superstition should be broken. The rights of men and women should be equal and sacred—marriage should be a perfect partnership—children should be governed by kindness,—every family should be a republic—every fireside a democracy.
It seems almost impossible for religious people to really grasp the idea of intellectual freedom. They seem to think that man is responsible for his honest thoughts; that unbelief is a crime; that investigation is sinful; that credulity is a virtue, and that reason is a dangerous guide. They cannot divest themselves of the idea that in the realm of thought there must be government—authority and obedience—laws and penalties—rewards and punishments, and that somewhere in the universe there is a penitentiary for the soul.
In the republic of mind, one is a majority. There, all are monarchs, and all are equals. The tyranny of a majority even is unknown. Each one is crowned, sceptered and throned. Upon every brow is the tiara, and around every form is the imperial purple. Only those are good citizens who express their honest thoughts, and those who persecute for opinion's sake, are the only traitors. There, nothing is considered infamous except an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty, and joy. The church contemplates this republic with a sneer. From the teeth of hatred she draws back the lips of scorn. She is filled with the spite and spleen born of intellectual weakness. Once she was egotistic; now she is envious.
Once she wore upon her hollow breast false gems, supposing them to be real. They have been shown to be false, but she wears them still. She has the malice of the caught, the hatred of the exposed.
We are told to investigate the Bible for ourselves, and at the same time informed that if we come to the conclusion that it is not the inspired word of God, we will most assuredly be damned. Under such circumstances, if we believe this, investigation is impossible. Whoever is held responsible for his conclusions cannot weigh the evidence with impartial scales. Fear stands at the balance, and gives to falsehood the weight of its trembling hand.
I oppose the church because she is the enemy of liberty; because her dogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates and degrades woman; because she teaches the doctrines of eternal torment and the natural depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, the impossible, and the senseless; because she resorts to falsehood and slander; because she is arrogant and revengeful; because she allows men to sin on a credit; because she discourages self-reliance, and laughs at good works; because she believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious vice—vicarious punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards repentance of more importance than restitution, and because she sacrifices the world we have to one we know not of.
The free and generous, the tender and affectionate, will understand me. Those who have escaped from the grated cells of a creed will appreciate my motives. The sad and suffering wives, the trembling and loving children will thank me: This is enough.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Washington, D. C.,
April 13, 1878.
THE GHOSTS,
LET THEM COVER THEIR EYELESS SOCKETS WITH THEIR FLESHLESS HANDS AND FADE FOREVER FROM THE IMAGINATION OF MEN.
HERE are three theories by which men account for all phenomena, for everything that happens: First, the Supernatural; Second, the Supernatural and Natural; Third, the Natural. Between these theories there has been, from the dawn of civilization, a continual conflict. In this great war, nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the supernatural. The believers in the supernatural insist that matter is controlled and directed entirely by powers from without; while naturalists maintain that Nature acts from within; that Nature is not acted upon; that the universe is all there is; that Nature with infinite arms embraces everything that exists, and that all supposed powers beyond the limits of the material are simply ghosts. You say, "Oh, this is materialism!" What is matter? I take in my hand some earth:—in this dust put seeds. Let the arrows of light from the quiver of the sun smite upon it; let the rain fall upon it. The seeds will grow and a plant will bud and blossom. Do you understand this? Can you explain it better than you can the production of thought? Have you the slightest conception of what it really is? And yet you speak of matter as though acquainted with its origin, as though you had torn from the clenched hands of the rocks the secrets of material existence. Do you know what force is? Can you account for molecular action? Are you really familiar with chemistry, and can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? Is there not something in matter that forever eludes? After all, can you get beyond, above or below appearances? Before you cry "materialism!" had you not better ascertain what matter really is? Can you think even of anything without a material basis? Is it possible to imagine the annihilation of a single atom? Is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of an atom? Can you have a thought that was not suggested to you by what you call matter?
Our fathers denounced materialism, and accounted for all phenomena by the caprice of gods and devils.
For thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good and bad, benevolent and malignant, weak and powerful, in some mysterious way, produced all phenomena; that disease and health, happiness and misery, fortune and misfortune, peace and war, life and death, success and failure, were but arrows from the quivers of these ghosts; that shadowy phantoms rewarded and punished mankind; that they were pleased and displeased by the actions of men; that they sent and withheld the snow, the light, and the rain; that they blessed the earth with harvests or cursed it with famine; that they fed or starved the children of men; that they crowned and uncrowned kings; that they took sides in war; that they controlled the winds; that they gave prosperous voyages, allowing the brave mariner to meet his wife and child inside the harbor bar, or sent the storms, strewing the sad shores with wrecks of ships and the bodies of men.
Formerly, these ghosts were believed to be almost innumerable. Earth, air, and water were filled with these phantom hosts. In modern times they have greatly decreased in number, because the second theory,—a mingling of the supernatural and natural,—has generally been adopted. The remaining ghosts, however, are supposed to perform the same offices as the hosts of yore.
It has always been believed that these ghosts could in some way be appeased; that they could be flattered by sacrifices, by prayer, by fasting, by the building of temples and cathedrals, by the blood of men and beasts, by forms and ceremonies, by chants, by kneelings and prostrations, by flagellations and maimings, by renouncing the joys of home, by living alone in the wide desert, by the practice of celibacy, by inventing instruments of torture, by destroying men, women and children, by covering the earth with dungeons, by burning unbelievers, by putting chains upon the thoughts and manacles upon the limbs of men, by believing things without evidence and against evidence, by disbelieving and denying demonstration, by despising facts, by hating reason, by denouncing liberty, by maligning heretics, by slandering the dead, by subscribing to senseless and cruel creeds, by discouraging investigation, by worshiping a book, by the cultivation of credulity, by observing certain times and days, by counting beads, by gazing at crosses, by hiring others to repeat verses and prayers, by burning candles and ringing bells, by enslaving each other and putting out the eyes of the soul. All this has been done to appease and flatter these monsters of the air.
In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy has been left undone by the believers in ghosts,—by the worshipers of these fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were born of cowardice and malignity. They were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of ignorance by that artist called superstition.
From these ghosts, our fathers received information. They were the schoolmasters of our ancestors. They were the scientists and philosophers, the geologists, legislators, astronomers, physicians, metaphysicians and historians of the past. For ages these ghosts were supposed to be the only source of real knowledge. They inspired men to write books, and the books were considered sacred. If facts were found to be inconsistent with these books, so much the worse for the facts, and especially for their discoverers. It was then, and still is, believed that these books are the basis of the idea of immortality; that to give up these volumes, or rather the idea that they are inspired, is to renounce the idea of immortality. This I deny.
The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow—Hope shining upon the tears of grief.
From the books written by the ghosts we have at last ascertained that they knew nothing about the world in which we live. Did they know anything about the next? Upon every point where contradiction is possible, they have been contradicted.
By these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs of government were administered; all authority to govern came from them. The emperors, kings and potentates all had commissions from these phantoms. Man was not considered as the source of any power whatever. To rebel against the king was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing less than the blood of the offender could appease the invisible phantom or the visible tyrant. Kneeling was the proper position to be assumed by the multitude. The prostrate were the good. Those who stood erect were infidels and traitors. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, man was enslaved, crushed, and plundered. The many toiled wearily in the storm and sun that the few favorites of the ghosts might live in idleness. The many lived in huts, and caves, and dens, that the few might dwell in palaces. The many covered themselves with rags, that the few might robe themselves in purple and in gold. The many crept, and cringed, and crawled, that the few might tread upon their flesh with iron feet.
From the ghosts men received, not only authority, but information of every kind. They told us the form of this earth. They informed us that eclipses were caused by the sins of man; that the universe was made in six days; that astronomy, and geology were devices of wicked men, instigated by wicked ghosts; that gazing at the sky with a telescope was a dangerous thing; that digging into the earth was sinful curiosity; that trying to be wise above what they had written was born of a rebellious and irreverent spirit.
They told us there was no virtue like belief, and no crime like doubt; that investigation was pure impudence, and the punishment therefor, eternal torment. They not only told us all about this world, but about two others; and if their statements about the other worlds are as true as about this, no one can estimate the value of their information.
For countless ages the world was governed by ghosts, and they spared no pains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness. To accomplish this infamous purpose; to drive the love of truth from the human heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind; to shut out from the world every ray of intellectual light; to pollute every mind with superstition, the power of kings, the cunning and cruelty of priests, and the wealth of nations were exhausted.
During these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition and slavery, nearly all the people, the kings, lawyers, doctors, the learned and the unlearned, believed in that frightful production of ignorance, fear, and faith, called witchcraft. They believed that man was the sport and prey of devils. They really thought that the very air was thick with these enemies of man. With few exceptions, this hideous and infamous belief was universal. Under these conditions, progress was almost impossible.
Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear believes—courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays—courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats—courage advances. Fear is barbarism—courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion—courage is science.
The facts, upon which this terrible belief rested, were proved over and over again in every court of Europe. Thousands confessed themselves guilty—admitted that they had sold themselves to the devil. They gave the particulars of the sale; told what they said and what the devil replied. They confessed this, when they knew that confession was death; knew that their property would be confiscated, and their children left to beg their bread. This is one of the miracles of history—one of the strangest contradictions of the human mind. Without doubt, they really believed themselves guilty. In the first place, they believed in witchcraft as a fact, and when charged with it, they probably became insane. In their insanity they confessed their guilt. They found themselves abhorred and deserted—charged with a crime that they could not disprove. Like a man in quicksand, every effort only sunk them deeper. Caught in this frightful web, at the mercy of the spiders of superstition, hope fled, and nothing remained but the insanity of confession. The whole world appeared to be insane.
In the time of James the First, a man was executed for causing a storm at sea with the intention of drowning one of the royal family. How could he disprove it? How could he show that he did not cause the storm? All storms were at that time generally supposed to be caused by the devil—the prince of the power of the air—and by those whom he assisted.
I implore you to remember that the believers in such impossible things were the authors of our creeds and confessions of faith.
A woman was tried and convicted before Sir Matthew Hale, one of the great judges and lawyers of England, for having caused children to vomit crooked pins. She was also charged with having nursed devils. The learned judge charged the intelligent jury that there was no doubt as to the existence of witches; that it was established by all history, and expressly taught by the Bible.
The woman was hanged and her body burned.
Sir Thomas More declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away the sacred Scriptures. In my judgment, he was right.
John Wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches, and insisted upon it, years after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in England. I beg of you to remember that John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church.
In New England, a woman was charged with being a witch, and with having changed herself into a fox. While in that condition she was attacked and bitten by some dogs. A committee of three men, by order of the court, examined this woman. They removed her clothing and searched for "witch spots." That is to say, spots into which needles could be thrust without giving her pain. They reported to the court that such spots were found. She denied, however, that she ever had changed herself into a fox. Upon the report of the committee she was found guilty and actually executed. This was done by our Puritan fathers, by the gentlemen who braved the dangers of the deep for the sake of worshiping God and persecuting their fellow-men.
In those days people believed in what was known as lycanthropy—that is, that persons, with the assistance of the devil, could assume the form of wolves. An instance is given where a man was attacked by a wolf. He defended himself, and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal's paws. The wolf ran away. The man picked up the paw, put it in his pocket and carried it home. There he found his wife with one of her hands gone. He took the paw from his pocket. It had changed to a human hand. He charged his wife with being a witch. She was tried. She confessed her guilt, and was burned.
People were burned for causing frosts in summer—for destroying crops with hail—for causing storms—for making cows go dry, and even for souring beer. There was no impossibility for which some one was not tried and convicted. The life of no one was secure. To be charged, was to be convicted. Every man was at the mercy of every other. This infamous belief was so firmly seated in the minds of the people, that to express a doubt as to its truth was to be suspected. Whoever denied the existence of witches and devils was denounced as an infidel.
They believed that animals were often taken possession of by devils, and that the killing of the animal would destroy the devil. They absolutely tried, convicted, and executed dumb beasts.
At Basle, in 1470, a rooster was tried upon the charge of having laid an egg. Rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment,—this everybody knew. The rooster was convicted and with all due solemnity was burned in the public square. So a hog and six pigs were tried for having killed and partially eaten a child. The hog was convicted,—but the pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth, were acquitted. As late as 1740, a cow was tried and convicted of being possessed by a devil.
They used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes and vermin. They used to go through the alleys, streets, and fields, and warn them to leave within a certain number of days. In case they disobeyed, they were threatened with pains and penalties.
But let us be careful how we laugh at these things. Let us not pride ourselves too much on the progress of our age. We must not forget that some of our people are yet in the same intelligent business. Only a little while ago, the governor of Minnesota appointed a day of fasting and prayer, to see if some power could not be induced to kill the grasshoppers, or send them into some other state.
About the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the excitement with regard to the existence of witchcraft that Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching out and punishing all guilty of this crime. Forms for the trial were regularly laid down in a book or a pamphlet called the "Malleus Maleficorum" (Hammer of Witches), which was issued by the Roman See. Popes Alexander, Leo, and Adrian, issued like bulls. For two hundred and fifty years the church was busy in punishing the impossible crime of witchcraft; in burning, hanging and torturing men, women, and children. Protestants were as active as Catholics, and in Geneva five hundred witches were burned at the stake in a period of three months. About one thousand were executed in one year in the diocese of Como. At least one hundred thousand victims suffered in Germany alone: the last execution (in Wurtzburg) taking place as late as 1749. Witches were burned in Switzerland as late as 1780.
In England the same frightful scenes were enacted. Statutes were passed from Henry VI. to James I., defining the crime and its punishment. The last act passed by the British parliament was when Lord Bacon was a member of the House of Commons; and this act was not repealed until 1736.
Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, says: "To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits."
In Brown's Dictionary of the Bible, published at Edinburg, Scotland, in 1807, it is said that: "A witch is a woman that has dealings with Satan. That such persons are among men is abundantly plain from Scripture, and that they ought to be put to death."
This work was re-published in Albany, New York, in 1816. No wonder the clergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted even unto this day.
In 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, nine years of age, were hanged for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap.
In England it has been estimated that at least thirty thousand were hanged and burned. The last victim executed in Scotland, perished in 1722. "She was an innocent old woman, who had so little idea of her situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire which was destined to consume her. She had a daughter, lame both of hands and of feet—a circumstance attributed to the witch having been used to transform her daughter into a pony and getting her shod by the devil."
In 1692, nineteen persons were executed and one pressed to death in Salem, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft.
It was thought in those days that men and women made compacts with the devil, orally and in writing. That they abjured God and Jesus Christ, and dedicated themselves wholly to the devil. The contracts were confirmed at a general meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the devil himself presided; and the persons generally signed the articles of agreement with their own blood. These contracts were, in some instances, for a few years; in others, for life. General assemblies of the witches were held at least once a year, at which they appeared entirely naked, besmeared with an ointment made from the bodies of unbaptized infants. "To these meetings they rode from great distances on broomsticks, pokers, goats, hogs, and dogs. Here they did homage to the prince of hell, and offered him sacrifices of young children, and practiced all sorts of license until the break of day."
"As late as 1815, Belgium was disgraced by a witch trial; and guilt was established by the water ordeal." "In 1836, the populace of Hela, near Dantzic, twice plunged into the sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress; and as the miserable creature persisted in rising to the surface, she was pronounced guilty, and beaten to death."
"It was believed that the bodies of devils are not like those of men and animals, cast in an unchangeable mould. It was thought they were like clouds, refined and subtle matter, capable of assuming any form and penetrating into any orifice. The horrible tortures they endured in their place of punishment rendered them extremely sensitive to suffering, and they continually sought a temperate and somewhat moist warmth in order to allay their pangs. It was for this reason they so frequently entered into men and women."
The devil could transport men, at his will, through the air. He could beget children; and Martin Luther himself had come in contact with one of these children. He recommended the mother to throw the child into the river, in order to free their house from the presence of a devil.
It was believed that the devil could transform people into any shape he pleased.
Whoever denied these things was denounced as an infidel. All the believers in witchcraft confidently appealed to the Bible. Their mouths were filled with passages demonstrating the existence of witches and their power Over human beings. By the Bible they proved that innumerable evil spirits were ranging over the world endeavoring to ruin mankind; that these spirits possessed a power and wisdom far transcending the limits of human faculties; that they delighted in every misfortune that could befall the world; that their malice was superhuman. That they caused tempests was proved by the action of the devil toward Job; by the passage in the book of Revelation describing the four angels who held the four winds, and to whom it was given to afflict the earth. They believed the devil could carry persons hundreds of miles, in a few seconds, through the air. They believed this, because they knew that Christ had been carried by the devil in the same manner and placed on a pinnacle of the temple. "The prophet Habakkuk had been transported by a spirit from Judea to Babylon; and Philip, the evangelist, had been the object of a similar miracle; and in the same way Saint Paul had been carried in the body into the third heaven."
"In those pious days, they believed that Incubi and Succubi were forever wandering among mankind, alluring, by more than human charms, the unwary to their destruction, and laying plots, which were too often successful, against the virtue of the saints. Sometimes the witches kindled in the monastic priest a more terrestrial fire. People told, with bated breath, how, under the spell of a vindictive woman, four successive abbots in a German monastery had been wasted away by an unholy flame."
An instance is given in which the devil not only assumed the appearance of a holy man, in order to pay his addresses to a lady, but when discovered, crept under the bed, suffered himself to be dragged out, and was impudent enough to declare that he was the veritable bishop. So perfectly had he assumed the form and features of the prelate that those who knew the bishop best were deceived.
One can hardly imagine the frightful state of the human mind during these long centuries of darkness and superstition. To them, these things were awful and frightful realities. Hovering above them in the air, in their houses, in the bosoms of friends, in their very bodies, in all the darkness of night, everywhere, around, above and below, were innumerable hosts of unclean and malignant devils.
From the malice of those leering and vindictive vampires of the air, the church pretended to defend mankind. Pursued by these phantoms, the frightened multitudes fell upon their faces and implored the aid of robed hypocrisy and sceptered theft.
Take from the orthodox church of to-day the threat and fear of hell, and it becomes an extinct volcano.
Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, and the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.
Notwithstanding all the infamous things justly laid to the charge of the church, we are told that the civilization of to-day is the child of what we are pleased to call the superstition of the past.
Religion has not civilized man—man has civilized religion. God improves as man advances.
Let me call your attention to what we have received from the followers of the ghosts. Let me give you an outline of the sciences as taught by these philosophers of the clouds.
All diseases were produced, either as a punishment by the good ghosts, or out of pure malignity by the bad ones. There were, properly speaking, no diseases. The sick were possessed by ghosts. The science of medicine consisted in knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the premises. For thousands of years the diseased were treated with incantations, with hideous noises, with drums and gongs. Everything was done to make the visit of the ghost as unpleasant as possible, and they generally succeeded in making things so disagreeable that if the ghost did not leave, the patient did. These ghosts were supposed to be of different rank, power and dignity. Now and then a man pretended to have won the favor of some powerful ghost, and that gave him power over the little ones. Such a man became an eminent physician.
It was found that certain kinds of smoke, such as that produced by burning the liver of a fish, the dried skin of a serpent, the eyes of a toad, or the tongue of an adder, were exceedingly offensive to the nostrils of an ordinary ghost. With this smoke, the sick room would be filled until the ghost vanished or the patient died.
It was also believed that certain words,—the names of the most powerful ghosts,—when properly pronounced, were very effective weapons. It was for a long time thought that Latin words were the best,—Latin being a dead language, and known by the clergy. Others thought that two sticks laid across each other and held before the wicked ghost would cause it instantly to flee in dread away.
For thousands of years, the practice of medicine consisted in driving these evil spirits out of the bodies of men.
In some instances, bargains and compromises were made with the ghosts. One case is given where a multitude of devils traded a man for a herd of swine. In this transaction the devils were the losers, as the swine immediately drowned themselves in the sea. This idea of disease appears to have been almost universal, and is by no means yet extinct.
The contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitchings of those afflicted with chorea, the shakings of palsy, dreams, trances, and the numberless frightful phenomena produced by diseases of the nerves, were all seized upon as so many proofs that the bodies of men were filled with unclean and malignant ghosts.
Whoever endeavored to account for these things by natural causes, whoever attempted to cure diseases by natural means, was denounced by the church as an infidel. To explain anything was a crime. It was to the interest of the priest that all phenomena should be accounted for by the will and power of gods and devils. The moment it is admitted that all phenomena are within the domain of the natural, the necessity for a priest has disappeared. Religion breathes the air of the supernatural. Take from the mind of man the idea of the supernatural, and religion ceases to exist. For this, reason, the church has always despised the man who explained the wonderful. Upon this principle, nothing was left undone to stay the science of medicine. As long as plagues and pestilences could be stopped by prayer, the priest was useful. The moment the physician found a cure, the priest became an extravagance. The moment it began to be apparent that prayer could do nothing for the body, the priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul.
Long after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in the practice of medicine, and when it was admitted that God had nothing to do with ordinary coughs and colds, it was still believed that all the frightful diseases were sent by him as punishments for the wickedness of the people. It was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any natural means, to stay the ravages of pestilence. Formerly, during the prevalence of plague and epidemics, the arrogance of the priest was boundless. He told the people that they had slighted the clergy, that they had refused to pay tithes, that they had doubted some of the doctrines of the church, and that God was now taking his revenge. The people for the most part, believed this infamous tissue of priestcraft. They hastened to fall upon their knees; they poured out their wealth upon the altars of hypocrisy; they abased and debased themselves; from their minds they banished all doubts, and made haste to crawl in the very dust of humility.
The church never wanted disease to be under the control of man. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College, preached a sermon against vaccination. His idea was, that if God had decreed from all eternity that a certain man should die with the small-pox, it was a frightful sin to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination. Small-pox being regarded as one of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of heaven, to spike it was the height of presumption. Plagues and pestilences were instrumentalities in the hands of God with which to gain the love and worship of mankind. To find a cure for disease was to take a weapon from the church. No one tries to cure the ague with prayer. Quinine has been found altogether more reliable. Just as soon as a specific is found for a disease, that disease will be left out of the list of prayer. The number of diseases with which God from time to time afflicts mankind, is continually decreasing. In a few years all of them will be under the control of man, the gods will be left unarmed, and the threats of their priests will excite only a smile.
The science of medicine has had but one enemy—religion. Man was afraid to save his body for fear he might lose his soul.
Is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in and taught the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment—a doctrine that makes God a heartless monster and man a slimy hypocrite and slave?
The ghosts were historians, and their histories were the grossest absurdities. "Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." In those days the histories were written by the monks, who, as a rule, were almost as superstitious as they were dishonest. They wrote as though they had been witnesses of every occurrence they related. They wrote the history of every country of importance. They told all the past and predicted all the future with an impudence that amounted to sublimity. "They traced the order of St. Michael, in France, to the archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a chivalric order in heaven itself. They said that Tartars originally came from hell, and that they were called Tartars because Tartarus was one of the names of perdition. They declared that Scotland was so named after Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland, invaded Scotland, and took it by force of arms. This statement was made in a letter addressed to the Pope in the fourteenth century, and was alluded to as a well-known fact. The letter was written by some of the highest dignitaries, and by the direction of the King himself."
These gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of robins, from the fact that these birds carried water to unbaptized infants in hell.
Matthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the fourteenth century, gave the world the following piece of information: "It is well known that Mohammed was once a cardinal, and became a heretic because he failed in his effort to be elected pope;" and that having drank to excess, he fell by the roadside, and in this condition was killed by swine. "And for that reason, his followers abhor pork even unto this day."
Another eminent historian informs us that Nero was in the habit of vomiting frogs. When I read this, I said to myself: Some of the croakers of the present day against Progress would be the better for such a vomit.
The history of Charlemagne was written by Turpin, of Rheims. He was a bishop. He assures us that the walls of a city fell down in answer to prayer. That there were giants in those days who could take fifty ordinary men under their arms and walk away with them. "With the greatest of these, a direct descendant of Goliath, one Orlando had a theological discussion, and that in the heat of the debate, when the giant was overwhelmed with the argument, Orlando rushed forward and inflicted a fatal stab."
The history of Britain, written by the archdeacons of Monmouth and Oxford, was wonderfully popular. According to them, Brutus conquered England and built the city of London. During his time, it rained pure blood for three days. At another time, a monster came from the sea, and, after having devoured great multitudes of people, swallowed the king and disappeared. They tell us that King Arthur was not born like other mortals, but was the result of a magical contrivance; that he had great luck in killing giants; that he killed one in France that had the cheerful habit of eating some thirty men a day. That this giant had clothes woven of the beards of the kings he had devoured. To cap the climax, one of the authors of this book was promoted for having written the only reliable history of his country.
In all the histories of those days there is hardly a single truth. Facts were considered unworthy of preservation. Anything that really happened was not of sufficient interest or importance to be recorded. The great religious historian, Eusebius, ingenuously remarks that in his history he carefully omitted whatever tended to discredit the church, and that he piously magnified all that conduced to her glory.
The same glorious principle was scrupulously adhered to by all the historians of that time.
They wrote, and the people believed, that the tracks of Pharoah's chariots were still visible on the sands of the Red Sea, and that they had been miraculously preserved from the winds and waves as perpetual witnesses of the great miracle there performed.
It is safe to say that every truth in the histories of those times is the result of accident or mistake.
They accounted for everything as the work of good and evil spirits. With cause and effect they had nothing to do. Facts were in no way related to each other. God, governed by infinite caprice, filled the world with miracles and disconnected events. From the quiver of his hatred came the arrows of famine, pestilence, and death.
The moment that the idea is abandoned that all is natural; that all phenomena are the necessary Alinks in the endless chain of being, the conception of history becomes impossible. With the ghosts, the present is not the child of the past, nor the mother of the future. In the domain of religion all is chance, accident, and caprice.
Do not forget, I pray you, that our creeds were written by the cotemporaries of these historians.
The same idea was applied to law. It was believed by our intelligent ancestors that all law derived its sacredness and its binding force from the fact that it had been communicated to man by the ghosts. Of course it was not pretended that the ghosts told everybody the law; but they told it to a few, and the few told it to the people, and the people, as a rule, paid them exceedingly well for their trouble. It was thousands of ages before the people commenced making laws for themselves, and strange as it may appear, most of these laws were vastly superior to the ghost article. Through the web and woof of human legislation began to run and shine and glitter the golden thread of justice.
During these years of darkness it was believed that rather than see an act of injustice done; rather than see the innocent suffer; rather than see the guilty triumph, some ghost would interfere. This belief, as a rule, gave great satisfaction to the victorious party, and as the other man was dead, no complaint was heard from him.
This doctrine was the sanctification of brute force and chance. They had trials by battle, by fire, by water, and by lot. Persons were made to grasp hot iron, and if it burned them their guilt was established. Others, with tied hands and feet, were cast into the sea, and if they sank, the verdict of guilty was unanimous,—if they did not sink, they were in league with devils.
So in England, persons charged with crime could appeal to the corsned. The corsned was a piece of the sacramental bread. If the defendant could swallow this piece he went acquit. Godwin, Earl of Kent, in the time of Edward the Confessor, appealed to the corsned. He failed to swallow it and was choked to death.
The ghosts and their followers always took delight in torture, in cruel and unusual punishments. For the infraction of most of their laws, death was the penalty—death produced by stoning and by fire. Sometimes, when man committed only murder, he was allowed to flee to some city of refuge. Murder was a crime against man. But for saying certain words, or denying certain doctrines, or for picking up sticks on certain days, or for worshiping the wrong ghost, or for failing to pray to the right one, or for laughing at a priest, or for saying that wine was not blood, or that bread was not flesh, or for failing to regard ram's horns as artillery, or for insisting that a dry bone was scarcely sufficient to take the place of water works, or that a raven, as a rule, made a poor landlord:—death, produced by all the ways that the ingenuity of hatred could devise, was the penalty.
Law is a growth—it is a science. Right and wrong exist in the nature of things. Things are not right because they are commanded, nor wrong because they are prohibited. There are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones. All progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in repealing the laws of the ghosts.
The idea of right and wrong is born of man's capacity to enjoy and suffer. If man could not suffer, if he could not inflict injury upon his fellow, if he could neither feel nor inflict pain, the idea of right and wrong never would have entered his brain. But for this, the word conscience never would have passed the lips of man.
There is one good—happiness. There is but one sin—selfishness. All law should be for the preservation of the one and the destruction of the other.
Under the regime of the ghosts, laws were not supposed to exist in the nature of things. They were supposed to be simply the irresponsible command of a ghost. These commands were not supposed to rest upon reason, they were the product of arbitrary will.
The penalties for the violation of these laws were as cruel as the laws were senseless and absurd. Working on the Sabbath and murder were both punished with death. The tendency of such laws is to blot from the human heart the sense of justice.
To show you how perfectly every department of knowledge, or ignorance rather, was saturated with superstition, I will for a moment refer to the science of language.
It was thought by our fathers, that Hebrew was the original language; that it was taught to Adam in the Garden of Eden by the Almighty, and that consequently all languages came from, and could be traced to, the Hebrew. Every fact inconsistent with that idea was discarded. According to the ghosts, the trouble at the tower of Babel accounted for the fact that all people did not speak Hebrew. The Babel business settled all questions in the science of language.
After a time, so many facts were found to be inconsistent with the Hebrew idea that it began to fall into disrepute, and other languages began to compete for the honor of being the original.
Andre Kempe, in 1569, published a work on the language of Paradise, in which he maintained that God spoke to Adam in Swedish; that Adam answered in Danish; and that the serpent—which appears to me quite probable—spoke to Eve in French. Erro, in a work published at Madrid, took the ground that Basque was the language spoken in the Garden of Eden; but in 1580 Goropius published his celebrated work at Antwerp, in which he put the whole matter at rest by showing, beyond all doubt, that the language spoken in Paradise was neither more nor less than plain Holland Dutch.
The real founder of the science of language was Liebnitz, a cotemporary of Sir Isaac Newton. He discarded the idea that all languages could be traced to one language. He maintained that language was a natural growth. Experience teaches us that this must be so. Words are continually dying and continually being born. Words are naturally and necessarily produced. Words are the garments of thought, the robes of ideas. Some are as rude as the skins of wild beasts, and others glisten and glitter like silk and gold. They have been born of hatred and revenge; of love and self-sacrifice; of hope and fear, of agony and joy. These words are born of the terror and beauty of nature. The stars have fashioned them. In them mingle the darkness and the dawn. From everything they have taken something. Words are the crystalizations of human history, of all that man has enjoyed and suffered—his victories and defeats—all that he has lost and won. Words are the shadows of all that has been—the mirrors of all that is.
The ghosts also enlightened our fathers in astronomy and geology. According to them the earth was made out of nothing, and a little more nothing having been taken than was used in the construction of this world, the stars were made out of what was left over. Cosmas, in the sixth century, taught that the stars were impelled by angels, who either carried them on their shoulders, rolled them in front of them, or drew them after. He also taught that each angel that pushed a star took great pains to observe what the other angels were doing, so that the relative distances between the stars might always remain the same. He also gave his idea as to the form of the world.
He stated that the world was a vast parallelogram; that on the outside was a strip of land, like the frame of a common slate; that then there was a strip of water, and in the middle a great piece of land; that Adam and Eve lived on the outer strip; that their descendants, with the exception of the Noah family, were drowned by a flood on this outer strip; that the ark finally rested on the middle piece of land where we now are. He accounted for night and day by saying that on the outside strip of land there was a high mountain, around which the sun and moon revolved, and that when the sun was on the other side of the mountain, it was night; and when on this side, it was day.
He also declared that the earth was flat. This he proved by many passages from the Bible. Among other reasons for believing the earth to be flat, he brought forward the following: We are told in the New Testament that Christ shall come again in glory and power, and all the world shall see him. Now, if the world is round, how are the people on the other side going to see Christ when he comes? That settled the question, and the church not only endorsed the book, but declared that whoever believed less or more than stated by Cosmas, was a heretic.
In those blessed days, Ignorance was a king and Science an outcast.
They knew the moment this earth ceased to be the centre of the universe, and became a mere speck in the starry heaven of existence, that their religion would become a childish fable of the past.
In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, men enslaved their fellow-men; they trampled upon the rights of women and children. In the name and by the authority of ghosts, they bought and sold and destroyed each other; they filled heaven with tyrants and earth with slaves, the present with despair and the future with horror. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, they imprisoned the human mind, polluted the conscience, hardened the heart, subverted justice, crowned robbery, sainted hypocrisy, and extinguished for a thousand years the torch of reason.
I have endeavored, in some faint degree, to show you what has happened, and what always will happen when men are governed by superstition and fear; when they desert the sublime standard of reason; when they take the words of others and do not investigate for themselves.
Even the great men of those days were nearly as weak in this matter as the most ignorant. Kepler, one of the greatest men of the world, an astronomer second to none, although he plucked from the stars the secrets of the universe, was an astrologer, and really believed that he could predict the career of a man by finding what star was in the ascendant at his birth. This great man breathed, so to speak, the atmosphere of his time. He believed in the music of the spheres, and assigned alto, bass, tenor, and treble to certain stars.
Tycho Brahe, another astronomer, kept an idiot, whose disconnected and meaningless words he carefully set down, and then put them together in such manner as to make prophecies, and then waited patiently to see them fulfilled. Luther believed that he had actually seen the devil, and had discussed points of theology with him. The human mind was in chains. Every idea almost was a monster. Thought was deformed. Facts were looked upon as worthless. Only the wonderful was worth preserving. Things that actually happened were not considered worth recording;—real occurrences were too common. Everybody expected the miraculous.
The ghosts were supposed to be busy; devils were thought to be the most industrious things in the universe, and with these imps, every occurrence of an unusual character was in some way connected. There was no order, no serenity, no certainty in anything. Everything depended upon ghosts and phantoms. Man was, for the most part, at the mercy of malevolent spirits. He protected himself as best he could with holy water and tapers and wafers and cathedrals. He made noises and rung bells to frighten the ghosts, and he made music to charm them. He used smoke to choke them, and incense to please them. He wore beads and crosses. He said prayers, and hired others to say them. He fasted when he was hungry, and feasted when he was not. He believed everything that seemed unreasonable, just to appease the ghosts. He humbled himself. He crawled in the dust. He shut the doors and windows, and excluded every ray of light from the temple of the soul. He debauched and polluted his own mind, and toiled night and day to repair the walls of his own prison. From the garden of his heart he plucked and trampled upon the holy flowers of pity.
The priests reveled in horrible descriptions of hell. Concerning the wrath of God, they grew eloquent. They denounced man as totally depraved. They made reason blasphemy, and pity a crime. Nothing so delighted them as painting the torments and sufferings of the lost. Over the worm that never dies they grew poetic; and the second death filled them with a kind of holy delight. According to them, the smoke and cries ascending from hell were the perfume and music of heaven.
At the risk of being tiresome, I have said what I have to show you the productions of the human mind, when enslaved; the effects of wide-spread ignorance—the results of fear. I want to convince you that every form of slavery is a viper, that, sooner or later, will strike its poison fangs into the bosoms of men.
The first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease to be the slave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave of the monsters of his own creation—of the ghosts and phantoms of the air.
For ages the human race was imprisoned.
Through the bars and grates came a few struggling rays of light. Against these grates and bars Science pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.
Men found that the real was the useful; that what a man knows is better than what a ghost says; that an event is more valuable than a prophecy. They found that diseases were not produced by spirits, and could not be cured by frightening them away. They found that death was as natural as life. They began to study the anatomy and chemistry of the human body, and found that all was natural and within the domain of law.
The conjurer and sorcerer were discarded, and the physician and surgeon employed. They found that the earth was not flat; that the stars were not mere specks. They found that being born under a particular planet had nothing to do with the fortunes of men.
The astrologer was discharged and the astronomer took his place.
They found that the earth had swept through the constellations for millions of ages. They found that good and evil were produced by natural causes, and not by ghosts; that man could not be good enough or bad enough to stop or cause a rain; that diseases were produced as naturally as grass, and were not sent as punishments upon man for failing to believe a certain creed. They found that man, through intelligence, could take advantage of the forces of nature—that he could make the waves, the winds, the flames, and the lightnings of heaven do his bidding and minister to his wants. They found that the ghosts knew nothing of benefit to man; that they were utterly ignorant of geology—of astronomy—of geography;—that they knew nothing of history;—that they were poor doctors and worse surgeons;—that they knew nothing of law and less of justice; that they were without brains, and utterly destitute of hearts; that they knew nothing of the rights of men; that they were despisers of women, the haters of progress, the enemies of science, and the destroyers of liberty.
The condition of the world during the Dark Ages shows exactly the result of enslaving the bodies and souls of men. In those days there was no freedom. Labor was despised, and a laborer was considered but little above a beast. Ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain of the world, and superstition ran riot with the imagination of man. The air was filled with angels, with demons and monsters. Credulity sat upon the throne of the soul, and Reason was an exiled king. A man to be distinguished must be a soldier or a monk. War and theology, that is to say, murder and hypocrisy, were the principal employments of man. Industry was a slave, theft was commerce; murder was war, hypocrisy was religion.
Every Christian country maintained that it was no robbery to take the property of Mohammedans by force, and no murder to kill the owners. Lord Bacon was the first man of note who maintained that a Christian country was bound to keep its plighted faith with an infidel nation. Reading and writing were considered dangerous arts. Every layman who could read and write was suspected of being a heretic. All thought was discouraged. They forged chains of superstition for the minds, and manacles of iron for the bodies of men. The earth was ruled by the cowl and sword,—by the mitre and scepter,—by the altar and throne,—by Fear and Force,—by Ignorance and Faith,—by ghouls and ghosts.
In the fifteenth century the following law was in force in England:
"That whosoever reads the Scriptures in the mother tongue, shall forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most arrant traitors to the land."
During the first year this law was in force thirty-nine were hanged for its violation and their bodies burned.
In the sixteenth century men were burned because they failed to kneel to a procession of monks.
The slightest word uttered against the superstition of the time was punished with death.
Even the reformers, so-called, of those days, had no idea of intellectual liberty—no idea even of toleration. Luther, Knox, Calvin, believed in religious liberty only when they were in the minority. The moment they were clothed with power they began to exterminate with fire and sword.
Castalio was the first minister who advocated the liberty of the soul. He was regarded by the reformers as a criminal, and treated as though he had committed the crime of crimes.
Bodinus, a lawyer of France, about the same time, wrote a few words in favor of the freedom of conscience, but public opinion was overwhelmingly against him. The people were ready, anxious, and willing, with whip, and chain, and fire, to drive from the mind of man the heresy that he had a right to think.
Montaigne, a man blest with so much common sense that he was the most uncommon man of his time, was the first to raise a voice against torture in France. But what was the voice of one man against the terrible cry of ignorant, infatuated, superstitious and malevolent millions? It was the cry of a drowning man in the wild roar of the cruel sea.
In spite of the efforts of the brave few the infamous war against the freedom of the soul was waged until at least one hundred millions of human beings—fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters—with hopes, loves, and aspirations like ourselves, were sacrificed upon the cruel altar of an ignorant faith. They perished in every way by which death can be produced. Every nerve of pain was sought out and touched by the believers in ghosts.
For my part I glory in the fact, that here in the New World,—in the United States,—liberty of conscience was first guaranteed to man, and that the Constitution of the United States was the first great decree entered in the high court of human equity forever divorcing church and state,—the first injunction granted against the interference of the ghosts. This was one of the grandest steps ever taken by the human race in the direction of Progress.
You will ask what has caused this wonderful change in three hundred years. And I answer—the inventions and discoveries of the few;—the brave thoughts, the heroic utterances of the few;—the acquisition of a few facts.
Besides, you must remember that every wrong in some way tends to abolish itself. It is hard to make a lie stand always. A lie will not fit a fact. It will only fit another lie made for the purpose. The life of a lie is simply a question of time. Nothing but truth is immortal. The nobles and kings quarreled;—the priests began to dispute;—the ideas of government began to change.
In 1441 printing was discovered. At that time the past was a vast cemetery with hardly an epitaph. The ideas of men had mostly perished in the brain that produced them. The lips of the human race had been sealed. Printing gave pinions to thought. It preserved ideas. It made it possible for man to bequeath to the future the riches of his brain, the wealth of his soul. At first, it was used to flood the world with the mistakes of the ancients, but since that time it has been flooding the world with light.
When people read they begin to reason, and when they reason they progress. This was another grand step in the direction of Progress.
The discovery of powder, that put the peasant almost upon a par with the prince;—that put an end to the so-called age of chivalry;—that released a vast number of men from the armies;—that gave pluck and nerve a chance with brute strength.
The discovery of America, whose shores were trod by the restless feet of adventure;—that brought people holding every shade of superstition together;—that gave the world an opportunity to compare notes, and to laugh at the follies of each other. Out of this strange mingling of all creeds, and superstitions, and facts, and theories, and countless opinions, came the Great Republic.
Every fact has pushed a superstition from the brain and a ghost from the clouds. Every mechanic art is an educator. Every loom, every reaper and mower, every steamboat, every locomotive, every engine, every press, every telegraph, is a missionary of Science and an apostle of Progress. Every mill, every furnace, every building with its wheels and levers, in which something is made for the convenience, for the use, and for the comfort and elevation of man, is a church, and every school-house is a temple.
Education is the most radical thing in the world.
To teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution.
To build a schoolhouse is to construct a fort.
Every library is an arsenal filled with the weapons and ammunition of Progress, and every fact is a monitor with sides of iron and a turret of steel.
I thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers. I thank Columbus and Magellan. I thank Galileo, and Copernicus, and Kepler, and Descartes, and Newton, and Laplace. I thank Locke, and Hume, and Bacon, and Shakespeare, and Kant, and Fichte, and Leibnitz, and Goethe. I thank Fulton, and Watts, and Volta, and Galvani, and Franklin, and Morse, who made lightning the messenger of man. I thank Humboldt, the Shakespeare of science. I thank Crompton and Arkwright, from whose brains leaped the looms and spindles that clothe the world. I thank Luther for protesting against the abuses of the church, and I denounce him because he was the enemy of liberty. I thank Calvin for writing a book in favor of religious freedom, and I abhor him because he burned Servetus. I thank Knox for resisting Episcopal persecution, and I hate him because he persecuted in his turn. I thank the Puritans for saying "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," and yet I am compelled to say that they were tyrants themselves. I thank Thomas Paine because he was a believer in liberty, and because he did as much to make my country free as any other human being. I thank Voltaire, that great man who, for half a century, was the intellectual emperor of Europe, and who, from his throne at the foot of the Alps, pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Christendom. I thank Darwin, Haeckel and Büchner, Spencer, Tyndall and Huxley, Draper, Lecky and Buckle.
I thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers, the scientists, the explorers, I thank the honest millions who have toiled.
I thank the brave men with brave thoughts. They are the Atlases upon whose broad and mighty shoulders rests the grand fabric of civilization. They are the men who have broken, and are still breaking, the chains of Superstition. They are the Titans who carried Olympus by assault, and who will soon stand victors upon Sinai's crags.
We are beginning to learn that to exchange a mistake for the truth—a superstition for a fact—to ascertain the real—is to progress.
Happiness is the only possible good, and all that tends to the happiness of man is right, and is of value. All that tends to develop the bodies and minds of men; all that gives us better houses, better clothes, better food, better pictures, grander music, better heads, better hearts; all that renders us more intellectual and more loving, nearer just; that makes us better husbands and wives, better children, better citizens—all these things combined produce what I call Progress.
Man advances only as he overcomes the obstructions of Nature, and this can be done only by labor and by thought. Labor is the foundation of all. Without labor, and without great labor, progress is impossible. The progress of the world depends upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows and through the rustling corn; upon those who sow and reap; upon those whose faces are radiant with the glare of furnace fires; upon the delvers in the mines, and the workers in shops; upon those who give to the winter air the ringing music of the axe; upon those who battle with the boisterous billows of the sea; upon the inventors and discoverers; upon the brave thinkers.
From the surplus produced by labor, schools and universities are built and fostered. From this surplus the painter is paid for the productions of the pencil; the sculptor for chiseling shapeless rock into forms divinely beautiful, and the poet for singing the hopes, the loves, the memories, and the aspirations of the world. This surplus has given us the books in which we converse with the dead and living kings of the human race. It has given us all there is of beauty, of elegance, and of refined happiness.
I am aware that there is a vast difference of opinion as to what progress really is; that many denounce the ideas of to-day as destructive of all happiness—of all good, I know that there are many worshipers of the past. They venerate the ancient because it is ancient. They see no beauty in anything from which they do not blow the dust of ages with the breath of praise. They say, no masters like the old; no religion, no governments like the ancient; no orators, no poets, no statesmen like those who have been dust for two thousand years. Others love the modern simply because it is modern.
We should have gratitude enough to acknowledge the obligations we are under to the great and heroic of antiquity, and independence enough not to believe what they said simply because they said it.
With the idea that labor is the basis of progress goes the truth that labor must be free. The laborer must be a free man.
The free man, working for wife and child, gets his head and hands in partnership.
To do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time, is the problem of free labor.
Slavery does the least work in the longest space of time.
Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will give us truth.
Slowly but surely man is freeing his imagination of these sexless phantoms, of these cruel ghosts. Slowly but surely he is rising above the superstitions of the past. He is learning to rely upon himself. He is beginning to find that labor is the only prayer that ought to be answered, and that hoping, toiling, aspiring, suffering men and women are of more importance than all the ghosts that ever wandered through the fenceless fields of space.
The believers in ghosts claim still, that they are the only wise and virtuous people upon the earth; claim still, that there is a difference between them and unbelievers so vast, that they will be infinitely rewarded, and the others infinitely punished.
I ask you to-night, do the theories and doctrines of the theologians satisfy the heart or brain of the nineteenth century?
Have the churches the confidence of mankind?
Does the merchant give credit to a man because he belongs to a church?
Does the banker loan money to a man because he is a Methodist or Baptist?
Will a certificate of good standing in any church be taken as collateral security for one dollar?
Will you take the word of a church member, or his note, or his oath, simply because he is a church member?
Are the clergy, as a class, better, kinder and more generous to their families—to their fellow-men—than doctors, lawyers, merchants and farmers?
Does a belief in ghosts and unreasonable things necessarily make people honest?
When a man loses confidence in Moses, must the people lose confidence in him?
Does not the credit system in morals breed extravagance in sin?
Why send missionaries to other lands while every penitentiary in ours is filled with criminals?
Is it philosophical to say that they who do right carry a cross?
Is it a source of joy to think that perdition is the destination of nearly all of the children of men?
Is it worth while to quarrel about original sin—when there is so much copy?
Does it pay to dispute about baptism, and the Trinity, and predestination, and apostolic succession and the infallibility of churches, of popes and of books? Does all this do any good?
Are the theologians welcomers of new truths? Are they noted for their candor? Do they treat an opponent with common fairness? Are they investigators? Do they pull forward, or do they hold back?
Is science indebted to the church for a solitary fact?
What church is an asylum for a persecuted truth?
What great reform has been inaugurated by the church?
Did the church abolish slavery?
Has the church raised its voice against war?
I used to think that there was in religion no real restraining force. Upon this point my mind has changed. Religion will prevent man from committing artificial crimes and offences.
A man committed murder. The evidence was so conclusive that he confessed his guilt.
He was asked why he killed his fellow-man.
He replied: "For money."
"Did you get any?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
"Fifteen cents."
"What did you do with this money?"
"Spent it."
"What for?"
"Liquor."
"What else did you find upon the dead man?" "He had his dinner in a bucket—some meat and bread."
"What did you do with that?"
"I ate the bread."
"What did you do with the meat?"
"I threw it away."
"Why?"
"It was Friday."
Just to the extent that man has freed himself from the dominion of ghosts he has advanced. Just to the extent that he has freed himself from the tyrants of his own creation he has progressed. Just to the extent that he has investigated for himself he has lost confidence in superstition.
With knowledge obedience becomes intelligent acquiescence—it is no longer degrading. Acquiescence in the understood—in the known—is the act of a sovereign, not of a slave. It ennobles, it does not degrade.
Man has found that he must give liberty to others in order to have it himself. He has found that a master is also a slave;—that a tyrant is himself a serf. He has found that governments should be founded and administered by man and for man; that the rights of all are equal; that the powers that be are not ordained by God; that woman is at least the equal of man; that men existed before books; that religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing; that all creeds were made by man; that everything is natural; that a miracle is an impossibility; that we know nothing of origin and destiny; that concerning the unknown we are all equally ignorant; that the pew has the right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible only to himself and those he injures, and that all have a right to think.
True religion must be free. Without perfect liberty of the mind there can be no true religion. Without liberty the brain is a dungeon—the mind a convict. The slave may bow and cringe and crawl, but he cannot adore—he cannot love.
True religion is the perfume of a free and grateful heart. True religion is a subordination of the passions to the perceptions of the intellect. True religion is not a theory—it is a practice. It is not a creed—it is a life.
A theory that is afraid of investigation is undeserving a place in the human mind.
I do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. I do not pretend to have fathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on outstretched wings level with the dim heights of thought. I simply plead for freedom. I denounce the cruelties and horrors of slavery. I ask for light and air for the souls of men. I say, take off those chains—break those manacles—free those limbs—release that brain! I plead for the right to think—to reason—to investigate. I ask that the future may be enriched with the honest thoughts of men. I implore every human being to be a soldier in the army of progress.
I will not invade the rights of others. You have no right to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought. You have no right to leap from the hedges of superstition and strike down the pioneers of the human race. You have no right to sacrifice the liberties of man upon the altars of ghosts. Believe what you may; preach what you desire; have all the forms and ceremonies you please; exercise your liberty in your own way but extend to all others the same right.
I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous—if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.
I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room—room for the human mind.
Why should we sacrifice a real world that we have, for one we know not of? Why should we enslave ourselves? Why should we forge fetters for our own hands? Why should we be the slaves of phantoms. The darkness of barbarism was the womb of these shadows. In the light of science they cannot cloud the sky forever. They have reddened the hands of man with innocent blood. They made the cradle a curse, and the grave a place of torment.
They blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of the human race. They subverted all ideas of justice by promising infinite rewards for finite virtues, and threatening infinite punishment for finite offences.
They filled the future with heavens and with hells, with the shining peaks of selfish joy and the lurid abysses of flame. For ages they kept the world in ignorance and awe, in want and misery, in fear and chains.
I plead for light, for air, for opportunity. I plead for individual independence. I plead for the rights of labor and of thought. I plead for a chainless future. Let the ghosts go—justice remains. Let them disappear—men and women and children are left. Let the monsters fade away—the world is here with its hills and seas and plains, with its seasons of smiles and frowns, its spring of leaf and bud, its summer of shade and flower and murmuring stream; its autumn with the laden boughs, when the withered banners of the corn are still, and gathered fields are growing strangely wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that color what they touch, weaves in the Autumn wood her tapestries of gold and brown.
The world remains with its winters and homes and firesides, where grow and bloom the virtues of our race. All these are left; and music, with its sad and thrilling voice, and all there is of art and song and hope and love and aspiration high. All these remain. Let the ghosts go—we will worship them no more.
Man is greater than these phantoms. Humanity is grander than all the creeds, than all the books. Humanity is the great sea, and these creeds, and books, and religions, are but the waves of a day. Humanity is the sky, and these religions and dogmas and theories are but the mists and clouds changing continually, destined finally to melt away.
That which is founded upon slavery, and fear, and ignorance, cannot endure. In the religion of the future there will be men and women and children, all the aspirations of the soul, and all the tender humanities of the heart.
Let the ghosts go. We will worship them no more. Let them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands and fade forever from the imaginations of men.
THERE is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.
The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. He has been the sport and prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might. Crowned force has governed ignorance through fear. Hypocrisy and tyranny—two vultures—have fed upon the liberties of man. From all these there has been, and is, but one means of escape—intellectual development. Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain have been the fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all been crimes.
Every science has been an outcast.
All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of the human race. The king said that mankind must not work for themselves. The priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. One forged chains for the hands, the other for the soul. Under this infamous regime the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of hypocrisy.
The human race was imprisoned. Through some of the prison bars came a few struggling rays of light. Against these bars Science pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement. Bar after bar was broken away. A few grand men escaped and devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellows.
Only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human mind. Men began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them work for him? The man who asked this question was called a traitor. Others asked by what right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? Such men were called infidels. The priest said, and the king said, where is this spirit of investigation to stop? They said then and they say now, that it is dangerous for man to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea there is room enough for every sail. In the intellectual air there is space enough for every wing.
The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
Every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every other man.
Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to think, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression. That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely true, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth.
I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or that I have descended to the very depths of things. I simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That is all.
Take those chains from the human soul. Break those fetters. If I have no right to think, why have I a brain? If I have no such right, have three or four men, or any number, who may get together, and sign a creed, and build a house, and put a steeple upon it, and a bell in it—have they the right to think? The good men, the good women are tired of the whip and lash in the realm of thought. They remember the chain and fagot with a shudder. They are free, and they give liberty to others. Whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous.
In the good old times, our fathers had the idea that they could make people believe to suit them. Our ancestors, in the ages that are gone, really believed that by force you could convince a man. You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done. You can make hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. Put fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same opinion still.
Our fathers in the good old times—and the best thing I can say about them is, that they have passed away—had an idea that they could force men to think their way. That idea is still prevalent in many parts, even of this country. Even in our day some extremely religious people say, "We will not trade with that man; we will not vote for him; we will not hire him if he is a lawyer; we will die before we will take his medicine if he is a doctor; we will not invite him to dinner; we will socially ostracise him; he must come to our church; he must believe our doctrines; he must worship our god or we will not in any way contribute to his support."
In the old times of which I have spoken, they desired to make all men think exactly alike. All the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot make two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make hundreds of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in education and aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in a living robe of passionate flesh—how are you going to make them think and feel alike? If there is an infinite god, one who made us, and wishes us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a magnificent intellectual development to another? Why is it that we have all degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was intended that all should think and feel alike?
I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never appreciated it. I read it, but it did not burn itself into my soul. I did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion, until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used. I saw the Thumbscrew—two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or may be said, "I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning," then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, "I will recant." Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would have said: "Stop; I will admit anything that you wish; I will admit that there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but stop."
But there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be savages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh, dancing around some dried snake fetich.
Let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly, in spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be the truth.
Heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. The man who would not recant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews down to the last pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. This was done in the name of love—in the name of mercy—in the name of the compassionate Christ.
I saw, too, what they called the Collar of Torture. Imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. This argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured, by these points. In a little while the throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, "I do not believe that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men."
I saw another instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter. Think of a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well, and just above the pivot that unites the blades, a circle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced. In this condition, he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity would in pity end his pain.
This was done by gentlemen who said: "Whosoever smiteth thee upon one cheek turn to him the other also."
I saw the Rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each windlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer; others to his wrists. And then priests, clergymen, divines, saints, began turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the knees, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim were all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. And they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once again.
This was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law and order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of the most merciful Christ.
Sometimes, when I read and think about these frightful things, it seems to me that I have suffered all these horrors myself. It seems sometimes, as though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land; as though my nails had been torn from my hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though I had been chained in the cell of the Inquisition and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of release; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and had seen the glittering axe fall upon me; as though I had been upon the rack and had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, taken to the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds, by all the countless hands of hate. And when I so feel, I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and child.
It is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of intellectual development. If there is a man in the world who is not willing to give to every human being every right he claims for himself, he is just so much nearer a barbarian than I am. It is a question of honesty. The man who is not willing to give to every other the same intellectual rights he claims for himself, is dishonest, selfish, and brutal.
It is a question of intellectual development. Whoever holds another man responsible for his honest thought, has a deformed and distorted brain. It is a question of intellectual development.
A little while ago I saw models of nearly everything that man has made. I saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in which floated a naked savage—one of our ancestors—a naked savage, with teeth two inches in length, with a spoonful of brains in the back of his head—I saw models of all the water craft of the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war, that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas—from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of New York, with a compass like a conscience, crossing three thousand miles of billows without missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart.
I saw at the same time the weapons that man has made, from a club, such as was grasped by that same savage, when he crawled from his den in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that club to the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel.
I saw, too, the armor from the shell of a turtle, that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country; the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts of mail, that were worn in the Middle Ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel.
I saw at the same time, their musical instruments, from the tom-tom—that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw hide drawn across it—from that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that make the common air blossom with melody.
I saw, too, their paintings, from a daub of yellow mud, to the great works which now adorn the galleries of the world. I saw also their sculpture, from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, several noses, and two or three rows of ears, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, up to the figures of to-day—to the marbles that genius has clad in such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch them without an introduction.
I saw their books—books written upon skins of wild beasts—upon shoulder-blades of sheep—books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. When I speak of libraries, I think of the remark of Plato: "A house that has a library in it has a soul."
I saw their implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick that was attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricultural implements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus.
While looking upon these things I was forced to say that man advanced only as he mingled his thought with his labor,—only as he got into partnership with the forces of nature,—only as he learned to take advantage of his surroundings—only as he freed himself from the bondage of fear,—only as he depended upon himself—only as he lost confidence in the gods.
I saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull that has been found, the Neanderthal skull—skulls from Central Africa, skulls from the Bushmen of Australia—skulls from the farthest isles of the Pacific sea—up to the best skulls of the last generation;—and I noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there was between the products of those skulls, and I said to myself, "After all, it is a simple question of intellectual development." There was the same difference between those skulls, the lowest and highest skulls, that there was between the dug-out and the man-of-war and the steamship, between the club and the Krupp gun, between the yellow daub and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera by Verdi.
The first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty, and love.
It is all a question of brain, of intellectual development.
If we are nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we have better heads upon the average, and more brains in them.
Now, I ask you to be honest with me. It makes no difference to you what I believe, nor what I wish to prove. I simply ask you to be honest. Divest your minds, for a moment at least, of all religious prejudice. Act, for a few moments, as though you were men and women.
Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one, at the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out, and charmed his ears with the music of the tom-tom, had said: "That dug-out is the best boat that ever can be built by man; the pattern of that came from on high, from the great god of storm and flood, and any man who says that he can improve it by putting a mast in it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment—honor bright—would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe?
Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one—and I presume there was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age—suppose this king and priest had said: "That tom-tom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the kind of music they have in heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a fleecy cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it—that is how we obtained it; and any man who says that it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and four strings, and a bridge, and getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a blaspheming wretch, and shall die the death,"—I ask you, what effect would that have had upon music? If that course had been pursued, would the human ears, in your judgment, ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven?
Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said: "That crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented: the pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says he can make an improvement upon that plow, is an atheist;" what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the science of agriculture?
But the people said, and the king and priest said: "We want better weapons with which to kill our fellow-Christians; we want better plows, better music, better paintings, and whoever will give us better weapons, and better music, better houses to live in, better clothes, we will robe him in wealth, and crown him with honor." Every incentive was held out to every human being to improve these things. That is the reason the club has been changed to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship, the daub to a painting; that is the reason that the piece of rough and broken stone finally became a glorified statue.
You must not, however, forget that the gentleman in the dug-out, the gentleman who was enraptured with the music of the tom-tom, and cultivated his land with a crooked stick, had a religion of his own. That gentlemen in the dug-out was orthodox. He was never troubled with doubts. He lived and died settled in his mind. He believed in hell; and he thought he would be far happier in heaven, if he could just lean over and see certain people who expressed doubts as to the truth of his creed, gently but everlastingly broiled and burned.
It is a very sad and unhappy fact that this man has had a great many intellectual descendants. It is also an unhappy fact in nature, that the ignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual. This fellow in the dug-out believed in a personal devil. His devil had a cloven hoof, a long tail, armed with a fiery dart; and his devil breathed brimstone. This devil was at least the equal of God; not quite so stout but a little shrewder. And do you know there has not been a patentable improvement made upon that devil for six thousand years.
This gentleman in the dug-out believed that God was a tyrant; that he would eternally damn the man who lived in accordance with his highest and grandest ideal. He believed that the earth was flat. He believed in a literal, burning, seething hell of fire and sulphur. He had also his idea of politics; and his doctrine was, might makes right. And it will take thousands of years before the world will reverse this doctrine, and believingly say, "Right makes might."
All I ask is the same privilege to improve upon that gentleman's theology as upon his musical instrument; the same right to improve upon his politics as upon his dug-out. That is all. I ask for the human soul the same liberty in every direction. That is the only crime I have committed. I say, let us think. Let each one express his thought. Let us become investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If there is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites. Honest unbelief, honest infidelity, honest atheism, will be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no matter how religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench.
This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.
The religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul to lie at the wharf of orthodoxy and rot in the sun. He delights to hear the sails of old opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. He loves to see the joints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss for him to repeat again and again: "Do not disturb my opinions. Do not unsettle my mind; I have it all made up, and I want no infidelity. Let me go backward rather than forward."
As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any orthodox harbor whatever.
After all, we are improving from age to age. The most orthodox people in this country two hundred years ago would have been burned for the crime of heresy. The ministers who denounce me for expressing my thought would have been in the Inquisition themselves. Where once burned and blazed the bivouac fires of the army of progress, now glow the altars of the church. The religionists of our time are occupying about the same ground occupied by heretics and infidels of one hundred years ago. The church has advanced in spite, as it were, of itself. It has followed the army of progress protesting and denouncing, and had to keep within protesting and denouncing distance. If the church had not made great progress I could not express my thoughts.
Man, however, has advanced just exactly in the proportion with which he has mingled his thought with his labor. The sailor, without control of the wind and wave, knowing nothing or very little of the mysterious currents and pulses of the sea, is superstitious. So also is the agriculturist, whose prosperity depends upon something he cannot control. But the mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn. Now, just in proportion as man gets away from being, as it were, the slave of his surroundings, the serf of the elements,—of the heat, the frost, the snow, and the lightning,—just to the extent that he has gotten control of his own destiny, just to the extent that he has triumphed over the obstacles of nature, he has advanced physically and intellectually. As man develops, he places a greater value upon his own rights. Liberty becomes a grander and diviner thing. As he values his own rights, he begins to value the rights of others. And when all men give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized.
A few years ago the people were afraid to question the king, afraid to question the priest, afraid to investigate a creed, afraid to deny a book, afraid to denounce a dogma, afraid to reason, afraid to think. Before wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the presence of titles they became abject. All this is slowly but surely changing. We no longer bow to men simply because they are rich. Our fathers worshiped the golden calf. The worst you can say of an American now is, he worships the gold of the calf. Even the calf is beginning to see this distinction.
It no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to be king or emperor. The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being the emperor of the French. He was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head. He wanted some evidence that he had something of value within his head. So he wrote the life of Julius Cæsar, that he might become a member of the French Academy. The emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their fellows. Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim—one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius.
The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.
We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame.
When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition robed and crowned, I am amazed.
This world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty years. It was not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice, her priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until the same year that the United States of America abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but carefully preserved it as between the States. It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of January, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic North, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats.
Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written: "Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy."
Think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed. Think of it. The pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for a hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a whipping post.
With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty.
What do I mean by liberty? By physical liberty I mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think right and the right to think wrong. Thought is the means by which we endeavor to arrive at truth. If we know the truth already, we need not think. All that can be required is honesty of purpose. You ask my opinion about anything; I examine it honestly, and when my mind is made up, what should I tell you? Should I tell you my real thought? What should I do? There is a book put in my hands. I am told this is the Koran; it was written by inspiration. I read it, and when I get through, suppose that I think in my heart and in my brain, that it is utterly untrue, and you then ask me, what do you think? Now, admitting that I live in Turkey, and have no chance to get any office unless I am on the side of the Koran, what should I say? Should I make a clean breast and say, that upon my honor I do not believe it? What would you think then of my fellow-citizens if they said: "That man is dangerous, he is dishonest."
Suppose I read the book called the Bible, and when I get through I make up my mind that it was written by men. A minister asks me, "Did you read the Bible?" I answer, that I did. "Do you think it divinely inspired?" What should I reply? Should I say to myself, "If I deny the inspiration of the Scriptures, the people will never clothe me with power." What ought I to answer? Ought I not to say like a man: "I have read it; I do not believe it." Should I not give the real transcript of my mind? Or should I turn hypocrite and pretend what I do not feel, and hate myself forever after for being a cringing coward. For my part I would rather a man would tell me what he honestly thinks. I would rather he would preserve his manhood. I had a thousand times rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer. And if there is a judgment day, a time when all will stand before some supreme being, I believe I will stand higher, and stand a better chance of getting my case decided in my favor, than any man sneaking through life pretending to believe what he does not.
I have made up my mind to say my say. I shall do it kindly, distinctly; but I am going to do it. I know there are thousands of men who substantially agree with me, but who are not in a condition to express their thoughts. They are poor; they are in business; and they know that should they tell their honest thought, persons will refuse to patronize them—to trade with them; they wish to get bread for their little children; they wish to take care of their wives; they wish to have homes and the comforts of life. Every such person is a certificate of the meanness of the community in which he resides. And yet I do not blame these people for not expressing their thought. I say to them: "Keep your ideas to yourselves; feed and clothe the ones you love; I will do your talking for you. The church can not touch, can not crush, can not starve, cannot stop or stay me; I will express your thoughts."
As an excuse for tyranny, as a justification of slavery, the church has taught that man is totally depraved. Of the truth of that doctrine, the church has furnished the only evidence there is. The truth is, we are both good and bad. The worst are capable of some good deeds, and the best are capable of bad. The lowest can rise, and the highest may fall. That mankind can be divided into two great classes, sinners and saints, is an utter falsehood. In times of great disaster, called it may be, by the despairing voices of women, men, denounced by the church as totally depraved, rush to death as to a festival. By such men, deeds are done so filled with self-sacrifice and generous daring, that millions pay to them the tribute, not only of admiration, but of tears. Above all creeds, above all religions, after all, is that divine thing,—Humanity; and now and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 'mid the rocks and breakers of some cruel shore, or where the serpents of flame writhe and hiss, some glorious heart, some chivalric soul does a deed that glitters like a star, and gives the lie to all the dogmas of superstition. All these frightful doctrines have been used to degrade and to enslave mankind.
Away, forever away with the creeds and books and forms and laws and religions that take from the soul liberty and reason. Down with the idea that thought is dangerous! Perish the infamous doctrine that man can have property in man. Let us resent with indignation every effort to put a chain upon our minds. If there is no God, certainly we should not bow and cringe and crawl. If there is a God, there should be no slaves.
Women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took millions of ages for woman to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the institution of marriage. Let me say right here, that I regard marriage as the holiest institution among men. Without the fireside there is no human advancement; without the family relation there is no life worth living. Every good government is made up of good families. The unit of good government is the family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. I believe in marriage, and I hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired men and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage.
The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That is my idea. There is no success in life without love and marriage. You had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.
I say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the condition of marriage. Ladies, the ornaments you wear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's bondage. The chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold.
But nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment in this world by the crime of woman. What a gallant thing that is! And if it is true, I had rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.
I read in a book—and I will say now that I cannot give the exact language, as my memory does not retain the words, but I can give the substance—I read in a book that the Supreme Being concluded to make a world and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one man, and put this man in a garden. In a little while he noticed that the man got lonesome; that he wandered around as if he was waiting for a train. There was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no politics; no policy; and, as the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service reform. Well, he wandered about the garden in this condition, until finally the Supreme Being made up his mind to make him a companion.
Having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world and one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with. So he caused a sleep to fall on this man—now understand me, I do not say this story is true. After the sleep fell upon this man, the Supreme Being took a rib, or as the French would call it, a cutlet, out of this man, and from that he made a woman. And considering the amount of raw material used, I look upon it as the most successful job ever performed. Well, after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. He liked her, and they started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they might do and of one thing they could not do—and of course they did it. I would have done it in fifteen minutes, and I know it. There wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs would have been full of clubs. And then they were turned out of the park and extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back.
Devilment commenced. The mumps, and the measles, and the whooping-cough, and the scarlet fever started in their race for man. They began to have the toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began to have poisoned teeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics, and the world has been full of trouble from that day to this.
Nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that!
I read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same transaction. It was written about four thousand years before the other. All commentators agree that the one that was written last was the original, and that the one that was written first was copied from the one that was written last. But I would advise you all not to allow your creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years. In this other story, Brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man and woman. He made the world, and he made the man and then the woman, and put them on the island of Ceylon. According to the account it was the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. Such birds, such songs, such flowers and such verdure! And the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a thousand �?olian harps.
Brahma, when he put them there, said: "Let them have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage." When I read that, it was so much more beautiful and lofty than the other, that I said to myself, "If either one of these stories ever turns out to be true, I hope it will be this one."
Then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing, and the stars shining, and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. Imagine that courtship! No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and gossiping neighbors; nobody to say, "Young man, how do you expect to support her?" Nothing of that kind. They were married by the Supreme Brahma, and he said to them: "Remain here; you must never leave this island." Well, after a little while the man—and his name was Adami, and the woman's name was Heva—said to Heva: "I believe I'll look about a little." He went to the northern extremity of the island where there was a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the devil, who is always playing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when he looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and dales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in bows of glory did he see there, that he went back and told Heva: "The country over there is a thousand times better than this; let us migrate." She, like every other woman that ever lived, said: "Let well enough alone; we have all we want; let us stay here." But he said "No, let us go;" so she followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land, he took her on his back like a gentleman, and carried her over. But the moment they got over they heard a crash, and looking back, discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. The mirage had disappeared, and there were naught but rocks and sand; and then the Supreme Brahma cursed them both to the lowest hell.
Then it was that the man spoke,—and I have liked him ever since for it—"Curse me, but curse not her, it was not her fault, it was mine."
That's the kind of man to start a world with.
The Supreme Brahma said: "I will save her, but not thee." And then she spoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which there was love enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said: "If thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish to live without him; I love him." Then the Supreme Brahma said—and I have liked him ever since I read it—"I will spare you both and watch over you and your children forever."
Honor bright, is not that the better and grander story?
And from that same book I want to show you what ideas some of these miserable heathen had; the heathen we are trying to convert. We send missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers out on the plains to kill heathen here. If we can convert the heathen, why not convert those nearest home? Why not convert those we can get at? Why not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of the average pioneer? But to show you the men we are trying to convert: In this book it says: "Man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is love. When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy."
They are the men we are converting. Think of it! I tell you, when I read these things, I say that love is not of any country; nobility does not belong exclusively to any race, and through all the ages, there have been a few great and tender souls blossoming in love and pity.
In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says "I will make her happy," makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says, "I will make him happy." There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road.
If there is any man I detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head of a family—the man who thinks he is "boss!" The fellow in the dug-out used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions.
Imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched her heart—imagine them stopping there in the moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "Now, here, let us settle who is 'boss!'" I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling—I abhor a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his family, and when he speaks orders all the rest to be still as some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. Do you know I dislike this man unspeakably?
I hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to murder the sunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the joy of life?
When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light—so that it will, even in the night, bursty out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. Some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward; they have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds; they have bought calico at five cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. A woman who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing them and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon this gentleman—the head of the family—the boss!
Do you know another thing? I despise a stingy man. I do not see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea.
Do you know that I have known men who would trust their wives with their hearts and their honor but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar. When I see a man of that kind, I always think he knows which of these articles is the most valuable. Think of making your wife a beggar! Think of her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars or fifty cents! "What did you do with that dollar I gave you last week?" Think of having a wife that is afraid of you! What kind of children do you expect to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother? Oh, I tell you if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got to spend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf and you the owner of unbounded forests! That's the way to spend it! I had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a king and spend my money like a beggar! If it has got to go, let it go!
Get the best you can for your family—try to look as well as you can yourself. When you used to go courting, how elegantly you looked! Ah, your eye was bright, your step was light, and you looked like a prince. Do you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose a woman is going to love you always looking as slovenly as you can! Think of it! Any good woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your level best.
Some people tell me, "Your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all that, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." I tell you to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the palaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. That is my doctrine! You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender both. Do not tell me that you have got to be rich! We have a false standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is all a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be powerful, to be happy. The happy man is the successful man.
Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.
Joy is wealth.
A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity—and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.
I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.
I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky—with my children upon my knees and their arms about me—I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as "Napoleon the Great."
It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine affection. No matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as though she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with perfume and with joy.
And do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age.
I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and love.
If women have been slaves, what shall I say of children; of the little children in alleys and sub-cellars; the little children who turn pale when they hear their fathers' footsteps; little children who run away when they only hear their names called by the lips of a mother; little children—the children of poverty, the children of crime, the children of brutality, wherever they are—flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad sea of life—my heart goes out to them, one and all.
I tell you the children have the same rights that we have, and we ought to treat them as though they were human beings. They should be reared with love, with kindness, with tenderness, and not with brutality. That is my idea of children.
When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant father will have liars for his children; do you know that?
A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies.
I thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie.
When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best way; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his boy left home: "John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both." Be honest with him. Suppose a man as much larger than you as you are larger than a child five years old, should come at you with a liberty pole in his hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "Who broke that plate?" There is not a solitary one of you who would not swear you never saw it, or that it was cracked when you got it. Why not be honest with these children? Just imagine a man who deals in stocks whipping his boy for putting false rumors afloat! Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for evading the truth when he makes half of his own living that way! Think of a minister punishing his child for not telling all he thinks! Just think of it!
When your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and truly and sincerely love it. Yet some Christians, good Christians, when a child commits a fault, drive it from the door and say: "Never do you darken this house again." Think of that! And then these same people will get down on their knees and ask God to take care of the child they have driven from home. I will never ask God to take care of my children unless I am doing my level best in that same direction.
But I will tell you what I say to my children: "Go where you will; commit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; you can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, or my heart to you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend."
Do you know that I have seen some people who acted as though they thought that when the Savior said "Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," he had a raw-hide under his mande, and made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance?
I do not believe in the government of the lash, if any one of you ever expects to whip your children again, I want you to have a photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little child, with eyes swimming in tears and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. Have the picture taken. If that little child should die, I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are clad in tender gold, and little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth—and sit down upon the grave and look at that photograph, and think of the flesh now dust that you beat. I tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children! Make your home happy. Be honest with them. Divide fairly with them in everything.
Give them a little liberty and love, and you can not drive them out of your house. They will want to stay there. Make home pleasant. Let them play any game they wish. Do not be so foolish as to say: "You may roll balls on the ground, but you must not roll them on a green cloth. You may knock them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue. You may play with little pieces of paper which have 'authors' written on them, but you must not have 'cards.'" Think of it! "You may go to a minstrel show where people blacken themselves and imitate humanity below them, but you must not go to a theatre and see the characters created by immortal genius put upon the stage." Why? Well, I can't think of any reason in the world except "minstrel" is a word of two syllables, and "theatre" has three.
Let children have some daylight at home if you want to keep them there, and do not commence at the cradle and shout "Don't!" "Don't!" "Stop!" That is nearly all that is said to a child from the cradle until he is twenty-one years old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying "Don't!" And the church says "Don't!" and the party he belongs to says "Don't!"
I despise that way of going through this world. Let us have liberty—just a little. Call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what you will, I intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my grave and truthfully say: "He who sleeps here never gave us a moment of pain. From his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word."
People justify all kinds of tyranny toward children upon the ground that they are totally depraved. At the bottom of ages of cruelty lies this infamous doctrine of total depravity. Religion contemplates a child as a living crime—heir to an infinite curse—doomed to eternal fire.
In the olden time, they thought some days were too good for a child to enjoy himself. When I was a boy Sunday was considered altogether too holy to be happy in. Sunday used to commence then when the sun went down on Saturday night. We commenced at that time for the purpose of getting a good ready, and when the sun fell below the horizon on Saturday evening, there was a darkness fell upon the house ten thousand times deeper than that of night. Nobody said a pleasant word; nobody laughed; nobody smiled; the child that looked the sickest was regarded as the most pious. That night you could not even crack hickory nuts. If you were caught chewing gum it was only another evidence of the total depravity of the human heart. It was an exceedingly solemn night.
Dyspepsia was in the very air you breathed. Everybody looked sad and mournful. I have noticed all my life that many people think they have religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia. If there could be found an absolute specific for that disease, it would be the hardest blow the church has ever received.
On Sunday morning the solemnity had simply increased. Then we went to church. The minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little sounding-board above him, and he commenced at "firstly" and went on and on and on to about "twenty-thirdly." Then he made a few remarks by way of application; and then took a general view of the subject, and in about two hours reached the last chapter in Revelation.
In those days, no matter how cold the weather was, there was no fire in the church. It was thought to be a kind of sin to be comfortable while you were thanking God. The first church that ever had a stove in it in New England, divided on that account. So the first church in which they sang by note, was torn in fragments.
After the sermon we had an intermission. Then came the catechism with the chief end of man. We went through with that. We sat in a row with our feet coming in about six inches of the floor. The minister asked us if we knew that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered "Yes." Then we were asked if we would be willing to go to hell if it was God's will, and every little liar shouted "Yes." Then the same sermon was preached once more, commencing at the other end and going back. After that, we started for home, sad and solemn—overpowered with the wisdom displayed in the scheme of the atonement. When we got home, if we had been good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did cheer me. When I looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read the half-effaced inscriptions through the moss of silence and forgetfulness, it was a great comfort. The reflection came to my mind that the observance of the Sabbath could not last always. Sometimes they would sing that beautiful hymn in which occurs these cheerful lines:
"Where congregations ne'er break up,
And Sabbaths never end."
These lines, I think, prejudiced me a little against even heaven. Then we had good books that we read on Sundays by way of keeping us happy and contented. There were Milners' "History of the Waldenses," Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," Yahn's "Archaeology of the Jews," and Jenkyns' "On the Atonement." I used to read Jenkyns' "On the Atonement." I have often thought that an atonement would have to be exceedingly broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who would write a book like that for a boy.
But at last the Sunday wore away, and the moment the sun went down we were free. Between three and four o'clock we would go out to see how the sun was coming on. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was stopping from pure meanness. But finally it went down. It had to. And when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, off would go our caps, and we would give three cheers for liberty once more.
Sabbaths used to be prisons. Every Sunday was a Bastile. Every Christian was a kind of turnkey, and every child was a prisoner,—a convict. In that dungeon, a smile was a crime.
It was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this holy day. Think of that!
A little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a tree laden with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and there would be a bird on one of the boughs, singing and swinging, and thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its mate,—singing and swinging, and the music in happy waves rippling out of its tiny throat, and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with perfume and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the little boy would lean up against that tree and think about hell and the worm that never dies.
I have heard them preach, when I sat in the pew and my feet did not touch the floor, about the final home of the unconverted. In order to impress upon the children the length of time they would probably stay if they settled in that country, the preacher would frequently give us the following illustration: "Suppose that once in a billion years a bird should come from some far-distant planet, and carry off in its little bill a grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be carried away; and when this last atom was taken, it would not even be sun up in hell." Think of such an infamous doctrine being taught to children!
The laugh of a child will make the holiest day-more sacred still. Strike, with hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. But know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh—the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. O rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.
And yet the minds of children have been polluted by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment. I denounce it to-day as a doctrine, the infamy of which no language is sufficient to express.
Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for men and women and children come from? It came from the low and beastly skull of that wretch in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the animals. The doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the glittering eyes of snakes—snakes that hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. It was born of the howl and bark and growl of wild beasts. It was born of the grin of hyenas and of the depraved chatter of unclean baboons. I despise it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies.
When the great ship containing the hopes and aspirations of the world, when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, I am willing to go down with the ship. I will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of paddling away in some orthodox canoe. I will go down with the ship, with those who love me, and with those whom I have loved. If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung the hearts of the tender; it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel, to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine: neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena.
Jonathan Edwards, the dear old soul, who, if his doctrine is true, is now in heaven rubbing his holy hands with glee, as he hears the cries of the damned, preached this doctrine; and he said: "Can the believing husband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in hell? Can the believing father in heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in hell? Can the loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in hell?" And he replies: "I tell you, yea. Such will be their sense of justice, that it will increase rather than diminish their bliss." There is no wild beast in the jungles of Africa whose reputation would not be tarnished by the expression of such a doctrine.
These doctrines have been taught in the name of religion, in the name of universal forgiveness, in the name of infinite love and charity. Do not, I pray you, soil the minds of your children with this dogma. Let them read for themselves; let them think for themselves.
Do not treat your children like orthodox posts to be set in a row. Treat them like trees that need light and sun and air. Be fair and honest with them; give them a chance. Recollect that their rights are equal to yours. Do not have it in your mind that you must govern them; that they must obey. Throw away forever the idea of master and slave.
In old times they used to make the children go to bed when they were not sleepy, and get up when they were sleepy. I say let them go to bed when they are sleepy, and get up when they are not sleepy.
But you say, this doctrine will do for the rich but not for the poor. Well, if the poor have to waken their children early in the morning it is as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a blow. Give your children freedom; let them preserve their individuality. Let your children eat what they desire, and commence at the end of a dinner they like. That is their business and not yours. They know what they wish to eat. If they are given their liberty from the first, they know what they want better than any doctor in the world can prescribe. Do you know that all the improvement that has ever been made in the practice of medicine has been made by the recklessness of patients and not by the doctors? For thousands and thousands of years the doctors would not let a man suffering from fever have a drop of water. Water they looked upon as poison. But every now and then some man got reckless and said, "I had rather die than not to slake my thirst." Then he would drink two or three quarts of water and get well. And when the doctor was told of what the patient had done, he expressed great surprise that he was still alive, and complimented his constitution upon being able to bear such a frightful strain. The reckless men, however, kept on drinking the water, and persisted in getting well. And finally the doctors said: "In a fever, water is the very best thing you can take." So, I have more confidence in the voice of nature about such things than I have in the conclusions of the medical schools.
Let your children have freedom and they will fall into your ways; they will do substantially as you do; but if you try to make them, there is some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be driven. And do you know that it is the luckiest thing that ever happened for this world, that people are that way. What would have become of the people five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice of the doctors? They would have all been dead. What would the people have been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly the direction of the church? They would have all been idiots. It is a splendid thing that there is always some grand man who will not mind, and who will think for himself.
I believe in allowing the children to think for themselves. I believe in the democracy of the family. If in this world there is anything splendid, it is a home where all are equals.
You will remember that only a few years ago parents would tell their children to "let their victuals stop their mouths." They used to eat as though it were a religious ceremony—a very solemn thing. Life should not be treated as a solemn matter. I like to see the children at table, and hear each one telling of the wonderful things he has seen and heard. I like to hear the clatter of knives and forks and spoons mingling with their happy voices. I had rather hear it than any opera that was ever put upon the boards. Let the children have liberty. Be honest and fair with them; be just; be tender, and they will make you rich in love and joy.
Men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers.
The human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but I have some excuse for mankind. This world, after all, is not very well adapted to raising good people. In the first place, nearly all of it is water. It is much better adapted to fish culture than to the production of folks. Of that portion which is land not one-eighth has suitable soil and climate to produce great men and women. You cannot raise men and women of genius, without the proper soil and climate, any more than you can raise corn and wheat upon the ice fields of the Arctic sea. You must have the necessary conditions and surroundings. Man is a product; you must have the soil and food. The obstacles presented by nature must not be so great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage, overcome them. There is upon this world only a narrow belt of land, circling zigzag the globe, upon which you can produce men and women of talent. In the Southern Hemisphere the real climate that man needs falls mostly upon the sea, and the result is, that the southern half of our world has never produced a man or woman of great genius. In the far north there is no genius—it is too cold. In the far south there is no genius—it is too warm. There must be winter, and there must be summer. In a country where man needs no coverlet but a cloud, revolution is his normal condition. Winter is the mother of industry and prudence. Above all, it is the mother of the family relation. Winter holds in its icy arms the husband and wife and the sweet children. If upon this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, at night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or knives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like incense from the altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a house without feeling that I had received a benediction.
Civilization, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual advancement, are all flowers that blossom in the drifted snow.
I do not know that I can better illustrate the great truth that only part of the world is adapted to the production of great men and women than by calling your attention to the difference between vegetation in valleys and upon mountains. In the valley you find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly to the storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the pine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little dwarfed trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope reversed—every limb twisted as though in pain—getting a scanty subsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. You go on and on, until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss, and vegetation ends. You might as well try to raise oaks and elms where the mosses grow, as to raise great men and great women where their surroundings are unfavorable. You must have the proper climate and soil.
A few years ago we were talking about the annexation of Santo Domingo to this country. I was in Washington at the time. I was opposed to it I was told that it was a most delicious climate; that the soil produced everything. But I said: "We do not want it; it is not the right kind of country in which to raise American citizens. Such a climate would debauch us. You might go there with five thousand Congregational preachers, five thousand ruling elders, five thousand professors in colleges, five thousand of the solid men of Boston and their wives; settle them all in Santo Domingo, and you will see the second generation riding upon a mule, bareback, no shoes, a grapevine bridle, hair sticking out at the top of their sombreros, with a rooster under each arm, going to a cock fight on Sunday." Such is the influence of climate.
Science, however, is gradually widening the area within which men of genius can be produced. We are conquering the north with houses, clothing, food and fuel. We are in many ways overcoming the heat of the south. If we attend to this world instead of another, we may in time cover the land with men and women of genius.
I have still another excuse. I believe that man came up from the lower animals. I do not say this as a fact. I simply say I believe it to be a fact. Upon that question I stand about eight to seven, which, for all practical purposes, is very near a certainty. When I first heard of that doctrine I did not like it. My heart was filled with sympathy for those people who have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. I thought, how terrible this will be upon the nobility of the Old World. Think of their being forced to trace their ancestry back to the duke Orang Outang, or to the princess Chimpanzee. After thinking it all over, I came to the conclusion that I liked that doctrine. I became convinced in spite of myself. I read about rudimentary bones and muscles. I was told that everybody had rudimentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek. I asked "What are they?" I was told: "They are the remains of muscles; that they became rudimentary from lack of use; they went into bankruptcy. They are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap their ears." I do not now so much wonder that we once had them as that we have outgrown them.
After all I had rather belong to a race that started from the skull-less vertebrates in the dim Laurentian seas, vertebrates wiggling without knowing why they wiggled, swimming without knowing where they were going, but that in some way began to develop, and began to get a little higher and a little higher in the scale of existence; that came up by degrees through millions of ages through all the animal world, through all that crawls and swims and floats and climbs and walks, and finally produced the gentleman in the dug-out; and then from this man, getting a little grander, and each one below calling every one above him a heretic, calling every one who had made a little advance an infidel or an atheist—for in the history of this world the man who is ahead has always been called a heretic—I would rather come from a race that started from that skull-less vertebrate, and came up and up and up and finally produced Shakespeare, the man who found the human intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and it became a palace domed and pinnacled; Shakespeare, who harvested all the fields of dramatic thought, and from whose day to this, there have been only gleaners of straw and chaff—I would rather belong to that race that commenced a skull-less vertebrate and produced Shakespeare, a race that has before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning men forward, upward and onward forever—I had rather belong to such a race, commencing there, producing this, and with that hope, than to have sprung from a perfect pair upon which the Lord has lost money every moment from that day to this.
I have given you my honest thought. Surely investigation is better than unthinking faith. Surely reason is a better guide than fear. This world should be controlled by the living, not by the dead. The grave is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. Man should not try to live on ashes.
The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living. More than this cannot be said. About this world little is known,—about another world, nothing.
Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. The makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. Every dogma that we have, has upon it the mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of fagot.
Our fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. They believed in the logic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They despised thought. They abhorred liberty.
Superstition is the child of slavery. Free thought will give us truth. When all have the right to think and to express their thoughts, every brain will give to all the best it has. The world will then be filled with intellectual wealth.
As long as men and women are afraid of the church, as long as a minister inspires fear, as long as people reverence a thing simply because they do not understand it, as long as it is respectable to lose your self-respect, as long as the church has power, as long as mankind worship a book, just so long will the world be filled with intellectual paupers and vagrants, covered with the soiled and faded rags of superstition.
As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. The Bible was not written by a woman. Within its lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. She is regarded as the property of man. She is made to ask forgiveness for becoming a mother. She is as much below her husband, as her husband is below Christ. She is not allowed to speak. The gospel is too pure to be spoken by her polluted lips. Woman should learn in silence.
In the Bible will be found no description of a civilized home. The free mother surrounded by free and loving children, adored by a free man, her husband, was unknown to the inspired writers of the Bible. They did not believe in the democracy of home—in the republicanism of the fireside.
These inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights of children. They were the advocates of brute force—the disciples of the lash. They knew nothing of human rights. Their doctrines have brutalized the homes of millions, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears.
Let us free ourselves from the tyranny of a book, from the slavery of dead ignorance, from the aristocracy of the air.
There has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and women. It is not yet time to write a creed. Wait until the chains are broken—until dungeons are not regarded as temples. Wait until solemnity is not mistaken for wisdom—until mental cowardice ceases to be known as reverence. Wait until the living are considered the equals of the dead—until the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. Wait until what we know can be spoken without regard to what others may believe. Wait until teachers take the place of preachers—until followers become investigators. Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.
In this creed there will be but one word—Liberty.
Oh Liberty, float not forever in the far horizon—remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet, but come and make thy home among the children of men!
I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. I cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the fields of thought; but I do know, that coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time" a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, for woman, and for child.
To Plow is to Pray—to Plant is to Prophesy, and the Harvest Answers and Fulfills.
I AM not an old and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one of the hard-handed sons of labor. I imagine, however, that I know something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out of the ground.
I know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all wealth, prosperity and luxury. I know that in a country where the tillers of the fields are free, everybody is free and ought to be prosperous. Happy is that country where those who cultivate the land own it. Patriotism is born in the woods and fields—by lakes and streams—by crags and plains.
The old way of farming was a great mistake. Everything was done the wrong way. It was all work and waste, weariness and want. They used to fence a hundred and sixty acres of land with a couple of dogs. Everything was left to the protection of the blessed trinity of chance, accident and mistake.
When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in wagons and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. They would bring home about three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt, and a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake.
In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. Cooking was an unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. It was hard work for the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger.
We had poor houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had no barns. The horses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. Long before spring the sides would be eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. Food is fuel. When the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual starvation.
In those times most farmers thought the best place for the pig-pen was immediately in front of the house. There is nothing like sociability.
Women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. The wood pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log upon which an axe or two had been worn out in vain. There was nothing to kindle a fire with. Pickets were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kindling. Everything was done in the hardest way. Everything about the farm was disagreeable. Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was all labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all run to vines, or tops, or straw, or smut, or cobs. And when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between, the plow and the reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good, then the prices went down. Everything worked together for evil.
Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he never would cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to be bookkeepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's—reading, writing, and arithmetic—imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away.
A few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young men went to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting for them. They wanted to engage in something that promised quick returns. They built railways, established banks and insurance companies. They speculated in stocks in Wall Street, and gambled in grain at Chicago. They became rich. They lived in palaces. They rode in carriages. They pitied their poor brothers on the farms, and the poor brothers envied them.
But time has brought its revenge. The farmers have seen the railroad president a bankrupt, and the road in the hands of a receiver. They have seen the bank president abscond, and the insurance company a wrecked and ruined fraud. The only solvent people, as a class, the only independent people, are the tillers of the soil.
Farming must be made more attractive. The comforts of the town must be added to the beauty of the fields. The sociability of the city must be rendered possible in the country.
Farming has been made repulsive. The farmers have been unsociable and their homes have been lonely. They have been wasteful and careless. They have not been proud of their business.
In the first place, farming ought to be reasonably profitable. The farmers have not attended to their own interests. They have been robbed and plundered in a hundred ways.
No farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. He should sell horses, not oats; sheep, cattle and pork, not corn. He should make every profit possible out of what he produces. So long as the farmers of Illinois ship their corn and oats, so long they will be poor,—just so long will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance companies and banks of the East,—just so long will they do the work and others reap the benefit,—just so long will they be poor, and the money lenders grow rich,—just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net profits of honest toil. When the farmers of the West ship beef and pork instead of grain,—when we manufacture here,—when we cease paying tribute to others, ours will be the most prosperous country in the world.
Another thing—It is just as cheap to raise a good as a poor breed of cattle. Scrubs will eat just as much as thoroughbreds. If you are not able to buy Durhams and Alderneys, you can raise the corn breed. By "corn breed" I mean the cattle that have, for several generations, had enough to eat, and have been treated with kindness. Every farmer who will treat his cattle kindly, and feed them all they want, will, in a few years, have blooded stock on his farm. All blooded stock has been produced in this way. You can raise good cattle just as you can raise good people. If you wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty to eat, and treat him with kindness. In this way, and in this way only, can good cattle or good people be produced.
Another thing—You must beautify your homes.
When I was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out trees, nor to plant vines.
When you visited the farm you were not welcomed by flowers, and greeted by trees loaded with fruit. Yellow dogs came bounding over the tumbled fence like wild beasts. There is no sense—there is no profit in such a life. It is not living. The farmers ought to beautify their homes. There should be trees and grass and flowers and running vines. Everything should be kept in order—gates should be on their hinges, and about all there should be the pleasant air of thrift. In every house there should be a bath-room. The bath is a civilizer, a refiner, a beautifier. When you come from the fields tired, covered with dust, nothing is so refreshing. Above all things, keep clean. It is not necessary to be a pig in order to raise one. In the cool of the evening, after a day in the field, put on clean clothes, take a seat under the trees, 'mid the perfume of flowers, surrounded by your family, and you will know what it is to enjoy life like a gentleman.
In no part of the globe will farming pay better than in Illinois. You are in the best portion of the earth. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, there is no such country as yours. The East is hard and stony; the soil is stingy. The far West is a desert parched and barren, dreary and desolate as perdition would be with the fires out. It is better to dig wheat and corn from the soil than gold. Only a few days ago, I was where they wrench the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the rocks. When I saw the mountains, treeless, shrub-less, flowerless, without even a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same effect upon the country that holds it, as upon the man who lives and labors only for that. It affects the land as it does the man. It leaves the heart barren without a flower of kindness—without a blossom of pity.
The farmer in Illinois has the best soil—the greatest return for the least labor—more leisure—more time for enjoyment than any other farmer in the world. His hard work ceases with autumn. He has the long winters in which to become acquainted with his family—with his neighbors—in which to read and keep abreast with the advanced thought of his day. He has the time and means for self-culture. He has more time than the mechanic, the merchant or the professional man. If the farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. Books are cheap, and every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of every science, and an idea of all that has been accomplished by man.
In many respects the farmer has the advantage of the mechanic. In our time we have plenty of mechanics but no tradesmen. In the sub-division of labor we have a thousand men working upon different parts of the same thing, each taught in one particular branch, and in only one. We have, say, in a shoe factory, hundreds of men, but not one shoemaker. It takes them all, assisted by a great number of machines, to make a shoe. Each does a particular part, and not one of them knows the entire trade. The result is that the moment the factory shuts down these men are out of employment. Out of employment means out of bread—out of bread means famine and horror. The mechanic of to-day has but little independence. His prosperity often depends upon the good will of one man. He is liable to be discharged for a look, for a word. He lays by but little for his declining years. He is, at the best, the slave of capital.
It is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than part of a mechanic. It is better to till the ground and work for yourself than to be hired by corporations. Every man should endeavor to belong to himself.
About seven hundred years ago, Khayyam, a Persian, said: "Why should a man who possesses a piece of bread securing life for two days, and who has a cup of water—why should such a man be commanded by another, and why should such a man serve another?"
Young men should not be satisfied with a salary. Do not mortgage the possibilities of your future. Have the courage to take life as it comes, feast or famine. Think of hunting a gold mine for a dollar a day, and think of finding one for another man. How would you feel then?
We are lacking in true courage, when, for fear of the future, we take the crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries of the present. I had a thousand times rather have a farm and be independent, than to be President of the United States without independence, filled with doubt and trembling, feeling of the popular pulse, resorting to art and artifice, enquiring about the wind of opinion, and succeeding at last in losing my self-respect without gaining the respect of others.
Man needs more manliness, more real independence. We must take care of ourselves. This we can do by labor, and in this way we can preserve our independence. We should try and choose that business or profession the pursuit of which will give us the most happiness. Happiness is wealth. We can be happy without being rich—without holding office—without being famous. I am not sure that we can be happy with wealth, with office, or with fame.
There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise. A professional man is doomed sometime to feel that his powers are waning. He is doomed to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of life. He looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will be last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes, as it were, into partnership with nature—he lives with trees and flowers—he breathes the sweet air of the fields. There is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. His nights are filled with sleep and rest. He watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny slopes. He hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and the trees he planted in youth rustle above him as he plants others for the children yet to be.
Our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great question asking for an answer is: What shall be done with these men? What shall these men do? To this there is but one answer: They must cultivate the soil. Farming must be rendered more attractive. Those who work the land must have an honest pride in their business. They must educate their children to cultivate the soil. They must make farming easier, so that their children will not hate it—so that they will not hate it themselves. The boys must not be taught that tilling the ground is a curse and almost a disgrace. They must not suppose that education is thrown away upon them unless they become ministers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, or statesmen. It must be understood that education can be used to advantage on a farm. We must get rid of the idea that a little learning unfits one for work. There is no real conflict between Latin and labor. There are hundreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard and other colleges, who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks, copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of menial service. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work—anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they would a leprosy. Nearly every young man educated in this way is simply ruined. Such an education ought to be called ignorance. It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education, than education without the sense. Boys and girls should be educated to help themselves. They should be taught that it is disgraceful to be idle, and dishonorable to be useless.
I say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must be done to make farm life pleasant. One great difficulty is that the farm is lonely. People write about the pleasures of solitude, but they are found only in books. He who lives long alone becomes insane. A hermit is a madman. Without friends and wife and child, there is nothing left worth living for. The unsocial are the enemies of joy. They are filled with egotism and envy, with vanity and hatred. People who live much alone become narrow and suspicious. They are apt to be the property of one idea. They begin to think there is no use in anything. They look upon the happiness of others as a kind of folly. They hate joyous folks, because, way down in their hearts, they envy them.
In our country, farm-life is too lonely. The farms are large, and neighbors are too far apart. In these days, when the roads are filled with "tramps," the wives and children need protection. When the farmer leaves home and goes to some distant field to work, a shadow of fear is upon his heart all day, and a like shadow rests upon all at home.
In the early settlement of our country the pioneer was forced to take his family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and go into the far wild forest, and build his cabin miles and miles from any neighbor. He saw the smoke from his hearth go up alone in all the wide and lonely sky.
But this necessity has passed away, and now, instead of living so far apart upon the lonely farms, you should live in villages. With the improved machinery which you have—with your generous soil—with your markets and means of transportation, you can now afford to live together.
It is not necessary in this age of the world for the farmer to rise in the middle of the night and begin his work. This getting up so early in the morning is a relic of barbarism. It has made hundreds and thousands of young men curse the business. There is no need of getting up at three or four o'clock in the winter morning. The farmer who persists in doing it and persists in dragging his wife and children from their beds ought to be visited by a missionary. It is time enough to rise after the sun has set the example. For what purpose do you get up? To feed the cattle? Why not feed them more the night before? It is a waste of life. In the old times they used to get up about three o'clock in the morning, and go to work long before the sun had risen with "healing upon his wings," and as a just punishment they all had the ague; and they ought to have it now. The man who cannot get a living upon Illinois soil without rising before daylight ought to starve. Eight hours a day is enough for any farmer to work except in harvest time. When you rise at four and work till dark what is life worth? Of what use are all the improvements in farming? Of what use is all the improved machinery unless it tends to give the farmer a little more leisure? What is harvesting now, compared with what it was in the old time? Think of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding and mowing. Think of threshing with the flail and winnowing with the wind. And now think of the reapers and mowers, the binders and threshing machines, the plows and cultivators, upon which the farmer rides protected from the sun. If, with all these advantages, you cannot get a living without rising in the middle of the night, go into some other business. You should not rob your families of sleep. Sleep is the best medicine in the world. It is the best doctor upon the earth. There is no such thing as health without plenty of sleep. Sleep until you are thoroughly rested and restored. When you work, work; and when you get through take a good, long, and refreshing rest.
You should live in villages, so that you can have the benefits of social life. You can have a reading-room—you can take the best papers and magazines—you can have plenty of books, and each one can have the benefit of them all. Some of the young men and women can cultivate music. You can have social gatherings—you can learn from each other—you can discuss all topics of interest, and in this way you can make farming a delightful business. You must keep up with the age. The way to make farming respectable is for farmers to become really intelligent. They must live intelligent and happy lives. They must know something of books and something of what is going on in the world. They must not be satisfied with knowing something of the affairs of a neighborhood and nothing about the rest of the earth. The business must be made attractive, and it never can be until the farmer has prosperity, intelligence and leisure.
Another thing—I am a believer in fashion. It is the duty of every woman to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can.
"Handsome is as handsome does," but she is much handsomer if well dressed. Every man should look his very best. I am a believer in good clothes. The time never ought to come in this country when you can tell a farmer's wife or daughter simply by the garments she wears. I say to every girl and woman, no matter what the material of your dress may be, no matter how cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion. I believe in jewelry. Some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my judgment, wearing jewelry is the first evidence the barbarian gives of a wish to be civilized. To adorn ourselves seems to be a part of our nature, and this desire seems to be everywhere and in everything. I have sometimes thought that the desire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. It is this desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and its song. Oh daughters and wives, if you would be loved, adorn yourselves—if you would be adored, be beautiful!
There is another fault common with the farmers of our country—they want too much land. You cannot, at present, when taxes are high, afford to own land that you do not cultivate. Sell it and let others make farms and homes. In this way what you keep will be enhanced in value. Farmers ought to own the land they cultivate, and cultivate what they own. Renters can hardly be called farmers. There can be no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it. There must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve and improve. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a certain independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way. A man without a home feels like a passenger. There is in such a man a little of the vagrant. Homes make patriots. He who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children will defend it. When he hears the word country pronounced, he thinks of his home.
Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defence of a boarding house.
The prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of our people who are the owners of homes. Around the fireside cluster the private and the public virtues of our race. Raise your sons to be independent through labor—to pursue some business for themselves and upon their own account—to be self-reliant—to act upon their own responsibility, and to take the consequences like men. Teach them above all things to be good, true and tender husbands—winners of love and builders of homes.
A great many farmers seem to think that they are the only laborers in the world. This is a very foolish thing. Farmers cannot get along without the mechanic. You are not independent of the man of genius. Your prosperity depends upon the inventor. The world advances by the assistance of all laborers; and all labor is under obligations to the inventions of genius. The inventor does as much for agriculture as he who tills the soil. All laboring men should be brothers. You are in partnership with the mechanics who make your reapers, your mowers and your plows; and you should take into your granges all the men who make their living by honest labor. The laboring people should unite and should protect themselves against all idlers. You can divide mankind into two classes: the laborers and the idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dishonest. Every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. All laborers should be brothers. The laborers should have equal rights before the world and before the law. And I want every farmer to consider every man who labors either with hand or brain as his brother. Until genius and labor formed a partnership there was no such thing as prosperity among men. Every reaper and mower, every agricultural implement, has elevated the work of the farmer, and his vocation grows grander with every invention. In the olden time the agriculturist was ignorant; he knew nothing of machinery, he was the slave of superstition. He was always trying to appease some imaginary power by fasting and prayer. He supposed that some being actuated by malice, sent the untimely frost, or swept away with the wild wind his rude abode. To him the seasons were mysteries. The thunder told him of an enraged god—the barren fields of the vengeance of heaven. The tiller of the soil lived in perpetual and abject fear. He knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of order, nothing of law, nothing of cause and effect. He was a superstitious savage. He invented prayers instead of plows, creeds instead of reapers and mowers. He was unable to devote all his time to the gods, and so he hired others to assist him, and for their influence with the gentlemen supposed to control the weather, he gave one-tenth of all he could produce.
The farmer has been elevated through science and he should not forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker. He should remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family—that they are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility.
Another idea entertained by most farmers is that they are in some mysterious way oppressed by every other kind of business—that they are devoured by monopolies, especially by railroads.
Of course, the railroads are indebted to the farmers for their prosperity, and the farmers are indebted to the railroads. Without them Illinois would be almost worthless.
A few years ago you endeavored to regulate the charges of railroad companies. The principal complaint you had was that they charged too much for the transportation of corn and other cereals to the East. You should remember that all freights are paid by the consumer; and that it made little difference to you what the railroad charged for transportation to the East, as that transportation had to be paid by the consumers of the grain. You were really interested in transportation from the East to the West and in local freights. The result is that while you have put down through freights you have not succeeded so well in local freights. The exact opposite should be the policy of Illinois. Put down local freights; put them down, if you can, to the lowest possible figure, and let through rates take care of themselves. If all the corn raised in Illinois could be transported to New York absolutely free, it would enhance but little the price that you would receive. What we want is the lowest possible local rate. Instead of this you have simply succeeded in helping the East at the expense of the West. The railroads are your friends. They are your partners. They can prosper only where the country through which they run prospers. All intelligent railroad men know this. They know that present robbery is future bankruptcy. They know that the interest of the farmer and of the railroad is the same. We must have railroads. What can we do without them?
When we had no railroads, we drew, as I said before, our grain two hundred miles to market.
In those days the farmers did not stop at hotels. They slept under their wagons—took with them their food—fried their own bacon, made their coffee, and ate their meals in the snow and rain. Those were the days when they received ten cents a bushel for corn—when they sold four bushels of potatoes for a quarter—thirty-three dozen eggs for a dollar, and a hundred pounds of pork for a dollar and a half.
What has made the difference?
The railroads came to your door and they brought with them the markets of the world. They brought New York and Liverpool and London into Illinois, and the State has been clothed with prosperity as with a mantle. It is the interest of the farmer to protect every great interest in the State. You should feel proud that Illinois has more railroads than any other State in this Union. Her main tracks and side tracks would furnish iron enough to belt the globe. In Illinois there are ten thousand miles of railways. In these iron highways more than three hundred million dollars have been invested—a sum equal to ten times the original cost of all the land in the State. To make war upon the railroads is a short-sighted and suicidal policy. They should be treated fairly and should be taxed by the same standard that farms are taxed, and in no other way. If we wish to prosper we must act together, and we must see to it that every form of labor is protected.
There has been a long period of depression in all business. The farmers have suffered least of all. Your land is just as rich and productive as ever. Prices have been reasonable. The towns and cities have suffered. Stocks and bonds have shrunk from par to worthless paper. Princes have become paupers, and bankers, merchants and millionaires have passed into the oblivion of bankruptcy. The period of depression is slowly passing away, and we are entering upon better times.
A great many people say that a scarcity of money is our only difficulty. In my opinion we have money enough, but we lack confidence in each other and in the future.
There has been so much dishonesty, there have been so many failures, that the people are afraid to trust anybody. There is plenty of money, but there seems to be a scarcity of business. If you were to go to the owner of a ferry, and, upon seeing his boat lying high and dry on the shore, should say, "There is a superabundance of ferryboat," he would probably reply, "No, but there is a scarcity of water." So with us there is not a scarcity of money, but there is a scarcity of business. And this scarcity springs from lack of confidence in one another. So many presidents of savings banks, even those belonging to the Young Men's Christian Association, run off with the funds; so many railroad and insurance companies are in the hands of receivers; there is so much bankruptcy on every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch of fear. Slowly, but surely we are coming back to honest methods in business. Confidence will return, and then enterprise will unlock the safe and money will again circulate as of yore; the dollars will leave their hiding places and every one will be seeking investment.
For my part, I do not ask any interference on the part of the Government except to undo the wrong it has done. I do not ask that money be made out of nothing. I do not ask for the prosperity born of paper. But I do ask for the remonetization of silver. Silver was demonetized by fraud. It was an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud upon every honest debtor in the United States. It assassinated labor. It was done in the interest of avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men.
The farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard and advance the interests of labor. We should know better than to vote for men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon Canada lumber, when every farmer in Illinois is a purchaser of lumber. People who live upon the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. We should protect ourselves. We ought to have intelligence enough to know what we want and how to get it. The real laboring men of this country can succeed if they are united. By laboring men, I do not mean only the farmers. I mean all who contribute in some way to the general welfare. They should forget prejudices and party names, and remember only the best interests of the people. Let us see if we cannot, in Illinois, protect every department of industry. Let us see if all property cannot be protected alike and taxed alike, whether owned by individuals or corporations.
Where industry creates and justice protects, prosperity dwells.
Let me tell you something more about Illinois. We have fifty-six thousand square miles of land—nearly thirty-six million acres. Upon these plains we can raise enough to feed and clothe twenty million people. Beneath these prairies were hidden millions of ages ago, by that old miser, the sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. The aggregate thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. Think of a column of coal one mile square and one hundred miles high! All this came from the sun. What a sunbeam such a column would be! Think of the engines and machines this coal will run and turn and whirl! Think of all this force, willed and left to us by the dead morning of the world! Think of the firesides of the future around which will sit the fathers, mothers and children of the years to be! Think of the sweet and happy faces, the loving and tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the sacred light of all these flames!
We have the best country in the world, and Illinois is the best State in that country. Is there any reason that our farmers should not be prosperous and happy men? They have every advantage, and within their reach are all the comforts and conveniences of life.
Do not get the land fever and think you must buy all that joins you. Get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field. There is no business under the sun that can pay ten per cent.
Ainsworth R. Spofford gives the following facts about interest: "One dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent, it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as much. At twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and seventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twenty-four per cent, (which we sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the enormous sum of two billion five hundred and fifty-one million seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand four hundred and four dollars."
One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt.
Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough.
Above all let every farmer treat his wife and children with infinite kindness. Give your sons and daughters every advantage within your power. In the air of kindness they will grow about you like flowers. They will fill your homes with sunshine and all your years with joy. Do not try to rule by force. A blow from a parent leaves a scar on the soul. I should feel ashamed to die surrounded by children I had whipped. Think of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had struck.
See to it that your wife has every convenience. Make her life worth living. Never allow her to become a servant. Wives, weary and worn, mothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, fill homes with grief and shame. If you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them yourselves. See that they have the best utensils to work with.
Women cannot create things by magic. Have plenty of wood and coal—good cellars and plenty in them. Have cisterns, so that you can have plenty of rain water for washing. Do not rely on a barrel and a board. When the rain comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the barrel.
Farmers should live like princes. Eat the best things you raise and sell the rest. Have good things to cook and good things to cook with. Of all people in our country, you should live the best. Throw your miserable little stoves out of the window. Get ranges, and have them so built that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a breakfast. Do not make her cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. The beef, not the cook, should be roasted. It is just as easy to have things convenient and right as to have them any other way.
Cooking is one of the fine arts. Give your wives and daughters things to cook, and things to cook with, and they will soon become most excellent cooks. Good cooking is the basis of civilization. The man whose arteries and veins are filled with rich blood made of good and well cooked food, has pluck, courage, endurance and and noble impulses. The inventor of a good soup did more for his race than the maker of any creed. The doctrines of total depravity and endless punishment were born of bad cooking and dyspepsia. Remember that your wife should have the things to cook with.
In the good old days there would be eleven children in the family and only one skillet. Everything was broken or cracked or loaned or lost.
There ought to be a law making it a crime, punishable by imprisonment, to fry beefsteak. Broil it; it is just as easy, and when broiled it is delicious. Fried beefsteak is not fit for a wild beast. You can broil even on a stove. Shut the front damper—open the back one—then take off a griddle. There will then be a draft downwards through this opening. Put on your steak, using a wire broiler, and not a particle of smoke will touch it, for the reason that the smoke goes down. If you try to broil it with the front damper open, the smoke will rise. For broiling, coal, even soft coal, makes a better fire than wood.
There is no reason why farmers should not have fresh meat all the year round. There is certainly no sense in stuffing yourself full of salt meat every morning, and making a well or a cistern of your stomach for the rest of the day. Every farmer should have an ice house. Upon or near every farm is some stream from which plenty of ice can be obtained, and the long summer days made delightful. Dr. Draper, one of the world's greatest scientists, says that ice water is healthy, and that it has done away with many of the low forms of fever in the great cities. Ice has become one of the necessaries of civilized life, and without it there is very little comfort.
Make your homes pleasant. Have your houses warm and comfortable for the winter. Do not build a story-and-a-half house. The half story is simply an oven in which, during the summer, you will bake every night, and feel in the morning as though only the rind of yourself was left.
Decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. The cheapest are far better than none. Have books—have papers, and read them. You have more leisure than the dwellers in cities. Beautify your grounds with plants and flowers and vines. Have good gardens. Remember that everything of beauty tends to the elevation of man. Every little morning-glory whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of the sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the value of everything by the market reports. Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming, tells of love and joy.
Make your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together in a little room around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. Do not live in this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies, put a piece in the papers commencing with, "Whereas, it has pleased divine Providence to remove from our midst—." Have plenty of air, and plenty of warmth. Comfort is health. Do not imagine anything is unhealthy simply because it is pleasant. That is an old and foolish idea.
Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds in the darkness of night. Do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome, irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. In this way you bring farming into hatred and disrepute. Treat your children with infinite kindness—treat them as equals. There is no happiness in a home not filled with love. Where the husband hates his wife—where the wife hates the husband; where children hate their parents and each other—there is a hell upon earth.
There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dark and dreary shops, or in the perfumed fields. To work for others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for himself. Selfishness is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. In the realm of speculation, every success has at least one victim. The harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and injures none. For him to succeed, it is not necessary that some one should fail. The same is true of all producers—of all laborers.
I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a promise of joy as that of the farmer in the early winter. He has his cellar filled—he has made every preparation for the days of snow and storm—he looks forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of fireside-content; three months with wife and children; three months of long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid comfort.
When the life of the farmer is such as I have described, the cities and towns will not be filled with want—the streets will not be crowded with wrecked rogues, broken bankers, and bankrupt speculators. The fields will be tilled, and country villages, almost hidden by trees and vines and flowers, filled with industrious and happy people, will nestle in every vale and gleam like gems on every plain.
The idea must be done away with that there is something intellectually degrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing can be nobler than to be useful. Idleness should not be respectable.
If farmers will cultivate well, and without waste; if they will so build that their houses will be warm in winter and cool in summer; if they will plant trees and beautify their homes; if they will occupy their leisure in reading, in thinking, in improving their minds and in devising ways and means to make their business profitable and pleasant; if they will live nearer together and cultivate sociability; if they will come together often; if they will have reading rooms and cultivate music; if they will have bath-rooms, ice-houses and good gardens; if their wives can have an easy time; if their sons and daughters can have an opportunity to keep in line with the thoughts and discoveries of the world; if the nights can be taken for sleep and the evenings for enjoyment, everybody will be in love with the fields. Happiness should be the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods and the old home. Around the farm will cling and cluster the happy memories of the delighful years.
Remember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor—that you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same noble family.
For my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived and died.
I can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life
If what is known as the Christian Religion is true, nothing can be more wonderful than the fact that Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about "salvation by faith;" that they do not even hint at the doctrine of the atonement, and are as silent as empty tombs as to the necessity of believing anything to secure happiness in this world or another.
For a good many years it has been claimed that the writers of these gospels knew something about the teachings of Christ, and had, at least, a general knowledge of the conditions of salvation. It now seems to be substantiated that the early Christians did not place implicit confidence in the gospels, and did not hesitate to make such changes and additions as they thought proper. Such changes and additions are about the only passages in the New Testament that the Evangelical Churches now consider sacred. That portion of the last chapter of Mark, in which unbelievers are so cheerfully and promptly damned, has been shown to be an interpolation, and it is asserted that in the revised edition of the New Testament, soon to be issued, the infamous passages will not appear. With these expunged, there is not one word in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, even tending to show that belief in Christ has, or can have, any effect upon the destiny of the soul.
The four gospels are the four corner-stones upon which rests the fabric of orthodox Christianity. Three of these stones have crumbled, and the fourth is not likely to outlast this generation. The gospel of John cannot alone uphold the infinite absurdity of vicarious virtue and vice, and it cannot, without the aid of "interpolation," sustain the illogical and immoral dogma of salvation by faith. These frightful doctrines must be abandoned; the miraculous must be given up, the wonderful stories must be expunged, and from the creed of noble deeds the forgeries of superstition must be blotted out. From the temple of Morality and Truth—from the great windows towards the sun—the parasitic and poisonous vines of faith and fable must be torn.
The church will be compelled at last to rest its case, not upon the wonders Christ is said to have performed, but upon the system of morality he taught. All the miracles, including the resurrection and ascension, are, when compared with portions of the "Sermon on the Mount," but dust and darkness.
The careful reader of the New Testament will find three Christs described:—One who wished to preserve Judaism—one who wished to reform it, and one who built a system of his own. The apostles and their disciples, utterly unable to comprehend a religion that did away with sacrifices, churches, priests, and creeds, constructed a Christianity for themselves, so that the orthodox churches of to-day rest—first, upon what Christ endeavored to destroy—second, upon what he never said, and, third, upon a misunderstanding of what he did say.
If a certain belief is necessary to insure the salvation of the soul, the church ought to explain, and without any unnecessary delay, why such an infinitely important fact was utterly ignored by Matthew, Mark and Luke. There are only two explanations possible. Either belief is unnecessary, or the writers of these three gospels did not understand the Christian system. The "sacredness" of the subject cannot longer hide the absurdity of the "scheme of salvation," nor the failure of Matthew, Mark and Luke to mention, what is now claimed to have been, the entire mission of Christ. The church must take from the New Testament the supernatural'; the idea that an intellectual conviction can subject an honest man to eternal pain—the awful doctrine that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, and allow the remainder to be discussed, denied or believed without punishment and without reward. No one will object to the preaching of kindness, honesty and justice. To preach less is a crime, and to practice more is impossible.
There is one thing that ought to be again impressed upon the average theologian, and that is the utter futility of trying to answer arguments with personal abuse. It should be understood once for all that these questions are in no sense personal. If it should turn out that all the professed Christians in the world are sinless saints, the question of how Matthew, Mark, and Luke, came to say nothing about the atonement and the scheme of salvation by faith, would still be asked. And if it should then be shown that all the doubters, deists, and atheists, are vile and vicious wretches, the question still would wait for a reply.
The origin of all religions, creeds, and sacred books, is substantially the same, and the history of one, is, in the main, the history of all. Thus far these religions have been the mistaken explanations of our surroundings. The appearances of nature have imposed upon the ignorance and fear of man. But back of all honest creeds was, and is, the desire to know, to understand, and to explain, and that desire will, as I most fervently hope and earnestly believe, be gratified at last by the discovery of the truth. Until then, let us bear with the theories, hopes, dreams, mistakes, and honest thoughts of all.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Washington, D. C.,
October, 1880.
WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?
"THE NUREMBERG MAN WAS OPERATED BY A COMBINATION OF PIPES AND LEVERS, AND THOUGH HE COULD BREATHE AND DIGEST PERFECTLY, AND EVEN REASON AS WELL AS MOST THEOLOGIANS, WAS MADE OF NOTHING BUT WOOD AND LEATHER."
THE whole world has been filled with fear.
Ignorance has been the refuge of the soul. For thousands of years the intellectual ocean was ravaged by the buccaneers of reason. Pious souls clung to the shore and looked at the lighthouse. The seas were filled with monsters and the islands with sirens. The people were driven in the middle of a narrow road while priests went before, beating the hedges on either side to frighten the robbers from their lairs. The poor followers seeing no robbers, thanked their brave leaders with all their hearts.
Huddled in folds they listened with wide eyes while the shepherds told of ravening wolves. With great gladness they exchanged their fleeces for security. Shorn and shivering, they had the happiness of seeing their protectors comfortable and warm.
Through all the years, those who plowed divided with those who prayed. Wicked industry supported pious idleness, the hut gave to the cathedral, and frightened poverty gave even its rags to buy a robe for hypocrisy.
Fear is the dungeon of the mind, and superstition is a dagger with which hypocrisy assassinates the soul. Courage is liberty. I am in favor of absolute freedom of thought. In the realm of mind every one is monarch; every one is robed, sceptered, and crowned, and every one wears the purple of authority. I belong to the republic of intellectual liberty, and only those are good citizens of that republic who depend upon reason and upon persuasion, and only those are traitors who resort to brute force.
Now, I beg of you all to forget just for a few moments that you are Methodists or Baptists or Catholics or Presbyterians, and let us for an hour or two remember only that we are men and women. And allow me to say "man" and "woman" are the highest titles that can be bestowed upon humanity.
Let us, if possible, banish all fear from the mind. Do not imagine that there is some being in the infinite expanse who is not willing that every man and woman should think for himself and herself. Do not imagine that there is any being who would give to his children the holy torch of reason, and then damn them for following that sacred light. Let us have courage.
Priests have invented a crime called "blasphemy," and behind that crime hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. There is but one blasphemy, and that is injustice. There is but one worship, and that is justice!
You need not fear the anger of a god that you cannot injure. Rather fear to injure your fellow-men. Do not be afraid of a crime you can not commit. Rather be afraid of the one that you may commit. The reason that you cannot injure God is that the Infinite is conditionless. You cannot increase or diminish the happiness of any being without changing that being's condition. If God is conditionless, you can neither injure nor benefit him.
There was a Jewish gentleman went into a restaurant to get his dinner, and the devil of temptation whispered in his ear: "Eat some bacon." He knew if there was anything in the universe calculated to excite the wrath of an infinite being, who made every shining star, it was to see a gentleman eating bacon. He knew it, and he knew the infinite being was looking, that he was the eternal eavesdropper of the universe. But his appetite got the better of his conscience, as it often has with us all, and he ate that bacon. He knew it was wrong, and his conscience felt the blood of shame in its cheek. When he went into that restaurant the weather was delightful, the sky was as blue as June, and when he came out the sky was covered with angry clouds, the lightning leaping from one to the other, and the earth shaking beneath the voice of the thunder. He went back into that restaurant with a face as white as milk, and he said to one of the keepers:
"My God, did you ever hear such a fuss about a little piece of bacon?"
As long as we harbor such opinions of infinity; as long as we imagine the heavens to be filled with such tyranny, just so long the sons of men will be cringing, intellectual cowards. Let us think, and let us honestly express our thought.
Do not imagine for a moment that I think people who disagree with me are bad people. I admit, and I cheerfully admit, that a very large proportion of mankind, and a very large majority, a vast number are reasonably honest. I believe that most Christians believe what they teach; that most ministers are endeavoring to make this world better. I do not pretend to be better than they are. It is an intellectual question. It is a question, first, of intellectual liberty, and after that, a question to be settled at the bar of human reason. I do not pretend to be better than they are. Probably I am a good deal worse than many of them, but that is not the question. The question is: Bad as I am, have I the right to think? And I think I have for two reasons: First, I cannot help it. And secondly, I like it. The whole question is right at a point. If I have not a right to express my thoughts, who has?
"Oh," they say, "we will allow you to think, we will not burn you."
"All right; why won't you burn me?"
"Because we think a decent man will allow others to think and to express his thought."
"Then the reason you do not persecute me for my thought is that you believe it would be infamous in you?"
"Yes."
"And yet you worship a God who will, as you declare, punish me forever?"
Surely an infinite God ought to be as just as man. Surely no God can have the right to punish his children for being honest. He should not reward hypocrisy with heaven, and punish candor with eternal pain.
The next question then is: Can I commit a sin against God by thinking? If God did not intend I should think, why did he give me a thinker? For one, I am convinced, not only that I have the right to think, but that it is my duty to express my honest thoughts. Whatever the gods may say we must be true to ourselves.
We have got what they call the Christian system of religion, and thousands of people wonder how I can be wicked enough to attack that system.
There are many good things about it, and I shall never attack anything that I believe to be good! I shall never fear to attack anything I honestly believe to be wrong! We have what they call the Christian religion, and I find, just in proportion that nations have been religious, just in the proportion they have clung to the religion of their founders, they have gone back to barbarism. I find that Spain, Portugal, Italy, are the three worst nations in Europe. I find that the nation nearest infidel is the most prosperous—France.
And so I say there can be no danger in the exercise of absolute intellectual freedom. I find among ourselves the men who think are at least as good as those who do not.
We have, I say, a Christian system, and that system is founded upon what they are pleased to call the "New Testament." Who wrote the New Testament? I do not know. Who does know? Nobody. We have found many manuscripts containing portions of the New Testament. Some of these manuscripts leave out five or six books—many of them. Others more; others less. No two of these manuscripts agree. Nobody knows who wrote these manuscripts. They are all written in Greek. The disciples of Christ, so far as we know, knew only Hebrew. Nobody ever saw so far as we know, one of the original Hebrew manuscripts.
Nobody ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had heard of anybody that had ever seen anybody that had ever seen one of the original Hebrew manuscripts. No doubt the clergy of your city have told you these facts thousands of times, and they will be obliged to me for having repeated them once more. These manuscripts are written in what are called capital Greek letters. They are called Uncial manuscripts, and the New Testament was not divided into chapters and verses, even, until the year of grace 1551. In the original the manuscripts and gospels are signed by nobody. The epistles are addressed to nobody; and they are signed by the same person. All the addresses, all the pretended ear-marks showing to whom they were written, and by whom they were written, are simply interpolations, and everybody who has studied the subject knows it.
It is further admitted that even these manuscripts have not been properly translated, and they have a syndicate now making a new translation; and I suppose that I can not tell whether I really believe the New Testament or not until I see that new translation.
You must remember, also, one other thing. Christ never wrote a solitary word of the New Testament—not one word. There is an account that he once stooped and wrote something in the sand, but that has not been preserved. He never told anybody to write a word. He never said: "Matthew, remember this. Mark, do not forget to put that down. Luke, be sure that in your gospel you have this. John, do not forget it." Not one word. And it has always seemed to me that a being coming from another world, with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should at least have verified that message by his own signature. Is it not wonderful that not one word was written by Christ? Is it not strange that he gave no orders to have his words preserved—words upon which hung the salvation of a world?
Why was nothing written? I will tell you. In my judgment they expected the end of the world in a few days. That generation was not to pass away until the heavens should be rolled up as a scroll, and until the earth should melt with fervent heat. That was their belief. They believed that the world was to be destroyed, and that there was to be another coming, and that the saints were then to govern the earth. And they even went so far among the apostles, as we frequently do now before election, as to divide out the offices in advance. This Testament, as it now is, was not written for hundreds of years after the apostles were dust. Many of the pretended facts lived in the open mouth of credulity. They were in the wastebaskets of forgetfulness. They depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for centuries these doctrines and stories were blown about by the inconstant winds. And when reduced to writing, some gentleman would write by the side of the passage his idea of it, and the next copyist would put that in as a part of the text. And, when it was mostly written, and the church got into trouble, and wanted a passage to help it out, one was interpolated to order. So that now it is among the easiest things in the world to pick out at least one hundred interpolations in the Testament. And I will pick some of them out before I get through.
And let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man is holy ground. And let me say, once for all, that to that great and serene man I gladly pay, I gladly pay, the tribute of my admiration and my tears. He was a reformer in his day. He was an infidel in his time. He was regarded as a blasphemer, and his life was destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample freedom and manhood out of the human mind. Had I lived at that time I would have been his friend, and should he come again he will not find a better friend than I will be.
That is for the man. For the theological creation I have a different feeling. If he was, in fact, God, he knew there was no such thing as death. He knew that what we called death was but the eternal opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy; and it took no heroism to face a death that was eternal life.
But when a man, when a poor boy sixteen years of age, goes upon the field of battle to keep his flag in heaven, not knowing but that death ends all; not knowing but that when the shadows creep over him, the darkness will be eternal, there is heroism. For the man who, in the darkness, said: "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"—for that man I have nothing but respect, admiration, and love. Back of the theological shreds, rags, and patches, hiding the real Christ, I see a genuine man.
A while ago I made up my mind to find out what was necessary for me to do in order to be saved. If I have got a soul, I want it saved. I do not wish to lose anything that is of value.
For thousands of years the world has been asking that question:
"What must we do to be saved?"
Saved from poverty? No. Saved from crime? No. Tyranny? No. But "What must we do to be saved from the eternal wrath of the God who made us all?"
If God made us, he will not destroy us. Infinite wisdom never made a poor investment. Upon all the works of an infinite God, a dividend must finally be declared. Why should God make failures? Why should he waste material? Why should he not correct his mistakes, instead of damning them? The pulpit has cast a shadow over even the cradle. The doctrine of endless punishment has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. I despise it, and I defy it.
I made up my mind, I say, to see what I had to do in order to save my soul according to the Testament, and thereupon I read it. I read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and found that the church had been deceiving me. I found that the clergy did not understand their own book; that they had been building upon passages that had been interpolated; upon passages that were entirely untrue, and I will tell you why I think so.
ACCORDING to the church, the first gospel was written by Matthew. As a matter of fact he never wrote a word of it—never saw it, never heard of it and probably never will. But for the purposes of this lecture I admit that he wrote years; that he was his constant companion; that he shared his sorrows and his triumphs; that he heard his words by the lonely lakes, the barren hills, in synagogue and street, and that he knew his heart and became acquainted with his thoughts and aims.
Now let us see what Matthew says we must do in order to be saved. And I take it that, if this is true, Matthew is as good authority as any minister in the world.
I will admit that he was with Christ for three years.
The first thing I find upon the subject of salvation is in the fifth chapter of Matthew, and is embraced in what is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount. It is as follows:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Good!
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good! Whether they belonged to any church or not; whether they believed the Bible or not?
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good!
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Good!
In the same sermon he says: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." And then he makes use of this remarkable language, almost as applicable to-day as it was then: "For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." Good!
In the sixth chapter I find the following, and it comes directly after the prayer known as the Lord's prayer:
"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses."
I accept the condition. There is an offer; I accept it. If you will forgive men that trespass against you, God will forgive your trespasses against him. I accept the terms, and I never will ask any God to treat me better than I treat my fellow-men. There is a square promise. There is a contract. If you will forgive others God will forgive you. And it does not say you must believe in the Old Testament, or be baptized, or join the church, or keep Sunday; that you must count beads, or pray, or become a nun, or a priest; that you must preach sermons or hear them, build churches or fill them. Not one word is said about eating or fasting, denying or believing. It simply says, if you forgive others God will forgive you; and it must of necessity be true. No god could afford to damn a forgiving man. Suppose God should damn to everlasting fire a man so great and good, that he, looking from the abyss of hell, would forgive God,—how would a god feel then?
Now let me make myself plain upon one subject, perfectly plain. For instance, I hate Presbyterianism, but I know hundreds of splendid Presbyterians. Understand me. I hate Methodism, and yet I know hundreds of splendid Methodists. I hate Catholicism, and like Catholics. I hate insanity but not the insane.
I do not war against men. I do not war against persons. I war against certain doctrines that I believe to be wrong. But I give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself.
The next thing that I find is in the seventh chapter and the second verse: "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Good! That suits me!
And in the twelfth chapter of Matthew: "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother. For the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according.... To the church he belongs to? No. To the manner in which he was baptized? No. According to his creed? No. Then he shall reward every man according to his works." Good! I subscribe to that doctrine.
And in the eighteenth chapter: "And Jesus called a little child to him and stood him in the midst; and said, 'Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" I do not wonder that in his day, surrounded by scribes and Pharisees, he turned lovingly to little children.
And yet, see what children the little children of God have been. What an interesting dimpled darling John Calvin was. Think of that prattling babe, Jonathan Edwards! Think of the infants that founded the Inquisition, that invented instruments of torture to tear human flesh. They were the ones who had become as little children. They were the children of faith.
So I find in the nineteenth chapter: "And behold, one came and said unto him: 'Good master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?' And he said unto him, 'Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.' He saith unto him, 'which?'"
Now, there is a fair issue. Here is a child of God asking God what is necessary for him to do in order to inherit eternal life. And God said to him: Keep the commandments. And the child said to the Almighty: "Which?" Now, if there ever has been an opportunity given to the Almighty to furnish a man of an inquiring mind with the necessary information upon that subject, here was the opportunity. "He said unto him, which? And Jesus said: Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; honor thy father and mother; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
He did not say to him: "You must believe in me—that I am the only begotten son of the living God." He did not say: "You must be born again." He did not say: "You must believe the Bible." He did not say: "You must remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." He simply said: "Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." And thereupon the young man, who I think was mistaken, said unto him: "All these things have I kept from my youth up."
What right has the church to add conditions of salvation? Why should we suppose that Christ failed to tell the young man all that was necessary for him to do? Is it possible that he left out some important thing simply to mislead? Will some minister tell us why he thinks that Christ kept back the "scheme"?
Now comes an interpolation.
In the old times when the church got a little scarce of money, they always put in a passage praising poverty. So they had this young man ask: "What lack I yet? And Jesus said unto him: If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven."
The church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down. And when the next verse was written the church must have been nearly bankrupt. "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Did you ever know a wealthy disciple to unload on account of that verse?
And then comes another verse, which I believe is an interpolation: "And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life."
Christ never said it. Never. "Whosoever shall forsake father and mother."
Why, he said to this man that asked him, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" among other things, he said: "Honor thy father and thy mother." And we turn over the page and he says again: "If you will desert your father and mother you shall have everlasting life." It will not do. If you will desert your wife and your little children, or your lands—the idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wife and children! Think of that! I do not accept the terms. I will never desert the one I love for the promise of any god.
It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If he is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the sweet babes.
There was a time when people believed the infamy commanded in this frightful passage. There was a time when they did desert fathers and mothers and wives and children. St. Augustine says to the devotee: Fly to the desert, and though your wife put her arms around your neck, tear her hands away; she is a temptation of the devil. Though your father and mother throw their bodies athwart your threshold, step over them; and though your children pursue, and with weeping' eyes beseech you to return, listen not. It is the temptation of the evil one. Fly to the desert and save your soul. Think of such a soul being worth saving. While I live I propose to stand by the ones I love.
There is another condition of salvation. I find it in the twenty-fifth chapter: "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked and ye clothed me; I was sick and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye came unto me." Good!
I tell you to-night that God will not punish with eternal thirst the man who has put the cup of cold water to the lips of his neighbor. God will not leave in the eternal nakedness of pain the man who has clothed his fellow-men.
For instance, here is a shipwreck, and here is some brave sailor who stands aside and allows a woman whom he never saw before to take his place in the boat, and he stands there, grand and serene as the wide sea, and he goes down. Do you tell me that there is any God who will push the lifeboat from the shore of eternal life, when that man wishes to step in? Do you tell me that God can be unpitying to the pitiful, that he can be unforgiving to the forgiving? I deny it; and from the aspersions of the pulpit I seek to rescue the reputation of the Deity.
Now, I have read you substantially everything in Matthew on the subject of salvation. That is all there is. Not one word about believing anything. It is the gospel of deed, the gospel of charity, the gospel of self-denial; and if only that gospel had been preached, persecution never would have shed one drop of blood. Not one.
According to the testimony Matthew was well acquainted with Christ. According to the testimony, he had been with him, and his companion for years, and if it was necessary to believe anything in order to get to heaven, Matthew should have told us. But he forgot it, or he did not believe it, or he never heard of it. You can take your choice.
In Matthew, we find that heaven is promised, first, to the poor in spirit. Second, to the merciful. Third, to the pure in heart. Fourth, to the peacemakers. Fifth, to those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Sixth, to those who keep and teach the commandments. Seventh, to those who forgive men that trespass against them. Eighth, that we will be judged as we judge others. Ninth, that they who receive prophets and righteous men shall receive a prophet's reward. Tenth, to those who do the will of God. Eleventh, that every man shall be rewarded according to his works. Twelfth, to those who become as little children. Thirteenth, to those who forgive the trespasses of others. Fourteenth, to the perfect: they who sell all that they have and give to the poor. Fifteenth, to them who forsake houses, and brethren, and sisters, and father, and mother, and wife, and children, and lands for the sake of Christ's name. Sixteenth, to those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter to the stranger, clothes to the naked, comfort to the sick, and who visit the prisoner.
Nothing else is said with regard to salvation in the gospel according to St. Matthew. Not one word about believing the Old Testament to have been inspired; not one word about being baptized or joining a church; not one word about believing in any miracle; not even a hint that it was necessary to believe that Christ was the son of God, or that he did any wonderful or miraculous things, or that he was born of a virgin, or that his coming had been foretold by the Jewish prophets. Not one word about believing in the Trinity, or in foreordination or predestination. Matthew had not understood from Christ that any such things were necessary to ensure the salvation of the soul.
According to the testimony, Matthew had been in the company of Christ, some say three years and some say one, but at least he had been with him long enough to find out some of his ideas upon this great subject. And yet Matthew never got the impression that it was necessary to believe something in order to get to heaven. He supposed that if a man forgave others God would forgive him; he believed that God would show mercy to the merciful; that he would not allow those who fed the hungry to starve; that he would not put in the flames of hell those who had given cold water to the thirsty; that he would not cast into the eternal dungeon of his wrath those who had visited the imprisoned; and that he would not damn men who forgave others.
Matthew had it in his mind that God would treat us very much as we treated other people; and that in the next world he would treat with kindness those who had been loving and gentle in their lives. It may be the apostle was mistaken; but evidently that was his opinion.
ET us now see what Mark thought it necessary for a man to do to save his soul. In the fourth chapter, after Jesus had given to the multitude by the sea the parable of the sower, his disciples, when they were again alone, asked him the meaning of the parable. Jesus replied:
"Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
"That seeing, they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."
It is a little hard to understand why he should have preached to people that he did not intend should know his meaning. Neither is it quite clear why he objected to their being converted. This, I suppose, is one of the mysteries that we should simply believe without endeavoring to comprehend.
With the above exception, and one other that I will mention hereafter, Mark substantially agrees with Matthew, and says that God will be merciful to the merciful, that he will be kind to the kind, that he will pity the pitying, and love the loving. Mark upholds the religion of Matthew until we come to the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the sixteenth chapter, and then I strike an interpolation put in by hypocrisy, put in by priests who longed to grasp with bloody hands the sceptre of universal power. Let me read it to you. It is the most infamous passage in the Bible. Christ never said it. No sensible man ever said it.
"And He said unto them" (that is, unto his disciples), "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
That passage was written so that fear would give alms to hypocrisy. Now, I propose to prove to you that this is an interpolation. How will I do it? In the first place, not one word is said about belief, in Matthew. In the next place, not one word about belief, in Mark, until I come to that verse, and where is that said to have been spoken? According to Mark, it is a part of the last conversation of Jesus Christ,—just before, according to the account, he ascended bodily before their eyes. If there ever was any important thing happened in this world that was it. If there is any conversation that people would be apt to recollect, it would be the last conversation with a god before he rose visibly through the air and seated himself upon the throne of the infinite. We have in this Testament five accounts of the last conversation happening between Jesus Christ and his apostles. Matthew gives it, and yet Matthew does not state that in that conversation Christ said: "Whoso believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned." And if he did say those words they were the most important that ever fell from lips. Matthew did not hear it, or did not believe it, or forgot it.
Then I turn to Luke, and he gives an account of this same last conversation, and not one word does he say upon that subject. Luke does not pretend that Christ said that whoso believeth not shall be damned. Luke certainly did not hear it. May be he forgot it. Perhaps he did not think that it was worth recording. Now, it is the most important thing, if Christ said it, that he ever said.
Then I turn to John, and he gives an account of the last conversation, but not one solitary word on the subject of belief or unbelief. Not one solitary word on the subject of damnation. Not one. John might not have been listening.
Then I turn to the first chapter of the Acts, and there I find an account of the last conversation; and in that conversation there is not one word upon this subject. This is a demonstration that the passage in Mark is an interpolation. What other reason have I got? There is not one particle of sense in it. Why? No man can control his belief. You hear evidence for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which side rises and which side falls. You can not believe as you wish. You must believe as you must. And he might as well have said: "Go into the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever has red hair shall be saved, and whosoever hath not shall be damned."
I have another reason. I am much obliged to the gentleman who interpolated these passages. I am much obliged to him that he put in some more—two more. Now hear:
"And these signs shall follow them that believe." Good!
"In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."
Bring on your believer! Let him cast out a devil. I do not ask for a large one. Just a little one for a cent. Let him take up serpents. "And if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them." Let me mix up a dose for the believer, and if it does not hurt him I will join a church. "Oh! but," they say, "those things only lasted through the Apostolic age." Let us see. "Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved, and these signs shall follow them that believe."
How long? I think at least until they had gone into all the world. Certainly those signs should follow until all the world had been visited. And yet if that declaration was in the mouth of Christ, he then knew that one-half of the world was unknown, and that he would be dead fourteen hundred and fifty-nine years before his disciples would know that there was another continent. And yet he said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel," and he knew then that it would be fourteen hundred and fifty-nine years before anybody could go. Well, if it was worth while to have signs follow believers in the Old World, surely it was worth while to have signs follow believers in the New. And the very reason that signs should follow would be to convince the unbeliever, and there are as many unbelievers now as ever, and the signs are as necessary to-day as they ever were. I would like a few myself.
This frightful declaration, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned," has filled the world with agony and crime. Every letter of this passage has been sword and fagot; every word has been dungeon and chain. That passage made the sword of persecution drip with innocent blood through centuries of agony and crime. That passage made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the fagot's flames. That passage contradicts the Sermon on the Mount; travesties the Lord's prayer; turns the splendid religion of deed and duty into the superstition of creed and cruelty. I deny it. It is infamous! Christ never said it!
IT is sufficient to say that Luke agrees substantially with Matthew and Mark.
"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." Good!
"Judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be condemned: forgive and ye shall be forgiven." Good!
"Give and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over." Good! I like it.
"For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again."
He agrees substantially with Mark; he agrees substantially with Matthew; and I come at last to the nineteenth chapter.
"And Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord, 'Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four fold.' And Jesus said unto him, 'this day is salvation come to this house.'"
That is good doctrine. He did not ask Zaccheus what he believed. He did not ask him, "Do you believe in the Bible? Do you believe in the five points? Have you ever been baptized—sprinkled? Or immersed?" "Half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four fold." "And Christ said, this day is salvation come to this house." Good!
I read also in Luke that Christ when upon the cross forgave his murderers, and that is considered the shining gem in the crown of his mercy. He forgave his murderers. He forgave the men who drove the nails in his hands, in his feet, that plunged a spear in his side; the soldier that in the hour of death offered him in mockery the bitterness to drink. He forgave them all freely, and yet, although he would forgive them, he will in the nineteenth century, as we are told by the orthodox church, damn to eternal fire a noble man for the expression of his honest thoughts. That will not do. I find, too, in Luke, an account of two thieves that were crucified at the same time. The other gospels speak of them. One says they both railed upon him. Another says nothing about it. In Luke we are told that one railed upon him, but one of the thieves looked and pitied Christ, and Christ said to that thief:
"To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Why did he say that? Because the thief pitied him. God can not afford to trample beneath the feet of his infinite wrath the smallest blossom of pity that ever shed its perfume in the human heart!
Who was this thief? To what church did he belong? I do not know. The fact that he was a thief throws no light on that question. Who was he? What did he believe? I do not know. Did he believe in the Old Testament? In the miracles? I do not know. Did he believe that Christ was God? I do not know. Why then was the promise made to him that he should meet Christ in Paradise? Simply because he pitied suffering innocence upon the cross.
God can not afford to damn any man who is capable of pitying anybody.
The other gospels teach that God will be merciful to the merciful, forgiving to the forgiving, kind to the kind, loving to the loving, just to the just, merciful to the good.
Now we come to John, and here is another doctrine. And allow me to say that John was not written until long after the others. John was mostly written by the church.
"Jesus answered and said unto him: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of God."
Why did he not tell Matthew that? Why did he not tell Luke that? Why did he not tell Mark that? They never heard of it, or forgot it, or they did not believe it.
"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God." Why?
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," and he might have added, that which is born of water is water.
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, 'ye must be born again.'" And then the reason is given, and I admit I did not understand it myself until I read the reason, and when you hear the reason, you will understand it as well as I do; and here it is: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." So, I find in the book of John the idea of the Real Presence.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
"He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live."
"And shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."-"And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
"No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day."
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
"I am that bread of life.
"Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
"This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
"I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
"Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
"Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
"For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
"He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
"As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
"This is that bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead; he that eateth of this bread shall live forever."
"And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."
"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
"He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal."
So I find in the book of John, that in order to be saved we must not only believe in Jesus Christ, but we must eat the flesh and we must drink the blood of Jesus Christ. If that gospel is true, the Catholic Church is right. But it is not true. I can not believe it, and yet for all that, it may be true. But I do not believe it. Neither do I believe there is any god in the universe who will damn a man simply for expressing his belief.
"Why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of judgment and find all these things to be true. What would you do then?" I would walk up like a man, and say, "I was mistaken."
"And suppose God was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you say?" I would say to him, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." Why not?
I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome evil with good. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? No, it will not do. It will not do.
In the book of John all these doctrines of regeneration—that it is necessary to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; that salvation depends upon belief—in this book of John all these doctrines find their warrant; nowhere else.
Read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then read John, and you will agree with me that the three first gospels teach that if we are kind and forgiving to our fellows, God will be kind and forgiving to us. In John we are told that another man can be good for us, or bad for us, and that the only way to get to heaven is to believe something that we know is not so.
All these passages about believing in Christ, drinking his blood and eating his flesh, are afterthoughts. They were written by the theologians, and in a few years they will be considered unworthy of the lips of Christ.
NOW, upon these gospels that I have read the churches rest; and out of these things, mistakes and interpolations, they have made their creeds. And the first church to make a creed, so far as I know, was the Catholic. It was the first church that had any power. That is the church that has preserved all these miracles for us. That is the church that preserved the manuscripts for us. That is the church whose word we have to take. That church is the first witness that Protestantism brought to the bar of history to prove miracles that took place eighteen hundred years ago; and while the witness is there Protestantism takes pains to say: "You cannot believe one word that witness says, now."
That church is the only one that keeps up a constant communication with heaven through the instrumentality of a large number of decayed saints. That church has an agent of God on earth, has a person who stands in the place of deity; and that church is infallible. That church has persecuted to the exact extent of her power—and always will. In Spain that church stands erect, and is arrogant. In the United States that church crawls; but the object in both countries is the same—and that is the destruction of intellectual liberty. That church teaches us that we can make God happy by being miserable ourselves; that a nun is holier in the sight of God than a loving mother with her child in her thrilled and thrilling arms; that a priest is better than a father; that celibacy is better than that passion of love that has made everything of beauty in this world. That church tells the girl of sixteen or eighteen years of age, with eyes like dew and light; that girl with the red of health in the white of her beautiful cheeks—tells that girl, "Put on the veil, woven of death and night, kneel upon stones, and you will please God."
I tell you that, by law, no girl should be allowed to take the veil and renounce the joys and beauties of this life.
I am opposed to allowing these spider-like priests to weave webs to catch the loving maidens of the world. There ought to be a law appointing commissioners to visit such places twice a year and release every person who expresses a desire to be released. I do not believe in keeping the penitentiaries of God. No doubt they are honest about it. That is not the question. These ignorant superstitions fill millions of lives with weariness and pain, with agony and tears.
This church, after a few centuries of thought, made a creed, and that creed is the foundation of the orthodox religion. Let me read it to you:
"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith; which faith except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish." Now the faith is this: "That we worship one God in trinity and trinity in unity."
Of course you understand how that is done, and there is no need of my explaining it. "Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." You see what a predicament that would leave the deity in if you divided the substance.
"For one is the person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one"—you know what I mean by Godhead. "In glory equal, and in majesty coëternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost. The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible." And that is the reason we know so much about the thing. "The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Ghost eternal, and yet there are not three eternals, only one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated, nor three incomprehensibles, only one uncreated, one incomprehensible."
"In like manner, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Ghost almighty. Yet there are not three almighties, only one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, and yet not three Gods; and so, likewise, the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord, yet there are not three Lords, for as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are all forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there are three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of no one; not created or begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son, not made nor begotten, but proceeding."
You know what proceeding is.
"So there is one Father, not three Fathers." Why should there be three fathers, and only one Son? "One Son, and not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts; and in this Trinity there is nothing before or afterward, nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are coëternal with one another and coëqual, so that in all things the unity is to be worshiped in Trinity, and the Trinity is to be worshiped in unity. Those who will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the right of this thing is this: That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man. He is God of the substance of his Father begotten before the world was."
That was a good while before his mother lived. "And he is man of the substance of his mother, born in this world, perfect God and perfect man, and the rational soul in human flesh, subsisting equal to the Father according to his Godhead, but less than the Father according to his manhood, who being both God and man is not two but one, one not by conversion of God into flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into God." You see that is a great deal easier than the other way would be.
"One altogether, not by a confusion of substance but by unity of person, for as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, and he sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and He shall come to judge the living and the dead." In order to be saved it is necessary to believe this. What a blessing that we do not have to understand it. And in order to compel the human intellect to get upon its knees before that infinite absurdity, thousands and millions have suffered agonies; thousands and thousands have perished in dungeons and in fire; and if all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise, in the presence of which the eyes even of priests would be wet with tears.
That church covered Europe with cathedrals and dungeons, and robbed men of the jewel of the soul. That church had ignorance upon its knees. That church went in partnership with the tyrants of the throne, and between those two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of man was devoured.
Of course I have met, and cheerfully admit that there are thousands of good Catholics; but Catholicism is contrary to human liberty. Catholicism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to trample his reason under foot. And for that reason it is wrong.
Thousands of volumes could not contain the crimes of the Catholic Church. They could not contain even the names of her victims. With sword and fire, with rack and chain, with dungeon and whip she endeavored to convert the world. In weakness a beggar—in power a highwayman,—alms dish or dagger—tramp or tyrant.
THE next church I wish to speak of is the Episcopalian. That was founded by Henry VIII., now in heaven. He cast off Queen Catherine and Catholicism together, and he accepted Episcopalianism and Annie Boleyn at the same time. That church, if it had a few more ceremonies, would be Catholic. If it had a few less, nothing. We have an Episcopalian Church in this country, and it has all the imperfections of a poor relation. It is always boasting of its rich relative. In England the creed is made by law, the same as we pass statutes here. And when a gentleman dies in England, in order to determine whether he shall be saved or not, it is necessary for the power of heaven to read the acts of Parliament. It becomes a question of law, and sometimes a man is damned on a very nice point. Lost on demurrer.
A few years ago, a gentleman by the name of Seabury, Samuel Seabury, was sent over to England to get some apostolic succession. We had not a drop in the house. It was necessary for the bishops of the English Church to put their hands upon his head. They refused. There was no act of Parliament justifying it. He had then to go to the Scotch bishops; and, had the Scotch bishops refused, we never would have had any apostolic succession in the New World, and God would have been driven out of half the earth, and the true church never could have been founded upon this continent. But the Scotch bishops put their hands on his head, and now we have an unbroken succession of heads and hands from St. Paul to the last bishop.
In this country the Episcopalians have done some good, and I want to thank that church. Having on an average less religion than the others—on an average you have done more good to mankind. You preserved some of the humanities. You did not hate music; you did not absolutely despise painting, and you did not altogether abhor architecture, and you finally admitted that it was no worse to keep time with your feet than with your hands. And some went so far as to say that people could play cards, and that God would overlook it, or would look the other way. For all these things accept my thanks.
When I was a boy, the other churches looked upon dancing as probably the mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost; and they used to teach that when four boys got in a hay-mow, playing seven-up, that the eternal God stood whetting the sword of his eternal wrath waiting to strike them down to the lowest hell. That church has done some good.
The Episcopal creed is substantially like the Catholic, containing a few additional absurdities. The Episcopalians teach that it is easier to get forgiveness for sin after you have been baptized. They seem to think that the moment you are baptized you become a member of the firm, and as such are entitled to wickedness at cost. This church is utterly unsuited to a free people. Its government is tyrannical, supercilious and absurd. Bishops talk as though they were responsible for the souls in their charge. They wear vests that button on one side. Nothing is so essential to the clergy of this denomination as a good voice. The Episcopalians have persecuted just to the extent of their power. Their treatment of the Irish has been a crime—a crime lasting for three hundred years. That church persecuted the Puritans of England and the Presbyterians of Scotland. In England the altar is the mistress of the throne, and this mistress has always looked at honest wives with scorn.
ABOUT a hundred and fifty years ago, two men, John Wesley and George Whitfield, said, If everybody is going to hell, somebody ought to mention it. The Episcopal clergy said: Keep still; do not tear your gown. Wesley and Whitfield said: This frightful truth ought to be proclaimed from the housetop of every opportunity, from the highway of every occasion. They were good, honest men. They believed their doctrine. And they said: If there is a hell, and a Niagara of souls pouring over an eternal precipice of ignorance, somebody ought to say something. They were right; somebody ought, if such a thing is true. Wesley was a believer in the Bible. He believed in the actual presence of the Almighty.
God used to do miracles for him; used to put off a rain several days to give his meeting a chance; used to cure his horse of lameness; used to cure Mr. Wesley's headaches.
And Mr. Wesley also believed in the actual existence of the devil. He believed that devils had possession of people. He talked to the devil when he was in folks, and the devil told him that he was going to leave; and that he was going into another person. That he would be there at a certain time; and Wesley went to that other person, and there the devil was, prompt to the minute. He regarded every conversion as warfare between God and this devil for the possession of that human soul, and that in the warfare God had gained the victory. Honest, no doubt. Mr. Wesley did not believe in human liberty. Honest, no doubt. Was opposed to the liberty of the colonies. Honestly so. Mr. Wesley preached a sermon entitled: "The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes," in which he took the ground that earthquakes were caused by sin; and the only way to stop them was to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. No doubt an honest man.
Wesley and Whitfield fell out on the question of predestination. Wesley insisted that God invited everybody to the feast. Whitfield said he did not invite those he knew would not come. Wesley said he did. Whitfield said: Well, he did not put plates for them, anyway. Wesley said he did. So that, when they were in hell he could show them that there was a seat left for them. The church that they founded is still active. And probably no church in the world has done so much preaching for as little money as the Methodists. Whitfield believed in slavery, and advocated the slave-trade. And it was of Whitfield that Whittier made the two lines:
"He bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast,
Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost."
We have lately had a meeting of the Methodists, and I find by their statistics that they believe that they have converted 130,000 folks in a year. That, in order to do this, they have 26,000 preachers, 226,000 Sunday school scholars, and about $100,000,000 invested in church property. I find, in looking over the history of the world, that there are 40,000,000 or 50,000,000 of people born a year, and if they are saved at the rate of 130,000 a year, about how long will it take that doctrine to save this world? Good, honest people; but they are mistaken.
In old times they were very simple. Churches used to be like barns. They used to have them divided—men on that side, and women on this. A little barbarous. We have advanced since then, and we now find as a fact, demonstrated by experience, that a man sitting by the woman he loves can thank God as heartily as though sitting between two men that he has never been introduced to.
There is another thing the Methodists should remember, and that is that the Episcopalians were the greatest enemies they ever had. And they should remember that the Freethinkers have always treated them kindly and well.
There is one thing about the Methodist Church in the North that I like. But I find that it is not Methodism that does that. I find that the Methodist Church in the South is as much opposed to liberty as the Methodist Church North is in favor of liberty. So it is not Methodism that is in favor of liberty or slavery. They differ a little in their creed from the rest. They do not believe that God does everything. They believe that he does his part, and that you must do the rest, and that getting to heaven is a partnership business. The Methodist Church is adapted to new countries—its ministers are generally uncultured, and with them zeal takes the place of knowledge. They convert people with noise. In the silence that follows most of the converts backslide.
In a little while a struggle will commence between the few who are growing and the orthodox many. The few will be driven out, and the church will be governed by those who believe without understanding.
THE next church is the Presbyterian, and in my judgment the worst of all, as far as creed is concerned. This church was founded by John Calvin, a murderer!
John Calvin, having power in Geneva, inaugurated human torture. Voltaire abolished torture in France. The man who abolished torture, if the Christian religion be true, God is now torturing in hell, and the man who inaugurated torture, is now a glorified angel in heaven. It will not do.
John Knox started this doctrine in Scotland, and there is this peculiarity about Presbyterianism—it grows best where the soil is poorest. I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine! Imagine a conversation between a block and an ax! As I read their conversation it seemed to me as though John Knox and John Calvin were made for each other; that they fitted each other like the upper and lower jaws of a wild beast. They believed happiness was a crime; they looked upon laughter as blasphemy; and they did all they could to destroy every human feeling, and to fill the mind with the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal death. They taught the doctrine that God had a right to damn us because he made us. That is just the reason that he has not a right to damn us. There is some dust. Unconscious dust! What right has God to change that unconscious dust into a human being, when he knows that human being will sin; when he knows that human being will suffer eternal agony? Why not leave him in the unconscious dust? What right has an infinite God to add to the sum of human agony? Suppose I knew that I could change that piece of furniture into a living, sentient human being, and I knew that that being would suffer untold agony forever. If I did it, I would be a fiend. I would leave that being in the unconscious dust.
And yet we are told that we must believe such a doctrine or we are to be eternally damned! It will not do.
In 1839 there was a division in this church, and they had a lawsuit to see which was the church of God. And they tried it by a judge and jury, and the jury decided that the new school was the church of God, and then they got a new trial, and the next jury decided that the old school was the church of God, and that settled it. That church teaches that infinite innocence was sacrificed for me! I do not want it! I do not wish to go to heaven unless I can settle by the books, and go there because I ought to go there. I have said, and I say again, I do not wish to be a charity angel. I have no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies.
The other day a young gentleman, a Presbyterian who had just been converted, came to me and he gave me a tract, and he told me he was perfectly happy. Said I, "Do you think a great many people are going to hell?" "Oh, yes." "And you are perfectly happy?" Well, he did not know as he was, quite. "Would not you be happier if they were all going to heaven?" "Oh, yes." "Well, then, you are not perfectly happy?" No, he did not think he was. "When you get to heaven, then you will be perfectly happy?" "Oh, yes." "Now, when we are only going to hell, you are not quite happy; but when we are in hell, and you in heaven, then you will be perfectly happy? You will not be as decent when you get to be an angel as you are now, will you?" "Well," he said, "that was not exactly it." Said I, "Suppose your mother were in hell, would you be happy in heaven then?" "Well," he says, "I suppose God would know the best place for mother." And I thought to myself, then, if I was a woman, I would like to have five or six boys like that.
It will not do. Heaven is where those are we love, and those who love us. And I wish to go to no world unless I can be accompanied by those who love me here. Talk about the consolations of this infamous doctrine. The consolations of a doctrine that makes a father say, "I can be happy with my daughter in hell;" that makes a mother say, "I can be happy with my generous, brave boy in hell;" that makes a boy say, "I can enjoy the glory of heaven with the woman who bore me, the woman who would have died for me, in eternal agony." And they call that tidings of great joy.
No church has done more to fill the world with gloom than the Presbyterian. Its creed is frightful, hideous, and hellish. The Presbyterian god is the monster of monsters. He is an eternal executioner, jailer and turnkey. He will enjoy forever the shrieks of the lost,—the wails of the damned. Hell is the festival of the Presbyterian god.
I HAVE not time to speak of the Baptists,—that Jeremy Taylor said were as much to be rooted out as anything that is the greatest pest and nuisance on the earth. He hated the Baptists because they represented, in some little degree, the liberty of thought. Nor have I time to speak of the Quakers, the best of all, and abused by all.
I cannot forget that John Fox, in the year of grace 1640, was put in the pillory and whipped from town to town, scarred, put in a dungeon, beaten, trampled upon, and what for? Simply because he preached the doctrine: "Thou shalt not resist evil with evil." "Thou shalt love thy enemies."
Think of what the church must have been that day to scar the flesh of that loving man! Just think of it! I say I have not time to speak of all these sects—the varieties of Presbyterians and Campbellites. There are hundreds and hundreds of these sects, all founded upon this creed that I read, differing simply in degree.
Ah! but they say to me: You are fighting something that is dead. Nobody believes this now. The preachers do not believe what they preach in the pulpit. The people in the pews do not believe what they hear preached. And they say to me: You are fighting something that is dead. This is all a form, we do not believe a solitary creed in the world. We sign them and swear that we believe them, but we do not. And none of us do. And all the ministers, they say in private, admit that they do not believe it, not quite. I do not know whether this is so or not. I take it that they believe what they preach. I take it that when they meet and solemnly agree to a creed, they are honest and really believe in that creed. But let us see if I am waging a war against the ideas of the dead. Let us see if I am simply storming a cemetery.
The Evangelical Alliance, made up of all orthodox denominations of the world, met only a few years ago, and here is their creed: They believe in the divine inspiration, authority and sufficiency of the holy Scriptures; the right and duty of private judgment in the interpretation of the holy Scriptures, but if you interpret wrong you are damned. They believe in the unity of the godhead and the Trinity of the persons therein. They believe in the utter depravity of human nature. There can be no more infamous doctrine than that. They look upon a little child as a lump of depravity. I look upon it as a bud of humanity, that will, in the air and light of love and joy, blossom into rich and glorious life.
Total depravity of human nature! Here is a woman whose husband has been lost at sea; the news comes that he has been drowned by the ever-hungry waves, and she waits. There is something in her heart that tells her he is alive. And she waits. And years afterward as she looks down toward the little gate she sees him; he has been given back by the sea, and she rushes to his arms, and covers his face with kisses and with tears. And if that infamous doctrine is true every tear is a crime, and every kiss a blasphemy. It will not do. According to that doctrine, if a man steals and repents, and takes back the property, the repentance and the taking back of the property are two other crimes. It is an infamy. What else do they believe? "The justification of a sinner by faith alone," without works—just faith. Believing something that you do not understand. Of course God can not afford to reward a man for believing anything that is reasonable. God rewards only for believing something that is unreasonable. If you believe something that is improbable and unreasonable, you are a Christian; but if you believe something that you know is not so, then,—you are a saint.
They believe in the eternal blessedness of the righteous, and in the eternal punishment of the wicked.
Tidings of great joy! They are so good that they will not associate with Universalists. They will not associate with Unitarians; they will not associate with scientists; they will only associate with those who believe that God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn the most of us.
The Evangelical Alliance reiterates the absurdities of the Dark Ages—repeats the five points of Calvin—replenishes the fires of hell—certifies to the mistakes and miracles of the Bible—maligns the human race, and kneels to a god who accepted the agony of the innocent as an atonement for the guilty.
THEN they say to me: "What do you propose? You have torn this down, what do you propose to give us in place of it?"
I have not torn the good down. I have only endeavored to trample out the ignorant, cruel fires of hell. I do not tear away the passage: "God will be merciful to the merciful." I do not destroy the promise; "If you will forgive others, God will forgive you." I would not for anything blot out the faintest star that shines in the horizon of human despair, nor in the sky of human hope; but I will do what I can to get that infinite shadow out of the heart of man.
"What do you propose in place of this?"
Well, in the first place, I propose good fellowship—good friends all around. No matter what we believe, shake hands and let it go. That is your opinion; this is mine: let us be friends. Science makes friends; religion, superstition, makes enemies. They say: Belief is important. I say: No, actions are important. Judge by deed, not by creed. Good fellowship—good friends—sincere men and women—mutual forbearance, born of mutual respect. We have had too many of these solemn people. Whenever I see an exceedingly solemn man, I know he is an exceedingly stupid man. No man of any humor ever founded a religion—never. Humor sees both sides. While reason is the holy light, humor carries the lantern, and the man with a keen sense of humor is preserved from the solemn stupidities of superstition. I like a man who has got good feeling for everybody; good fellowship. One man said to another:
"Will you take a glass of wine?"
"I do not drink."
"Will you smoke a cigar?"
"I do not smoke."
"Maybe you will chew something?"
"I do not chew."
"Let us eat some hay."
"I tell you I do not eat hay."
"Well, then, good-by, for you are no company for man or beast."
I believe in the gospel of Cheerfulness, the gospel of Good Nature; the gospel of Good Health. Let us pay some attention to our bodies. Take care of our bodies, and our souls will take care of themselves. Good health! And I believe the time will come when the public thought will be so great and grand that it will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate disease. I believe the time will come when man will not fill the future with consumption and insanity. I believe the time will come when we will study ourselves, and understand the laws of health and then we will say: We are under obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children. Even if I got to heaven, and had a harp, I would hate to look back upon my children and grandchildren, and see them diseased, deformed, crazed—all suffering the penalties of crimes I had committed.
I believe in the gospel of Good Living. You can not make any god happy by fasting. Let us have good food, and let us have it well cooked—and it is a thousand times better to know how to cook than it is to understand any theology in the world.
I believe in the gospel of good clothes; I believe in the gospel of good houses; in the gospel of water and soap. I believe in the gospel of intelligence; in the gospel of education. The school-house is my cathedral. The universe is my Bible. I believe in that gospel of justice, that we must reap what we sow.
I do not believe in forgiveness as it is preached by the church. We do not need the forgiveness of God, but of each other and of ourselves. If I rob Mr. Smith and God forgives me, how does that help Smith? If I, by slander, cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she withers away like a blighted flower and afterward I get the forgiveness of God, how does that help her? If there is another world, we have got to settle with the people we have wronged in this. No bankrupt court there. Every cent must be paid.
The Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep. Now they say "charge it." "Put it on the slate." It will not do. For every crime you commit you must answer to yourself and to the one you injure. And if you have ever clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that thing. No forgiveness by the gods. Eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice, so far as Nature is concerned. You must reap the result of your acts. Even when forgiven by the one you have injured, it is not as though the injury had not been done. That is what I believe in. And if it goes hard with me, I will stand it, and I will cling to my logic, and I will bear it like a man.
And I believe, too, in the gospel of Liberty, in giving to others what we claim for ourselves. I believe there is room everywhere for thought, and the more liberty you give away, the more you will have. In liberty extravagance is economy. Let us be just. Let us be generous to each other.
I believe in the gospel of Intelligence. That is the only lever capable of raising mankind. Intelligence must be the savior of this world. Humanity is the grand religion, and no God can put a man in hell in another world, who has made a little heaven in this. God cannot make a man miserable if that man has made somebody else happy. God cannot hate anybody who is capable of loving anybody. Humanity—that word embraces all there is.
So I believe in this great gospel of Humanity.
"Ah! but," they say, "it will not do. You must believe." I say, No. My gospel of health will bring life. My gospel of intelligence, my gospel of good living, my gospel of good-fellowship will cover the world with happy homes. My doctrine will put carpets upon your floors, pictures upon your walls. My doctrine will put books upon your shelves, ideas in your minds. My doctrine will rid the world of the abnormal monsters born of ignorance and superstition. My doctrine will give us health, wealth and happiness. That is what I want. That is what I believe in. Give us intelligence. In a little while a man will find that he can not steal without robbing himself. He will find that he cannot murder without assassinating his own joy. He will find that every crime is a mistake. He will find that only that man carries the cross who does wrong, and that upon the man who does right the cross turns to wings that will bear him upward forever. He will find that even intelligent self-love embraces within its mighty arms all the human race.
"Oh," but they say to me, "you take away immortality." I do not. If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and we are not indebted to priests for it, nor to bibles for it, and it cannot be destroyed by unbelief.
As long as we love we will hope to live, and when the one dies that we love we will say: "Oh, that we could meet again," and whether we do or not it will not be the work of theology. It will be a fact in nature. I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell.
One world at a time is my doctrine.
It is said in this Testament, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and I say: Sufficient unto each world is the evil thereof.
And suppose after all that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal sleep. Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the ray-less gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.
I had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world—I would rather think of them as unconscious dust, I would rather dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds, I would rather think of them as the lost visions of a forgotten night, than to have even the faintest fear that their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox god. I will leave my dead where nature leaves them. Whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish, I will give it breath of sighs and rain of tears. But I can not believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.
I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful.
Upon that rock I stand.—
That he will not torture the forgiving.—
Upon that rock I stand.—
That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime.
Upon that rock I stand.
The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come.
Upon that rock I stand.
TO MRS. SUE. M. FARRELL, IN LAW MY SISTER, AND IN FACT MY
FRIEND, THIS VOLUME, AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT AND LOVE, IS DEDICATED.
(1879.)
Preface—I. He who endeavors to control the Mind by Force is a
Tyrant, and he who submits is a Slave—All I Ask—When a Religion
is Founded—Freedom for the Orthodox Clergy—Every Minister an
Attorney—Submission to the Orthodox and the Dead—Bounden Duty of
the Ministry—The Minister Factory at Andover—II. Free Schools—No
Sectarian Sciences—Religion and the Schools—Scientific
Hypocrites—III. The Politicians and the Churches—IV. Man and Woman the
Highest Possible Titles—Belief Dependent on Surroundings—Worship of
Ancestors—Blindness Necessary to Keeping the Narrow Path—The Bible the
Chain that Binds—A Bible of the Middle Ages and the Awe it Inspired—V.
The Pentateuch—Moses Not the Author—Belief out of which Grew
Religious Ceremonies—Egypt the Source of the Information of Moses—VI.
Monday—Nothing, in the Light of Raw Material—The Story of Creation
Begun—The Same Story, substantially, Found in the Records of Babylon,
Egypt, and India—Inspiration Unnecessary to the Truth—Usefulness of
Miracles to Fit Lies to Facts—Division of Darkness and Light—VII.
Tuesday—The Firmament and Some Biblical Notions about it—Laws of
Evaporation Unknown to the Inspired Writer—VIII. Wednesday—The Waters
Gathered into Seas—Fruit and Nothing to Eat it—Five Epochs in the
Organic History of the Earth—Balance between the Total Amounts of
Animal and Vegetable Life—Vegetation Prior to the Appearance of the
Sun—IX. Thursday—Sun and Moon Manufactured—Magnitude of the Solar
Orb—Dimensions of Some of the Planets—Moses' Guess at the Size of Sun
and Moon—Joshua's Control of the Heavenly Bodies—A Hypothesis Urged
by Ministers—The Theory of "Refraction"—Rev. Henry Morey—Astronomical
Knowledge of Chinese Savants—The Motion of the Earth Reversed by
Jehovah for the Reassurance of Ahaz—"Errors" Renounced by Button—X.
"He made the Stars Also"—Distance of the Nearest Star—XI.
Friday—Whales and Other Living Creatures Produced—XII.
Saturday—Reproduction Inaugurated—XIII. "Let Us Make Man"—Human
Beings Created in the Physical Image and Likeness of God—Inquiry as
to the Process Adopted—Development of Living Forms According to
Evolution—How Were Adam and Eve Created?—The Rib Story—Age of
Man Upon the Earth—A Statue Apparently Made before the World—XIV.
Sunday—Sacredness of the Sabbath Destroyed by the Theory of Vast
"Periods"—Reflections on the Sabbath—XV. The Necessity for a Good
Memory—The Two Accounts of the Creation in Genesis I and II—Order
of Creation in the First Account—Order of Creation in the Second
Account—Fastidiousness of Adam in the Choice of a Helpmeet—Dr.
Adam Clark's Commentary—Dr. Scott's Guess—Dr. Matthew Henry's
Admission—The Blonde and Brunette Problem—The Result of Unbelief and
the Reward of Faith—"Give Him a Harp"—XVI. The Garden—Location of
Eden—The Four Rivers—The Tree of Knowledge—Andover Appealed
To—XVII. The Fall—The Serpent—Dr. Adam Clark Gives a Zoological
Explanation—Dr. Henry Dissents—Whence This Serpent?—XVIII.
Dampness—A Race of Giants—Wickedness of Mankind—An Ark Constructed—A
Universal Flood Indicated—Animals Probably Admitted to the Ark—How Did
They Get There?—Problem of Food and Service—A Shoreless Sea Covered
with Innumerable Dead—Drs. Clark and Henry on the Situation—The Ark
Takes Ground—New Difficulties—Noah's Sacrifice—The Rainbow as a
Memorandum—Babylonian, Egyptian, and Indian Legends of a Flood—XIX.
Bacchus and Babel—Interest Attaching to Noah—Where Did Our First
Parents and the Serpent Acquire a Common Language?—Babel and the
Confusion of Tongues—XX. Faith in Filth—Immodesty of Biblical
Diction—XXI. The Hebrews—God's Promises to Abraham—The Sojourning
of Israel in Egypt—Marvelous Increase—Moses and Aaron—XXII.
The Plagues—Competitive Miracle Working—Defeat of the Local
Magicians—XXIII. The Flight Out of Egypt—Three Million People in a
Desert—Destruction of Pharaoh ana His Host—Manna—A Superfluity of
Quails—Rev. Alexander Cruden's Commentary—Hornets as Allies of the
Israelites—Durability of the Clothing of the Jewish People—An Ointment
Monopoly—Consecration of Priests—The Crime of Becoming a Mother—The
Ten Commandments—Medical Ideas of Jehovah—Character of the God of
the Pentateuch—XXIV. Confess and Avoid—XXV. "Inspired" Slavery—XXVI.
"Inspired" Marriage-XXVII. "Inspired" War-XXVIII. "Inspired" Religious
Liberty—XXIX. Conclusion.
(1881.)
I—Religion makes Enemies—Hatred in the Name of Universal
Benevolence—No Respect for the Rights of Barbarians—Literal
Fulfillment of a New Testament Prophecy—II. Duties to God—Can we
Assist God?—An Infinite Personality an Infinite Impossibility-Ill.
Inspiration—What it Really Is—Indication of Clams—Multitudinous
Laughter of the Sea—Horace Greeley and the Mammoth Trees—A Landscape
Compared to a Table-cloth—The Supernatural is the Deformed—Inspiration
in the Man as well as in the Book—Our Inspired Bible—IV. God's
Experiment with the Jews—Miracles of One Religion never astonish the
Priests of Another—"I am a Liar Myself"—V. Civilized Countries—Crimes
once regarded as Divine Institutions—What the Believer in the
Inspiration of the Bible is Compelled to Say—Passages apparently
written by the Devil—VI. A Comparison of Books—Advancing a Cannibal
from Missionary to Mutton—Contrast between the Utterances of Jehovah
and those of Reputable Heathen—Epictetus, Cicero, Zeno,
Seneca—the Hindu, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius—The Avesta—VII.
Monotheism—Egyptians before Moses taught there was but One God
and Married but One Wife—Persians and Hindoos had a Single Supreme
Deity—Rights of Roman Women—Marvels of Art achieved without the
Assistance of Heaven—Probable Action of the Jewish Jehovah incarnated
as Man—VIII. The New Testament—Doctrine of Eternal Pain brought to
Light—Discrepancies—Human Weaknesses cannot be Predicated of
Divine Wisdom—Why there are Four Gospels according to Irenæus—The
Atonement—Remission of Sins under the Mosaic Dispensation—Christians
say, "Charge it"—God's Forgiveness does not Repair an Injury—Suffering
of Innocence for the Guilty—Salvation made Possible by Jehovah's
Failure to Civilize the Jews—Necessity of Belief not taught in the
Synoptic Gospels—Non-resistance the Offspring of Weakness—IX. Christ's
Mission—All the Virtues had been Taught before his Advent—Perfect and
Beautiful Thoughts of his Pagan Predecessors—St. Paul Contrasted
with Heathen Writers—"The Quality of Mercy"—X. Eternal Pain—An
Illustration of Eternal Punishment—Captain Kreuger of the Barque
Tiger—XI. Civilizing Influence of the Bible—Its Effects on the
Jews—If Christ was God, Did he not, in his Crucifixion, Reap what
he had Sown?—Nothing can add to the Misery of a Nation whose King is
Jehovah
(1884.)
Orthodox Religion Dying Out—Religious Deaths and Births—The Religion
of Reciprocity—Every Language has a Cemetery—Orthodox Institutions
Survive through the Money invested in them—"Let us tell our Real
Names"—The Blows that have Shattered the Shield and Shivered the Lance
of Superstition—Mohammed's Successful Defence of the Sepulchre of
Christ—The Destruction of Art—The Discovery of America—Although
he made it himself, the Holy Ghost was Ignorant of the Form of this
Earth—Copernicus and Kepler—Special Providence—The Man and the Ship
he did not Take—A Thanksgiving Proclamation Contradicted—Charles
Darwin—Henry Ward Beecher—The Creeds—The Latest Creed—God as
a Governor—The Love of God—The Fall of Man—We are Bound
by Representatives without a Chance to Vote against Them—The
Atonement—The Doctrine of Depravity a Libel on the Human Race—The
Second Birth—A Unitarian Universalist—Inspiration of the
Scriptures—God a Victim of his own Tyranny—In the New Testament
Trouble Commences at Death—The Reign of Truth and Love—The Old
Spaniard who Died without an Enemy—The Wars it Brought—Consolation
should be Denied to Murderers—At the Rate at which Heathen are being
Converted, how long will it take to Establish Christ's Kingdom on
Earth?—The Resurrection—The Judgment Day—Pious Evasions—"We shall
not Die, but we shall all be Hanged"—"No Bible, no Civilization"
Miracles of the New Testament—Nothing Written by Christ or his
Contemporaries—Genealogy of Jesus—More Miracles—A Master of
Death—Improbable that he would be Crucified—The Loaves and Fishes—How
did it happen that the Miracles Convinced so Few?—The Resurrection—The
Ascension—Was the Body Spiritual—Parting from the Disciples—Casting
out Devils—Necessity of Belief—God should be consistent in the
Matter of forgiving Enemies—Eternal Punishment—Some Good Men who are
Damned—Another Objection—Love the only Bow on Life's dark Cloud—"Now
is the accepted Time"—Rather than this Doctrine of Eternal Punishment
Should be True—I would rather that every Planet should in its Orbit
wheel a barren Star—What I Believe—Immortality—It existed long before
Moses—Consolation—The Promises are so Far Away, and the Dead are so
Near—Death a Wall or a Door—A Fable—Orpheus and Eurydice.
(1885.)
I. Happiness the true End and Aim of Life—Spiritual People and
their Literature—Shakespeare's Clowns superior to Inspired
Writers—Beethoven's Sixth Symphony Preferred to the Five Books of
Moses—Venus of Milo more Pleasing than the Presbyterian Creed—II.
Religions Naturally Produced—Poets the Myth-makers—The Sleeping
Beauty—Orpheus and Eurydice—Red Riding Hood—The Golden Age—Elysian
Fields—The Flood Myth—Myths of the Seasons—III. The Sun-god—Jonah,
Buddha, Chrisnna, Horus, Zoroaster—December 25th as a Birthday of
Gods—Christ a Sun-God—The Cross a Symbol of the Life to Come—When
Nature rocked the Cradle of the Infant World—IV. Difference between
a Myth and a Miracle—Raising the Dead, Past and Present—Miracles
of Jehovah—Miracles of Christ—Everything Told except the Truth—The
Mistake of the World—V. Beginning of Investigation—The Stars as
Witnesses against Superstition—Martyrdom of Bruno—Geology—Steam and
Electricity—Nature forever the Same—Persistence of Force—Cathedral,
Mosque, and Joss House have the same Foundation—Science the
Providence of Man—VI. To Soften the Heart of God—Martyrs—The God was
Silent—Credulity a Vice—Develop the Imagination—"The Skylark" and
"The Daisy"—VII. How are we to Civilize the World?—Put Theology out
of Religion—Divorce of Church and State—Secular Education—Godless
Schools—VIII. The New Jerusalem—Knowledge of the Supernatural
possessed by Savages—Beliefs of Primitive Peoples—Science is
Modest—Theology Arrogant—Torque-mada and Bruno on the Day of
Judgment—IX. Poison of Superstition in the Mother's Milk—Ability
of Mistakes to take Care of Themselves—Longevity of Religious
Lies—Mother's religion pleaded by the Cannibal—The Religion of
Freedom—O Liberty, thou art the God of my Idolatry
For many years I have regarded the Pentateuch simply as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent with known and demonstrated facts. To me it seemed almost a crime to teach that this record was written by inspired men; that slavery, polygamy, wars of conquest and extermination were right, and that there was a time when men could win the approbation of infinite Intelligence, Justice, and Mercy, by violating maidens and by butchering babes. To me it seemed more reasonable that savage men had made these laws; and I endeavored in a lecture, entitled "Some Mistakes of Moses," to point out some of the errors, contradictions, and impossibilities contained in the Pentateuch. The lecture was never written and consequently never delivered twice the same. On several occasions it was reported and published without consent, and without revision. All these publications were grossly and glaringly incorrect As published, they have been answered several hundred times, and many of the clergy are still engaged in the great work. To keep these reverend gentlemen from wasting their talents on the mistakes of reporters and printers, I concluded to publish the principal points in all my lectures on this subject. And here, it may be proper for me to say, that arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; that there is no logic in slander, and that falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself. People who love their enemies should, at least, tell the truth about their friends. Should it turn out that I am the worst man in the whole world, the story of the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and the contradictions of the Pentateuch will still demand an explanation.
There was a time when a falsehood, fulminated from the pulpit, smote like a sword; but, the supply having greatly exceeded the demand, clerical misrepresentation has at last become almost an innocent amusement. Remembering that only a few years ago men, women, and even children, were imprisoned, tortured and burned, for having expressed in an exceedingly mild and gentle way, the ideas entertained by me, I congratulate myself that calumny is now the pulpit's last resort. The old instruments of torture are kept only to gratify curiosity; the chains are rusting away, and the demolition of time has allowed even the dungeons of the Inquisition to be visited by light. The church, impotent and malicious, regrets, not the abuse, but the loss of her power, and seeks to hold by falsehood what she gained by cruelty and force, by fire and fear. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith. If that religion be true, there is but one savior, one inspired book, and but one little narrow grass-grown path that leads to heaven. Such a religion is necessarily uncompromising, unreasoning, aggressive and insolent. Christianity has held all other creeds and forms in infinite contempt, divided the world into enemies and friends, and verified the awful declaration of its founder—a declaration that wet with blood the sword he came to bring, and made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the fagots' flames.
Too great praise challenges attention, and often brings to light a thousand faults that otherwise the general eye would never see. Were we allowed to read the Bible as we do all other books, we would admire its beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts, and account for all its absurd, grotesque and cruel things, by saying that its authors lived in rude, barbaric times. But we are told that it was written by inspired men; that it contains the will of God; that it is perfect, pure, and true in all its parts; the source and standard of all moral and religious truth; that it is the star and anchor of all human hope; the only guide for man, the only torch in Nature's night. These claims are so at variance with every known recorded fact, so palpably absurd, that every free unbiased soul is forced to raise the standard of revolt.
We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self.
These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and deaths sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,—the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumn's arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Washington, D. C., Oct. 7th, 1879.
HE WHO ENDEAVORS TO CONTROL THE MIND BY FORCE IS A TYRANT, AND HE WHO SUBMITS IS A SLAVE.
I.
I want to do what little I can to make my country truly free, to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people, to destroy the prejudices born of ignorance and fear, to do away with the blind worship of the ignoble past, with the idea that all the great and good are dead, that the living are totally depraved, that all pleasures are sins, that sighs and groans are alone pleasing to God, that thought is dangerous, that intellectual courage is a crime, that cowardice is a virtue, that a certain belief is necessary to secure salvation, that to carry a cross in this world will give us a palm in the next, and that we must allow some priest to be the pilot of our souls.
Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the Trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us?
Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is—not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness.
We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them.
If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.
That which has happened in most countries has happened in ours. When a religion is founded, the educated, the powerful—that is to say, the priests and nobles, tell the ignorant and superstitious—that is to say, the people, that the religion of their country was given to their fathers by God himself; that it is the only true religion; that all others were conceived in falsehood and brought forth in fraud, and that all who believe in the true religion will be happy forever, while all others will burn in hell. For the purpose of governing the people, that is to say, for the purpose of being supported by the people, the priests and nobles declare this religion to be sacred, and that whoever adds to, or takes from it, will be burned here by man, and hereafter by God. The result of this is, that the priests and nobles will not allow the people to change; and when, after a time, the priests, having intellectually advanced, wish to take a step in the direction of progress, the people will not allow them to change. At first, the rabble are enslaved by the priests, and afterwards the rabble become the masters.
One of the first things I wish to do, is to free the orthodox clergy. I am a great friend of theirs, and in spite of all they may say against me, I am going to do them a great and lasting service. Upon their necks are visible the marks of the collar, and upon their backs those of the lash. They are not allowed to read and think for themselves. They are taught like parrots, and the best are those who repeat, with the fewest mistakes, the sentences they have been taught. They sit like owls upon some dead limb of the tree of knowledge, and hoot the same old hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. Their congregations are not grand enough, nor sufficiently civilized, to be willing that the poor preachers shall think for themselves. They are not employed for that purpose. Investigation regarded as a dangerous experiment, and the ministers are warned that none of that kind of work will be tolerated. They are notified to stand by the old creed, and to avoid all original thought, as a mortal pestilence. Every minister is employed like an attorney—either for plaintiff or defendant,—and he is expected to be true to his client. If he changes his mind, he is regarded as a deserter, and denounced, hated, and slandered accordingly. Every orthodox clergyman agrees not to change. He contracts not to find new facts, and makes a bargain that he will deny them if he does. Such is the position of a Protestant minister in this nineteenth century. His condition excites my pity; and to better it, I am going to do what little I can.
Some of the clergy have the independence to break away, and the intellect to maintain themselves as free men, but the most are compelled to submit to the dictation of the orthodox, and the dead. They are not employed to give their thoughts, but simply to repeat the ideas of others. They are not expected to give even the doubts that may suggest themselves, but are required to walk in the narrow, verdureless path trodden by the ignorance of the past. The forests and fields on either side are nothing to them. They must not even look at the purple hills, nor pause to hear the babble of the brooks. They must remain in the dusty road where the guide-boards are. They must confine themselves to the "fall of man," the expulsion from the garden, the "scheme of salvation," the "second birth," the atonement, the happiness of the redeemed, and the misery of the lost. They must be careful not to express any new ideas upon these great questions. It is much safer for them to quote from the works of the dead. The more vividly they describe the sufferings of the unregenerate, of those who attended theatres and balls, and drank wine in summer gardens on the Sabbath-day, and laughed at priests, the better ministers they are supposed to be. They must show that misery fits the good for heaven, while happiness prepares the bad for hell; that the wicked get all their good things in this life, and the good all their evil; that in this world God punishes the people he loves, and in the next, the ones he hates; that happiness makes us bad here, but not in heaven; that pain makes us good here, but not in hell. No matter how absurd these things may appear to the carnal mind, they must be preached and they must be believed. If they were reasonable, there would be no virtue in believing. Even the publicans and sinners believe reasonable things. To believe without evidence, or in spite of it, is accounted as righteousness to the sincere and humble Christian.
The ministers are in duty bound to denounce all intellectual pride, and show that we are never quite so dear to God as when we admit that we are poor, corrupt and idiotic worms; that we never should have been born; that we ought to be damned without the least delay; that we are so infamous that we like to enjoy ourselves; that we love our wives and children better than our God; that we are generous only because we are vile; that we are honest from the meanest motives, and that sometimes we have fallen so low that we have had doubts about the inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures. In short, they are expected to denounce all pleasant paths and rustling trees, to curse the grass and flowers, and glorify the dust and weeds. They are expected to malign the wicked people in the green and happy fields, who sit and laugh beside the gurgling springs or climb the hills and wander as they will. They are expected to point out the dangers of freedom, the safety of implicit obedience, and to show the wickedness of philosophy, the goodness of faith, the immorality of science and the purity of ignorance.
Now and then a few pious people discover some young man of a religious turn of mind and a consumptive habit of body, not quite sickly enough to die, nor healthy enough to be wicked. The idea occurs to them that he would make a good orthodox minister. They take up a contribution, and send the young man to some theological school where he can be taught to repeat a creed and despise reason. Should it turn out that the young man had some mind of his own, and, after graduating, should change his opinions and preach a different doctrine from that taught in the school, every man who contributed a dollar towards his education would feel that he had been robbed, and would denounce him as a dishonest and ungrateful wretch.
The pulpit should not be a pillory. Congregations should allow the minister a little liberty. They should, at least, permit him to tell the truth.
They have, in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover, a kind of minister factory, where each professor takes an oath once in five years—that time being considered the life of an oath—that he has not, during the last five years, and will not, during the next five years, intellectually advance. There is probably no oath that they could easier keep. Probably, since the foundation stone of that institution was laid there has not been a single case of perjury. The old creed is still taught. They still insist that God is infinitely wise, powerful and good, and that all men are totally depraved. They insist that the best man God ever made, deserved to be damned the moment he was finished. Andover puts its brand upon every minister it turns out, the same as Sheffield and Birmingham brand their wares, and all who see the brand know exactly what the minister believes, the books he has read, the arguments he relies on, and just what he intellectually is. They know just what he can be depended on to preach, and that he will continue to shrink and shrivel, and grow solemnly stupid day by day until he reaches the Andover of the grave and becomes truly orthodox forever.
I have not singled out the Andover factory because it is worse than the others. They are all about the same. The professors, for the most part, are ministers who failed in the pulpit and were retired to the seminary on account of their deficiency in reason and their excess of faith. As a rule, they know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear.
Something should be done for the liberation of these men. They should be allowed to grow—to have sunlight and air. They should no longer be chained and tied to confessions of faith, to mouldy books and musty creeds. Thousands of ministers are anxious to give their honest thoughts. The hands of wives and babes now stop their mouths. They must have bread, and so the husbands and fathers are forced to preach a doctrine that they hold in scorn. For the sake of shelter, food and clothes, they are obliged to defend the childish miracles of the past, and denounce the sublime discoveries of to-day. They are compelled to attack all modern thought, to point out the dangers of science, the wickedness of investigation and the corrupting influence of logic. It is for them to show that virtue rests upon ignorance and faith, while vice impudently feeds and fattens upon fact and demonstration. It is a part of their business to malign and vilify the Voltaires, Humes, Paines, Humboldts, Tyndalls, Haeckels, Darwins, Spencers, and Drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the murderers, adulterers, and persecutors of the world. They are, for the most part, engaged in poisoning the minds of the young, prejudicing children against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the Bible, and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of reason.
These orthodox ministers do not add to the sum of knowledge. They produce nothing. They live upon alms. They hate laughter and joy. They officiate at weddings, sprinkle water upon babes, and utter meaningless words and barren promises above the dead. They laugh at the agony of unbelievers, mock at their tears, and of their sorrows make a jest. There are some noble exceptions. Now and then a pulpit holds a brave and honest man. Their congregations are willing that they should think—willing that their ministers should have a little freedom.
As we become civilized, more and more liberty will be accorded to these men, until finally ministers will give their best and highest thoughts. The congregations will finally get tired of hearing about the patriarchs and saints, the miracles and wonders, and will insist upon knowing something about the men and women of our day, and the accomplishments and discoveries of our time. They will finally insist upon knowing how to escape the evils of this world instead of the next. They will ask light upon the enigmas of this life. They will wish to know what we shall do with our criminals instead of what God will do with his—how we shall do away with beggary and want—with crime and misery—with prostitution, disease and famine,—with tyranny in all its cruel forms—with prisons and scaffolds, and how we shall reward the honest workers, and fill the world with happy homes! These are the problems for the pulpits and congregations of an enlightened future. If Science cannot finally answer these questions, it is a vain and worthless thing.
The clergy, however, will continue to answer them in the old way, until their congregations are good enough to set them free. They will still talk about believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, as though that were the only remedy for all human ills. They will still teach that retrogression is the only path that leads to light; that we must go back, that faith is the only sure guide, and that reason is a delusive glare, lighting only the road to eternal pain.
Until the clergy are free they cannot be intellectually honest. We can never tell what they really believe until they know that they can safely speak. They console themselves now by a secret resolution to be as liberal as they dare, with the hope that they can finally educate their congregations to the point of allowing them to think a little for themselves. They hardly know what they ought to do. The best part of their lives has been wasted in studying subjects of no possible value. Most of them are married, have families, and know but one way of making their living. Some of them say that if they do not preach these foolish dogmas, others will, and that they may through fear, after all, restrain mankind. Besides, they hate publicly to admit that they are mistaken, that the whole thing is a delusion, that the "scheme of salvation" is absurd, and that the Bible is no better than some other books, and worse than most.
You can hardly expect a bishop to leave his palace, or the pope to vacate the Vatican. As long as people want popes, plenty of hypocrites will be found to take the place. And as long as labor fatigues, there will be found a good many men willing to preach once a week, if other folks will work and give them bread. In other words, while the demand lasts, the supply will never fail.
If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish—if a little more enlightened, religion would perish!
II. FREE SCHOOLS.
It is also my desire to free the schools. When a professor in a college finds a fact, he should make it known, even if it is inconsistent with something Moses said. Public opinion must not compel the professor to hide a fact, and, "like the base Indian, throw the pearl away." With the single exception of Cornell, there is not a college in the United States where truth has ever been a welcome guest. The moment one of the teachers denies the inspiration of the Bible, he is discharged. If he discovers a fact inconsistent with that book, so much the worse for the fact, and especially for the discoverer of the fact. He must not corrupt the minds of his pupils with demonstrations. He must beware of every truth that cannot, in some way be made to harmonize with the superstitions of the Jews. Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did, and never will agree. They are not in the least related. They are deadly foes. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Can there be Methodist mathematics, Catholic astronomy, Presbyterian geology, Baptist biology, or Episcopal botany? Why, then, should a sectarian college exist? Only that which somebody knows should be taught in our schools. We should not collect taxes to pay people for guessing. The common school is the bread of life for the people, and it should not be touched by the withering hand of superstition.
Our country will never be filled with great institutions of learning until there is an absolute divorce between Church and School. As long as the mutilated records of a barbarous people are placed by priest and professor above the reason of mankind, we shall reap but little benefit from church or school.
Instead of dismissing professors for finding something out, let us rather discharge those who do not. Let each teacher understand that investigation is not dangerous for him; that his bread is safe, no matter how much truth he may discover, and that his salary will not be reduced, simply because he finds that the ancient Jews did not know the entire history of the world.
Besides, it is not fair to make the Catholic support a Protestant school, nor is it just to collect taxes from infidels and atheists to support schools in which any system of religion is taught.
The sciences are not sectarian. People do not persecute each other on account of disagreements in mathematics. Families are not divided about botany, and astronomy does not even tend to make a man hate his father and mother. It is what people do not know, that they persecute each other about. Science will bring, not a sword, but peace.
Just as long as religion has control of the schools, science will be an outcast. Let us free our institutions of learning. Let us dedicate them to the science of eternal truth. Let us tell every teacher to ascertain all the facts he can—to give us light, to follow Nature, no matter where she leads; to be infinitely true to himself and us; to feel that he is without a chain, except the obligation to be honest; that he is bound by no books, by no creed, neither by the sayings of the dead nor of the living; that he is asked to look with his own eyes, to reason for himself without fear, to investigate in every possible direction, and to bring us the fruit of all his work.
At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the "harmony of Genesis and Geology." Like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.
Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature will outrank the "sacred" falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ.
Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?
When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.
III. THE POLITICIANS.
I would like also to liberate the politician. At present, the successful office-seeker is a good deal like the centre of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, but draws everything else to him. There are so many societies, so many churches, so many isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a political career. Candidates are forced to pretend that they are Catholics with Protestant proclivities, or Christians with liberal tendencies, or temperance men who now and then take a glass of wine, or, that although not members of any church their wives are, and that they subscribe liberally to all. The result of all this is that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute of real principle; and this will never change until the people become grand enough to allow each other to do their own thinking, our Government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. He should not be compelled to give his opinion as to the inspiration of the Bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or the immaculate conception. All these things are private and personal. He should be allowed to settle such things for himself, and should he decide contrary to the law and will of God, let him settle the matter with God. The people ought to be wise enough to select as their officers men who know something of political affairs, who comprehend the present greatness, and clearly perceive the future grandeur of our country. If we were in a storm at sea, with deck wave-washed and masts strained and bent with storm, and it was necessary to reef the top sail, we certainly would not ask the brave sailor who volunteered to go aloft, what his opinion was on the five points of Calvinism. Our Government has nothing to do with religion. It is neither Christian nor pagan; it is secular. But as long as the people persist in voting for or against men on account of their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place and power. Just so long will the candidates crawl in the dust—hide their opinions, flatter those with whom they differ, pretend to agree with those whom they despise; and just so long will honest men be trampled under foot. Churches are becoming political organizations. Nearly every Catholic is a Democrat; nearly every Methodist in the North is a Republican.
It probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply upon political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if there are not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this Government will be destroyed. The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave.
All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy—making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. Surely politicians could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary reputation of the Jewish God.
IV. MAN AND WOMAN
Let us forget that we are Baptists, Methodists,
Catholics, Presbyterians, or Freethinkers, and remember only that we are men and women. After all, man and woman are the highest possible titles. All other names belittle us, and show that we have, to a certain extent, given up our individuality, and have consented to wear the collar of authority—that we are followers. Throwing away these names, let us examine these questions not as partisans, but as human beings with hopes and fears in common.
We know that our opinions depend, to a great degree, upon our surroundings—upon race, country, and education. We are all the result of numberless conditions, and inherit vices and virtues, truths and prejudices. If we had been born in England, surrounded by wealth and clothed with power, most of us would have been Episcopalians, and believed in church and state. We should have insisted that the people needed a religion, and that not having intellect enough to provide one for themselves, it was our duty to make one for them, and then compel them to support it. We should have believed it indecent to officiate in a pulpit without wearing a gown, and that prayers should be read from a book. Had we belonged to the lower classes, we might have been dissenters and protested against the mummeries of the High Church. Had we been born in Turkey, most of us would have been Mohammedans and believed in the inspiration of the Koran. We should have believed that Mohammed actually visited heaven and became acquainted with an angel by the name of Gabriel, who was so broad between the eyes that it required three hundred days for a very smart camel to travel the distance. If some man had denied this story we should probably have denounced him as a dangerous person, one who was endeavoring to undermine the foundations of society, and to destroy all distinction between virtue and vice. We should have said to him, "What do you propose to give us in place of that angel? We cannot afford to give up an angel of that size for nothing." We would have insisted that the best and wisest men believed the Koran. We would have quoted from the works and letters of philosophers, generals and sultans, to show that the Koran was the best of books, and that Turkey was indebted to that book and to that alone for its greatness and prosperity. We would have asked that man whether he knew more than all the great minds of his country, whether he was so much wiser than his fathers? We would have pointed out to him the fact that thousands had been consoled in the hour of death by passages from the Koran; that they had died with glazed eyes brightened by visions of the heavenly harem, and gladly left this world of grief and tears. We would have regarded Christians as the vilest of men, and on all occasions would have repeated "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet!"
So, if we had been born in India, we should in all probability have believed in the religion of that country. We should have regarded the old records as true and sacred, and looked upon a wandering priest as better than the men from whom he begged, and by whose labor he lived. We should have believed in a god with three heads instead of three gods with one head, as we do now.
Now and then some one says that the religion of his father and mother is good enough for him, and wonders why anybody should desire a better. Surely we are not bound to follow our parents in religion any more than in politics, science or art. China has been petrified by the worship of ancestors. If our parents had been satisfied with the religion of theirs, we would be still less advanced than we are. If we are, in any way, bound by the belief of our fathers, the doctrine will hold good back to the first people who had a religion; and if this doctrine is true, we ought now to be believers in that first religion. In other words, we would all be barbarians. You cannot show real respect to your parents by perpetuating their errors. Good fathers and mothers wish their children to advance, to overcome obstacles which baffled them, and to correct the errors of their education. If you wish to reflect credit upon your parents, accomplish more than they did, solve problems that they could not understand, and build better than they knew. To sacrifice your manhood upon the grave of your father is an honor to neither. Why should a son who has examined a subject, throw away his reason and adopt the views of his mother? Is not such a course dishonorable to both?
We must remember that this "ancestor" argument is as old at least as the second generation of men, that it has served no purpose except to enslave mankind, and results mostly from the fact that acquiescence is easier than investigation. This argument pushed to its logical conclusion, would prevent the advance of all people whose parents were not Freethinkers.
It is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables.
But when we look for a moment at the world, we find that each nation has its "sacred records"—its religion, and its ideas of worship. Certainly all cannot be right; and as it would require a life time to investigate the claims of these various systems, it is hardly fair to damn a man forever, simply because he happens to believe the wrong one. All these religions were produced by barbarians. Civilized nations have contented themselves with changing the religions of their barbaric ancestors, but they have made none. Nearly all these religions are intensely selfish. Each one was made by some contemptible little nation that regarded itself as of almost infinite importance, and looked upon the other nations as beneath the notice of their god. In all these countries it was a crime to deny the sacred records, to laugh at the priests, to speak disrespectfully of the gods, to fail to divide your substance with the lazy hypocrites who managed your affairs in the next world upon condition that you would support them in this. In the olden time these theological people who quartered themselves upon the honest and industrious, were called soothsayers, seers, charmers, prophets, enchanters, sorcerers, wizards, astrologers, and impostors, but now, they are known as clergymen.
We are no exception to the general rule, and consequently have our sacred books as well as the rest. Of course, it is claimed by many of our people that our books are the only true ones, the only ones that the real God ever wrote, or had anything whatever to do with. They insist that all other sacred books were written by hypocrites and impostors; that the Jews were the only people that God ever had any personal intercourse with, and that all other prophets and seers were inspired only by impudence and mendacity. True, it seems somewhat strange that God should have chosen a barbarous and unknown people who had little or nothing to do with the other nations of the earth, as his messengers to the rest of mankind.
It is not easy to account for an infinite God making people so low in the scale of intellect as to require a revelation. Neither is it easy to perceive why, if a revelation was necessary for all, it was made only to a few. Of course, I know that it is extremely wicked to suggest these thoughts, and that ignorance is the only armor that can effectually protect you from the wrath of God. I am aware that investigators with all their genius, never find the road to heaven; that those who look where they are going are sure to miss it, and that only those who voluntarily put out their eyes and implicitly depend upon blindness can surely keep the narrow path.
Whoever reads our sacred book is compelled to believe it or suffer forever the torments of the lost. We are told that we have the privilege of examining it for ourselves; but this privilege is only extended to us on the condition that we believe it whether it appears reasonable or not. We may disagree with others as much as we please upon the meaning of all passages in the Bible, but we must not deny the truth of a single word. We must believe that the book is inspired. If we obey its every precept without believing in its inspiration we will be damned just as certainly as though we disobeyed its every word. We have no right to weigh it in the scales of reason—to test it by the laws of nature, or the facts of observation and experience. To do this, we are told, is to put ourselves above the word of God, and sit in judgment on the works of our creator.
For my part, I cannot admit that belief is a voluntary thing. It seems to me that evidence, even in spite of ourselves, will have its weight, and that whatever our wish may be, we are compelled to stand with fairness by the scales, and give the exact result. It will not do to say that we reject the Bible because we are wicked. Our wickedness must be ascertained not from our belief but from our acts.
I am told by the clergy that I ought not to attack the Bible; that I am leading thousands to perdition and rendering certain the damnation of my own soul. They have had the kindness to advise me that, if my object is to make converts, I am pursuing the wrong course. They tell me to use gentler expressions, and more cunning words. Do they really wish me to make more converts? If their advice is honest, they are traitors to their trust. If their advice is not honest, then they are unfair with me. Certainly they should wish me to pursue the course that will make the fewest converts, and yet they pretend to tell me how my influence could be increased. It may be, that upon this principle John Bright advises America to adopt free trade, so that our country can become a successful rival of Great Britain. Sometimes I think that even ministers are not entirely candid.
Notwithstanding the advice of the clergy, I have concluded to pursue my own course, to tell my honest thoughts, and to have my freedom in this world whatever my fate may be in the next.
The real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the people is the Bible. That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. That book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. That book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime. That book unmans the politician and degrades the people. That book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear. It plays the same part in our country that has been played by "sacred records" in all the nations of the world.
A little while ago I saw one of the Bibles of the Middle Ages. It was about two feet in length, and one and a half in width. It had immense oaken covers, with hasps, and clasps, and hinges large enough almost for the doors of a penitentiary. It was covered with pictures of winged angels and aureoled saints. In my imagination I saw this book carried to the cathedral altar in solemn pomp—heard the chant of robed and kneeling priests, felt the strange tremor of the organ's peal; saw the colored light streaming through windows stained and touched by blood and flame—the swinging censer with its perfumed incense rising to the mighty roof, dim with height and rich with legend carved in stone, while on the walls was hung, written in light, and shade, and all the colors that can tell of joy and tears, the pictured history of the martyred Christ. The people fell upon their knees. The book was opened, and the priest read the messages from God to man. To the multitude, the book itself was evidence enough that it was not the work of human hands. How could those little marks and lines and dots contain, like tombs, the thoughts of men, and how could they, touched by a ray of light from human eyes, give up their dead? How could these characters span the vast chasm dividing the present from the past, and make it possible for the living still to hear the voices of the dead?
V. THE PENTATEUCH
The first five books in our Bible are known as the Pentateuch. For a long time it was supposed that Moses was the author, and among the ignorant the supposition still prevails. As a matter of fact, it seems to be well settled that Moses had nothing to do with these books, and that they were not written until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. But, as all the churches still insist that he was the author, that he wrote even an account of his own death and burial, let us speak of him as though these books were in fact written by him. As the Christians maintain that God was the real author, it makes but little difference whom he employed as his pen.
Nearly all authors of sacred books have given an account of the creation of the universe, the origin of matter, and the destiny of the human race, all have pointed out the obligation that man is under to his creator for having placed him upon the earth, and allowed him to live and suffer, and have taught that nothing short of the most abject worship could possibly compensate God for his trouble and labor suffered and done for the good of man. They have nearly all insisted that we should thank God for all that is good in life; but they have not all informed us as to whom we should hold responsible for the evils we endure.
Moses differed from most of the makers of sacred books by his failure to say anything of a future life, by failing to promise heaven, and to threaten hell. Upon the subject of a future state, there is not one word in the Pentateuch. Probably at that early day God did not deem it important to make a revelation as to the eternal destiny of man. He seems to have thought that he could control the Jews, at least, by rewards and punishments in this world, and so he kept the frightful realities of eternal joy and torment a profound secret from the people of his choice. He thought it far more important to tell the Jews their origin than to enlighten them as to their destiny.
We must remember that every tribe and nation has some way in which, the more striking phenomena of nature are accounted for. These accounts are handed down by tradition, changed by numberless narrators as intelligence increases, or to account for newly discovered facts, or for the purpose of satisfying the appetite for the marvelous.
The way in which a tribe or nation accounts for day and night, the change of seasons, the fall of snow and rain, the flight of birds, the origin of the rainbow, the peculiarities of animals, the dreams of sleep, the visions of the insane, the existence of earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, lightning and the thousand things that attract the attention and excite the wonder, fear or admiration of mankind, may be called the philosophy of that tribe or nation. And as all phenomena are, by savage and barbaric man accounted for as the action of intelligent beings for the accomplishment of certain objects, and as these beings were supposed to have the power to assist or injure man, certain things were supposed necessary for man to do in order to gain the assistance, and avoid the anger of these gods. Out of this belief grew certain ceremonies, and these ceremonies united with the belief, formed religion; and consequently every religion has for its foundation a misconception of the cause of phenomena.
All worship is necessarily based upon the belief that some being exists who can, if he will, change the natural order of events. The savage prays to a stone that he calls a god, while the Christian prays to a god that he calls a spirit, and the prayers of both are equally useful. The savage and the Christian put behind the Universe an intelligent cause, and this cause whether represented by one god or many, has been, in all ages, the object of all worship. To carry a fetich, to utter a prayer, to count beads, to abstain from food, to sacrifice a lamb, a child or an enemy, are simply different ways by which the accomplishment of the same object is sought, and are all the offspring of the same error.
Many systems of religion must have existed many ages before the art of writing was discovered, and must have passed through many changes before the stories, miracles, histories, prophecies and mistakes became fixed and petrified in written words. After that, change was possible only by giving new meanings to old words, a process rendered necessary by the continual acquisition of facts somewhat inconsistent with a literal interpretation of the "sacred records." In this way an honest faith often prolongs its life by dishonest methods; and in this way the Christians of to-day are trying to harmonize the Mosaic account of creation with the theories and discoveries of modern science.
Admitting that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, or that he gave to the Jews a religion, the question arises as to where he obtained his information. We are told by the theologians that he received his knowledge from God, and that every word he wrote was and is the exact truth. It is admitted at the same time that he was an adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, and enjoyed the rank and privilege of a prince. Under such circumstances, he must have been well acquainted with the literature, philosophy and religion of the Egyptians, and must have known what they believed and taught as to the creation of the world.
Now, if the account of the origin of this earth as given by Moses is substantially like that given by the Egyptians, then we must conclude that he learned it from them. Should we imagine that he was divinely inspired because he gave to the Jews what the Egyptians had given him?
The Egyptian priests taught first, that a god created the original matter, leaving it in a state of chaos; second, that a god moulded it into form; third, that the breath of a god moved upon the face of the deep; fourth, that a god created simply by saying "Let it be;" fifth, that a god created light before the sun existed.
Nothing can be clearer than that Moses received from the Egyptians the principal parts of his narrative, making such changes and additions as were necessary to satisfy the peculiar superstitions of his own people.
If some man at the present day should assert that he had received from God the theories of evolution, the survival of the fittest, and the law of heredity, and we should afterwards find that he was not only an Englishman, but had lived in the family of Charles Darwin, we certainly would account for his having these theories in a natural way, So, if Darwin himself should pretend that he was inspired, and had obtained his peculiar theories from God, we should probably reply that his grandfather suggested the same ideas, and that Lamarck published substantially the same theories the same year that Mr. Darwin was born.
Now, if we have sufficient courage, we will, by the same course of reasoning, account for the story of creation found in the Bible. We will say that it contains the belief of Moses, and that he received his information from the Egyptians, and not from God. If we take the account as the absolute truth and use it for the purpose of determining the value of modern thought, scientific advancement becomes impossible. And even if the account of the creation as given by Moses should turn out to be true, and should be so admitted by all the scientific world, the claim that he was inspired would still be without the least particle of proof. We would be forced to admit that he knew more than we had supposed. It certainly is no proof that a man is inspired simply because he is right.
No one pretends that Shakespeare was inspired, and yet all the writers of the books of the Old Testament put together, could not have produced Hamlet.
Why should we, looking upon some rough and awkward thing, or god in stone, say that it must have been produced by some inspired sculptor, and with the same breath pronounce the Venus de Milo to be the work of man? Why should we, looking at some ancient daub of angel, saint or virgin, say its painter must have been assisted by a god?
Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. To account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature. In order to increase our respect for the Bible, it became necessary for the priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and belittle the reasoning powers of man. The whole power of the pulpit has been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence of man in himself—to induce him to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he was wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and that all human virtue consists in faith and obedience. The church has said, "Believe, and obey! If you reason, you will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. If you disobey, you will do so through vain pride and curiosity, and will, like Adam and Eve, be thrust from Paradise forever!"
For my part, I care nothing for what the church says, except in so far as it accords with my reason; and the Bible is nothing to me, only in so far as it agrees with what I think or know.
All books should be examined in the same spirit, and truth should be welcomed and falsehood exposed, no matter in what volume they may be found.
Let us in this spirit examine the Pentateuch; and if anything appears unreasonable, contradictory or absurd, let us have the honesty and courage to admit it. Certainly no good can result either from deceiving ourselves or others. Many millions have implicitly believed this book, and have just as implicitly believed that polygamy was sanctioned by God. Millions have regarded this book as the foundation of all human progress, and at the same time looked upon slavery as a divine institution. Millions have declared this book to have been infinitely holy, and to prove that they were right, have imprisoned, robbed and burned their fellow-men. The inspiration of this book has been established by famine, sword and fire, by dungeon, chain and whip, by dagger and by rack, by force and fear and fraud, and generations have been frightened by threats of hell, and bribed with promises of heaven.
Let us examine a portion of this book, not in the darkness of our fear, but in the light of reason.
And first, let us examine the account given of the creation of this world, commenced, according to the Bible, on Monday morning about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago.
VI. MONDAY.
Moses commences his story by telling us that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
If this means anything, it means that God produced, caused to exist, called into being, the heaven and the earth. It will not do to say that he formed the heaven and the earth of previously existing matter. Moses conveys, and intended to convey the idea that the matter of which the heaven and the earth are composed, was created.
It is impossible for me to conceive of something being created from nothing. Nothing, regarded in the light of a raw material, is a decided failure. I cannot conceive of matter apart from force. Neither is it possible to think of force disconnected with matter. You cannot imagine matter going back to absolute nothing. Neither can you imagine nothing being changed into something. You may be eternally damned if you do not say that you can conceive these things, but you cannot conceive them.
Such is the constitution of the human mind that it cannot even think of a commencement or an end of matter, or force.
If God created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. Back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. In that eternity what was this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing had ever happened. What did he do? Can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity?
I do not pretend to tell how all these things really are; but I do insist that a statement that cannot possibly be comprehended by any human being, and that appears utterly impossible, repugnant to every fact of experience, and contrary to everything that we really know, must be rejected by every honest man.
We can conceive of eternity, because we cannot conceive of a cessation of time. We can conceive of infinite space because we cannot conceive of so much matter that our imagination will not stand upon the farthest star, and see infinite space beyond. In other words, we cannot conceive of a cessation of time; therefore eternity is a necessity of the mind. Eternity sustains the same relation to time that space does to matter.
In the time of Moses, it was perfectly safe for him to write an account of the creation of the world. He had simply to put in form the crude notions of the people. At that time, no other Jew could have written a better account. Upon that subject he felt at liberty to give his imagination full play. There was no one who could authoritatively contradict anything he might say. It was substantially the same story that had been imprinted in curious characters upon the clay records of Babylon, the gigantic monuments of Egypt, and the gloomy temples of India. In those days there was an almost infinite difference between the educated and ignorant. The people were controlled almost entirely by signs and wonders. By the lever of fear, priests moved the world. The sacred records were made and kept, and altered by them. The people could not read, and looked upon one who could, as almost a god. In our day it is hard to conceive of the influence of an educated class in a barbarous age. It was only necessary to produce the "sacred record," and ignorance fell upon its face. The people were taught that the record was inspired, and therefore true. They were not taught that it was true, and therefore inspired.
After all, the real question is not whether the Bible is inspired, but whether it is true. If it is true, it does not need to be inspired. If it is true, it makes no difference whether it was written by a man or a god. The multiplication table is just as useful, just as true as though God had arranged the figures himself. If the Bible is really true, the claim of inspiration need not be urged; and if it is not true, its inspiration can hardly be established. As a matter of fact, the truth does not need to be inspired. Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. Where truth ends, where probability stops, inspiration begins. A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth does not need the assistance of miracle. A fact will fit every other fact in the Universe, because it is the product of all other facts. A lie will fit nothing except another lie made for the express purpose of fitting it. After a while the man gets tired of lying, and then the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then there is an opportunity to use a miracle. Just at that point, it is necessary to have a little inspiration.
It seems to me that reason is the highest attribute of man, and that if there can be any communication from God to man, it must be addressed to his reason. It does not seem possible that in order to understand a message from God it is absolutely essential to throw our reason away. How could God make known his will to any being destitute of reason? How can any man accept as a revelation from God that which is unreasonable to him? God cannot make a revelation to another man for me. He must make it to me, and until he convinces my reason that it is true, I cannot receive it.
The statement that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, I cannot accept. It is contrary to my reason, and I cannot believe it. It appears reasonable to me that force has existed from eternity. Force cannot, as it appears to me, exist apart from matter. Force, in its nature, is forever active, and without matter it could not act; and so I think matter must have existed forever. To conceive of matter without force, or of force without matter, or of a time when neither existed, or of a being who existed for an eternity without either, and who out of nothing created both, is to me utterly impossible. I may be damned on this account, but I cannot help it. In my judgment, Moses was mistaken.
It will not do to say that Moses merely intended to tell what God did, in making the heavens and the earth out of matter then in existence. He distinctly states that in the beginning God created them. If this account is true, we must believe that God, existing in infinite space surrounded by eternal nothing, naught and void, created, produced, called into being, willed into existence this universe of countless stars.
The next thing we are told by this inspired gentleman is, that God created light, and proceeded to divide it from the darkness.
Certainly, the person who wrote this believed that darkness was a thing, an entity, a material that could get mixed and tangled up with light, and that these entities, light and darkness, had to be separated. In his imagination he probably saw God throwing pieces and chunks of darkness on one side, and rays and beams of light on the other. It is hard for a man who has been born but once to understand these things. For my part, I cannot understand how light can be separated from darkness. I had always supposed that darkness was simply the absence of light, and that under no circumstances could it be necessary to take the darkness away from the light. It is certain, however, that Moses believed darkness to be a form of matter, because I find that in another place he speaks of a darkness that could be felt. They used to have on exhibition at Rome a bottle of the darkness that overspread Egypt.
You cannot divide light from darkness any more than you can divide heat from cold. Cold is an absence of heat, and darkness is an absence of light. I suppose that we have no conception of absolute cold. We know only degrees of heat. Twenty degrees below zero is just twenty degrees warmer than forty degrees below zero. Neither cold nor darkness are entities, and these words express simply either the absolute or partial absence of heat or light. I cannot conceive how light can be divided from darkness, but I can conceive how a barbarian several thousand years ago, writing upon a subject about which he knew nothing, could make a mistake. The creator of light could not have written in this way. If such a being exists, he must have known the nature of that "mode of motion" that paints the earth on every eye, and clothes in garments seven-hued this universe of worlds.
VII. TUESDAY.
We are next informed by Moses that "God of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters;" and that "God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." What did the writer mean by the word firmament? Theologians now tell us that he meant an "expanse." This will not do. How could an expanse divide the waters from the waters, so that the waters above the expanse would not fall into and mingle with the waters below the expanse? The truth is that Moses regarded the firmament as a solid affair. It was where God lived, and where water was kept. It was for this reason that they used to pray for rain. They supposed that some angel could with a lever raise a gate and let out the quantity of moisture desired. It was with the water from this firmament that the world was drowned when the windows of heaven were opened. It was in this said Let there be a firmament in the midst firmament that the sons of God lived—the sons who "saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of all which they chose." The issue of such marriages were giants, and "the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."
Nothing is clearer than that Moses regarded the firmament as a vast material division that separated the waters of the world, and upon whose floor God lived, surrounded by his sons. In no other way could he account for rain. Where did the water come from? He knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. He did not know that the sun wooed with amorous kisses the waves of the sea, and that they, clad in glorified mist rising to meet their lover, were, by disappointment, changed to tears and fell as rain.
The idea that the firmament was the abode of the Deity must have been in the mind of Moses when he related the dream of Jacob. "And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it; and behold the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God."
So, when the people were building the tower of Babel "the Lord came down to see the city, and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language: and this they begin to do; and nothing will be restrained from them which they imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech."
The man who wrote that absurd account must have believed that God lived above the earth, in the firmament. The same idea was in the mind of the Psalmist when he said that God "bowed the heavens and came down."
Of course, God could easily remove any person bodily to heaven, as it was but a little way above the earth. "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." The accounts in the Bible of the ascension of Elijah, Christ and St. Paul were born of the belief that the firmament was the dwelling-place of God. It probably never occurred to these writers that if the firmament was seven or eight miles away, Enoch and the rest would have been frozen perfectly stiff long before the journey could have been completed. Possibly Elijah might have made the voyage, as he was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire "by a whirlwind."
The truth is, that Moses was mistaken, and upon that mistake the Christians located their heaven and their hell. The telescope destroyed the firmament, did away with the heaven of the New Testament, rendered the ascension of our Lord and the assumption of his Mother infinitely absurd, crumbled to chaos the gates and palaces of the New Jerusalem, and in their places gave to man a wilderness of worlds.
VIII. WEDNESDAY.
We are next informed by the historian of creation, that after God had finished making the firmament and had succeeded in dividing the waters by means of an "expanse," he proceeded "to gather the waters on the earth together in seas, so that the dry land might appear."
Certainly the writer of this did not have any conception of the real form of the earth. He could not have known anything of the attraction of gravitation. He must have regarded the earth as flat and supposed that it required considerable force and power to induce the water to leave the mountains and collect in the valleys. Just as soon as the water was forced to run down hill, the dry land appeared, and the grass began to grow, and the mantles of green were thrown over the shoulders of the hills, and the trees laughed into bud and blossom, and the branches were laden with fruit. And all this happened before a ray had left the quiver of the sun, before a glittering beam had thrilled the bosom of a flower, and before the Dawn with trembling hands had drawn aside the curtains of the East and welcomed to her arms the eager god of Day.
It does not seem to me that grass and trees could grow and ripen into seed and fruit without the sun. According to the account, this all happened on the third day. Now, if, as the Christians say, Moses did not mean by the word day a period of twenty-four hours, but an immense and almost measureless space of time, and as God did not, according to this view make any animals until the fifth day, that is, not for millions of years after he made the grass and trees, for what purpose did he cause the trees to bear fruit?
Moses says that God said on the third day, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind; and God saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third day."
There was nothing to eat this fruit; not an insect with painted wings sought the honey of the flowers; not a single living, breathing thing upon the earth. Plenty of grass, a great variety of herbs, an abundance of fruit, but not a mouth in all the world. If Moses is right, this state of things lasted only two days; but if the modern theologians are correct, it continued for millions of ages.
"It is now well known that the organic history of the earth can be properly divided into five epochs—the Primordial, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary. Each of these epochs is characterized by animal and vegetable life peculiar to itself. In the First will be found Algæ and Skulless Vertebrates, in the Second, Ferns and Fishes, in the Third, Pine Forests and Reptiles, in the Fourth, Foliaceous Forests and Mammals, and in the Fifth, Man."
How much more reasonable this is than the idea that the earth was covered with grass, and herbs, and trees loaded with fruit for millions of years before an animal existed.
There is, in Nature, an even balance forever kept between the total amounts of animal and vegetable life. "In her wonderful economy she must form and bountifully nourish her vegetable progeny—twin-brother life to her, with that of animals. The perfect balance between plant existences and animal existences must always be maintained, while matter courses through the eternal circle, becoming each in turn. If an animal be resolved into its ultimate constituents in a period according to the surrounding circumstances, say, of four hours, of four months, of four years, or even of four thousand years,—for it is impossible to deny that there may be instances of all these periods during which the process has continued—those elements which assume the gaseous form mingle at once with the atmosphere and are taken up from it without delay by the ever-open mouths of vegetable life. By a thousand pores in every leaf the carbonic acid which renders the atmosphere unfit for animal life is absorbed, the carbon being separated, and assimilated to form the vegetable fibre, which, as wood, makes and furnishes our houses and ships, is burned for our warmth, or is stored up under pressure for coal. All this carbon has played its part, and many parts in its time, as animal existences from monad up to man. Our mahogany of to-day has been many negroes in its turn, and before the African existed, was integral portions of many a generation of extinct species."
It seems reasonable to suppose that certain kinds of vegetation-and certain kinds of animals should exist together, and that as the character of the vegetation changed, a corresponding change would take place in the animal world. It may be that I am led to these conclusions by "total depravity," or that I lack the necessary humility of spirit to satisfactorily harmonize Haeckel and Moses; or that I am carried away by pride, blinded by reason, given over to hardness of heart that I might be damned, but I never can believe that the earth was covered with leaves, and buds, and flowers, and fruits before the sun with glittering spear had driven back the hosts of Night.
IX. THURSDAY.
After the world was covered with vegetation, it occurred to Moses that it was about time to make a sun and moon; and so we are told that on the fourth day God said, "Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also."
Can we believe that the inspired writer had any idea of the size of the sun? Draw a circle five inches in diameter, and by its side thrust a pin through the paper. The hole made by the pin will sustain about the same relation to the circle that the earth does to the sun. Did he know that the sun was eight hundred and sixty thousand miles in diameter; that it was enveloped in an ocean of fire thousands of miles in depth, hotter even than the Christian's hell, over which sweep tempests of flame moving at the rate of one hundred miles a second, compared with which the wildest storm that ever wrecked the forests of this world was but a calm? Did he know that the sun every moment of time throws out as much heat as could be generated by the combustion of millions upon millions of tons of coal? Did he know that the volume of the earth is less than one-millionth of that of the sun? Did he know of the one hundred and four planets belonging to our solar system, all children of the sun? Did he know of Jupiter eighty-five thousand miles in diameter, hundreds of times as large as our earth, turning on his axis at the rate of twenty-five thousand miles an hour accompanied by four moons, making the tour of his orbit in fifty years, a distance of three thousand million miles? Did he know anything about Saturn, his rings and his eight moons? Did he have the faintest idea that all these planets were once a part of the sun; that the vast luminary was once thousands of millions of miles in diameter; that Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were all born before our earth, and that by no possibility could this world have existed three days, nor three periods, nor three "good whiles" before its source, the sun?
Moses supposed the sun to be about three or four feet in diameter and the moon about half that size. Compared with the earth they were but simple specks. This idea seems to have been shared by all the "inspired" men. We find in the book of Joshua that the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. "So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day."
We are told that the sacred writer wrote in common speech as we do when we talk about the rising and setting of the sun, and that all he intended to say was that the earth ceased to turn on its axis "for about a whole day."
My own opinion is that General Joshua knew no more about the motions of the earth than he did about mercy and justice. If he had known that the earth turned upon its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and swept in its course about the sun at the rate of sixty-eight thousand miles an hour, he would have doubled the hailstones, spoken of in the same chapter, that the Lord cast down from heaven, and allowed the sun and moon to rise and set in the usual way.
It is impossible to conceive of a more absurd story than this about the stopping of the sun and moon, and yet nothing so excites the malice of the orthodox preacher as to call its truth in question. Some endeavor to account for the phenomenon by natural causes, while others attempt to show that God could, by the refraction of light have made the sun visible although actually shining on the opposite side of the earth. The last hypothesis has been seriously urged by ministers within the last few months. The Rev. Henry M. Morey of South Bend, Indiana, says "that the phenomenon was simply optical. The rotary motion of the earth was not disturbed, but the light of the sun was prolonged by the same laws of refraction and reflection by which the sun now appears to be above the horizon when it is really below. The medium through which the sun's rays passed may have been miraculously influenced so as to have caused the sun to linger above the horizon long after its usual time for disappearance."
This is the latest and ripest product of Christian scholarship upon this question no doubt, but still it is not entirely satisfactory to me. According to the sacred account the sun did not linger, merely, above the horizon, but stood still "in the midst of heaven for about a whole day," that is to say, for about twelve hours. If the air was miraculously changed, so that it would refract the rays of the sun while the earth turned over as usual for "about a whole day," then, at the end of that time the sun must have been visible in the east, that is, it must by that time have been the next morning. According to this, that most wonderful day must have been at least thirty-six hours in length. We have first, the twelve hours of natural light, then twelve hours of "refracted and reflected" light. By that time it would again be morning, and the sun would shine for twelve hours more in the natural way, making thirty-six hours in all.
If the Rev. Morey would depend a little less on "refraction" and a little more on "reflection," he would conclude that the whole story is simply a barbaric myth and fable.
It hardly seems reasonable that God, if there is one, would either stop the globe, change the constitution of the atmosphere or the nature of light simply to afford Joshua an opportunity to kill people on that day when he could just as easily have waited until the next morning. It certainly cannot be very gratifying to God for us to believe such childish things.
It has been demonstrated that force is eternal; that it is forever active, and eludes destruction by change of form. Motion is a form of force, and all arrested motion changes instantly to heat. The earth turns upon its axis at about one thousand miles an hour. Let it be stopped and a force beyond our imagination is changed to heat. It has been calculated that to stop the world would produce as much heat as the burning of a solid piece of coal three times the size of the earth. And yet we are asked to believe that this was done in order that one barbarian might defeat another. Such stories never would have been written, had not the belief been general that the heavenly bodies were as nothing compared with the earth.
The view of Moses was acquiesced in by the Jewish people and by the Christian world for thousands of years. It is supposed that Moses lived about fifteen hundred years before Christ, and although he was "inspired," and obtained his information directly from God, he did not know as much about our solar system as the Chinese did a thousand years before he was born. "The Emperor Chwenhio adopted as an epoch, a conjunction of the planets Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which has been shown by M. Bailly to have occurred no less than 2449 years before Christ." The ancient Chinese knew not only the motions of the planets, but they could calculate eclipses. "In the reign of the Emperor Chow-Kang, the chief astronomers, Ho and Hi were condemned to death for neglecting to announce a solar eclipse which took place 2169 B. C., a clear proof that the prediction of eclipses was a part of the duty of the imperial astronomers."
Is it not strange that a Chinaman should find out by his own exertions more about the material universe than Moses could when assisted by its Creator?
About eight hundred years after God gave Moses the principal facts about the creation of the "heaven and the earth" he performed another miracle far more wonderful than stopping the world. On this occasion he not only stopped the earth, but actually caused it to turn the other way. A Jewish king was sick, and God, in order to convince him that he would ultimately recover, offered to make the shadow on the dial go forward, or backward ten degrees. The king thought it was too easy a thing to make the shadow go forward, and asked that it be turned back. Thereupon, "Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." I hardly see how this miracle could be accounted for even by "refraction" and "reflection."
It seems, from the account, that this stupendous miracle was performed after the king had been cured. The account of the shadow going backward is given in the eleventh verse of the twentieth chapter of Second Kings, while the cure is given in the seventh verse of the same chapter. "And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered."
Stopping the world and causing it to turn back ten degrees after that, seems to have been, as the boil was already cured by the figs, a useless display of power.
The easiest way to account for all these wonders is to say that the "inspired" writers were mistaken. In this way a fearful burden is lifted from the credulity of man, and he is left free to believe the evidences of his own senses, and the demonstrations of science. In this way he can emancipate himself from the slavery of superstition, the control of the barbaric dead, and the despotism of the church.
Only about a hundred years ago, Buffon, the naturalist, was compelled by the faculty of theology at Paris to publicly renounce fourteen "errors" in his work on Natural History because they were at variance with the Mosaic account of creation. The Pentateuch is still the scientific standard of the church, and ignorant priests, armed with that, pronounce sentence upon the vast accomplishments of modern thought.
X. "HE MADE THE STARS ALSO."
Moses came very near forgetting about the stars, and only gave five words to all the hosts of heaven. Can it be possible that he knew anything about the stars beyond the mere fact that he saw them shining above him?
Did he know that the nearest star, the one we ought to be the best acquainted with, is twenty-one billion of miles away, and that it is a sun shining by its own light? Did he know of the next, that is thirty-seven billion miles distant? Is it possible that he was acquainted with Sirius, a sun two thousand six hundred and eighty-eight times larger than our own, surrounded by a system of heavenly bodies, several of which are already known, and distant from us eighty-two billion miles? Did he know that the Polar star that tells the mariner his course and guided slaves to liberty and joy, is distant from this little world two hundred and ninety-two billion miles, and that Capella wheels and shines one hundred and thirty-three billion miles beyond? Did he know that it would require about seventy-two years for light to reach us from this star? Did he know that light travels one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles a second? Did he know that some stars are so far away in the infinite abysses that five millions of years are required for their light to reach this globe?
If this is true, and if as the Bible tells us, the stars were made after the earth, then this world has been wheeling in its orbit for at least five million years.
It may be replied that it was not the intention of God to teach geology and astronomy. Then why did he say anything upon these subjects? and if he did say anything, why did he not give the facts?
According to the sacred records God created, on the first day, the heaven and the earth, "moved upon the face of the waters," and made the light. On the second day he made the firmament or the "expanse" and divided the waters. On the third day he gathered the waters into seas, let the dry land appear and caused the earth to bring forth grass, herbs and fruit trees, and on the fourth day he made the sun, moon and stars and set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth. This division of labor is very striking. The work of the other days is as nothing when compared with that of the fourth. Is it possible that it required the same time and labor to make the grass, herbs and fruit trees, that it did to fill with countless constellations the infinite expanse of space?
XI. FRIDAY.
We are then told that on the next day "God the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales and every living creature which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."
Is it true that while the dry land was covered with grass, and herbs, and trees bearing fruit, the ocean was absolutely devoid of life, and so remained for millions of years?
If Moses meant twenty-four hours by the word day, then it would make but little difference on which of the six days animals were made; but if the word said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly day was used to express millions of ages, during which life was slowly evolved from monad up to man, then the account becomes infinitely absurd, puerile and foolish. There is not a scientist of high standing who will say that in his judgment the earth was covered with fruit-bearing trees before the moners, the ancestors it may be of the human race, felt in Laurentian seas the first faint throb of life. Nor is there one who will declare that there was a single spire of grass before the sun had poured upon the world his flood of gold.
Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the contradictions that exist between Nature and a book? Why should philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what they know than upon what they have been told? If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is the author of the Bible. Why then should we not place greater confidence in Nature than in a book? And even if this God made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that the book is the best part of creation, and the only part that we will be eternally punished for denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adventures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing the Bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for Freethinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? Why should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, holding the Nebular Hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? It seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost.
XII. SATURDAY.
On this, the last day of creation, God said;—
"Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and God saw that it was good."
Now, is it true that the seas were filled with fish, the sky with fowls, and the earth covered with grass, and herbs, and fruit bearing trees, millions of ages before there was a creeping thing in existence? Must we admit that plants and animals were the result of the fiat of some incomprehensible intelligence independent of the operation of what are known as natural causes? Why is a miracle any more necessary to account for yesterday than for to-day or for to-morrow?
If there is an infinite Power, nothing can be more certain than that this Power works in accordance with what we call law, that is, by and through natural causes. If anything can be found without a pedigree of natural antecedents, it will then be time enough to talk about the fiat of creation. There must have been a time when plants and animals did not exist upon this globe. The question, and the only question is, whether they were naturally produced. If the account given by Moses is true, then the vegetable and animal existences are the result of certain special fiats of creation entirely independent of the operation of natural causes. This is so grossly improbable, so at variance with the experience and observation of mankind, that it cannot be adopted without abandoning forever the basis of scientific thought and action.
It may be urged that we do not understand the sacred record correctly. To this it may be replied that for thousands of years the account of the creation has, by the Jewish and Christian world, been regarded as literally true. If it was inspired, of course God must have known just how it would be understood, and consequently must have intended that it should be understood just as he knew it would be. One man writing to another, may mean one thing, and yet be understood as meaning something else. Now, if the writer knew that he would be misunderstood, and also knew that he could use other words that would convey his real meaning, but did not, we would say that he used words on purpose to mislead, and was not an honest man.
If a being of infinite wisdom wrote the Bible, or caused it to be written, he must have known exactly how his words would be interpreted by all the world, and he must have intended to convey the very meaning that was conveyed. He must have known that by reading that book, man would form erroneous views as to the shape, antiquity, and size of this world; that he would be misled as to the time and order of creation; that he would have the most childish and contemptible views of the creator; that the "sacred word" would be used to support slavery and polygamy; that it would build dungeons for the good, and light fagots to consume the brave, and therefore he must have intended that these results should follow. He also must have known that thousands and millions of men and women never could believe his Bible, and that the number of unbelievers would increase in the exact ratio of civilization, and therefore, he must have intended that result.
Let us understand this. An honest finite being uses the best words, in his judgment, to convey his meaning. This is the best he can do, because he cannot certainly know the exact effect of his words on others. But an infinite being must know not only the real meaning of the words, but the exact meaning they will convey to every reader and hearer. He must know every meaning that they are capable of conveying to every mind. He must also know what explanations must be made to prevent misconception. If an infinite being cannot, in making a revelation to man, use such words that every person to whom a revelation is essential will understand distinctly what that revelation is, then a revelation from God through the instrumentality of language is impossible, or it is not essential that all should understand it correctly. It may be urged that millions have not the capacity to understand a revelation, although expressed in the plainest words. To this it seems a sufficient reply to ask, why a being of infinite power should create men so devoid of intelligence, that he cannot by any means make known to them his will? We are told that it is exceedingly plain, and that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. This statement is refuted by the religious history of the Christian world. Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning. About the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war, and centuries of sword and flame. If written by an infinite God, he must have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, he must be responsible for all.
Is it not infinitely more reasonable to say that this book is the work of man, that it is filled with mingled truth and error, with mistakes and facts, and reflects, too faithfully perhaps, the "very form and pressure of its time"?
If there are mistakes in the Bible, certainly they were made by man. If there is anything contrary to nature, it was written by man. If there is anything immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it certainly was never written by a being worthy of the adoration of mankind.
XIII. LET US MAKE MAN.
We are next informed by the author of the Pentateuch that God said "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," and that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him—male and female created he them."
If this account means anything, it means that man was created in the physical image and likeness of God. Moses while he speaks of man as having been made in the image of God, never speaks of God except as having the form of a man. He speaks of God as "walking in the garden in the cool of the day;" and that Adam and Eve "heard his voice." He is constantly telling what God said, and in a thousand passages he refers to him as not only having the human form, but as performing actions, such as man performs. The God of Moses was a God with hands, with feet, with the organs of speech.
A God of passion, of hatred, of revenge, of affection, of repentance; a God who made mistakes:—in other words, an immense and powerful man.
It will not do to say that Moses meant to convey the idea that God made man in his mental or moral image. Some have insisted that man was made in the moral image of God because he was made pure. Purity cannot be manufactured. A moral character cannot be made for man by a god. Every man must make his own moral character. Consequently, if God is infinitely pure, Adam and Eve were not made in his image in that respect. Others say that Adam and Eve were made in the mental image of God. If it is meant by that, that they were created with reasoning powers like, but not to the extent of those possessed by a god, then this may be admitted. But certainly this idea was not in the mind of Moses. He regarded the human form as being in the image of God, and for that reason always spoke of God as having that form. No one can read the Pentateuch without coming to the conclusion that the author supposed that man was created in the physical likeness of Deity. God said "Go to, let us go down." "God smelled a sweet savor;" "God repented him that he had made man;" "and God said;" and "walked;" and "talked;" and "rested." All these expressions are inconsistent with any other idea than that the person using them regarded God as having the form of man.
As a matter of fact, it is impossible for a man to conceive of a personal God, other than as a being having the human form. No one can think of an infinite being having the form of a horse, or of a bird, or of any animal beneath man. It is one of the necessities of the mind to associate forms with intellectual capacities. The highest form of which we have any conception is man's, and consequently, his is the only form that we can find in imagination to give to a personal God, because all other forms are, in our minds, connected with lower intelligences.
It is impossible to think of a personal God as a spirit without form. We can use these words, but they do not convey to the mind any real and tangible meaning. Every one who thinks of a personal God at all, thinks of him as having the human form. Take from God the idea of form; speak of him simply as an all pervading spirit—which means an all pervading something about which we know nothing—and Pantheism is the result.
We are told that God made man; and the question naturally arises, how was this done? Was it by a process of "evolution," "development;" the "transmission of acquired habits;" the "survival of the fittest," or was the necessary amount of clay kneaded to the proper consistency, and then by the hands of God moulded into form? Modern science tells that man has been evolved, through countless epochs, from the lower forms; that he is the result of almost an infinite number of actions, reactions, experiences, states, forms, wants and adaptations. Did Moses intend to convey such a meaning, or did he believe that God took a sufficient amount of dust, made it the proper shape, and breathed into it the breath of life? Can any believer in the Bible give any reasonable account of this process of creation? Is it possible to imagine what was really done? Is there any theologian who will contend that man was created directly from the earth? Will he say that man was made substantially as he now is, with all his muscles properly developed for walking and speaking, and performing every variety of human action? That all his bones were formed as they now are, and all the relations of nerve, ligament, brain and motion as they are to-day?
Looking back over the history of animal life from the lowest to the highest forms, we find that there has been a slow and gradual development; a certain but constant relation between want and production; between use and form. The Moner is said to be the simplest form of animal life that has yet been found. It has been described as "an organism without organs." It is a kind of structureless structure; a little mass of transparent jelly that can flatten itself out, and can expand and contract around its food. It can feed without a mouth, digest without a stomach, walk without feet, and reproduce itself by simple division. By taking this Moner as the commencement of animal life, or rather as the first animal, it is easy to follow the development of the organic structure through all the forms of life to man himself. In this way finally every muscle, bone and joint, every organ, form and function may be accounted for. In this way, and in this way only, can the existence of rudimentary organs be explained. Blot from the human mind the ideas of evolution, heredity, adaptation, and "the survival of the fittest," with which it has been enriched by Lamarck, Goethe, Darwin, Haeckel and Spencer, and all the facts in the history of animal life become utterly disconnected and meaningless.
Shall we throw away all that has been discovered with regard to organic life, and in its place take the statements of one who lived in the rude morning of a barbaric day? Will anybody now contend that man was a direct and independent creation, and sustains and bears no relation to the animals below him? Belief upon this subject must be governed at last by evidence. Man cannot believe as he pleases. He can control his speech, and can say that he believes or disbelieves; but after all, his will cannot depress or raise the scales with which his reason finds the worth and weight of facts. If this is not so, investigation, evidence, judgment and reason are but empty words.
I ask again, how were Adam and Eve created? In one account they are created male and female, and apparently at the same time. In the next account, Adam is made first, and Eve a long time afterwards, and from a part of the man. Did God simply by his creative fiat cause a rib slowly to expand, grow and divide into nerve, ligament, cartilage and flesh? How was the woman created from a rib? How was man created simply from dust? For my part, I cannot believe this statement.
I may suffer for this in the world to come; and may, millions of years hence, sincerely wish that I had never investigated the subject, but had been content to take the ideas of the dead. I do not believe that any deity works in that way. So far as my experience goes, there is an unbroken procession of cause and effect. Each thing is a necessary link in an infinite chain; and I cannot conceive of this chain being broken even for one instant. Back of the simplest moner there is a cause, and back of that another, and so on, it seems to me, forever. In my philosophy I postulate neither beginning nor ending.
If the Mosaic account is true, we know how long man has been upon this earth. If that account can be relied on, the first man was made about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. Sixteen hundred and fifty-six years after the making of the first man, the inhabitants of the world, with the exception of eight people, were destroyed by a flood. This flood occurred only about four thousand two hundred and twenty-seven years ago. If this account is correct, at that time, only one kind of men existed. Noah and his family were certainly of the same blood. It therefore follows that all the differences we see between the various races of men have been caused in about four thousand years. If the account of the deluge is true, then since that event all the ancient kingdoms of the earth were founded, and their inhabitants passed through all the stages of savage, nomadic, barbaric and semi-civilized life; through the epochs of Stone, Bronze and Iron; established commerce, cultivated the arts, built cities, filled them with palaces and temples, invented writing, produced a literature and slowly fell to shapeless ruin. We must believe that all this has happened within a period of four thousand years.
From representations found upon Egyptian granite made more than three thousand years ago, we know that the negro was as black, his lips as full, and his hair as closely curled then as now. If we know anything, we know that there was at that time substantially the same difference between the Egyptian and the Negro as now. If we know anything, we know that magnificent statues were made in Egypt four thousand years before our era—that is to say, about six thousand years ago. There was at the World's Exposition, in the Egyptian department, a statue of king Cephren, known to have been chiseled more than six thousand years ago. In other words, if the Mosaic account must be believed, this statue was made before the world. We also know, if we know anything, that men lived in v Europe with the hairy mammoth, the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the hyena. Among the bones of these animals have been found the stone hatchets and flint arrows of our ancestors. In the caves where they lived have been discovered the remains of these animals that had been conquered, killed and devoured as food, hundreds of thousands of years ago.
If these facts are true, Moses was mistaken. For my part, I have infinitely more confidence in the discoveries of to-day, than in the records of a barbarous people. It will not now do to say that man has existed upon this earth for only about six thousand years. One can hardly compute in his imagination the time necessary for man to emerge from the barbarous state, naked and helpless, surrounded by animals far more powerful than he, to progress and finally create the civilizations of India, Egypt and Athens. The distance from savagery to Shakespeare must be measured not by hundreds, but by millions of years.
XIV. SUNDAY.
"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."
The great work had been accomplished, the world, the sun, and moon, and all the hosts of heaven were finished; the earth was clothed in green, the seas were filled with life, the cattle wandered by the brooks—insects with painted wings were in the happy air, Adam and Eve were making each others acquaintance, and God was resting from his work. He was contemplating the accomplishments of a week.
Because he rested on that day he sanctified it, and for that reason and for that alone, it was by the Jews considered a holy day. If he only rested on that day, there ought to be some account of what he did the following Monday. Did he rest on that day? What did he do after he got rested? Has he done anything in the way of creation since Saturday evening of the first week?
It is now claimed by the "scientific" Christians that the "days" of creation were not ordinary days of twenty-four hours each, but immensely long periods of time. If they are right, then how long was the seventh day? Was that, too, a geologic period covering thousands of ages? That cannot be, because Adam and Eve were created the Saturday evening before, and according to the Bible that was about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. I cannot state the time exactly, because there have been as many as one hundred and forty different opinions given by learned Biblical students as to the time between the creation of the world and the birth of Christ. We are quite certain, however, that, according to the Bible, it is not more than six thousand years since the creation of Adam. From this it would appear that the seventh day was not a geologic epoch, but was in fact a period of less than six thousand years, and probably of only twenty-four hours.
The theologians who "answer" these things may take their choice. If they take the ground that the "days" were periods of twenty-four hours, then geology will force them to throw away the whole account. If, on the other hand, they admit that the days were vast "periods," then the sacredness of the Sabbath must be given up.
There is found in the Bible no intimation that there was the least difference in the days. They are all spoken of in the same way. It may be replied that our translation is incorrect. If this is so, then only those who understand Hebrew, have had a revelation from God, and all the rest have been deceived.
How is it possible to sanctify a space of time? Is rest holier than labor? If there is any difference between days, ought not that to be considered best in which the most useful labor has been performed?
Of all the superstitions of mankind, this insanity about the "sacred Sabbath" is the most absurd. The idea of feeling it a duty to be solemn and sad one-seventh of the time! To think that we can please an infinite being by staying in some dark and sombre room, instead of walking in the perfumed fields! Why should God hate to see a man happy? Why should it excite his wrath to see a family in the woods, by some babbling stream, talking, laughing and loving? Nature works on that "sacred" day. The earth turns, the rivers run, the trees grow, buds burst into flower, and birds fill the air with song. Why should we look sad, and think about death, and hear about hell? Why should that day be filled with gloom instead of joy?
A poor mechanic, working all the week in dust and noise, needs a day of rest and joy, a day to visit stream and wood—a day to live with wife and child; a day in which to laugh at care, and gather hope and strength for toils to come. And his weary wife needs a breath of sunny air, away from street and wall, amid the hills or by the margin of the sea, where she can sit and prattle with her babe, and fill with happy dreams the long, glad day.
The "Sabbath" was born of asceticism, hatred of human joy, fanaticism, ignorance, egotism of priests and the cowardice of the people. This day, for thousands of years, has been dedicated to superstition, to the dissemination of mistakes, and the establishment of falsehoods. Every Freethinker, as a matter of duty, should violate this day. He should assert his independence, and do all within his power to wrest the Sabbath from the gloomy church and give it back to liberty and joy. Freethinkers should make the Sabbath a day of mirth and music; a day to spend with wife and child—a day of games, and books, and dreams—a day to put fresh flowers above our sleeping dead—a day of memory and hope, of love and rest.
Why should we in this age of the world be dominated by the dead? Why should barbarian Jews who went down to death and dust three thousand years ago, control the living world? Why should we care for the superstition of men who began the Sabbath by paring their nails, "beginning at the fourth finger, then going to the second, then to the fifth, then to the third, and ending with the thumb?" How pleasing to God this must have been. The Jews were very careful of these nail parings. They who threw them upon the ground were wicked, because Satan used them to work evil upon the earth. They believed that upon the Sabbath, souls were allowed to leave purgatory and cool their burning souls in water. Fires were neither allowed to be kindled nor extinguished, and upon that day it was a sin to bind up wounds. "The lame might use a staff, but the blind could not." So strict was the Sabbath kept, that at one time "if a Jew on a journey was overtaken by the 'sacred day' in a wood, or on the highway, no matter where, nor under what circumstances, he must sit down," and there remain until the day was gone. "If he fell down in the dirt, there he was compelled to stay until the day was done." For violating the Sabbath, the punishment was death, for nothing short of the offender's blood could satisfy the wrath of God. There are, in the Old Testament, two reasons given for abstaining from labor on the Sabbath:—the resting of God, and the redemption of the Jews from the bondage of Egypt.
Since the establishment of the Christian religion, the day has been changed, and Christians do not regard the day as holy upon which God actually rested, and which he sanctified. The Christian Sabbath, or the "Lord's day" was legally established by the murderer Constantine, because upon that day Christ was supposed to have risen from the dead.
It is not easy to see where Christians got the right to disregard the direct command of God, to labor on the day he sanctified, and keep as sacred, a day upon which he commanded men to labor. The Sabbath of God is Saturday, and if any day is to be kept holy, that is the one, and not the Sunday of the Christian.
Let us throw away these superstitions and take the higher, nobler ground, that every day should be rendered sacred by some loving act, by increasing the happinesss of man, giving birth to noble thoughts, putting in the path of toil some flower of joy, helping the unfortunate, lifting the fallen, dispelling gloom, destroying prejudice, defending the helpless and filling homes with light and love.
XV. THE NECESSITY FOR A GOOD MEMORY.
It must not be forgotten that there are two accounts of the creation in Genesis. The first account stops with the third verse of the second chapter. The chapters have been improperly divided. In the original Hebrew the Pentateuch was neither divided into chapters nor verses. There was not even any system of punctuation. It was written wholly with consonants, without vowels, and without any marks, dots, or lines to indicate them.
These accounts are materially different, and both cannot be true. Let us see wherein they differ.
The second account of the creation begins with the fourth verse of the second chapter, and is as follows:
"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
"And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
"But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
"And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted and became into four heads.
"The name of the first is Pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
"And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
"And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
"And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him.
"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
"And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helpmeet for him.
"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
"And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man.
"And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.
"And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."
Order of creation in the first account:
1. The heaven and the earth, and light were made.
2. The firmament was constructed and the waters divided.
3. The waters gathered into seas—and then came dry land, grass, herbs and fruit trees.
4. The sun and moon. He made the stars also.
5. Fishes, fowls, and great whales.
6. Beasts, cattle, every creeping thing, man and woman.
Order of creation in the second account:
1. The heavens and the earth.
2. A mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
3. Created a man out of dust, by the name of Adam.
4. Planted a garden eastward in Eden, and put the man in it.
5. Created the beasts and fowls.
6. Created a woman out of one of the man's ribs.
In the second account, man was made before the beasts and fowls. If this is true, the first account is false. And if the theologians of our time are correct in their view that the Mosaic day means thousands of ages, then, according to the second account, Adam existed millions of years before Eve was formed. He must have lived one Mosaic day before there were any trees, and another Mosaic day before the beasts and fowls were created. Will some kind clergymen tell us upon what kind of food Adam subsisted during these immense periods?
In the second account a man is made, and the fact that he was without a helpmeet did not occur to the Lord God until a couple "of vast periods" afterwards. The Lord God suddenly coming to an appreciation of the situation said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him an helpmeet for him."
Now, after concluding to make "an helpmeet" for Adam, what did the Lord God do? Did he at once proceed to make a woman? No. What did he do? He made the beasts, and tried to induce Adam to take one of them for "an helpmeet." If I am incorrect, read the following account, and tell me what it means:
"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him.
"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
"And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an helpmeet for him."
Unless the Lord God was looking for an helpmeet for Adam, why did he cause the animals to pass before him? And why did he, after the menagerie had passed by, pathetically exclaim, "But for Adam there was not found an helpmeet for him"?
It seems that Adam saw nothing that struck his fancy. The fairest ape, the sprightliest chimpanzee, the loveliest baboon, the most bewitching orangoutang, the most fascinating gorilla failed to touch with love's sweet pain, poor Adam's lonely heart. Let us rejoice that this was so. Had he fallen in love then, there never would have been a Freethinker in this world.
Dr. Adam Clarke, speaking of this remarkable proceeding says:—"God caused the animals to pass before Adam to show him that no creature yet formed could make him a suitable companion; that Adam was convinced that none of these animals could be a suitable companion for him, and that therefore he must continue in a state that was not good (celibacy) unless he became a further debtor to the bounty of his maker, for among all the animals which he had formed, there was not a helpmeet for Adam."
Upon this same subject, Dr. Scott informs us "that it was not conducive to the happiness of the man to remain without the consoling society, and endearment of tender friendship, nor consistent with the end of his creation to be without marriage by which the earth might be replenished and worshipers and servants raised up to render him praise and glory. Adam seems to have been vastly better acquainted by intuition or revelation with the distinct properties of every creature than the most sagacious observer since the fall of man.
"Upon this review of the animals, not one was found in outward form his counterpart, nor one suited to engage his affections, participate in his enjoyments, or associate with him in the worship of God."
Dr. Matthew Henry admits that "God brought all the animals together to see if there was a suitable match for Adam in any of the numerous families of the inferior creatures, but there was none. They were all looked over, but Adam could not be matched among them all. Therefore God created a new thing to be a helpmeet for him."
Failing to satisfy Adam with any of the inferior animals, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and while in this sleep took out one of Adam's ribs and "closed up the flesh instead thereof." And out of this rib, the Lord God made a woman, and brought her to the man.
Was the Lord God compelled to take a part of the man because he had used up all the original "nothing" out of which the universe was made? Is it possible for any sane and intelligent man to believe this story? Must a man be born a second time before this account seems reasonable?
Imagine the Lord God with a bone in his hand with which to start a woman, trying to make up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette!
Just at this point it may be proper for me to warn all persons from laughing at or making light of, any stories found in the "Holy Bible." When you come to die, every laugh will be a thorn in your pillow. At that solemn moment, as you look back upon the records of your life, no matter how many men you may have wrecked and ruined; no matter how many women you have deceived and deserted, all that can be forgiven; but if you remember then that you have laughed at even one story in God's "sacred book" you will see through the gathering shadows of death the forked tongues of devils, and the leering eyes of fiends.
These stories must be believed, or the work of regeneration can never be commenced. No matter how well you act your part, live as honestly as you may, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, divide your last farthing with the poor, and you are simply traveling the broad road that leads inevitably to eternal death, unless at the same time you implicitly believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God.
Let me show you the result of unbelief. Let us suppose, for a moment, that we are at the Day of Judgment, listening to the trial of souls as they arrive. The Recording Secretary, or whoever does the cross-examining, says to a soul:
Where are you from?
I am from the Earth.
What kind of a man were you?
Well, I don't like to talk about myself. I suppose you can tell by looking at your books.
No, sir. You must tell what kind of a man you were.
Well, I was what you might call a first-rate fellow. I loved my wife and children. My home was my heaven. My fireside was a paradise to me. To sit there and see the lights and shadows fall upon the faces of those I loved, was to me a perfect joy.
How did you treat your family?
I never said an unkind word. I never caused my wife, nor one of my children, a moments pain.
Did you pay your debts?
I did not owe a dollar when I died, and left enough to pay my funeral expenses, and to keep the fierce wolf of want from the door of those I loved.
Did you belong to any church?
No, sir. They were too narrow, pinched and bigoted for me, I never thought that I could be very happy if other folks were damned.
Did you believe in eternal punishment?
Well, no. I always thought that God could get his revenge in far less time.
Did you believe the rib story?
Do you mean the Adam and Eve business?
Yes! Did you believe that?
To tell you the God's truth, that was just a little more than I could swallow.
Away with him to hell!
Next!
Where are you from?
I am from the world too.
Did you belong to any church?
Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Christian Association besides.
What was your business?
Cashier in a Savings Bank.
Did you ever run away with any money?
Where I came from, a witness could not be compelled to criminate himself.
The law is different here. Answer the question. Did you run away with any money?
Yes, sir.
How much?
One hundred thousand dollars.
Did you take anything else with you?
Yes, sir.
Well, what else?
I took my neighbor's wife—we sang together in the choir.
Did you have a wife and children of your own? Yes, sir.
And you deserted them?
Yes, sir, but such was my confidence in God that I believed he would take care of them.
Have you heard of them since?
No, sir.
Did you believe in the rib story?
Bless your soul, of course I did. A thousand times I regretted that there were no harder stories in the Bible, so that I could have shown my wealth of faith.
Do you believe the rib story yet?
Yes, with all my heart.
Give him a harp!
Well, as I was saying, God made a woman from Adam's rib. Of course, I do not know exactly how this was done, but when he got the woman finished, he presented her to Adam. He liked her, and they commenced house-keeping in the celebrated Garden of Eden.
Must we, in order to be good, gentle and loving in our lives, believe that the creation of woman was a second thought? That Jehovah really endeavored to induce Adam to take one of the lower animals as an helpmeet for him? After all, is it not possible to live honest and courageous lives without believing these fables? It is said that from Mount Sinai God gave, amid thunderings and lightnings, ten commandments for the guidance of mankind; and yet among them is not found—"Thou shalt believe the Bible."
XVI. THE GARDEN.
In the first account we are told that God made man, male and female, and said to them "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it."
In the second account only the man is made, and he is put in a garden "to dress it and to keep it." He is not told to subdue the earth, but to dress and keep a garden.
In the first account man is given every herb bearing seed upon the face of the earth and the fruit of every tree for food, and in the second, he is given only the fruit of all the trees in the garden with the exception "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" which was a deadly poison.
There was issuing from this garden a river that was parted into four heads. The first of these, Pison, compassed the whole land of Havilah, the second, Gihon, that compassed the whole land of Ethiopia.
The third, Heddekel, that flowed toward the east of Assyria, and the fourth, the Euphrates. Where are these four rivers now? The brave prow of discovery has visited every sea; the traveler has pressed with weary feet the soil of every clime; and yet there has been found no place from which four rivers sprang. The Euphrates still journeys to the gulf, but where are Pison, Gihon and the mighty Heddekel? Surely by going to the source of the Euphrates we ought to find either these three rivers or their ancient beds. Will some minister when he answers the "Mistakes of Moses" tell us where these rivers are or were? The maps of the world are incomplete without these mighty streams. We have discovered the sources of the Nile; the North Pole will soon be touched by an American; but these three rivers still rise in unknown hills, still flow through unknown lands, and empty still in unknown seas.
The account of these four rivers is what the Rev. David Swing would call "a geographical poem." The orthodox clergy cover the whole affair with the blanket of allegory, while the "scientific" Christian folks talk about cataclysms, upheavals, earthquakes, and vast displacements of the earth's crust.
The question, then arises, whether within the last six thousand years there have been such upheavals and displacements? Talk as you will about the vast "creative periods" that preceded the appearance of man; it is, according to the Bible, only about six thousand years since man was created. Moses gives us the generations of men from Adam until his day, and this account cannot be explained away by calling centuries, days.
According to the second account of creation, these four rivers were made after the creation of man, and consequently they must have been obliterated by convulsions of Nature within six thousand years.
Can we not account for these contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods by simply saying that although the writer may have done his level best, he failed because he was limited in knowledge, led away by tradition, and depended too implicitly upon the correctness of his imagination? Is not such a course far more reasonable than to insist that all these things are true and must stand though every science shall fall to mental dust?
Can any reason be given for not allowing man to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge? What kind of tree was that? If it is all an allegory, what truth is sought to be conveyed? Why should God object to that fruit being eaten by man? Why did he put it in the midst of the garden? There was certainly plenty of room outside. If he wished to keep man and this tree apart, why did he put them together? And why, after he had eaten, was he thrust out? The only answer that we have a right to give, is the one given in the Bible. "And the Lord God said, Behold the man has become as one of us to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken."
Will some minister, some graduate of Andover, tell us what this means? Are we bound to believe it without knowing what the meaning is? If it is a revelation, what does it reveal? Did God object to education then, and does that account for the hostile attitude still assumed by theologians toward all scientific truth? Was there in the garden a tree of life, the eating of which would have rendered Adam and Eve immortal? Is it true, that after the Lord God drove them from the garden that he placed upon its Eastern side "Cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life?" Are the Cherubim and the flaming sword guarding that tree still, or was it destroyed, or did its rotting trunk, as the Rev. Robert Collyer suggests, "nourish a bank of violets"?
What objection could God have had to the immortality of man? You see that after all, this sacred record, instead of assuring us of immortality, shows us only how we lost it. In this there is assuredly but little consolation.
According to this story we have lost one Eden, but nowhere in the Mosaic books are we told how we may gain another. I know that the Christians tell us there is another, in which all true believers will finally be gathered, and enjoy the unspeakable happiness of seeing the unbelievers in hell; but they do not tell us where it is.
Some commentators say that the Garden of Eden was in the third heaven—some in the fourth, others have located it in the moon, some in the air beyond the attraction of the earth, some on the earth, some under the earth, some inside the earth, some at the North Pole, others at the South, some in Tartary, some in China, some on the borders of the Ganges, some in the island of Ceylon, some in Armenia, some in Africa, some under the Equator, others in Mesopotamia, in Syria, Persia, Arabia, Babylon, Assyria, Palestine and Europe. Others have contended that it was invisible, that it was an allegory, and must be spiritually understood.
But whether you understand these things or not, you must believe them. You may be laughed at in this world for insisting that God put Adam into a deep sleep and made a woman out of one of his ribs, but you will be crowned and glorified in the next. You will also have the pleasure of hearing the gentlemen howl there, who laughed at you here. While you will not be permitted to take any revenge, you will be allowed to smilingly express your entire acquiescence in the will of God. But where is the new Eden? No one knows. The one was lost, and the other has not been found.
Is it true that man was once perfectly pure and innocent, and that he became degenerate by disobedience? No. The real truth is, and the history of man shows, that he has advanced. Events, like the pendulum of a clock have swung forward and back ward, but after all, man, like the hands, has gone steadily on. Man is growing grander. He is not degenerating. Nations and individuals fail and die, and make room for higher forms. The intellectual horizon of the world widens as the centuries pass. Ideals grow grander and purer; the difference between justice and mercy becomes less and less; liberty enlarges, and love intensifies as the years sweep on. The ages of force and fear, of cruelty and wrong, are behind us and the real Eden is beyond. It is said that a desire for knowledge lost us the Eden of the past; but whether that is true or not, it will certainly give us the Eden of the future.
XVII. THE FALL.
We are told that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, that he had a conversation with Eve, in which he gave his opinion about the effect of eating certain fruit; that he assured her it was good to eat, that it was pleasant to the eye, that it would make her wise; that she was induced to take some; that she persuaded her husband to try it; that God found it out, that he then cursed the snake; condemning it to crawl and eat the dust; that he multiplied the sorrows of Eve, cursed the ground for Adam's sake, started thistles and thorns, condemned man to eat the herb of the field in the sweat of his face, pronounced the curse of death, "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," made coats of skins for Adam and Eve, and drove them out of Eden.
Who, and what was this serpent? Dr. Adam Clarke says:—"The serpent must have walked erect, for this is necessarily implied in his punishment. That he was endued with the gift of speech, also with reason. That these things were given to this creature. The woman no doubt having often seen him walking erect, and talking and reasoning, therefore she testifies no sort of surprise when he accosts her in the language related in the text. It therefore appears to me that a creature of the ape or orangoutang kind is here intended, and that Satan made use of this creature as the most proper instrument for the accomplishment of his murderous purposes against the life of the soul of man. Under this creature he lay hid, and by this creature he seduced our first parents. Such a creature answers to every part of the description in the text. It is evident from the structure of its limbs and its muscles that it might have been originally designed to walk erect, and that nothing else than the sovereign controlling power could induce it to put down hands—in every respect formed like those of man—and walk like those creatures whose claw-armed parts prove them to have been designed to walk on all fours. The stealthy cunning, and endless variety of the pranks and tricks of these creatures show them even now to be wiser and more intelligent than any other creature, man alone excepted. Being obliged to walk on all fours and gather their food from the ground, they are literally obliged to eat the dust; and though exceeding cunning, and careful in a variety of instances to separate that part which is wholesome and proper for food from that which is not so, in the article of cleanliness they are lost to all sense of propriety. Add to this their utter aversion to walk upright; it requires the utmost discipline to bring them to it, and scarcely anything offends or irritates them more than to be obliged to do it. Long observation of these animals enables me to state these facts. For earnest, attentive watching, and for chattering and babbling they (the ape) have no fellows in the animal world. Indeed, the ability and propensity to chatter, is all they have left of their original gift of speech, of which they appear to have been deprived at the fall as a part of their punishment."
Here then is the "connecting link" between man and the lower creation. The serpent was simply an orang-outang that spoke Hebrew with the greatest ease, and had the outward appearance of a perfect gentleman, seductive in manner, plausible, polite, and most admirably calculated to deceive.
It never did seem reasonable' to me that a long, cold and disgusting snake with an apple in his mouth, could deceive anybody; and I am glad, even at this late date to know that the something that persuaded Eve to taste the forbidden fruit was, at least, in the shape of a man.
Dr. Henry does not agree with the zoological explanation of Mr. Clark, but insists that "it is certain that the devil that beguiled Eve is the old serpent, a malignant by creation, an angel of light, an immediate attendant upon God's throne, but by sin an apostate from his first state, and a rebel against God's crown and dignity. He who attacked our first parents was surely the prince of devils, the ring leader in rebellion. The devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a specious creature, has a spotted, dappled skin, and then, went erect. Perhaps it was a flying serpent which seemed to come from on high, as a messenger from the upper world, one of the seraphim; because the serpent is a subtile creature. What Eve thought of this serpent speaking to her, we are not likely to tell, and, I believe, she herself did not know what to think of it. At first, perhaps, she supposed it might be a good angel, and yet afterwards might suspect something amiss. The person tempted was a woman, now alone, and at a distance from her husband, but near the forbidden tree. It was the devil's subtlety to assault the weaker vessel with his temptations, as we may suppose her inferior to Adam in knowledge, strength and presence of mind. Some think that Eve received the command not immediately from God, but at second hand from her husband, and might, therefore, be the more easily persuaded to discredit it. It was the policy of the devil to enter into discussion with her when she was alone. He took advantage by finding her near the forbidden tree. God permitted Satan to prevail over Eve, for wise and holy ends. Satan teaches men first to doubt, and then to deny. He makes skeptics first, and by degrees makes them atheists."
We are compelled to admit that nothing could be more attractive to a woman than a snake walking erect, with a "spotted, dappled skin," unless it were a serpent with wings. Is it not humiliating to know that our ancestors believed these things? Why should we object to the Darwinian doctrine of descent after this?
Our fathers thought it their duty to believe, thought it a sin to entertain the slightest doubt, and really supposed that their credulity was exceedingly, gratifying to God. To them, the story was entirely real. They could see the garden, hear the babble of waters, smell the perfume of flowers. They believed there was a tree where knowledge grew like plums or pears; and they could plainly see the serpent coiled amid its rustling leaves, coaxing Eve to violate the laws of God.
Where did the serpent come from? On which of the six days was he created? Who made him? Is it possible that God would make a successful rival? He must have known that Adam and Eve would fall. He knew what a snake with a "spotted, dappled skin" could do with an inexperienced woman. Why did he not defend his children? He knew that if the serpent got into the garden, Adam and Eve would sin, that he would have to drive them out, that afterwards the world would be destroyed, and that he himself would die upon the cross.
Again, I ask what and who was this serpent? He was not a man, for only one man had been made. He was not a woman. He was not a beast of the field, because "he was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." He was neither fish nor fowl, nor snake, because he had the power of speech, and did not crawl upon his belly until after he was cursed. Where did this serpent come from? Why was he not kept out of the garden? Why did not the Lord God take him by the tail and snap his head off? Why did he not put Adam and Eve on their guard about this serpent? They, of course, were not acquainted in the neighborhood, and knew nothing about the serpent's reputation for truth and veracity among his neighbors. Probably Adam saw him when he was looking for "an helpmeet" and gave him a name, but Eve had never met him before. She was not surprised to hear a serpent talk, as that was the first one she had ever met. Every thing being new to her, and her husband not being with her just at that moment, it need hardly excite our wonder that she tasted the fruit by way of experiment. Neither should we be surprised that when she saw it was good and pleasant to the eye, and a fruit to be desired to make one wise, she had the generosity to divide with her husband.
Theologians have filled thousands of volumes with abuse of this serpent, but it seems that he told the exact truth. We are told that this serpent was, in fact, Satan, the greatest enemy of mankind, and that he entered the serpent, appearing to our first parents in its body. If this is so, why should the serpent have been cursed? Why should God curse the serpent for what had really been done by the devil? Did Satan remain in the body of the serpent, and in some mysterious manner share his punishment? Is it true that when we kill a snake we also destroy an evil spirit, or is there but one devil, and did he perish at the death of the first serpent? Is it on account of that transaction in the Garden of Eden, that all the descendants of Adam and Eve known as Jews and Christians hate serpents?
Do you account for the snake-worship in Mexico, Africa and India in the same way?
What was the form of the serpent when he entered the garden, and in what way did he move from place to place? Did he walk or fly? Certainly he did not crawl, because that mode of locomotion was pronounced upon him as a curse. Upon what food did he subsist before his conversation with Eve? We know that after that he lived upon dust, but what did he eat before? It may be that this is all poetic; and the truest poetry is, according to Touchstone, "the most feigning."
In this same chapter we are informed that "unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them." Where did the Lord God get those skins? He must have taken them from the animals; he was a butcher. Then he had to prepare them; he was a tanner. Then he made them into coats; he was a tailor. How did it happen that they needed coats of skins, when they had been perfectly comfortable in a nude condition? Did the "fall" produce a change in the climate?
Is it really necessary to believe this account in order to be happy here, or hereafter? Does it tend to the elevation of the human race to speak of "God" as a butcher, tanner and tailor?
And here, let me say once for all, that when I speak of God, I mean the being described by Moses; the Jehovah of the Jews. There may be for aught I know, somewhere in the unknown shoreless vast, some being whose dreams are constellations and within whose thought the infinite exists. About this being, if such an one exists, I have nothing to say. He has written no books, inspired no barbarians, required no worship, and has prepared no hell in which to burn the honest seeker after truth.
When I speak of God, I mean that god who prevented man from putting forth his hand and taking also of the fruit of the tree of life that he might live forever; of that god who multiplied the agonies of woman, increased the weary toil of man, and in his anger drowned a world—of that god whose altars reeked with human blood, who butchered babes, violated maidens, enslaved men and filled the earth with cruelty and crime; of that god who made heaven for the few, hell for the many, and who will gloat forever and ever upon the writhings of the lost and damned.
XVIII. DAMPNESS.
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them.
"That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
"And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
"And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
"And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
From this account it seems that driving Adam and Eve out of Eden did not have the effect to improve them or their children. On the contrary, the world grew worse and worse. They were under the immediate control and government of God, and he from time to time made known his will; but in spite of this, man continued to increase in crime.
Nothing in particular seems to have been done. Not a school was established. There was no written language. There was not a Bible in the world. The "scheme of salvation" was kept a profound secret. The five points of Calvinism had not been taught. Sunday schools had not been opened. In short, nothing had been done for the reformation of the world. God did not even keep his own sons at home, but allowed them to leave their abode in the firmament, and make love to the daughters of men. As a result of this, the world was filled with wickedness and giants to such an extent that God regretted "that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."
Of course God knew when he made man, that he would afterwards regret it. He knew that the people would grow worse and worse until destruction would be the only remedy. He knew that he would have to kill all except Noah and his family, and it is hard to see why he did not make Noah and his family in the first place, and leave Adam and Eve in the original dust. He knew that they would be tempted, that he would have to drive them out of the garden to keep them from eating of the tree of life; that the whole thing would be a failure; that Satan would defeat his plan; that he could not reform the people; that his own sons would corrupt them, and that at last he would have to drown them all except Noah and his family. Why was the Garden of Eden planted? Why was the experiment made? Why were Adam and Eve exposed to the seductive arts of the serpent? Why did God wait until the cool of the day before looking after his children? Why was he not on hand in the morning?
Why did he fill the world with his own children, knowing that he would have to destroy them? And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?
It is a little curious that when God wished to reform the ante-diluvian world he said nothing about hell; that he had no revivals, no camp-meetings, no tracts, no outpourings of the Holy Ghost, no baptisms, no noon prayer meetings, and never mentioned the great doctrine of salvation by faith. If the orthodox creeds of the world are true, all those people went to hell without ever having heard that such a place existed. If eternal torment is a fact, surely these miserable wretches ought to have been warned. They were threatened only with water when they were in fact doomed to eternal fire!
Is it not strange that God said nothing to Adam and Eve about a future life; that he should have kept these "infinite verities" to himself and allowed millions to live and die without the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell?
It may be that hell was not made at that time. In the six days of creation nothing is said about the construction of a bottomless pit, and the serpent himself did not make his appearance until after the creation of man and woman. Perhaps he was made on the first Sunday, and from that fact came, it may be, the old couplet,
"And Satan still some mischief finds
For idle hands to do."
The sacred historian failed also to tell us when the cherubim and the flaming sword were made, and said nothing about two of the persons composing the Trinity. It certainly would have been an easy thing to enlighten Adam and his immediate descendants. The world was then only about fifteen hundred and thirty-six years old, and only about three or four generations of men had lived. Adam had been dead only about six hundred and six years, and some of his grandchildren must, at that time, have been alive and well.
It is hard to see why God did not civilize these people. He certainly had the power to use, and the wisdom to devise the proper means. What right has a god to fill a world with fiends? Can there be goodness in this? Why should he make experiments that he knows must fail? Is there wisdom in this? And what right has a man to charge an infinite being with wickedness and folly?
According to Moses, God made up his mind not only to destroy the people, but the beasts and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air. What had the beasts, and the creeping things, and the birds done to excite the anger of God? Why did he repent having made them? Will some Christian give us an explanation of this matter? No good man will inflict unnecessary pain upon a beast; how then can we worship a god who cares nothing for the agonies of the dumb creatures that he made?
Why did he make animals that he knew he would destroy? Does God delight in causing pain? He had the power to make the beasts, and fowls, and creeping things in his own good time and way, and it is to be presumed that he made them according to his wish. Why should he destroy them? They had committed no sin. They had eaten no forbidden fruit, made no aprons, nor tried to reach the tree of life. Yet this god, in blind unreasoning wrath destroyed "all flesh wherein was the breath of life, and every living thing beneath the sky, and every substance wherein was life that he had made."
Jehovah having made up his mind to drown the world, told Noah to make an Ark of gopher wood three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. A cubit is twenty-two inches; so that the ark was five hundred and fifty feet long, ninety-one feet and eight inches wide and fifty-five feet high. This ark was divided into three stories, and had on top, one window twenty-two inches square. Ventilation must have been one of Jehovah's hobbies. Think of a ship larger than the Great Eastern with only one window, and that but twenty-two inches square!
The ark also had one door set in the side thereof that shut from the outside. As soon as this ship was finished, and properly victualed, Noah received seven days notice to get the animals in the ark.
It is claimed by some of the scientific theologians that the flood was partial, that the waters covered only a small portion of the world, and that consequently only a few animals were in the ark. It is impossible to conceive of language that can more clearly convey the idea of a universal flood than that found in the inspired account. If the flood was only partial, why did God say he would "destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven, and that every thing that is in the earth shall die"? Why did he say "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air"? Why did he say "And every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth"? Would a partial, local flood have fulfilled these threats?
Nothing can be clearer than that the writer of this account intended to convey, and did convey the idea that the flood was universal. Why should Christians try to deprive God of the glory of having wrought the most stupendous of miracles? Is it possible that the Infinite could not overwhelm with waves this atom called the earth? Do you doubt his power, his wisdom or his justice?
Believers in miracles should not endeavor to explain them. There is but one way to explain anything, and that is to account for it by natural agencies. The moment you explain a miracle, it disappears. You should depend not upon explanation, but assertion. You should not be driven from the field because the miracle is shown to be unreasonable. You should reply that all miracles are unreasonable. Neither should you be in the least disheartened if it is shown to be impossible. The possible is not miraculous. You should take the ground that if miracles were reasonable, and possible, there would be no reward paid for believing them. The Christian has the goodness to believe, while the sinner asks for evidence. It is enough for God to work miracles without being called upon to substantiate them for the benefit of unbelievers.
Only a few years ago, the Christians believed implicitly in the literal truth of every miracle recorded in the Bible. Whoever tried to explain them in some natural way, was looked upon as an infidel in disguise, but now he is regarded as a benefactor. The credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are now either "explained," or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory.
In the sixth chapter, Noah is ordered to take "of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort into the ark—male and female." In the seventh chapter the order is changed, and Noah is commanded, according to the Protestant Bible, as follows: "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean, by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female."
According to the Catholic Bible, Noah was commanded—-"Of all clean beasts take seven and seven, the male and the female. But of the beasts that are unclean two and two, the male and the female. Of the fowls also of the air seven and seven, the male and the female."
For the purpose of belittling this miracle, many commentators have taken the ground that Noah was not ordered to take seven males and seven females of each kind of clean beasts, but seven in all. Many Christians contend that only seven clean beasts of each kind were taken into the ark—three and a half of each sex.
If the account in the seventh chapter means anything, it means first, that of each kind of clean beasts, fourteen were to be taken, seven males, and seven females; second, that of unclean beasts should be taken, two of each kind, one of each sex, and third, that he should take of every kind of fowls, seven of each sex.
It is equally clear that the command in the 19th and 20th verses of the 6th chapter, is to take two of each sort, one male and one female. And this agrees exactly with the account in the 7th, 8th, 9th, 14th, 15th, and 16th verses of the 7th chapter.
The next question is, how many beasts, fowls and creeping things did Noah take into the ark?
There are now known and classified at least twelve thousand five hundred species of birds. There are still vast territories in China, South America, and Africa unknown to the ornithologist.
Of the birds, Noah took fourteen of each species, according to the 3d verse of the 7th chapter, "Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female," making a total of 175,000 birds.
And right here allow me to ask a question. If the flood was simply a partial flood, why were birds taken into the ark? It seems to me that most birds, attending strictly to business, might avoid a partial flood.
There are at least sixteen hundred and fifty-eight kinds of beasts. Let us suppose that twenty-five of these are clean. Of the clean, fourteen of each kind—seven of each sex—were taken. These amount to 350. Of the unclean—two of each kind, amounting to 3,266. There are some six hundred and fifty species of reptiles. Two of each kind amount to 1,300. And lastly, there are of insects including the creeping things, at least one million species, so that Noah and his folks had to get of these into the ark about 2,000,000.
Animalculæ have not been taken into consideration. There are probably many hundreds of thousands of species; many of them invisible; and yet Noah had to pick them out by pairs. Very few people have any just conception of the trouble Noah had.
We know that there are many animals on this continent not found in the Old World. These must have been carried from here to the ark, and then brought back afterwards. Were the peccary, armadillo, ant-eater, sloth, agouti, vampire-bat, marmoset, howling and prehensile-tailed monkey, the raccoon and muskrat carried by the angels from America to Asia? How did they get there? Did the polar bear leave his field of ice and journey toward the tropics? How did he know where the ark was? Did the kangaroo swim or jump from Australia to Asia? Did the giraffe, hippopotamus, antelope and orang-outang journey from Africa in search of the ark? Can absurdities go farther than this?
What had these animals to eat while on the journey? What did they eat while in the ark? What did they drink? When the rain came, of course the rivers ran to the seas, and these seas rose and finally covered the world. The waters of the seas, mingled with those of the flood, would make all salt. It has been calculated that it required, to drown the world, about eight times as much water as was in all the seas. To find how salt the waters of the flood must have been, take eight quarts of fresh water, and add one quart from the sea. Such water would create instead of allaying thirst. Noah had to take in his ark fresh water for all his beasts, birds and living things. He had to take the proper food for all. How long was he in the ark? Three hundred and seventy-seven days! Think of the food necessary for the monsters of the ante-diluvian world!
Eight persons did all the work. They attended to the wants of 175,000 birds, 3,616 beasts, 1,300 reptiles, and 2,000,000 insects, saying nothing of countless animalculæ.
Well, after they all got in, Noah pulled down the window, God shut the door, and the rain commenced.
How long did it rain?
Forty days.
How deep did the water get?
About five miles and a half.
How much did it rain a day?
Enough to cover the whole world to a depth of about seven hundred and forty-two feet.
Some Christians say that the fountains of the great deep were broken up. Will they be kind enough to tell us what the fountains of the great deep are? Others say that God had vast stores of water in the center of the earth that he used on that occasion. How did these waters happen to run up hill?
Gentlemen, allow me to tell you once more that you must not try to explain these things. Your efforts in that direction do no good, because your explanations are harder to believe than the miracle itself. Take my advice, stick to assertion, and let explanation alone.
Then, as now, Dhawalagiri lifted its crown of snow twenty-nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and on the cloudless cliffs of Chimborazo then, as now, sat the condor; and yet the waters rising seven hundred and twenty-six feet a day—thirty feet an hour, six inches a minute,—rose over the hills, over the volcanoes, filled the vast craters, extinguished all the fires, rose above every mountain peak until the vast world was but one shoreless sea covered with the innumerable dead.
Was this the work of the most merciful God, the father of us all? If there is a God, can there be the slightest danger of incurring his displeasure by doubting even in a reverential way, the truth of such a cruel lie? If we think that God is kinder than he really is, will our poor souls be burned for that?
How many trees can live under miles of water for a year? What became of the soil washed, scattered, dissolved, and covered with the debris of a world? How were the tender plants and herbs preserved? How were the animals preserved after leaving the ark? There was no grass except such as had been submerged for a year. There were no animals to be devoured by the carnivorous beasts. What became of the birds that fed on worms and insects? What became of the birds that devoured other birds?
It must be remembered that the pressure of the water when at the highest point—say twenty-nine thousand feet, would have been about eight hundred tons on each square foot. Such a pressure certainly would have destroyed nearly every vestige of vegetable life, so that when the animals came out of the ark, there was not a mouthful of food in the wide world. How were they supported until the world was again clothed with grass? How were those animals taken care of that subsisted on others? Where did the bees get honey, and the ants seeds? There was not a creeping thing upon the whole earth; not a breathing creature beneath the whole heavens; not a living substance. Where did the tenants of the ark get food?
There is but one answer, if the story is true. The food necessary not only during the year of the flood, but sufficient for many months afterwards, must have been stored in the ark.
There is probably not an animal in the world that will not, in a year, eat and drink ten times its weight. Noah must have provided food and water for a year while in the ark, and food for at least six months after they got ashore. It must have required for a pair of elephants, about one hundred and fifty tons of food and water. A couple of mammoths would have required about twice that amount. Of course there were other monsters that lived on trees; and in a year would have devoured quite a forest.
How could eight persons have distributed this food, even if the ark had been large enough to hold it? How was the ark kept clean? We know how it was ventilated; but what was done with the filth? How were the animals watered? How were some portions of the ark heated for animals from the tropics, and others kept cool for the polar bears? How did the animals get back to their respective countries? Some had to creep back about six thousand miles, and they could only go a few feet a day. Some of the creeping things must have started for the ark just as soon as they were made, and kept up a steady jog for sixteen hundred years. Think of a couple of the slowest snails leaving a point opposite the ark and starting for the plains of Shinar, a distance of twelve thousand miles. Going at the rate of a mile a month, it would take them a thousand years. How did they get there? Polar bears must have gone several thousand miles, and so sudden a change in climate must have been exceedingly trying upon their health. How did they know the way to go? Of course, all the polar bears did not go. Only two were required. Who selected these?
Two sloths had to make the journey from South America. These creatures cannot travel to exceed three rods a day. At this rate, they would make a mile in about a hundred days. They must have gone about six thousand five hundred miles, to reach the ark. Supposing them to have traveled by a reasonably direct route, in order to complete the journey before Noah hauled in the plank, they must have started several years before the world was created. We must also consider that these sloths had to board themselves on the way, and that most of their time had to be taken up getting food and water. It is exceedingly doubtful whether a sloth could travel six thousand miles and board himself in less than three thousand years.
Volumes might be written upon the infinite absurdity of this most incredible, wicked and foolish of all the fables contained in that repository of the impossible, called the Bible. To me it is a matter of amazement, that it ever was for a moment believed by any intelligent human being.
Dr. Adam Clarke says that "the animals were brought to the ark by the power of God, and their enmities were so removed or suspended, that the lion could dwell peaceably with the lamb, and the wolf sleep happily by the side of the kid. There is no positive evidence that animal food was ever used before the flood. Noah had the first grant of this kind."
Dr. Scott remarks, "There seems to have been a very extraordinary miracle, perhaps by the ministration of angels, in bringing two of every species to Noah, and rendering them submissive, and peaceful with each other. Yet it seems not to have made any impression upon the hardened spectators. The suspension of the ferocity of the savage beasts during their continuance in the ark, is generally considered as an apt figure of the change that takes place in the disposition of sinners when they enter the true church of Christ."
He believed the deluge to have been universal. In his day science had not demonstrated the absurdity of this belief, and he was not compelled to resort to some theory not found in the Bible. He insisted that "by some vast convulsion, the very bowels of the earth were forced upwards, and rain poured down in cataracts and water-spouts, with no intermission for forty days and nights, and until in every place a universal deluge was effected.
"The presence of God was the only comfort of Noah in his dreary confinement, and in witnessing the dire devastation of the earth and its inhabitants, and especially of the human species—of his companions, his neighbors, his relatives—all those to whom he had preached, for whom he had prayed and over whom he had wept, and even of many who had helped to build the ark.
"It seems that by a peculiar providential interposition, no animal of any sort died, although they had been shut up in the ark above a year; and it does not appear that there had been any increase of them during that time.
"The Ark was flat-bottomed—square at each end—roofed like a house so that it terminated at the top in the breadth of a cubit. It was divided into many little cabins for its intended inhabitants. Pitched within and without to keep it tight and sweet, and lighted from the upper part. But it must, at first sight, be evident that so large a vessel, thus constructed, with so few persons on board, was utterly unfitted to weather out the deluge, except it was under the immediate guidance and protection of the Almighty."
Dr. Henry furnished the Christian world with the following:—
"As our bodies have in them the humors which, when God pleases, become the springs and seeds of mortal disease, so the earth had, in its bowels, those waters which, at God's command, sprung up and flooded it.
"God made the world in six days, but he was forty days in destroying it, because he is slow to anger.
"The hostilities between the animals in the ark ceased, and ravenous creatures became mild and manageable, so that the wolf lay down with the lamb, and the lion ate straw like an ox.
"God shut the door of the ark to secure Noah and to keep him safe, and because it was necessary that the door should be shut very close lest the water should break in and sink the ark, and very fast lest others might break it down.
"The waters rose so high that not only the low flat countries were deluged, but to make sure work and that none might escape, the tops of the highest mountains were overflowed fifteen cubits. That is, seven and a half yards, so that salvation was not hoped for from hills or mountains.
"Perhaps some of the people got to the top of the ark, and hoped to shift for themselves there. But either they perished there for want of food, or the dashing rain washed them off the top. Others, it may be, hoped to prevail with Noah for admission into the ark, and plead old acquaintance.
"'Have we not eaten and drank in thy presence? Hast thou not preached in our streets?' 'Yea,' said Noah, 'many a time, but to little purpose. I called but ye refused; and now it is not in my power to help you. God has shut the door and I cannot open it.'
"We may suppose that some of those who perished in the deluge had themselves assisted Noah, or were employed by him in building the ark.
"Hitherto, man had been confined to feed only upon the products of the earth. Fruits, herbs and roots, and all sorts of greens, and milk, which was the first grant; but the flood having perhaps washed away much of the fruits of the earth, and rendered them much less pleasant and nourishing, God enlarged the grant and allowed him to eat flesh, which perhaps man never thought of until now, that God directed him to it. Nor had he any more desire to it than the sheep has to suck blood like the wolf. But now, man is allowed to feed upon flesh as freely and safely as upon the green herb."
Such was the debasing influence of a belief in the literal truth of the Bible upon these men, that their commentaries are filled with passages utterly devoid of common sense.
Dr. Clarke speaking of the mammoth says:
"This animal, an astonishing proof of God's power, he seems to have produced merely to show what he could do. And after suffering a few of them to propagate, he extinguished the race by a merciful providence, that they might not destroy both man and beast.
"We are told that it would have been much easier for God to destroy all the people and make new ones, but he would not want to waste anything and no power or skill should be lavished where no necessity exists.
"The animals were brought to the ark by the power of God."
Again gentlemen, let me warn you of the danger of trying to explain a miracle. Let it alone. Say that you do not understand it, and do not expect to until taught in the schools of the New Jerusalem. The more reasons you give, the more unreasonable the miracle will appear. Through what you say in defence, people are led to think, and as soon as they really think, the miracle is thrown away.
Among the most ignorant nations you will find the most wonders, among the most enlightened, the least. It is with individuals, the same as with nations. Ignorance believes, Intelligence examines and explains.
For about seven months the ark, with its cargo of men, animals and insects, tossed and wandered without rudder or sail upon a boundless sea. At last it grounded on the mountains of Ararat; and about three months afterward the tops of the mountains became visible. It must not be forgotten that the mountain where the ark is supposed to have first touched bottom, was about seventeen thousand feet high. How were the animals from the tropics kept warm? When the waters were abated it would be intensely cold at a point seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea. May be there were stoves, furnaces, fire places and steam coils in the ark, but they are not mentioned in the inspired narrative. How were the animals kept from freezing? It will not do to say that Ararat was not very high after all.
If you will read the fourth and fifth verses of the eight chapter you will see that although "the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat, it was not until the first day of the tenth month that the tops of the mountains could be seen." From this it would seem that the ark must have rested upon about the highest peak in that country. Noah waited forty days more, and then for the first time opened the window and took a breath of fresh air. He then sent out a raven that did not return, then a dove that returned. He then waited seven days and sent forth a dove that returned not. From this he knew that the waters were abated. Is it possible that he could not see whether the waters had gone? Is it possible to conceive of a more perfectly childish way of ascertaining whether the earth was dry?
At last Noah "removed the covering of the ark, and looked and behold the face of the ground was dry," and thereupon God told him to disembark. In his gratitude Noah built an altar and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor and said in his heart that he would not any more curse the ground for man's sake. For saying this in his heart the Lord gives as a reason, not that man is, or will be good, but because "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." God destroyed man because "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and because every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." And he promised for the same reason not to destroy him again. Will some gentleman skilled in theology give us an explanation?
After God had smelled the sweet savor of sacrifice, he seems to have changed his idea as to the proper diet for man. When Adam and Eve were created they were allowed to eat herbs bearing seed, and the fruit of trees. When they were turned out of Eden, God said to them "Thou shalt eat the herb of the field." In the first chapter of Genesis the "green herb" was given for food to the beasts, fowls and creeping things. Upon being expelled from the garden, Adam and Eve, as to their food, were put upon an equality with the lower animals. According to this, the ante-diluvians were vegetarians. This may account for their wickedness and longevity.
After Noah sacrificed, and God smelled the sweet savor; he said—"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things." Afterward this same God changed his mind again, and divided the beasts and birds into clean and unclean, and made it a crime for man to eat the unclean. Probably food was so scarce when Noah was let out of the ark that Jehovah generously allowed him to eat anything and everything he could find.
According to the account, God then made a covenant with Noah to the effect that he would not again destroy the world with a flood, and as the attesting witness of this contract, a rainbow was set in the cloud. This bow was placed in the sky so that it might perpetually remind God of his promise and covenant. Without this visible witness and reminder, it would seem that Jehovah was liable to forget the contract, and drown the world again. Did the rainbow originate in this way? Did God put it in the cloud simply to keep his agreement in his memory?
For me it is impossible to believe the story of the deluge. It seems so cruel, so barbaric, so crude in detail, so absurd in all its parts, and so contrary to all we know of law, that even credulity itself is shocked.
Many nations have preserved accounts of a deluge in which all people, except a family or two, were destroyed. Babylon was certainly a city before Jerusalem was founded. Egypt was in the height of her power when there were only seventy Jews in the world, and India had a literature before the name of Jehovah had passed the lips of superstition. An account of a general deluge "was discovered by George Smith, translated from another account that was written about two thousand years before Christ." Of course it is impossible to tell how long the story had lived in the memory of tradition before it was reduced to writing by the Babylonians. According to this account, which is, without doubt, much older than the one given by Moses, Tamzi built a ship at the command of the god Hea, and put in it his family and the beasts of the field. He pitched the ship inside and outside with bitumen, and as soon as it was finished, there came a flood of rain and "destroyed all life from the face of the whole earth. On the seventh day there was a calm, and the ship stranded on the mountain Nizir." Tamzi waited for seven days more, and then let out a dove. Afterwards, he let out a swallow, and that, as well as the dove returned. Then he let out a raven, and as that did not return, he concluded that the water had dried away, and thereupon left the ship. Then he made an offering to god, or the gods, and "Hea interceded with Bel," so that the earth might never again be drowned.
This is the Babylonian story, told without the contradictions of the original. For in that, it seems, there are two accounts, as well as in the Bible. Is it not a strange coincidence that there should be contradictory accounts mingled in both the Babylonian and Jewish stories?
In the Bible there are two accounts. In one account, Noah was to take two of all beasts, birds, and creeping things into the ark, while in the other, he was commanded to take of clean beasts, and all birds by sevens of each kind. According to one account, the flood only lasted one hundred and fifty days—as related in the third verse of the eighth chapter; while the other account fixes the time at three hundred and seventy-seven days. Both of these accounts cannot be true. Yet in order to be saved, it is not sufficient to believe one of them—you must believe both.
Among the Egyptians there was a story to the effect that the great god Ra became utterly maddened with the people, and deliberately made up his mind that he would exterminate mankind. Thereupon he began to destroy, and continued in the terrible work until blood flowed in streams, when suddenly he ceased, and took an oath that he would not again destroy the human race. This myth was probably thousands of years old when Moses was born.
So, in India, there was a fable about the flood. A fish warned Manu that a flood was coming. Manu built a "box" and the fish towed it to a mountain and saved all hands.
The same kind of stories were told in Greece, and among our own Indian tribes. At one time the Christian pointed to the fact that many nations told of a flood, as evidence of the truth of the Mosaic account; but now, it having been shown that other accounts are much older, and equally reasonable, that argument has ceased to be of any great value.
It is probable that all these accounts had a common origin. They were likely born of something in nature visible to all nations. The idea of a universal flood, produced by a god to drown the world on account of the sins of the people, is infinitely absurd. The solution of all these stories has been supposed to be, the existence of partial floods in most countries; and for a long time this solution was satisfactory. But the fact that these stories are greatly alike, that only one man is warned, that only one family is saved, that a boat is built, that birds are sent out to find if the water had abated, tend to show that they had a common origin. Admitting that there were severe floods in all countries; it certainly cannot follow that in each instance only one family would be saved, or that the same story would in each instance be told. It may be urged that the natural tendency of man to exaggerate calamities, might account for this agreement in all the accounts, and it must be admitted that there is some force in the suggestion. I believe, though, that the real origin of all these myths is the same, and that it was originally an effort to account for the sun, moon and stars. The sun and moon were the man and wife, or the god and goddess, and the stars were their children. From a celestial myth, it became a terrestrial one; the air, or ether-ocean became a flood, produced by rain, and the sun moon and stars became man, woman and children.
In the original story, the mountain was the place where in the far east the sky was supposed to touch the earth, and it was there that the ship containing the celestial passengers finally rested from its voyage. But whatever may be the origin of the stories of the flood, whether told first by Hindu, Babylonian or Hebrew, we may rest perfectly assured that they are all equally false.
XIX. BACCHUS AND BABEL.
As soon as Noah had disembarked, he proceeded to plant a vineyard, and began to be a husbandman; and when the grapes were ripe he made wine and drank of it to excess; cursed his grandson, blessed Shem and Japheth, and after that lived for three hundred and fifty years. What he did during these three hundred and fifty years, we are not told. We never hear of him again. For three hundred and fifty years he lived among his sons, and daughters, and their descendants. He must have been a venerable man. He was the man to whom God had made known his intention of drowning the world. By his efforts, the human race had been saved. He must have been acquainted with Methuselah for six hundred years, and Methuselah was about two hundred and forty years old, when Adam died. Noah must himself have known the history of mankind, and must have been an object of almost infinite interest; and yet for three hundred and fifty years he is neither directly nor indirectly mentioned. When Noah died, Abraham must have been more than fifty years old; and Shem, the son of Noah, lived for several hundred years after the death of Abraham; and yet he is never mentioned. Noah when he died, was the oldest man in the whole world by about five hundred years; and everybody living at the time of his death knew that they were indebted to him, and yet no account is given of his burial. No monument was raised to mark the spot. This, however, is no more wonderful than the fact that no account is given of the death of Adam or of Eve, nor of the place of their burial. This may all be accounted for by the fact that the language of man was confounded at the building of the tower of Babel, whereby all tradition may have been lost, so that even the sons of Noah could not give an account of their voyage in the ark; and, consequently, some one had to be directly inspired to tell the story, after new languages had been formed.
It has always been a mystery to me how Adam, Eve, and the serpent were taught the same language. Where did they get it? We know now, that it requires a great number of years to form a language; that it is of exceedingly slow growth. We also know that by language, man conveys to his fellows the impressions made upon him by what he sees, hears, smells and touches. We know that the language of the savage consists of a few sounds, capable of expressing only a few ideas or states of the mind, such as love, desire, fear, hatred, aversion and contempt. Many centuries are required to produce a language capable of expressing complex ideas. It does not seem to me that ideas can be manufactured by a deity and put in the brain of man. These ideas must be the result of observation and experience.
Does anybody believe that God directly taught a language to Adam and Eve, or that he so made them that they, by intuition spoke Hebrew, or some language capable of conveying to each other their thoughts? How did the serpent learn the same language? Did God teach it to him, or did he happen to overhear God, when he was teaching Adam and Eve? We are told in the second chapter of Genesis that God caused all the animals to pass before Adam to see what he would call them. We cannot infer from this that God named the animals and informed Adam what to call them. Adam named them himself. Where did he get his words? We cannot imagine a man just made out of dust, without the experience of a moment, having the power to put his thoughts in language. In the first place, we cannot conceive of his having any thoughts until he has combined, through experience and observation, the impressions that nature had made upon him through the medium of his senses. We cannot imagine of his knowing anything, in the first instance, about different degrees of heat, nor about darkness, if he was made in the day-time, nor about light, if created at night, until the next morning. Before a man can have what we call thoughts, he must have had a little experience. Something must have happened to him before he can have a thought, and before he can express himself in language. Language is a growth, not a gift. We account now for the diversity of language by the fact that tribes and nations have had different experiences, different wants, different surroundings, and, one result of all these differences is, among other things, a difference in language. Nothing can be more absurd than to account for the different languages of the world by saying that the original language was confounded at the tower of Babel.
According to the Bible, up to the time of the building of that tower, the whole earth was of one language and of one speech, and would have so remained until the present time had not an effort been made to build a tower whose top should reach into heaven. Can any one imagine what objection God would have to the building of such a tower? And how could the confusion of tongues prevent its construction? How could language be confounded? It could be confounded only by the destruction of memory. Did God destroy the memory of mankind at that time, and if so, how? Did he paralyze that portion of the brain presiding over the organs of articulation, so that they could not speak the words, although they remembered them clearly, or did he so touch the brain that they could not hear? Will some theologian, versed in the machinery of the miraculous, tell us in what way God confounded the language of mankind?
Why would the confounding of the language make them separate? Why would they not stay together until they could understand each other? People will not separate, from weakness. When in trouble they come together and desire the assistance of each other. Why, in this instance, did they separate? What particular ones would naturally come together if nobody understood the language of any other person? Would it not have been just as hard to agree when and where to go, without any language to express the agreement, as to go on with the building of the tower?
Is it possible that any one now believes that the whole world would be of one speech had the language not been confounded at Babel? Do we not know that every word was suggested in some way by the experience of men? Do we not know that words are continually dying, and continually being born; that every language has its cradle and its cemetery—its buds, its blossoms, its fruits and its withered leaves? Man has loved, enjoyed, hated, suffered and hoped, and all words have been born of these experiences.
Why did "the Lord come down to see the city and the tower"? Could he not see them from where he lived or from where he was? Where did he come down from? Did he come in the daytime, or in the night? We are taught now that God is everywhere; that he inhabits immensity; that he is in every atom, and in every star. If this is true, why did he "come down to see the city and the tower?" Will some theologian explain this?
After all, is it not much easier and altogether more reasonable to say that Moses was mistaken, that he knew little of the science of language, and that he guessed a great deal more than he investigated?
XX. FAITH IN FILTH.
No light whatever is shed upon what passed in the world after the confounding of language at Babel, until the birth of Abraham. But, before speaking of the history of the Jewish people, it may be proper for me to say that many things are recounted in Genesis, and other books attributed to Moses, of which I do not wish to speak. There are many pages of these books unfit to read, many stories not calculated, in my judgment, to improve the morals of mankind. I do not wish even to call the attention of my readers to these things, except in a general way. It is to be hoped that the time will come when such chapters and passages as cannot be read without leaving the blush of shame upon the cheek of modesty, will be left out, and not published as a part of the Bible. If there is a God, it certainly is blasphemous to attribute to him the authorship of pages too obscene, beastly and vulgar to be read in the presence of men and women.
The believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God. These stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or humor. They never rise above the dull details of stupid vice. For one, I cannot afford to soil my pages with extracts from them; and all such portions of the Scriptures I leave to be examined, written upon, and explained by the clergy. Clergymen may know some way by which they can extract honey from these flowers. Until these passages are expunged from the Old Testament, it is not a fit book to be read by either old or young. It contains pages that no minister in the United States would read to his congregation for any reward whatever. There are chapters that no gentleman would read in the presence of a lady. There are chapters that no father would read to his child. There are narratives utterly unfit to be told; and the time will come when mankind will wonder that such a book was ever called inspired.
I know that in many books besides the Bible, there are immodest lines. Some of the greatest writers have soiled their pages with indecent words. We account for this by saying that the authors were human; that they catered to the taste and spirit of their times. We make excuses, but at the same time regret that in their works they left an impure word. But what shall we say of God? Is it possible that a being of infinite purity—the author of modesty, would smirch the pages of his book with stories lewd, licentious and obscene? If God is the author of the Bible, it is, of course, the standard by which all other books can, and should be measured. If the Bible is not obscene, what book is? Why should men be imprisoned simply for imitating God? The Christian world should never say another word against immoral books until it makes the inspired volume clean. These vile and filthy things were not written for the purpose of conveying and enforcing moral truth, but seem to have been written because the author loved an unclean thing. There is no moral depth below that occupied by the writer or publisher of obscene books, that stain with lust, the loving heart of youth. Such men should be imprisoned and their books destroyed. The literature of the world should be rendered decent, and no book should be published that cannot be read by, and in the hearing of the best and purest people. But as long as the Bible is considered as the work of God, it will be hard to make all men too good and pure to imitate it; and as long as it is imitated there will be vile and filthy books. The literature of our country will not be sweet and clean until the Bible ceases to be regarded as the production of a god.
We are continually told that the Bible is the very foundation of modesty and morality; while many of its pages are so immodest and immoral that a minister, for reading them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as an unclean wretch. Every woman would leave the church, and if the men stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising the minister.
Is there any saving grace in hypocrisy? Will men become clean in speech by believing that God is unclean? Would it not be far better to admit that the Bible was written by barbarians in a barbarous, coarse and vulgar age? Would it not be safer to charge Moses with vulgarity, instead of God? Is it not altogether more probable that some ignorant Hebrew would write the vulgar words? The Christians tell me that God is the author of these vile and stupid things? I have examined the question to the best of my ability, and as to God my verdict is:—Not guilty. Faith should not rest in filth.
Every foolish and immodest thing should be expunged from the Bible. Let us keep the good. Let us preserve every great and splendid thought, every wise and prudent maxim, every just law, every elevated idea, and every word calculated to make man nobler and purer, and let us have the courage to throw the rest away. The souls of children should not be stained and soiled. The charming instincts of youth should not be corrupted and defiled. The girls and boys should not be taught that unclean words were uttered by "inspired" lips. Teach them that these words were born of savagery and lust. Teach them that the unclean is the unholy, and that only the pure is sacred.
XXI. THE HEBREWS.
After language had been confounded and the people scattered, there appeared in the land of Canaan a tribe of Hebrews ruled by a chief or sheik called Abraham. They had a few cattle, lived in tents, practiced polygamy, wandered from place to place, and were the only folks in the whole world to whom God paid the slightest attention. At this time there were hundreds of cities in India filled with temples and palaces; millions of Egyptians worshiped Isis and Osiris, and had covered their land with marvelous monuments of industry, power and skill. But these civilizations were entirely neglected by the Deity, his whole attention being taken up with Abraham and his family.
It seems, from the account, that God and Abraham were intimately acquainted, and conversed frequently upon a great variety of subjects. By the twelfth chapter of Genesis it appears that he made the following promises to Abraham. "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great: and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee."
After receiving this communication from the Almighty, Abraham went into the land of Canaan, and again God appeared to him and told him to take a heifer three years old, a goat of the same age, a sheep of equal antiquity, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. Whereupon Abraham killed the animals "and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another." And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the raw and bleeding meat. The killing of these animals was a preparation for receiving a visit from God. Should an American missionary in Central Africa find a negro chief surrounded by a butchered heifer, a goat and a sheep, with which to receive a communication from the infinite God, my opinion is, that the missionary would regard the proceeding as the direct result of savagery. And if the chief insisted that he had seen a smoking furnace and a burning lamp going up and down between the pieces of meat, the missionary would certainly conclude that the chief was not altogether right in his mind.
If the Bible is true, this same God told Abraham to take and sacrifice his only son, or rather the only son of his wife, and a murder would have been committed had not God, just at the right moment, directed him to stay his hand and take a sheep instead.
God made a great number of promises to Abraham, but few of them were ever kept. He agreed to make him the father of a great nation, but he did not. He solemnly promised to give him a great country, including all the land between the river of Egypt and the Euphrates, but he did not.
In due time Abraham passed away, and his son Isaac took his place at the head of the tribe. Then came Jacob, who "watered stock" and enriched himself with the spoil of Laban. Joseph was sold into Egypt by his jealous brethren, where he became one of the chief men of the kingdom, and in a few years his father and brothers left their own country and settled in Egypt. At this time there were seventy Hebrews in the world, counting Joseph and his children. They remained in Egypt two hundred and fifteen years. It is claimed by some that they were in that country for four hundred and thirty years. This is a mistake. Josephus says they were in Egypt two hundred and fifteen years, and this statement is sustained by the best biblical scholars of all denominations. According to the 17th verse of the 3rd chapter of Galatians, it was four hundred and thirty years from the time the promise was made to Abraham to the giving of the law, and as the Hebrews did not go to Egypt for two hundred and fifteen years after the making of the promise to Abraham, they could in no event have been in Egypt more than two hundred and fifteen years. In our Bible the 40th verse of the 12th chapter of Exodus, is as follows:—
"Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years."
This passage does not say that the sojourning was all done in Egypt; neither does it say that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt four hundred and thirty years; but it does say that the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. The Vatican copy of the Septuagint renders the same passage as follows:—
"The sojourning of the children of Israel which they sojourned in Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years."
The Alexandrian version says:—"The sojourning of the children of Israel which they and their fathers sojourned in Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years."
And in the Samaritan Bible we have:—"The sojourning of the children of Israel and of their fathers which they sojourned in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years."
There were seventy souls when they went down into Egypt, and they remained two hundred and fifteen years, and at the end of that time they had increased to about three million. How do we know that there were three million at the end of two hundred and fifteen years? We know it because we are informed by Moses that "there were six hundred thousand men of war." Now, to each man of war, there must have been at least five other people. In every State in this Union there will be to each voter, five other persons at least, and we all know that there are always more voters than men of war. If there were six hundred thousand men of war, there must have been a population of at least three million. Is it possible that seventy people could increase to that extent in two hundred and fifteen years? You may say that it was a miracle; but what need was there of working a miracle? Why should God miraculously increase the number of slaves? If he wished miraculously to increase the population, why did he not wait until the people were free?
In 1776, we had in the American Colonies about three millions of people. In one hundred years we doubled four times: that is to say, six, twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight million,—our present population.
We must not forget that during all these years there has been pouring into our country a vast stream of emigration, and that this, taken in connection with the fact that our country is productive beyond all others, gave us only four doubles in one hundred years. Admitting that the Hebrews increased as rapidly without emigration as we, in this country, have with it, we will give to them four doubles each century, commencing with seventy people, and they would have, at the end of two hundred years, a population of seventeen thousand nine hundred and twenty. Giving them another double for the odd fifteen years and there would be, provided no deaths had occurred, thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty people. And yet we are told that instead of having this number, they had increased to such an extent that they had six hundred thousand men of war; that is to say, a population of more than three millions?
Every sensible man knows that this account is not, and cannot be true. We know that seventy people could not increase to three million in two hundred and fifteen years.
About this time the Hebrews took a census, and found that there were twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three first-born males. It is reasonable to suppose that there were about as many first-born females. This would make forty-four thousand five hundred and forty-six first-born children. Now, there must have been about as many mothers as there were first-born children. If there were only about forty-five thousand mothers and three millions of people, the mothers must have had on an average about sixty-six children apiece.
At this time, the Hebrews were slaves, and had been for two hundred and fifteen years. A little while before, an order had been made by the Egyptians that all the male children of the Hebrews should be killed. One, contrary to this order, was saved in an ark made of bullrushes daubed with slime. This child was found by the daughter of Pharaoh, and was adopted, it seems, as her own, and, may be, was. He grew to be a man, sided with the Hebrews, killed an Egyptian that was smiting a slave, hid the body in the sand, and fled from Egypt to the land of Midian, became acquainted with a priest who had seven daughters, took the side of the daughters against the ill-mannered shepherds of that country, and married Zipporah, one of the girls, and became a shepherd for her father. Afterward, while tending his flock, the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush, and commanded him to go to the king of Egypt and demand from him the liberation of the Hebrews. In order to convince him that the something burning in the bush was actually God, the rod in his hand was changed into a serpent, which, upon being caught by the tail, became again a rod. Moses was also told to put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out it was as leprous as snow. Quite a number of strange things were performed, and others promised. Moses then agreed to go back to Egypt provided his brother could go with him. Whereupon the Lord appeared to Aaron, and directed him to meet Moses in the wilderness. They met at the mount of God, went to Egypt, gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel, spake all the words which God had spoken unto Moses, and did all the signs in the sight of the people. The Israelites believed, bowed their heads and worshiped; and Moses and Aaron went in and told their message to Pharaoh the king.
XXII. THE PLAGUES.
Three millions of people were in slavery. They were treated with the utmost rigor, and so fearful were their masters that they might, in time, increase in numbers sufficient to avenge themselves, that they took from the arms of mothers all the male children and destroyed them. If the account given is true, the Egyptians were the most cruel, heartless and infamous people of which history gives any record. God finally made up his mind to free the Hebrews; and for the accomplishment of this purpose he sent, as his agents, Moses and Aaron, to the king of Egypt. In order that the king might know that these men had a divine mission, God gave Moses the power of changing a stick into a serpent, and water into blood. Moses and Aaron went before the king, stating that the Lord God of Israel ordered the king of Egypt to let the Hebrews go that they might hold a feast with God in the wilderness. Thereupon Pharaoh, the king, enquired who the Lord was, at the same time stating that he had never made his acquaintance, and knew nothing about him. To this they replied that the God of the Hebrews had met with them, and they asked to go a three days journey into the desert and sacrifice unto this God, fearing that if they did not he would fall upon them with pestilence or the sword. This interview seems to have hardened Pharaoh, for he ordered the tasks of the children of Israel to be increased; so that the only effect of the first appeal was to render still worse the condition of the Hebrews. Thereupon, Moses returned unto the Lord and said, "Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? Why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all."
Apparently stung by this reproach, God answered:—
"Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharoah; for with a strong hand shall he let them go; and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land."
God then recounts the fact that he had appeared unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that he had established a covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, that he had heard the groanings of the children of Israel in Egyptian bondage; that their groanings had put him in mind of his covenant, and that he had made up his mind to redeem the children of Israel with a stretched-out arm and with great judgments. Moses then spoke to the children of Israel again, but they would listen to him no more. His first effort in their behalf had simply doubled their trouble and they seemed to have lost confidence in his power. Thereupon Jehovah promised Moses that he would make him a god unto Pharaoh, and that Aaron should be his prophet, but at the same time informed him that his message would be of no avail; that he would harden the heart of Pharaoh so that he would not listen; that he would so harden his heart that he might have an excuse for destroying the Egyptians. Accordingly, Moses and Aaron again went before Pharaoh. Moses said to Aaron;—"Cast down your rod before Pharaoh," which he did, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh not in the least surprised, called for his wise men and his sorcerers, and they threw down their rods and changed them into serpents. The serpent that had been changed from Aaron's rod was, at this time crawling upon the floor, and it proceeded to swallow the serpents that had been produced by the magicians of Egypt. What became of these serpents that were swallowed, whether they turned back into sticks again, is not stated. Can we believe that the stick was changed into a real living serpent, or did it assume simply the appearance of a serpent? If it bore only the appearance of a serpent it was a deception, and could not rise above the dignity of legerdemain. Is it necessary to believe that God is a kind of prestigiator—a sleight-of-hand performer, a magician or sorcerer? Can it be possible that an infinite being would endeavor to secure the liberation of a race by performing a miracle that could be equally performed by the sorcerers and magicians of a barbarian king?
Not one word was said by Moses or Aaron as to the wickedness of depriving a human being of his liberty. Not a word was said in favor of liberty. Not the slightest intimation that a human being was justly entitled to the product of his own labor. Not a word about the cruelty of masters who would destroy even the babes of slave mothers. It seems to me wonderful that this God did not tell the king of Egypt that no nation could enslave another, without also enslaving itself; that it was impossible to put a chain around the limbs of a slave, without putting manacles upon the brain of the master. Why did he not tell him that a nation founded upon slavery could not stand? Instead of declaring these things, instead of appealing to justice, to mercy and to liberty, he resorted to feats of jugglery. Suppose we wished to make a treaty with a barbarous nation, and the President should employ a sleight-of-hand performer as envoy extraordinary, and instruct him, that when he came into the presence of the savage monarch, he should cast down an umbrella or a walking stick, which would change into a lizard or a turtle; what would we think? Would we not regard such a performance as beneath the dignity even of a President? And what would be our feelings if the savage king sent for his sorcerers and had them perform the same feat? If such things would appear puerile and foolish in the President of a great republic, what shall be said when they were resorted to by the creator of all worlds? How small, how contemptible such a God appears! Pharaoh, it seems, took about this view of the matter, and he would not be persuaded that such tricks were performed by an infinite being.
Again, Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh as he was going to the river's bank, and the same rod which had changed to a serpent, and, by this time changed back, was taken by Aaron, who, in the presence of Pharaoh, smote the water of the river, which was immediately turned to blood, as well as all the water in all the streams, ponds, and pools, as well as all water in vessels of wood and vessels of stone in the entire land of Egypt. As soon as all the waters in Egypt had been turned into blood, the magicians of that country did the same with their enchantments. We are not informed where they got the water to turn into blood, since all the water in Egypt had already been so changed. It seems from the account that the fish in the Nile died, and the river emitted a stench, and there was not a drop of water in the land of Egypt that had not been changed into blood. In consequence of this, the Egyptians digged "around about the river" for water to drink. Can we believe this story? Is it necessary to salvation to admit that all the rivers, pools, ponds and lakes of a country were changed into blood, in order that a king might be induced to allow the children of Israel the privilege of going a three days journey into the wilderness to make sacrifices to their God?
It seems from the account that Pharaoh was told that the God of the Hebrews would, if he refused to let the Israelites go, change all the waters of Egypt into blood, and that, upon his refusal, they were so changed. This had, however, no influence upon him, for the reason that his own magicians did the same. It does not appear that Moses and Aaron expressed the least surprise at the success of the Egyptian sorcerers. At that time it was believed that each nation had its own god. The only claim that Moses and Aaron made for their God was, that he was the greatest and most powerful of all the gods, and that with anything like an equal chance he could vanquish the deity of any other nation.
After the waters were changed to blood Moses and Aaron waited for seven days. At the end of that time God told Moses to again go to Pharaoh and demand the release of his people, and to inform him that, if he refused, God would strike all the borders of Egypt with frogs. That he would make frogs so plentiful that they would go into the houses of Pharaoh, into his bedchamber, upon his bed, into the houses of his servants, upon his people, into their ovens, and even into their kneading troughs. This threat had no effect whatever upon Pharaoh. And thereupon Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. The magicians of Egypt did the same, and with their enchantments brought more frogs upon the land of Egypt.
These magicians do not seem to have been original in their ideas, but so far as imitation is concerned, were perfect masters of their art. The frogs seem to have made such an impression upon Pharaoh that he sent for Moses and asked him to entreat the Lord that he would take away the frogs. Moses agreed to remove them from the houses and the land, and allow them to remain only in the rivers. Accordingly the frogs died out of the houses, and out of the villages, and out of the fields, and the people gathered them together in heaps. As soon as the frogs had left the houses and fields, the heart of Pharaoh became again hardened, and he refused to let the people go.
Aaron then, according to the command of God, stretched out his hand, holding the rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast, and all the dust became lice throughout the land of Egypt. Pharaoh again sent for his magicians, and they sought to do the same with their enchantments, but they could not. Whereupon the sorcerers said unto Pharaoh: "This is the finger of God."
Notwithstanding this, however, Pharaoh refused to let the Hebrews go. God then caused a grievous swarm of flies to come into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt, to such an extent that the whole land was corrupted by reason of the flies. But into that part of the country occupied by the children of Israel there came no flies. Thereupon Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and said to them: "Go, and sacrifice to your God in this land." They were not willing to sacrifice in Egypt, and asked permission to go on a journey of three days into the wilderness. To this Pharaoh acceded, and in consideration of this Moses agreed to use his influence with the Lord to induce him to send the flies out of the country. He accordingly told the Lord of the bargain he had made with Pharaoh, and the Lord agreed to the compromise, and removed the flies from Pharaoh and from his servants and from his people, and there remained not a single fly in the land of Egypt. As soon as the flies were gone, Pharaoh again changed his mind, and concluded not to permit the children of Israel to depart. The Lord then directed Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him that if he did not allow the children of Israel to depart, he would destroy his cattle, his horses, his camels and his sheep; that these animals would be afflicted with a grievous disease, but that the animals belonging to the Hebrews should not be so afflicted. Moses did as he was bid. On the next day all the cattle of Egypt died; that is to say, all the horses, all the asses, all the camels, all the oxen and all the sheep; but of the animals owned by the Israelites, not one perished. This disaster had no effect upon Pharaoh, and he still refused to let the children of Israel go. The Lord then told Moses and Aaron to take some ashes out of a furnace, and told Moses to sprinkle them toward the heavens in the sight of Pharaoh; saying that the ashes should become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and should be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast throughout all the land.
How these boils breaking out with blains, upon cattle that were already dead, should affect Pharaoh, is a little hard to understand. It must not be forgotten that all the cattle and all beasts had died with the murrain before the boils had broken out.
This was a most decisive victory for Moses and Aaron. The boils were upon the magicians to that extent that they could not stand before Moses. But it had no effect upon Pharaoh, who seems to have been a man of great firmness. The Lord then instructed Moses to get up early in the morning and tell Pharaoh that he would stretch out his hand and smite his people with a pestilence, and would, on the morrow, cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as had never been known in the land of Egypt. He also told Moses to give notice, so that they might get all the cattle that were in the fields under cover. It must be remembered that all these cattle had recently died of the murrain, and their dead bodies had been covered with boils and blains. This, however, had no effect, and Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder, and hail and lightning, and fire that ran along the ground, and the hail fell upon all the land of Egypt, and all that were in the fields, both man and beast, were smitten, and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the country except that portion inhabited by the children of Israel; there, there was no hail.
During this hail storm Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and admitted that he had sinned, that the Lord was righteous, and that the Egyptians were wicked, and requested them to ask the Lord that there be no more thunderings and hail, and that he would let the Hebrews go. Moses agreed that as soon as he got out of the city he would stretch forth his hands unto the Lord, and that the thunderings should cease and the hail should stop. But, when the rain and the hail and the thundering ceased, Pharaoh concluded that he would not let the children of Israel go.
Again, God sent Moses and Aaron, instructing them to tell Pharaoh that if he refused to let the people go, the face of the earth would be covered with locusts, so that man would not be able to see the ground, and that these locusts would eat the residue of that which escaped from the hail; that they would eat every tree out of the field; that they would fill the houses of Pharaoh and the houses of all his servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians. Moses delivered the message, and went out from Pharaoh. Some of Pharaoh's servants entreated their master to let the children of Israel go. Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and asked them, who wished to go into the wilderness to sacrifice. They replied that they wished to go with the young and old; with their sons and daughters, with flocks and herds. Pharaoh would not consent to this, but agreed that the men might go. Thereupon Pharaoh drove Moses and Aaron out of his sight. Then God told Moses to stretch forth his hand upon the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they might come up and eat every herb, even all that the hail had left. "And Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind all that day and all that night; and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts; and they came up over all the land of Egypt and rested upon all the coasts covering the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every herb and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left, and there remained not any green thing on the trees or in the herbs of the field throughout the land of Egypt." Pharaoh then called for Moses and Aaron in great haste, admitted that he had sinned against the Lord their God and against them, asked their forgiveness and requested them to intercede with God that he might take away the locusts. They went out from his presence and asked the Lord to drive the locusts away, "And the Lord made a strong west wind which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea so that there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt."
As soon as the locusts were gone, Pharaoh changed his mind, and, in the language of the sacred text, "the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he would not let the children of Israel go."
The Lord then told Moses to stretch out his hand toward heaven that there might be darkness over the land of Egypt, "even darkness which might be felt." "And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness over the land of Egypt for three days during which time they saw not each other, neither arose any of the people from their places for three days; but the children of Israel had light in their dwellings."
It strikes me that when the land of Egypt was covered with thick darkness—so thick that it could be felt, and when light was in the dwellings of the Israelites, there could have been no better time for the Hebrews to have left the country.
Pharaoh again called for Moses, and told him that his people could go and serve the Lord, provided they would leave their flocks and herds. Moses would not agree to this, for the reason that they needed the flocks and herds for sacrifices and burnt offerings, and he did not know how many of the animals God might require, and for that reason he could not leave a single hoof. Upon the question of the cattle, they divided, and Pharaoh again refused to let the people go. God then commanded Moses to tell the Hebrews to borrow, each of his neighbor, jewels of silver and gold. By a miraculous interposition the Hebrews found favor in the sight of the Egyptians so that they loaned the articles asked for. After this, Moses again went to Pharaoh and told him that all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh upon the throne, unto the first-born of the maid-servant who was behind the mill, as well as the first-born of beasts, should die.
As all the beasts had been destroyed by disease and hail, it is troublesome to understand the meaning of the threat as to their first-born.
Preparations were accordingly made for carrying this frightful threat into execution. Blood was put on the door-posts of all houses inhabited by Hebrews, so that God, as he passed through that land, might not be mistaken and destroy the first-born of the Jews. "And it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on the throne, and the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead."
What had these children done? Why should the babes in the cradle be destroyed on account of the crime of Pharaoh? Why should the cattle be destroyed because man had enslaved his brother? In those days women and children and cattle were put upon an exact equality, and all considered as the property of the men; and when man in some way excited the wrath of God, he punished them by destroying all their cattle, their wives, and their little ones. Where can words be found bitter enough to describe a god who would kill wives and babes because husbands and fathers had failed to keep his law? Every good man, and every good woman, must hate and despise such a deity.
Upon the death of all the first-born Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and not only gave his consent that they might go with the Hebrews into the wilderness, but besought them to go at once.
Is it possible that an infinite God, creator of all worlds and sustainer of all life, said to Pharaoh, "If you do not let my people go, I will turn all the water of your country into blood," and that upon the refusal of Pharaoh to release the people, God did turn all the waters into blood? Do you believe this?
Do you believe that Pharaoh even after all the water was turned to blood, refused to let the Hebrews go, and that thereupon God told him he would cover his land with frogs? Do you believe this?
Do you believe that after the land was covered with frogs Pharaoh still refused to let the people go, and that God then said to him, "I will cover you and all your people with lice?" Do you believe God would make this threat?
Do you also believe that God told Pharaoh, "It you do not let these people go, I will fill all your houses and cover your country with flies?" Do you believe God makes such threats as this?
Of course God must have known that turning the waters into blood, covering the country with frogs, infesting all flesh with lice, and filling all houses with flies, would not accomplish his object, and that all these plagues would have no effect whatever upon the Egyptian king.
Do you believe that, failing to accomplish anything by the flies, God told Pharaoh that if he did not let the people go he would kill his cattle with murrain? Does such a threat sound God-like?
Do you believe that, failing to effect anything by killing the cattle, this same God then threatened to afflict all the people with boils, including the magicians who had been rivaling him in the matter of miracles; and failing to do anything by boils, that he resorted to hail? Does this sound reasonable? The hail experiment having accomplished nothing, do you believe that God murdered the first-born of animals and men? Is it possible to conceive of anything more utterly absurd, stupid, revolting, cruel and senseless, than the miracles said to have been wrought by the Almighty for the purpose of inducing Pharaoh to liberate the children of Israel?
Is it not altogether more reasonable to say that the Jewish people, being in slavery, accounted for the misfortunes and calamities, suffered by the Egyptians, by saying that they were the judgments of God?
When the Armada of Spain was wrecked and scattered by the storm, the English people believed that God had interposed in their behalf, and publicly gave thanks. When the battle of Lepanto was won, it was believed by the Catholic world that the victory was given in answer to prayer. So, our fore-fathers in their Revolutionary struggle saw, or thought they saw, the hand of God, and most firmly believed that they achieved their independence by the interposition of the Most High.
Now, it may be that while the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians, there were plagues of locusts and flies. It may be that there were some diseases by which many of the cattle perished. It may be that a pestilence visited that country so that in nearly every house there was some one dead. If so, it was but natural for the enslaved and superstitious Jews to account for these calamities by saying that they were punishments sent by their God. Such ideas will be found in the history of every country.
For a long time the Jews held these opinions, and they were handed from father to son simply by tradition. By the time a written language had been produced, thousands of additions had been made, and numberless details invented; so that we have not only an account of the plagues suffered by the Egyptians, but the whole woven into a connected story, containing the threats made by Moses and Aaron, the miracles wrought by them, the promises of Pharaoh, and finally the release of the Hebrews, as a result of the marvelous things performed in their behalf by Jehovah.
In any event it is infinitely more probable that the author was misinformed, than that the God of this universe was guilty of these childish, heartless and infamous things. The solution of the whole matter is this:—Moses was mistaken.
XXIII. THE FLIGHT.
Three millions of people, with their flocks and herds, with borrowed jewelry and raiment, with unleavened dough in kneading troughs bound in their clothes upon their shoulders, in one night commenced their journey for the land of promise. We are not told how they were informed of the precise time to start. With all the modern appliances, it would require months of time to inform three millions of people of any fact.
In this vast assemblage there were six hundred thousand men of war, and with them were the old, the young, the diseased and helpless. Where were those people going? They were going to the desert of Sinai, compared with which Sahara is a garden. Imagine an ocean of lava torn by storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a Gorgon and changed instantly to stone! Such was the desert of Sinai.
All of the civilized nations of the world could not feed and support three millions of people on the desert of Sinai for forty years. It would cost more than one hundred thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt Christendom. They had with them their flocks and herds, and the sheep were so numerous that the Israelites sacrificed, at one time, more than one hundred and fifty thousand first-born lambs. How were these flocks supported? What did they eat? Where were meadows and pastures for them? There was no grass, no forests—nothing! There is no account of its having rained baled hay, nor is it even claimed that they were miraculously fed. To support these flocks, millions of acres of pasture would have been required. God did not take the Israelites through the land of the Philistines, for fear that when they saw the people of that country they would return to Egypt, but he took them by the way of the wilderness to the Red Sea, going before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and by night, in a pillar of fire.
When it was told Pharaoh that the people had fled, he made ready and took six hundred chosen chariots of Egypt, and pursued after the children of Israel, overtaking them by the sea. As all the animals had long before that time been destroyed, we are not informed where Pharaoh obtained the horses for his chariots. The moment the children of Israel saw the hosts of Pharaoh, although they had six hundred thousand men of war, they immediately cried unto the Lord for protection. It is wonderful to me that a land that had been ravaged by the plagues described in the Bible, still had the power to put in the field an army that would carry terror to the hearts of six hundred thousand men of war. Even with the help of God, it seems, they were not strong enough to meet the Egyptians in the open field, but resorted to strategy. Moses again stretched forth his wonderful rod over the waters of the Red Sea, and they were divided, and the Hebrews passed through on dry land, the waters standing up like a wall on either side. The Egyptians pursued them; "and in the morning watch the Lord looked into the hosts of the Egyptians, through the pillar of fire," and proceeded to take the wheels off their chariots. As soon as the wheels were off, God told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea. Moses did so, and immediately "the waters returned and covered the chariots and horsemen and all the hosts of Pharaoh that came into the sea, and there remained not so much as one of them."
This account may be true, but still it hardly looks reasonable that God would take the wheels off the chariots. How did he do it? Did he pull out the linch-pins, or did he just take them off by main force?
What a picture this presents to the mind! God the creator of the universe, maker of every shining, glittering star, engaged in pulling off the wheels of wagons, that he might convince Pharaoh of his greatness and power!
Where were these people going? They were going to the promised land. How large a country was that? About twelve thousand square miles. About one-fifth the size of the State of Illinois. It was a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. How many people were in the promised land already? Moses tells us there were seven nations in that country mightier than the Jews. As there were at least three millions of Jews, there must have been at least twenty-one millions of people already in that country. These had to be driven out in order that room might be made for the chosen people of God.
It seems, however, that God was not willing to take the children of Israel into the promised land immediately. They were not fit to inhabit the land of Canaan; so he made up his mind to allow them to wander upon the desert until all except two, who had left Egypt, should perish. Of all the slaves released from Egyptian bondage, only two were allowed to reach the promised land!
As soon as the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, they found themselves without food, and with water unfit to drink by reason of its bitterness, and they began to murmur against Moses, who cried unto the Lord, and "the Lord showed him a tree." Moses cast this tree into the waters, and they became sweet. "And it came to pass in the morning the dew lay around about the camp; and when the dew that lay was gone, behold, upon the face of the wilderness lay a small round thing, small as the hoar-frost upon the ground. And Moses said unto them, this is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat." This manna was a very peculiar thing. It would melt in the sun, and yet they could cook it by seething and baking. One would as soon think of frying snow or of broiling icicles. But this manna had another remarkable quality. No matter how much or little any person gathered, he would have an exact omer; if he gathered more, it would shrink to that amount, and if he gathered less, it would swell exactly to that amount. What a magnificent substance manna would be with which to make a currency—shrinking and swelling according to the great laws of supply and demand!
"Upon this manna the children of Israel lived for forty years, until they came to a habitable land. With this meat were they fed until they reached the borders of the land of Canaan." We are told in the twenty-first chapter of Numbers, that the people at last became tired of' the manna, complained of God, and asked Moses why he brought them out of the land of Egypt to die in the wilderness. And they said:—"There is no bread, nor have we any water. Our soul loatheth this light food."
We are told by some commentators that the Jews lived on manna for forty years; by others that they lived upon it for only a short time. As a matter of fact the accounts differ, and this difference is the opportunity for commentators. It also allows us to exercise faith in believing that both accounts are true. If the accounts agreed, and were reasonable, they would be believed by the wicked and unregenerated. But as they are different and unreasonable, they are believed only by the good. Whenever a statement in the Bible is unreasonable, and you believe it, you are considered quite a good Christian. If the statement is grossly absurd and infinitely impossible, and you still believe it, you are a saint.
The children of Israel were in the desert, and they were out of water. They had nothing to eat but manna, and this they had had so long that the soul of every person abhorred it. Under these circumstances they complained to Moses. Now, as God is infinite, he could just as well have furnished them with an abundance of the purest and coolest of water, and could, without the slightest trouble to himself, have given them three excellent meals a day, with a generous variety of meats and vegetables, it is very hard to see why he did not do so. It is still harder to conceive why he fell into a rage when the people mildly suggested that they would like a change of diet. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, nothing but manna. No doubt they did the best they could by cooking it in different ways, but in spite of themselves they began to loathe its sight and taste, and so they asked Moses to use his influence to secure a change in the bill of fare.
Now, I ask, whether it was unreasonable for the Jews to suggest that a little meat would be very gratefully received? It seems, however, that as soon as the request was made, this God of infinite mercy became infinitely enraged, and instead of granting it, went into partnership with serpents, for the purpose of punishing the hungry wretches to whom he had promised a land flowing with milk and honey.
Where did these serpents come from? How did God convey the information to the serpents, that he wished them to go to the desert of Sinai and bite some Jews? It may be urged that these serpents were created for the express purpose of punishing the children of Israel for having had the presumption, like Oliver Twist, to ask for more.
There is another account in the eleventh chapter of Numbers, of the people murmuring because of their food. They remembered the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic of Egypt, and they asked for meat. The people went to the tent of Moses and asked him for flesh. Moses cried unto the Lord and asked him why he did not take care of the multitude. God thereupon agreed that they should have meat, not for a day or two, but for a month, until the meat should come out of their nostrils and become loathsome to them. He then caused a wind to bring quails from beyond the sea, and cast them into the camp, on every side of the camp around about for the space of a days journey. And the people gathered them, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth the wrath of God being provoked against them, struck them with an exceeding great plague. Serpents, also, were sent among them, and thousands perished for the crime of having been hungry.
The Rev. Alexander Cruden commenting upon this account says:—
"God caused a wind to rise that drove the quails within and about the camp of the Israelites; and it is in this that the miracle consists, that they were brought so seasonably to this place, and in so great numbers as to suffice above a million of persons above a month. Some authors affirm, that in those eastern and southern countries, quails are innumerable, so that in one part of Italy within the compass of five miles, there were taken about an hundred thousand of them every day for a month together; and that sometimes they fly so thick over the sea, that being weary they fall into ships, sometimes in such numbers, that they sink them with their weight."
No wonder Mr. Cruden believed the Mosaic account.
Must we believe that God made an arrangement with hornets for the purpose af securing their services in driving the Canaanites from the land of promise? Is this belief necessary unto salvation? Must we believe that God said to the Jews that he would send hornets before them to drive out the Canaanites, as related in the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, and the second chapter of Deuteronomy? How would the hornets know a Canaanite? In what way would God put it in the mind of a hornet to attack a Canaanite? Did God create hornets for that especial purpose, implanting an instinct to attack a Canaanite, but not a Hebrew? Can we conceive of the Almighty granting letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? Of course it is admitted that nothing in the world would be better calculated to make a man leave his native land than a few hornets. Is it possible for us to believe that an infinite being would resort to such expedients in order to drive the Canaanites from their country? He could just as easily have spoken the Canaanites out of existence as to have spoken the hornets in. In this way a vast amount of trouble, pain and suffering would have been saved. Is it possible that there is, in this country, an intelligent clergyman who will insist that these stories are true; that we must believe them in in order to be good people in this world, and glorified souls in the next?
We are also told that God instructed the Hebrews to kill the Canaanites slowly, giving as a reason that the beasts of the field might increase upon his chosen people. When we take into consideration the fact that the Holy Land contained only about eleven or twelve thousand square miles, and was at that time inhabited by at least twenty-one millions of people, it does not seem reasonable that the wild beasts could have been numerous enough to cause any great alarm. The same ratio of population would give to the State of Illinois at least one hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants. Can anybody believe that, under such circumstances, the danger from wild beasts could be very great? What would we think of a general, invading such a State, if he should order his soldiers to kill the people slowly, lest the wild beasts might increase upon them? Is it possible that a God capable of doing the miracles recounted in the Old Testament could not, in some way, have disposed of the wild beasts? After the Canaanites were driven out, could he not have employed the hornets to drive out the wild beasts? Think of a God that could drive twenty-one millions of people out of the promised land, could raise up innumerable stinging flies, and could cover the earth with fiery serpents, and yet seems to have been perfectly powerless against the wild beasts of the land of Canaan!
Speaking of these hornets, one of the good old commentators, whose views have long been considered of great value by the believers in the inspiration of the Bible, uses the following language:—"Hornets are a sort of strong flies, which the Lord used as instruments to plague the enemies of his people. They are of themselves very troublesome and mischievous, and those the Lord made use of were, it is thought, of an extraordinary bigness and perniciousness. It is said they live as the wasps, and that they have a king or captain, and pestilent stings as bees, and that, if twenty-seven of them sting man or beast, it is certain death to either. Nor is it strange that such creatures did drive out the Canaanites from their habitations; for many heathen writers give instances of some people driven from their seats by frogs, others by mice, others by bees and wasps. And it is said that a Christian city, being besieged by Sapores, king of Persia, was delivered by hornets; for the elephants and beasts being stung by them, waxed unruly, and so the whole army fled."
Only a few years ago, all such stories were believed by the Christian world; and it is a historical fact, that Voltaire was the third man of any note in Europe, who took the ground that the mythologies of Greece and Rome were without foundation. Until his time, most Christians believed as thoroughly in the miracles ascribed to the Greek and Roman gods as in those of Christ and Jehovah. The Christian world cultivated credulity, not only as one of the virtues, but as the greatest of them all. But, when Luther and his followers left the Church of Rome, they were compelled to deny the power of the Catholic Church, at that time, to suspend the laws of nature, but took the ground that such power ceased with the apostolic age. They insisted that all things now happened in accordance with the laws of nature, with the exception of a few special interferences in favor of the Protestant Church in answer to prayer. They taught their children a double philosophy: by one, they were to show the impossibility of Catholic miracles, because opposed to the laws of nature; by the other, the probability of the miracles of the apostolic age, because they were in conformity with the statements of the Scriptures. They had two foundations: one, the law of nature, and the other, the word of God. The Protestants have endeavored to carry on this double process of reasoning, and the result has been a gradual increase of confidence in the law of nature, and a gradual decrease of confidence in the word of God.
We are told, in this inspired account, that the clothing of the Jewish people did not wax old, and that their shoes refused to wear out. Some commentators have insisted that angels attended to the wardrobes of the Hebrews, patched their garments, and mended their shoes. Certain it is, however, that the same clothes lasted them for forty years, during the entire journey from Egypt to the Holy Land. Little boys starting out with their first pantaloons, grew as they traveled, and their clothes grew with them.
Can it be necessary to believe a story like this? Will men make better husbands, fathers, neighbors, and citizens, simply by giving credence to these childish and impossible things? Certainly an infinite God could have transported the Jews to the Holy Land in a moment, and could, as easily, have removed the Canaanites to some other country. Surely there was no necessity for doing thousands and thousands of petty miracles, day after day for forty years, looking after the clothes of three millions of people, changing the nature of wool and linen and leather, so that they would not "wax old." Every step, every motion, would wear away some part of the clothing, some part of the shoes. Were these parts, so worn away, perpetually renewed, or was the nature of things so changed that they could not wear away? We know that whenever matter comes in contact with matter, certain atoms, by abrasion, are lost. Were these atoms gathered up every night by angels, and replaced on the soles of the shoes, on the elbows of coats, and on the knees of pantaloons, so that the next morning they would be precisely in the condition they were on the morning before? There must be a mistake somewhere.
Can we believe that the real God, if there is one, ever ordered a man to be killed simply for making hair oil, or ointment? We are told in the thirtieth chapter of Exodus, that the Lord commanded Moses to take myrrh, cinnamon, sweet calamus, cassia, and olive oil, and make a holy ointment for the purpose of anointing the tabernacle, tables, candlesticks and other utensils, as well as Aaron and his sons; saying, at the same time, that whosoever compounded any like it, or whoever put any of it on a stranger, should be put to death. In the same chapter, the Lord furnishes Moses with a recipe for making a perfume, saying, that whoever should make any which smelled like it, should be cut off from his people. This, to me, sounds so unreasonable that I cannot believe it. Why should an infinite God care whether mankind made ointments and perfumes like his or not? Why should the Creator of all things threaten to kill a priest who approached his altar without having washed his hands and feet? These commandments and these penalties would disgrace the vainest tyrant that ever sat, by chance, upon a throne. There must be some mistake. I cannot believe that an infinite Intelligence appeared to Moses upon Mount Sinai having with him a variety of patterns for making a tabernacle, tongs, snuffers and dishes. Neither can I believe that God told Moses how to cut and trim a coat for a priest. Why should a God care about such things? Why should he insist on having buttons sewed in certain rows, and fringes of a certain color? Suppose an intelligent civilized man was to overhear, on Mount Sinai, the following instructions from God to Moses:—
"You must consecrate my priests as follows:—You must kill a bullock for a sin offering, and have Aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the head of the bullock. Then you must take the blood and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with your finger, and pour some blood at the bottom of the altar to make a reconciliation; and of the fat that is upon the inwards, the caul above the liver and two kidneys, and their fat, and burn them upon the altar. You must get a ram for a burnt offering, and Aaron and his sons must lay their hands upon the head of the ram. Then you must kill it and sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and cut the ram into pieces, and burn the head, and the pieces, and the fat, and wash the inwards and the lungs in water and then burn the whole ram upon the altar for a sweet savor unto me. Then you must get another ram, and have Aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the head of that, then kill it and take of its blood, and put it on the top of Aaron's right ear, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot. And you must also put a little of the blood upon the top of the right ears of Aaron's sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet. And then you must take of the fat that is on the inwards, and the caul above the liver and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder, and out of a basket of unleavened bread you must take one unleavened cake and another of oil bread, and one wafer, and put them on the fat of the right shoulder. And you must take of the anointing oil, and of the blood, and sprinkle it on Aaron, and on his garments, and on his sons' garments, and sanctify them and all their clothes."—Do you believe that he would have even suspected that the creator of the universe was talking?
Can any one now tell why God commanded the Jews, when they were upon the desert of Sinai, to plant trees, telling them at the same time that they must not eat any of the fruit of such trees until after the fourth year? Trees could not have been planted in that desert, and if they had been, they could not have lived. Why did God tell Moses, while in the desert, to make curtains of fine linen? Where could he have obtained his flax? There was no land upon which it could have been produced. Why did he tell him to make things of gold, and silver, and precious stones, when they could not have been in possession of these things? There is but one answer, and that is, the Pentateuch was written hundreds of years after the Jews had settled in the Holy Land, and hundreds of years after Moses was dust and ashes.
When the Jews had a written language, and that must have been long after their flight from Egypt, they wrote out their history and their laws. Tradition had filled the infancy of the nation with miracles and special interpositions in their behalf by Jehovah. Patriotism would not allow these wonders to grow small, and priestcraft never denied a miracle. There were traditions to the effect that God had spoken face to face with Moses; that he had given him the tables of the law, and had, in a thousand ways, made known his will; and whenever the priests wished to make new laws, or amend old ones, they pretended to have found something more that God said to Moses at Sinai. In this way obedience was more easily secured. Only a very few of the people could read, and, as a consequence, additions, interpolations and erasures had no fear of detection. In this way we account for the fact that Moses is made to speak of things that did not exist in his day, and were unknown for hundreds of years after his death.
In the thirtieth chapter of Exodus, we are told that the people, when numbered, must give each one a half shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary. At that time no such money existed, and consequently the account could not, by any possibility, have been written until after there was a shekel of the sanctuary, and there was no such thing until long after the death of Moses. If we should read that Cæsar paid his troops in pounds, shillings and pence, we would certainly know that the account was not written by Cæsar, nor in his time, but we would know that it was written after the English had given these names to certain coins.
So, we find, that when the Jews were upon the desert it was commanded that every mother should bring, as a sin offering, a couple of doves to the priests, and the priests were compelled to eat these doves in the most holy place. At the time this law appears to have been given, there were three million people, and only three priests, Aaron, Eleazer and Ithamar. Among three million people there would be, at least, three hundred births a day. Certainly we are not expected to believe that these three priests devoured six hundred pigeons every twenty-four hours.
Why should a woman ask pardon of God for having been a mother? Why should that be considered a crime in Exodus, which is commanded as a duty in Genesis? Why should a mother be declared unclean? Why should giving birth to a daughter be regarded twice as criminal as giving birth to a son? Can we believe that such laws and ceremonies were made and instituted by a merciful and intelligent God? If there is anything in this poor world suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving and pure, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her prattling babe. Read the twelfth chapter of Leviticus, and you will see that when a woman became the mother of a boy she was so unclean that she was not allowed to touch a hallowed thing, nor to enter the sanctuary for forty days. If the babe was a girl, then the mother was unfit for eighty days, to enter the house of God, or to touch the sacred tongs and snuffers. These laws, born of barbarism, are unworthy of our day, and should be regarded simply as the mistakes of savages.
Just as low in the scale of intelligence are the directions given in the fifth chapter of Numbers, for the trial of a wife of whom the husband was jealous. This foolish chapter has been the foundation of all appeals to God for the ascertainment of facts, such as the corsned, trial by battle, by water, and by fire, the last of which is our judicial oath. It is very easy to believe that in those days a guilty woman would be afraid to drink the water of jealousy and take the oath, and that, through fear, she might be made to confess. Admitting that the deception tended not only to prevent crime, but to discover it when committed, still, we cannot admit that an honest god would, for any purpose, resort to dishonest means. In all countries fear is employed as a means of getting at the truth, and in this there is nothing dishonest, provided falsehood is not resorted to for the purpose of producing the fear. Protestants laugh at Catholics because of their belief in the efficacy of holy water, and yet they teach their children that a little holy water, in which had been thrown some dust from the floor of the sanctuary, would, work a miracle in a woman's flesh. For hundreds of years our fathers believed that a perjurer could not swallow a piece of sacramental bread. Such stories belong to the childhood of our race, and are now believed only by mental infants and intellectual babes.
I cannot believe that Moses had in his hands a couple of tables of stone, upon which God had written the Ten Commandments, and that when he saw the golden calf, and the dancing, that he dashed the tables to the earth and broke them in pieces. Neither do I believe that Moses took a golden calf, burnt it, ground it to powder, and made the people drink it with water, as related in the thirty-second chapter of Exodus.
There is another account of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses, in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of Exodus. In this account not one word is said about the people having made a golden calf, nor about the breaking of the tables of stone. In the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus, there is an account of the renewal of the broken tables of the law, and the commandments are given, but they are not the same commandments mentioned in the twentieth chapter. There are two accounts of the same transaction. Both of these stories cannot be true, and yet both must be believed. Any one who will take the trouble to read the nineteenth and twentieth chapters, and the last verse of the thirty-first chapter, the thirty-second, thirty-third, and thirty-fourth chapters of Exodus, will be compelled to admit that both accounts cannot be true.
From the last account it appears that while Moses was upon Mount Sinai receiving the commandments from God, the people brought their jewelry to Aaron and he cast for them a golden calf. This happened before any commandment against idolatry had been given. A god ought, certainly, to publish his laws before inflicting penalties for their violation. To inflict punishment for breaking unknown and unpublished laws is, in the last degree, cruel and unjust. It may be replied that the Jews knew better than to worship idols, before the law was given. If this is so, why should the law have been given? In all civilized countries, laws are made and promulgated, not simply for the purpose of informing the people as to what is right and wrong, but to inform them of the penalties to be visited upon those who violate the laws. When the Ten Commandments were given, no penalties were attached. Not one word was written on the tables of stone as to the punishments that would be inflicted for breaking any or all of the inspired laws. The people should not have been punished for violating a commandment before it was given. And yet, in this case, Moses commanded the sons of Levi to take their swords and slay every man his brother, his companion, and his neighbor. The brutal order was obeyed, and three thousand men were butchered.. The Levites consecrated themselves unto the Lord by murdering their sons, and their brothers, for having violated a commandment before it had been given.
It has been contended for many years that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all ideas of justice and of law. Eminent jurists have bowed to popular prejudice, and deformed their works by statements to the effect that the Mosaic laws are the fountains from which sprang all ideas of right and wrong. Nothing can be more stupidly false than such assertions. Thousands of years before Moses was born, the Egyptians had a code of laws. They had laws against blasphemy, murder, adultery, larceny, perjury, laws for the collection of debts, the enforcement of contracts, the ascertainment of damages, the redemption of property pawned, and upon nearly every subject of human interest. The Egyptian code was far better than the Mosaic.
Laws spring from the instinct of self-preservation. Industry objected to supporting idleness, and laws were made against theft. Laws were made against murder, because a very large majority of the people have always objected to being murdered. All fundamental laws were born simply of the instinct of self-defence. Long before the Jewish savages assembled at the foot of Sinai, laws had been made and enforced, not only in Egypt and India, but by every tribe that ever existed.
It is impossible for human beings to exist together, without certain rules of conduct, certain ideas of the proper and improper, of the right and wrong, growing out of the relation. Certain rules must be made, and must be enforced. This implies law, trial and punishment. Whoever produces anything by weary labor, does not need a revelation from heaven to teach him that he has a right to the thing produced. Not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the Mosaic laws are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws were in force.
Nothing can be more wonderful than the medical ideas of Jehovah. He had the strangest notions about the cause and cure of disease. With him everything was miracle and wonder. In the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus, we find the law for cleansing a leper:—"Then shall the priest take for him that is to be cleansed, two birds, alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel, over running water. As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them, and the living bird, in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy, seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field."
We are told that God himself gave these directions to Moses. Does anybody believe this? Why should the bird be killed in an earthen vessel? Would the charm be broken if the vessel was of wood? Why over running water? What would be thought of a physician now, who would give a prescription like that?
Is it not strange that God, although he gave hundreds of directions for the purpose of discovering the presence of leprosy, and for cleansing the leper after he was healed, forgot to tell how that disease could be cured? Is it not wonderful that while God told his people what animals were fit for food, he failed to give a list of plants that man might eat? Why did he leave his children to find out the hurtful and the poisonous by experiment, knowing that experiment, in millions of cases, must be death?
When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered, unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget, the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:—"Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted." This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from God.
When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God.
While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend.
It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch.
XXIV. CONFESS AND AVOID
The scientific Christians now admit that the Bible is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, nor in any science. In other words, they admit that on these subjects, the Bible cannot be depended upon. If all the statements in the Scriptures were true, there would be no necessity for admitting that some of them are not inspired. A Christian will not admit that a passage in the Bible is uninspired, until he is satisfied that it is untrue. Orthodoxy itself has at last been compelled to say, that while a passage may be true and uninspired, it cannot be inspired if false.
If the people of Europe had known as much of astronomy and geology when the Bible was introduced among them, as they do now, there never could have been one believer in the doctrine of inspiration. If the writers of the various parts of the Bible had known as much about the sciences as is now known by every intelligent man, the book never could have been written. It was produced by ignorance, and has been believed and defended by its author. It has lost power in the proportion that man has gained knowledge. A few years ago, this book was appealed to in the settlement of all scientific questions; but now, even the clergy confess that in such matters, it has ceased to speak with the voice of authority. For the establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than the word of God. In the world of science, Jehovah was superseded by Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. All that God told Moses, admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries of Descartes, Laplace, and Humboldt. In matters of fact, the Bible has ceased to be regarded as a standard. Science has succeeded in breaking the chains of theology. A few years ago, Science endeavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the Bible. The tables have been turned, and now, Religion is endeavoring to prove that the Bible is not inconsistent with Science. The standard has been changed.
For many ages, the Christians contended that the Bible, viewed simply as a literary performance, was beyond all other books, and that man without the assistance of God could not produce its equal. This claim was made when but few books existed, and the Bible, being the only book generally known, had no rival. But this claim, like the other, has been abandoned by many, and soon will be, by all. Com pared with Shakespeare's "book and volume of the brain," the "sacred" Bible shrinks and seems as feebly impotent and vain, as would a pipe of Fan, when some great organ, voiced with every tone, from the hoarse thunder of the sea to the winged warble of a mated bird, floods and fills cathedral aisles with all the wealth of sound.
It is now maintained—and this appears to be the last fortification behind which the doctrine of inspiration skulks and crouches—that the Bible, although false and mistaken in its astronomy, geology, geography, history and philosophy, is inspired in its morality. It is now claimed that had it not been for this book, the world would have been inhabited only by savages, and that had it not been for the Holy Scriptures, man never would have even dreamed of the unity of God. A belief in one God is claimed to be a dogma of almost infinite importance, that with out this belief civilization is impossible, and that this fact is the sun around which all the virtues revolve. For my part, I think it infinitely more important to believe in man. Theology is a superstition—Humanity a religion.
XXV. "INSPIRED" SLAVERY
Perhaps the Bible was inspired upon the subject of human slavery. Is there, in the civilized world, to-day, a clergyman who believes in the divinity of slavery? Does the Bible teach man to enslave his brother? If it does, is it not blasphemous to say that it is inspired of God? If you find the institution of slavery upheld in a book said to have been written by God, what would you expect to find in a book inspired by the devil? Would you expect to find that book in favor of liberty? Modern Christians, ashamed of the God of the Old Testament, endeavor now to show that slavery was neither commanded nor opposed by Jehovah. Nothing can be plainer than the following passages from the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus. "Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bondmen forever. Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen, and bondmaids."
Can we believe in this, the Nineteenth Century, that these infamous passages were inspired by God? that God approved not only of human slavery, but instructed his chosen people to buy the women, children and babes of the heathen round about them? If it was right for the Hebrews to buy, it was also right for the heathen to sell. This God, by commanding the Hebrews to buy, approved of the selling of sons and daughters. The Canaanite who, tempted by gold, lured by avarice, sold from the arms of his wife the dimpled babe, simply made it possible for the Hebrews to obey the orders of their God. If God is the author of the Bible, the reading of these passages ought to cover his cheeks with shame. I ask the Christian world to-day, was it right for the heathen to sell their children? Was it right for God not only to uphold, but to command the infamous traffic in human flesh? Could the most revengeful fiend, the most malicious vagrant in the gloom of hell, sink to a lower moral depth than this?
According to this God, his chosen people were not only commanded to buy of the heathen round about them, but were also permitted to buy each other for a term of years. The law governing the purchase of Jews is laid down in the twenty-first chapter of Exodus. "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post: and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl: and he shall serve him forever."
Do you believe that God was the author of this infamous law? Do you believe that the loving father of us all, turned the dimpled arms of babes into manacles of iron? Do you believe that he baited the dungeon of servitude with wife and child? Is it possible to love a God who would make such laws? Is it possible not to hate and despise him?
The heathen are not spoken of as human beings. Their rights are never mentioned. They were the rightful food of the sword, and their bodies were made for stripes and chains.
In the same chapter of the same inspired book, we are told that, "if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money."
Must we believe that God called some of his children the money of others? Can we believe that God made lashes upon the naked back, a legal tender for labor performed? Must we regard the auction block as an altar? Were blood hounds apostles? Was the slave-pen a temple? Were the stealers and whippers of babes and women the justified children of God?
It is now contended that while the Old Testament is touched with the barbarism of its time, that the New Testament is morally perfect, and that on its pages can be found no blot or stain. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is more decidedly in favor of human slavery than the old.
For my part, I never will, I never can, worship a God who upholds the institution of slavery. Such a God I hate and defy. I neither want his heaven, nor fear his hell.
XXXVI. "INSPIRED" MARRIAGE
Is there an orthodox clergyman in the world, who will now declare that he believes the institution of polygamy to be right? Is there one who will publicly declare that, in his judgment, that institution ever was right? Was there ever a time in the history of the world when it was right to treat woman simply as property? Do not attempt to answer these questions by saying, that the Bible is an exceedingly good book, that we are indebted for our civilization to the sacred volume, and that without it, man would lapse into savagery, and mental night. This is no answer. Was there a time when the institution of polygamy was the highest expression of human virtue? Is there a Christian woman, civilized, intelligent, and free, who believes in the institution of polygamy? Are we better, purer, and more intelligent than God was four thousand years ago? Why should we imprison Mormons, and worship God? Polygamy is just as pure in Utah, as it could have been in the promised land. Love and Virtue are the same the whole world round, and Justice is the same in every star. All the languages of the world are not sufficient to express the filth of polygamy. It makes of man, a beast, of woman, a trembling slave. It destroys the fireside, makes virtue an outcast, takes from human speech its sweetest words, and leaves the heart a den, where crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of most loathsome lust. Civilization rests upon the family. The good family is the unit of good government. The virtues grow about the holy hearth of home—they cluster, bloom, and shed their perfume round the fireside where the one man loves the one woman. Lover—husband—wife—mother—father—child—home!—? without these sacred words, the world is but a lair, and men and women merely beasts.
Why should the innocent maiden and the loving mother worship the heartless Jewish God? Why should they, with pure and stainless lips, read the vile record of inspired lust?
The marriage of the one man to the one woman is the citadel and fortress of civilization. Without this, woman becomes the prey and slave of lust and power, and man goes back to savagery and crime. From the bottom of my heart I hate, abhor and execrate all theories of life, of which the pure and sacred home is not the corner-stone. Take from the world the family, the fireside, the children born of wedded love, and there is nothing left. The home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire—the fairest flower in all the world.
XXVII. "INSPIRED" WAR
If the Bible be true, God commanded his chosen people to destroy men simply for the crime of defending their native land. They were not allowed to spare trembling and white-haired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the mothers' arms. They were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the sword of war, the unborn child. "Our heavenly Father" commanded the Hebrews to kill the men and women, the fathers, sons and brothers, but to preserve the girls alive. Why were not the maidens also killed? Why were they spared? Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and you will find that the maidens were given to the soldiers and the priests. Is there, in all the history of war, a more infamous thing than this? Is it possible that God permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume in the maiden's heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? If this was the order of God, what, under the same circumstances, would have been the command of a devil? When, in this age of the world, a woman, a wife, a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and loathing, throw the book away. A general, who now should make such an order, giving over to massacre and rapine a conquered people, would be held in execration by the whole civilized world. Yet, if the Bible be true, the supreme and infinite God was once a savage.
A little while ago, out upon the western plains, in a little path leading to a cabin, were found the bodies of two children and their mother. Her breast was filled with wounds received in the defence of her darlings. They had been murdered by the savages. Suppose when looking at their lifeless forms, some one had said, "This was done by the command of God!" In Canaan there were countless scenes like this. There was no pity in inspired war. God raised the black flag, and commanded his soldiers to kill even the smiling infant in its mother's arms. Who is the blasphemer; the man who denies the existence of God, or he who covers the robes of the Infinite with innocent blood?
We are told in the Pentateuch, that God, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there be a God, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied this lie for him.
XXVIII. "INSPIRED" RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
According to the Bible, God selected the Jewish people through whom to make known the great fact, that he was the only true and living God. For this purpose, he appeared on several occasions to Moses—came down to Sinai's top clothed in cloud and fire, and wrought a thousand miracles for the preservation and education of the Jewish people. In their presence he opened the waters of the sea. For them he caused bread to rain from heaven. To quench their thirst, water leaped from the dry and barren rock. Their enemies were miraculously destroyed; and for forty years, at least, this God took upon himself the government of the Jews. But, after all this, many of the people had less confidence in him than in gods of wood and stone. In moments of trouble, in periods of disaster, in the darkness of doubt, in the hunger and thirst of famine, instead of asking this God for aid, they turned and sought the help of senseless things. This God, with all his power and wisdom, could not even convince a few wandering and wretched savages that he was more potent than the idols of Egypt. This God was not willing that the Jews should think and investigate for themselves. For heresy, the penalty was death. Where this God reigned, intellectual liberty was unknown. He appealed only to brute force; he collected taxes by threatening plagues; he demanded worship on pain of sword and fire; acting as spy, inquisitor, judge and executioner.
In the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, we have the ideas of God as to mental freedom. "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; namely of the gods of the people which are around about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth, Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare him, neither shalt thou conceal him. But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die."
This is the religious liberty of God; the toleration of Jehovah. If I had lived in Palestine at that time, and my wife, the mother of my children, had said to me, "I am tired of Jehovah, he is always asking for blood; he is never weary of killing; he is always telling of his might and strength; always telling what he has done for the Jews, always asking for sacrifices; for doves and lambs—blood, nothing but blood.—Let us worship the sun. Jehovah is too revengeful, too malignant, too exacting. Let us worship the sun. The sun has clothed the world in beauty; it has covered the earth with flowers; by its divine light I first saw your face, and my beautiful babe."—If I had obeyed the command of God, I would have killed her. My hand would have been first upon her, and after that the hands of all the people, and she would have been stoned with stones until she died. For my part, I would never kill my wife, even if commanded so to do by the real God of this universe. Think of taking up some ragged rock and hurling it against the white bosom filled with love for you; and when you saw oozing from the bruised lips of the death wound, the red current of her sweet life—think of looking up to heaven and receiving the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandment you had obeyed!
Can we believe that any such command was ever given by a merciful and intelligent God? Suppose, however, that God did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other God that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same God took upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified him; I ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown? What right would this God have to complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command?
Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. To put chains upon the body is as nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. No god is entitled to the worship or the respect of man who does not give, even to the meanest of his children, every right that he claims for himself.
If the Pentateuch be true, religious persecution is a duty. The dungeons of the Inquisition were temples, and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music in the ear of God. If the Pentateuch was inspired, every heretic should be destroyed; and every man who advocates a fact inconsistent with the sacred book, should be consumed by sword and flame.
In the Old Testament no one is told to reason with a heretic, and not one word is said about relying upon argument, upon education, nor upon intellectual development—nothing except simple brute force. Is there to-day a Christian who will say that four thousand years ago, it was the duty of a husband to kill his wife if she differed with him upon the subject of religion? Is there one who will now say that, under such circumstances, the wife ought to have been killed? Why should God be so jealous of the wooden idols of the heathen? Could he not compete with Baal? Was he envious of the success of the Egyptian magicians? Was it not possible for him to make such a convincing display of his power as to silence forever the voice of unbelief? Did this God have to resort to force to make converts? Was he so ignorant of the structure of the human mind as to believe all honest doubt a crime? If he wished to do away with the idolatry of the Canaanites, why did he not appear to them? Why did he not give them the tables of the law? Why did he only make known his will to a few wandering savages in the desert of Sinai? Will some theologian have the kindness to answer these questions? Will some minister, who now believes in religious liberty, and eloquently denounces the intolerance of Catholicism, explain these things; will he tell us why he worships an intolerant God? Is a god who will burn a soul forever in another world, better than a Christian who burns the body for a few hours in this? Is there no intellectual liberty in heaven? Do the angels all discuss questions on the same side? Are all the investigators in perdition? Will the penitent thief, winged and crowned, laugh at the honest folks in hell? Will the agony of the damned increase or decrease the happiness of God? Will there be, in the universe, an eternal auto da fe?
XXIX. CONCLUSION
If the Pentateuch is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, geography, history or philosophy, if it is not inspired concerning slavery, polygamy, war, law, religious or political liberty, or the rights of men, women and children, what is it inspired in, or about? The unity of God?—that was believed long before Moses was born. Special providence?—that has been the doctrine of ignorance in all ages. The rights of property?—theft was always a crime. The sacrifice of animals?—that was a custom thousands of years before a Jew existed. The sacredness of life?—there have always been laws against murder. The wickedness of perjury?—truthfulness has always been a virtue. The beauty of chastity?—the Pentateuch does not teach it. Thou shalt worship no other God?—that has been the burden of all religions.
Is it possible that the Pentateuch could not have been written by uninspired men? that the assistance of God was necessary to produce these books? Is it possible that Galileo ascertained the mechanical principles of "Virtual Velocity," the laws of falling bodies and of all motion; that Copernicus ascertained the true position of the earth and accounted for all celestial phenomena; that Kepler discovered his three laws—discoveries of such importance that the 8th of May, 1618, may be called the birthday of modern science; that Newton gave to the world the Method of Fluxions, the Theory of Universal Gravitation, and the Decomposition of Light; that Euclid, Cavalieri, Descartes, and Leibnitz, almost completed the science of mathematics; that all the discoveries in optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and chemistry, the experiments, discoveries, and inventions of Galvani, Volta, Franklin and Morse, of Trevethick, Watt and Fulton and of all the pioneers of progress—that all this was accomplished by uninspired men, while the writer of the Pentateuch was directed and inspired by an infinite God? Is it possible that the codes of China, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome were made by man, and that the laws recorded in the Pentateuch were alone given by God? Is it possible that �?schylus and Shakespeare, Burns, and Beranger, Goethe and Schiller, and all the poets of the world, and all their wondrous tragedies and songs, are but the work of men, while no intelligence except the infinite God could be the author of the Pentateuch? Is it possible that of all the books that crowd the libraries of the world, the books of science, fiction, history and song, that all save only one, have been produced by man? Is it possible that of all these, the Bible only is the work of God?
If the Pentateuch is inspired, the civilization of our day is a mistake and crime. There should be no political liberty. Heresy should be trodden out beneath the bigot's brutal feet. Husbands should divorce their wives at will, and make the mothers of their children houseless and weeping wanderers. Polygamy ought to be practiced; women should become slaves; we should buy the sons and daughters of the heathen and make them bondmen and bondwomen forever. We should sell our own flesh and blood, and have the right to kill our slaves. Men and women should be stoned to death for laboring on the seventh day. "Mediums," such as have familiar spirits, should be burned with fire. Every vestige of mental liberty should be destroyed, and reason's holy torch extinguished in the martyr's blood.
Is it not far better and wiser to say that the Pentateuch while containing some good laws, some truths, some wise and useful things is, after all, deformed and blackened by the savagery of its time? Is it not far better and wiser to take the good and throw the bad away?
Let us admit what we know to be true; that Moses was mistaken about a thousand things; that the story of creation is not true; that the Garden of Eden is a myth; that the serpent and the tree of knowledge, and the fall of man are but fragments of old mythologies lost and dead; that woman was not made out of a rib; that serpents never had the power of speech; that the sons of God did not marry the daughters of men; that the story of the flood and ark is not exactly true; that the tower of Babel is a mistake; that the confusion of tongues is a childish thing; that the origin of the rainbow is a foolish fancy; that Methuselah did not live nine hundred and sixty-nine years; that Enoch did not leave this world, taking with him his flesh and bones; that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is somewhat improbable; that burning brimstone never fell like rain; that Lot's wife was not changed into chloride of sodium; that Jacob did not, in fact, put his hip out of joint wrestling with God; that the history of Tamar might just as well have been left out; that a belief in Pharaoh's dreams is not essential to salvation; that it makes but little difference whether the rod of Aaron was changed to a serpent or not; that of all the wonders said to have been performed in Egypt, the greatest is, that anybody ever believed the absurd account; that God did not torment the innocent cattle on account of the sins of their owners; that he did not kill the first born of the poor maid behind the mill because of Pharaoh's crimes; that flies and frogs were not ministers of God's wrath; that lice and locusts were not the executors of his will; that seventy people did not, in two hundred and fifteen years, increase to three million; that three priests could not eat six hundred pigeons in a day; that gazing at a brass serpent could not extract poison from the blood; that God did not go in partnership with hornets; that he did not murder people simply because they asked for something to eat; that he did not declare the making of hair oil and ointment an offence to be punished with death; that he did not miraculously preserve cloth and leather; that he was not afraid of wild beasts; that he did not punish heresy with sword and fire; that he was not jealous, revengeful, and unjust; that he knew all about the sun, moon, and stars; that he did not threaten to kill people for eating the fat of an ox; that he never told Aaron to draw cuts to see which of two goats should be killed; that he never objected to clothes made of woolen mixed with linen; that if he objected to dwarfs, people with flat noses and too many fingers, he ought not to have created such folks; that he did not demand human sacrifices as set forth in the last chapter of Leviticus; that he did not object to the raising of horses; that he never commanded widows to spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law; that several contradictory accounts of the same transaction cannot all be true; that God did not talk to Abraham as one man talks to another; that angels were not in the habit of walking about the earth eating veal dressed with milk and butter, and making bargains about the destruction of cities; that God never turned himself into a flame of fire, and lived in a bush; that he never met Moses in a hotel and tried to kill him; that it was absurd to perform miracles to induce a king to act in a certain way and then harden his heart so that he would refuse; that God was not kept from killing the Jews by the fear that the Egyptians would laugh at him; that he did not secretly bury a man and then allow the corpse to write an account of the funeral; that he never believed the firmament to be solid; that he knew slavery was and always would be a frightful crime; that polygamy is but stench and filth; that the brave soldier will always spare an unarmed foe; that only cruel cowards slay the conquered and the helpless; that no language can describe the murderer of a smiling babe; that God did not want the blood of doves and lambs; that he did not love the smell of burning flesh; that he did not want his altars daubed with blood; that he did not pretend that the sins of a people could be transferred to a goat; that he did not believe in witches, wizards, spooks, and devils; that he did not test the virtue of woman with dirty water; that he did not suppose that rabbits chewed the cud; that he never thought there were any four-footed birds; that he did not boast for several hundred years that he had vanquished an Egyptian king; that a dry stick did not bud, blossom, and bear almonds in one night; that manna did not shrink and swell, so that each man could gather only just one omer; that it was never wrong to "countenance the poor man in his cause;" that God never told a people not to live in peace with their neighbors; that he did not spend forty days with Moses on Mount Sinai giving him patterns for making clothes, tongs, basins, and snuffers; that maternity is not a sin; that physical deformity is not a crime; that an atonement cannot be made for the soul by shedding innocent blood; that killing a dove over running water will not make its blood a medicine; that a god who demands love knows nothing of the human heart; that one who frightens savages with loud noises is unworthy the love of civilized men; that one who destroys children on account of the sins of their fathers is a monster; that an infinite god never threatened to give people the itch; that he never sent wild beasts to devour babes; that he never ordered the violation of maidens; that he never regarded patriotism as a crime; that he never ordered the destruction of unborn children; that he never opened the earth and swallowed wives and babes because husbands and fathers had displeased him; that he never demanded that men should kill their sons and brothers, for the purpose of sanctifying themselves; that we cannot please God by believing the improbable; that credulity is not a virtue; that investigation is not a crime; that every mind should be free; that all religious persecution is infamous in God, as well as man; that without liberty, virtue is impossible; that without freedom, even love cannot exist; that every man should be allowed to think and to express his thoughts; that woman is the equal of man; that children should be governed by love and reason; that the family relation is sacred; that war is a hideous crime; that all intolerance is born of ignorance and hate; that the freedom of today is the hope of to-morrow; that the enlightened present ought not to fall upon its knees and blindly worship the barbaric past; and that every free, brave and enlightened man should publicly declare that all the ignorant, infamous, heartless, hideous things recorded in the "inspired" Pentateuch are not the words of God, but simply "Some Mistakes of Moses."
RELIGION makes enemies instead of friends. That one word, "religion," covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of persecution, of tyranny, and death. That one word brings to the mind every instrument with which man has tortured man. In that one word are all the fagots and flames and dungeons of the past, and in that word is the infinite and eternal hell of the future.
In the name of universal benevolence Christians have hated their fellow-men. Although they have been preaching universal love, the Christian nations are the warlike nations of the world. The most destructive weapons of war have been invented by Christians. The musket, the revolver, the rifled canon, the bombshell, the torpedo, the explosive bullet, have been invented by Christian brains.
Above all other arts, the Christian world has placed the art of war.
A Christian nation has never had the slightest respect for the rights of barbarians; neither has any Christian sect any respect for the rights of other sects. Anciently, the sects discussed with fire and sword, and even now, something happens almost every day to show that the old spirit that was in the Inquisition still slumbers in the Christian breast.
Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God, holds other people in contempt.
Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the worst is a slave in power.
When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who will be damned.
A Christian nation can make no compromise with one not Christian; it will either compel that nation to accept its doctrine, or it will wage war. If Christ, in fact, said "I came not to bring peace but a sword," it is the only prophecy in the New Testament that has been literally fulfilled.
II. DUTIES TO GOD.
RELIGION is supposed to consist in a discharge of the duties we owe to God. In other words, we are taught that God is exceedingly anxious that we should believe a certain thing. For my part, I do not believe that there is any infinite being to whom we owe anything. The reason I say this is, we can not owe any duty to any being who requires nothing—to any being that we cannot possibly help, to any being whose happiness we cannot increase. If God is infinite, we cannot make him happier than he is. If God is infinite, we can neither give, nor can he receive, anything. Anything that we do or fail to do, cannot, in the slightest degree, affect an infinite God; consequently, no relations can exist between the finite and the Infinite, if by relations is meant mutual duties and obligations.
Some tell us that it is the desire of God that we should worship him. What for? Why does he desire worship? Others tell us that we should sacrifice something to him. What for? Is he in want? Can we assist him? Is he unhappy? Is he in trouble? Does he need human sympathy? We cannot assist the Infinite, but we can assist our fellow-men. We can feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and enlighten the ignorant, and we can help, in some degree at least, toward covering this world with the mantle of joy.
I do not believe there is any being in this universe who gives rain for praise, who gives sunshine for prayer, or who blesses a man simply because he kneels.
The Infinite cannot receive praise or worship.
The Infinite can neither hear nor answer prayer.
An Infinite personality is an infinite impossibility.
III. INSPIRATION.
WE are told that we have in our possession the inspired will of God. What is meant by the word "inspired" is not exactly known; but whatever else it may mean, certainly it means that the "inspired" must be the true. If it is true, there is, in fact, no need of its being inspired—the truth will take care of itself.
The church is forced to say that the Bible differs from all other books; it is forced to say that it contains the actual will of God. Let us then see what inspiration really is. A man looks at the sea, and the sea says something to him. It makes an impression upon his mind. It awakens memory, and this impression depends upon the man's experience—upon his intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a different brain; he has had a different experience. The sea may speak to him of joy, to the other of grief and tears. The sea cannot tell the same thing to any two human beings, because no two human beings have had the same experience.
A year ago, while the cars were going from Boston to Gloucester, we passed through Manchester. As the cars stopped, a lady sitting opposite, speaking to her husband, looking out of the window and catching, for the first time, a view of the sea, cried out, "Is it not beautiful!" and the husband replied, "I'll bet you could dig clams right here!"
Another, standing upon the shore, listening to what the great Greek tragedian called "the multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: Every drop has visited all the shores of the earth; every one has been frozen in the vast and icy North; every one has fallen in snow, has been whirled by storms around mountain peaks; every one has been kissed to vapor by the sun; every one has worn the seven-hued garment of light; every one has fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs and laughed in brooks while lovers wooed upon the banks, and every one has rushed with mighty rivers back to the sea's embrace. Everything in nature tells a different story to all eyes that see and to all ears that hear.
Once in my life, and once only, I heard Horace Greeley deliver a lecture. I think its title was, "Across the Continent." At last he reached the mammoth trees of California, and I thought "Here is an opportunity for the old man to indulge his fancy. Here are trees that have outlived a thousand human governments. There are limbs above his head older than the pyramids. While man was emerging from barbarism to something like civilization, these trees were growing. Older than history, every one appeared to be a memory, a witness, and a prophecy. The same wind that filled the sails of the Argonauts had swayed these trees." But these trees said nothing of this kind to Mr. Greeley. Upon these subjects not a word was told to him. Instead, he took his pencil, and after figuring awhile, remarked: "One of these trees, sawed into inch-boards, would make more than three hundred thousand feet of lumber."
I was once riding on the cars in Illinois. There had been a violent thunder-storm. The rain had ceased, the sun was going down. The great clouds had floated toward the west, and there they assumed most wonderful architectural shapes. There were temples and palaces domed and turreted, and they were touched with silver, with amethyst and gold. They looked like the homes of the Titans, or the palaces of the gods. A man was sitting near me. I touched him and said, "Did you ever see anything so beautiful!" He looked out. He saw nothing of the cloud, nothing of the sun, nothing of the color; he saw only the country and replied, "Yes, it is beautiful; I always did like rolling land." On another occasion I was riding in a stage. There had been a snow, and after the snow a sleet, and all the trees were bent, and all the boughs were arched. Every fence, every log cabin had been transfigured, touched with a glory almost beyond this world. The great fields were a pure and perfect white; the forests, drooping beneath their load of gems, made wonderful caves, from which one almost expected to see troops of fairies come. The whole world looked like a bride, jewelled from head to foot. A German on the back seat, hearing our talk, and our exclamations of wonder leaned forward, looked out of the stage window and said: "Yes, it looks like a clean table cloth!"
So, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a violet, the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we have thought, the more we remember, the more the statue, the star, the painting, the violet has to tell. Nature says to me all that I am capable of understanding—gives all that I can receive.
As with star, or flower, or sea, so with a book. A man reads Shakespeare. What does he get from him? All that he has the mind to understand. He gets his little cup full. Let another read him who knows nothing of the drama, nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get? Almost nothing. Shakespeare has a different story for each reader. He is a world in which each recognizes his acquaintances—he may know a few, he may know all.
The impression that nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea and star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. Leaving out for the moment the impression gained from ancestors, the hereditary fears and drifts and trends—the natural food of thought must be the impression made upon the brain by coming in contact through the medium of the five senses with what we call the outward world. The brain is natural. Its food is natural. The result, thought, must be natural. The supernatural can be constructed with no material except the natural. Of the supernatural we can have no conception. Thought may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and denominated as unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural. It may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. Above the natural man cannot rise, even with the aid of fancy's wings. There can can be deformed ideas, as there are deformed persons. There can be religions monstrous and misshapen, but they must be naturally produced. Some people have ideas about what they are pleased to call the supernatural; but what they call the supernatural is simply the deformed. The world is to each man according to each man. It takes the world as it really is and that man to make that man's world, and that man's world cannot exist without that man.
You may ask, and what of all this? I reply, as with everything in nature, so with the Bible. It has a different story for each reader. Is then the Bible a different book to every human being who reads it? It is. Can God then, through the Bible, make the same revelation to two persons? He cannot. Why? Because the man who reads it is the man who inspires. Inspiration is in the man, as well as in the book. God should have inspired readers as well as writers.
You may reply: "God knew that his book would be understood differently by each one, and that he really intended that it should be understood as it is understood by each." If this is so, then my understanding of the Bible is the real revelation to me. If this is so, I have no right to take the understanding of another. I must take the revelation made to me through my understanding, and by that revelation I must stand. Suppose then, that I do read this Bible honestly, fairly, and when I get through I am compelled to say, "The book is not true." If this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that God has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not true, is the revelation made to me, and by which I am bound. If the book and my brain are both the work of the same Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and the brain do not agree? Either God should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his book.
The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of him who reads. There was a time when its geology, its astronomy, its natural history, were inspired. That time has passed. There was a time when its morality satisfied the men who ruled mankind. That time has passed. There was a time when the tyrant regarded its laws as good; when the master believed in its liberty; when strength gloried in its passages; but these laws never satisfied the oppressed, they were never quoted by the slave.
We have a sacred book, an inspired Bible, and I am told that this book was written by the same being who made every star, and who peopled infinite space with infinite worlds. I am also told that God created man, and that man is totally depraved. It has always seemed to me that an infinite being has no right to make imperfect things. I may be mistaken; but this is the only planet I have ever been on; I live in what might be called one of the rural districts of this universe, consequently I may be mistaken; I simply give the best and largest thought I have.
IV. GOD'S EXPERIMENT WITH THE JEWS
THE Bible tells us that men became so bad that God destroyed them all with the exception of eight persons; that afterwards he chose Abraham and some of his kindred, a wandering tribe, for the purpose of seeing whether or no they could be civilized. He had no time to waste with all the world. The Egyptians at that time, a vast and splendid nation, having a system of laws and free schools, believing in the marriage of the one man to the one woman; believing, too, in the rights of woman—a nation that had courts of justice and understood the philosophy of damages—these people had received no revelation from God,—they were left to grope in Nature's night. He had no time to civilize India, wherein had grown a civilization that fills the world with wonder still—a people with a language as perfect as ours, a people who had produced philosophers, scientists, poets. He had no time to waste on them; but he took a few, the tribe of Abraham. He established a perfect despotism—with no schools, with no philosophy, with no art, with no music—nothing but the sacrifices of dumb beasts—nothing but the abject worship of a slave. Not a word upon geology, upon astronomy; nothing, even, upon the science of medicine. Thus God spent hours and hours with Moses upon the top of Sinai, giving directions for ascertaining the presence of leprosy and for preventing its spread, but it never occurred to Jehovah to tell Moses how it could be cured. He told them a few things about what they might eat—prohibiting among other things four-footed birds, and one thing upon the subject of cooking. From the thunders and lightnings of Sinai he proclaimed this vast and wonderful fact: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." He took these people, according to our sacred Scriptures, under his immediate care, and for the purpose of controlling them he wrought wonderful miracles in their sight.
Is it not a little curious that no priest of one religion has ever been able to astonish a priest of another religion by telling a miracle? Our missionaries tell the Hindoos the miracles of the Bible, and the Hindoo priests, without the movement of a muscle, hear them and then recite theirs, and theirs do not astonish our missionaries in the least! Is it not a little curious that the priests of one religion never believe the priests of another? Is it not a little strange that the believers in sacred books regard all except their own as having been made by hypocrites and fools?
I heard the other day a story. A gentleman was telling some wonderful things and the listeners, with one exception, were saying, as he proceeded with his tale, "Is it possible?" "Did you ever hear anything so wonderful?" and when he had concluded, there was a kind of chorus of "Is it possible?" and "Can it be?" One man, however, sat perfectly quiet, utterly unmoved. Another listener said to him "Did you hear that?" and he replied "Yes." "Well," said the other, "You did not manifest much astonishment." "Oh, no," was the answer, "I am a liar myself."
I am told by the sacred Scriptures that, as a matter of fact, God, even with the help of miracles, failed to civilize the Jews, and this shows of how little real benefit, after all, it is, to have a ruler much above the people, or to simply excite the wonder of mankind. Infinite wisdom, if the account be true, could not civilize a single tribe. Laws made by Jehovah himself were not obeyed, and every effort of Jehovah failed. It is claimed that God made known his law and inspired men to write and teach his will, and yet, it was found utterly impossible to reform mankind.
V. CIVILIZED COUNTRIES
IN all civilized countries, it is now passionately asserted that slavery is a crime; that a war of conquest is murder; that polygamy enslaves woman, degrades man and destroys home; that nothing is more infamous than the slaughter of decrepit men, of helpless mothers, and of prattling babes; that captured maidens should not be given to their captors; that wives should not be stoned to death for differing with their husbands on the subject of religion. We know that there was a time, in the history of most nations, when all these crimes were regarded as divine institutions. Nations entertaining this view now are regarded as savage, and, with the exception of the South Sea Islanders, Feejees, a few tribes in Central Africa, and some citizens of Delaware, no human beings are found degraded enough to agree upon these subjects with Jehovah.
The only evidence we can have that a nation has ceased to be savage, is that it has abandoned these doctrines of savagery.
To every one except a theologian, it is easy to account for these mistakes and crimes by saying that civilization is a painful growth; that the moral perceptions are cultivated through ages of tyranny, of crime, and of heroism; that it requires centuries for man to put out the eyes of self and hold in lofty and in equal poise the golden scales of Justice. Conscience is born of suffering. Mercy is the child of the imagination. Man advances as he becomes acquainted with his surroundings, with the mutual obligations of life, and learns to take advantage of the forces of nature.
The believer in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled to say, that there was a time when slavery was right, when women could sell their babes, when polygamy was the highest form of virtue, when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of mercy, when religious toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having expressed an honest thought. He is compelled to insist that Jehovah is as bad now as he was then; that he is as good now as he was then. Once, all the crimes that I have mentioned were commanded by God; now they are prohibited. Once, God was in favor of them all; now the Devil is their defender. In other words, the Devil entertains the same opinion to-day that God held four thousand years ago. The Devil is as good now as Jehovah was then, and God was as bad then as the Devil is now. Other nations besides the Jews had similar laws and ideas—believed in and practiced the same crimes, and yet, it is not claimed that they received a revelation. They had no knowledge of the true God, and yet they practiced the same crimes, of their own motion, that the Jews did by command of Jehovah. From this it would seem that man can do wrong without a special revelation.
The passages upholding slavery, polygamy, war and religious persecution are certainly not evidences of the inspiration of that book. Suppose nothing had been in the Old Testament upholding these crimes, would the modern Christian suspect that it was not inspired on that account? Suppose nothing had been in the Old Testament except laws in favor of these crimes, would it still be insisted that it was inspired? If the Devil had inspired a book, will some Christian tell us in what respect, on the subjects of slavery, polygamy, war and liberty, it would have differed from some parts of the Old Testament? Suppose we knew that after inspired men had finished the Bible the Devil had gotten possession of it and had written a few passages, what part would Christians now pick out as being probably his work? Which of the following passages would be selected as having been written by the Devil: "Love thy neighbor as thyself," or "Kill all the males among the little ones, and kill every woman, but all the women children keep alive for yourselves"?
Is there a believer in the Bible who does not now wish that God, amid the thunders and lightnings of Sinai, had said to Moses that man should not own his fellow-man; that women should not sell their babes; that all men should be allowed to think and investigate for themselves, and that the sword never should be unsheathed to shed innocent blood? Is there a believer who would not be delighted to find that every one of the infamous passages are interpolations, and that the skirts of God were never reddened by the blood of maiden, wife, or babe? Is there an honest man who does not regret that God commanded a husband to stone his wife for suggesting the worship of some other God? Surely we do not need an inspired book to teach us that slavery is right, that polygamy is virtue, and that intellectual liberty is a crime.
VI. A COMPARISON OF BOOKS
LET us compare the gems of Jehovah with Pagan paste. It may be that the best way to illustrate what I have said, is to compare the supposed teachings of Jehovah with those of persons who never wrote an inspired line. In all ages of which any record has been preserved, men have given their ideas of justice, charity, liberty, love and law. If the Bible is the work of God, it should contain the sublimest truths, it should excel the works of man, it should contain the loftiest definitions of justice, the best conceptions of human liberty, the clearest outlines of duty, the tenderest and noblest thoughts. Upon every page should be found the luminous evidence of its divine origin. It should contain grander and more wonderful things than man has written.
It may be said that it is unfair to call attention to bad things in the Bible. To this it may be replied that a divine being ought not to put bad things in his book. If the Bible now upholds what we call crimes, it will not do to say that it is not verbally inspired. If the words are not inspired, what is? It may be said, that the thoughts are inspired. This would include only thoughts expressed without words. If ideas are inspired, they must be expressed by inspired words—that is to say, by an inspired arrangement of words. If a sculptor were inspired of God to make a statue, we would not say that the marble was inspired, but the statue—that is to say, the relation of part to part, the married harmony of form and function. The language, the words, take the place of the marble, and it is the arrangement of the words that Christians claim to be inspired. If there is an uninspired word, or a word in the wrong place, until that word is known a doubt is cast on every word the book contains.
If it was worth God's while to make a revelation at all, it was certainly worth his while to see that it was correctly made—that it was absolutely preserved.
Why should God allow an inspired book to be interpolated? If it was worth while to inspire men to write it, it was worth while to inspire men to preserve it; and why should he allow another person to interpolate in it that which was not inspired? He certainly would not have allowed the man he inspired to write contrary to the inspiration. He should have preserved his revelation. Neither will it do to say that God adapted his revelation to the prejudices of man. It was necessary for him to adapt his revelation to the capacity of man, but certainly God would not confirm a barbarian in his prejudices. He would not fortify a heathen in his crimes....
If a revelation is of any importance, it is to eradicate prejudice. They tell us now that the Jews were so ignorant, so bad, that God was compelled to justify their crimes, in order to have any influence with them. They say that if he had declared slavery and polygamy to be crimes, the Jews would have refused to receive the Ten Commandments. They tell us that God did the best he could; that his real intention was to lead them along slowly, so that in a few hundred years they would be induced to admit that larceny and murder and polygamy and slavery were not virtues. I suppose if we now wished to break a cannibal of the bad habit of devouring missionaries, we would first induce him to cook them in a certain way, saying: "To eat cooked missionary is one step in advance of eating your missionary raw. After a few years, a little mutton could be cooked with missionary, and year after year the amount of mutton could be increased and the amount of missionary decreased, until in the fullness of time the dish could be entirely mutton, and after that the missionaries would be absolutely safe."
If there is anything of value, it is liberty—liberty of body, liberty of mind. The liberty of body is the reward of labor. Intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind, and without it, the world is a prison, the universe a dungeon.
If the Bible is really inspired, Jehovah commanded the Jewish people to buy the children of the strangers that sojourned among them, and ordered that the children thus bought should be an inheritance for the children of the Jews, and that they should be bondmen and bondwomen forever. Yet Epictetus, a man to whom no revelation was ever made, a man whose soul followed only the light of nature, and who had never heard of the Jewish God, was great enough to say: "Will you not remember that your servants are by nature your brothers, the children of God? In saying that you have bought them, you look down on the earth, and into the pit, on the wretched law of men long since dead, but you see not the laws of the gods."
We find that Jehovah, speaking to his chosen people, assured them that their bondmen and their bondmaids must be "of the heathen that were round about them." "Of them," said Jehovah, "shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." And yet Cicero, a pagan, Cicero, who had never been enlightened by reading the Old Testament, had the moral grandeur to declare: "They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever."
If the Bible is inspired, Jehovah, God of all worlds, actually said: "And if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be sorely punished; notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." And yet Zeno, founder of the Stoics, centuries before Christ was born, insisted that no man could be the owner of another, and that the title was bad, whether the slave had become so by conquest or by purchase.
Jehovah ordered a Jewish general to make war, and gave, among others, this command: "When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." And yet Epictetus, whom we have already quoted, gave this marvelous rule for the guidance of human conduct: "Live with thy inferiors as thou wouldst have thy superiors live with thee."
Is it possible, after all, that a being of infinite goodness and wisdom said: "I will heap mischief upon them; I will send mine arrows upon them; they shall be burned with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction. I will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs" while Seneca, an uninspired Roman, said: "The wise man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. He will spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on account of their ignorance. His clemency will not fall short of justice, but will fulfill it perfectly."
Can we believe that God ever said to any one: "Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children." If he ever said these words, surely he had never heard this line, this strain of music from the Hindu: "Sweet is the lute to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children."
Jehovah, "from the clouds and darkness of Sinai," said to the Jews: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me.... Though shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." Contrast this with the words put by the Hindu in the mouth of Brahma: "I am the same to all mankind. They who honestly serve other gods involuntarily worship me. I am he who partakest of all worship, and I am the reward of all worshipers."
Compare these passages; the first a dungeon where crawl the things begot of jealous slime; the other, great as the domed firmament inlaid with suns. Is it possible that the real God ever said:
"And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet; and I will stretch out my hand upon him and will destroy him from the midst of my people." Compare that passage with one from a Pagan.
"It is better to keep silence for the remainder of your life than to speak falsely."
Can we believe that a being of infinite mercy gave this command:
"Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate, throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor; consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every man upon his son and upon his brother, that he may bestow a blessing upon you this day."
Surely, that God was not animated by so great and magnanimous a spirit as was Antoninus, a Roman emperor, who declared that, "he had rather keep a single Roman citizen alive than slay a thousand enemies."
Compare the laws given to the children of Israel, as it is claimed by the Creator of us all, with the following from Marcus Aurelius:
"I have formed the ideal of a state, in which there is the same law for all, and equal rights, and equal liberty of speech established; an empire where nothing is honored so much as the freedom of the citizen."
In the Avesta I find this: "I belong to five: to those who think good, to those who speak good, to those who do good, to those who hear, and to those who are pure."
"Which is the one prayer which in greatness, goodness, and beauty is worth all that is between heaven and earth and between this earth and the stars? And he replied: To renounce all evil thoughts and words and works."
VII.
IT is claimed by the Christian world that one of the great reasons for giving an inspired book to the Jews was, that through them the world might learn that there is but one God. This piece of information has been supposed to be of infinite value. As a matter of fact, long before Moses was born, the Egyptians believed and taught that there was but one God—that is to say, that above all intelligences there was the one Supreme. They were guilty, too, of the same inconsistencies of modern Christians. They taught the doctrine of the Trinity—God the Father, God the Mother, and God the Son. God was frequently represented as father, mother and babe. They also taught that the soul had a divine origin; that after death it was to be judged according to the deeds done in the body; that those who had done well passed into perpetual joy, and those who had done evil into endless pain. In this they agreed with the most approved divine of the nineteenth century. Women were the equals of men, and Egypt was often governed by queens. In this, her government was vastly better than the one established by God. The laws were administered by courts much like ours. In Egypt there was a system of schools that gave the son of poverty a chance of advancement, and the highest offices were open to the successful scholar. The Egyptian married one wife. The wife was called "the lady of the house." The women were not secluded. The people were not divided into castes. There was nothing to prevent the rise of able and intelligent Egyptians. But like the Jehovah of the Jews, they made slaves of the captives of war.
The ancient Persians believed in one God; and women helped to found the Parsee religion. Nothing can exceed some of the maxims of Zoroaster. The Hindoos taught that above all, and over all, was one eternal Supreme. They had a code of laws. They understood the philosophy of evidence and of damages. They knew better than to teach the doctrine of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
They knew that when one man maimed another, it was not to the interest of society to have that man maimed, thus burdening the people with two cripples, but that it was better to make the man who maimed the other work to support him. In India, upon the death of a father, the daughters received twice as much from the estate as the sons.
The Romans built temples to Truth, Faith, Valor, Concord, Modesty, and Charity, in which they offered sacrifices to the highest conceptions of human excellence. Women had rights; they presided in the temple; they officiated in holy offices; they guarded the sacred fires upon which the safety of Rome depended; and when Christ came, the grandest figure in the known world was the Roman mother.
It will not do to say that some rude statue was made by an inspired sculptor, and that the Apollo of Belvidere, Venus de Milo, and the Gladiator were made by unaided men; that the daubs of the early ages were painted by divine assistance, while the Raphaels, the Angelos, and the Rembrandts did what they did without the help of heaven. It will not do to say, that the first hut was built by God, and the last palace by degraded man; that the hoarse songs of the savage tribes were made by the Deity, but that Hamlet and Lear were written by man; that the pipes of Pan were invented in heaven, and all other musical instruments on the earth.
If the Jehovah of the Jews had taken upon himself flesh, and dwelt as a man among the people had he endeavored to govern, had he followed his own teachings, he would have been a slaveholder, a buyer of babes, and a beater of women. He would have waged wars of extermination. He would have killed grey-haired and trembling age, and would have sheathed his sword, in prattling, dimpled babes. He would have been a polygamist, and would have butchered his wife for differing with him on the subject of religion.
VIII. THE NEW TESTAMENT.
NE great objection to the Old Testament is the cruelty said to have been commanded by God. All these cruelties ceased with death. The vengeance of Jehovah stopped at the tomb. He never threatened to punish the dead; and there is not one word, from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse of Malachi, containing the slightest intimation that God will take his revenge in another world. It was reserved for the New Testament to make known the doctrine of eternal pain. The teacher of universal benevolence rent the veil between time and eternity, and fixed the horrified gaze of man upon the lurid gulf of hell. Within the breast of non-resistance coiled the worm that never dies. Compared with this, the doctrine of slavery, the wars of extermination, the curses, the punishments of the Old Testament were all merciful and just.
There is no time to speak of the conflicting statements in the various books composing the New Testament—no time to give the history of the manuscripts, the errors in translation, the interpolations made by the fathers and by their successors, the priests, and only time to speak of a few objections, including some absurdities and some contradictions.
Where several witnesses testify to the same transaction, no matter how honest they may be, they will disagree upon minor matters, and such testimony is generally considered as evidence that the witnesses have not conspired among themselves. The differences in statement are accounted for from the facts that all do not see alike, and that all have not equally good memories; but when we claim that the witnesses are inspired, we must admit that he who inspired them did know exactly what occurred, and consequently there should be no disagreement, even in the minutest detail. The accounts should not only be substantially, but they should be actually, the same. The differences and contradictions can be accounted for by the weaknesses of human nature, but these weaknesses cannot be predicated of divine wisdom.
And here let me ask: Why should there have been more than one correct account of what really happened? Why were four gospels necessary? It seems to me that one inspired gospel, containing all that happened, was enough. Copies of the one correct one could have been furnished to any extent. According to Doctor Davidson, Irenæus argues that the gospels were four in number, because there are four universal winds, four corners of the globe. Others have said, because there are four seasons; and these gentlemen might have added, because a donkey has four legs. For my part, I cannot even conceive of a reason for more than one gospel.
According to one of these gospels, and according to the prevalent Christian belief, the Christian religion rests upon the doctrine of the atonement. If this doctrine is without foundation, the fabric falls; and it is without foundation, for it is repugnant to justice and mercy. The church tells us that the first man committed a crime for which all others are responsible. This absurdity was the father and mother of another—that a man can be rewarded for the good action of another. We are told that God made a law, with the penalty of eternal death. All men, they tell us, have broken this law. The law had to be vindicated. This could be done by damning everybody, but through what is known as the atonement the salvation of a few was made possible. They insist that the law demands the extreme penalty, that justice calls for its victim, that mercy ceases to plead, and that God by allowing the innocent to suffer in the place of the guilty settled satisfactory with the law. To carry out this scheme God was born as a babe, grew in stature, increased in knowledge, and at the age of thirty-three years having lived a life filled with kindness, having practiced every virtue, he was sacrificed as an atonement for man. It is claimed that he took our place, bore our sins, our guilt, and in this way satisfied the justice of God.
Under the Mosaic dispensation there was no remission of sin except through the shedding of blood. When a man sinned he must bring to the priest a lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a pair of turtle-doves.
The priest would lay his hand upon the animal and the sin of the man would be transferred to the beast. Then the animal would be killed in place of the sinner, and the blood thus shed would be sprinkled upon the altar. In this way Jehovah was satisfied. The greater the crime, the greater the sacrifice. There was a ratio between the value of the animal and the enormity of the sin.
The most minute directions were given as to the killing of these animals. Every priest became a butcher, every synagogue a slaughter-house. Nothing could be more utterly shocking to a refined soul, nothing better calculated to harden the heart, than the continual shedding of innocent blood. This terrible system culminated in the sacrifice of Christ. His blood took the place of all other. It is not necessary to shed any more. The law at last is satisfied, satiated, surfeited.
The idea that God wants blood is at the bottom of the atonement, and rests upon the most fearful savagery; and yet the Mosaic dispensation was better adapted to prevent the commission of sin than the Christian system. Under that dispensation, if you committed a sin, you had to bring a sacrifice—dove, sheep, or bullock, now, when a sin is committed, the Christian says, "Charge it," "Put it on the slate, If I don't pay it the Savior will." In this way, rascality is sold on a credit, and the credit system of religion breeds extravagance in sin. The Mosaic dispensation was based upon far better business principles. The debt had to be paid, and by the man who owed it. We are told that the sinner is in debt to God, and that the obligation is discharged by the Savior. The best that can be said of such a transaction is that the debt is transferred, not paid. As a matter of fact, the sinner is in debt to the person he has injured. If you injure a man, it is not enough to get the forgiveness of God—you must get the man's forgiveness, you must get your own. If a man puts his hand in the fire and God forgives him, his hand will smart just as badly. You must reap what you sow. No God can give you wheat when you sow tares, and no Devil can give you tares when you sow wheat. We must remember that in nature there are neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences. The life and death of Christ do not constitute an atonement. They are worth the example, the moral force, the heroism of benevolence, and in so far as the life of Christ produces emulation in the direction of goodness, it has been of value to mankind.
To make innocence suffer is the greatest sin, and it may be the only sin. How, then, is it possible to make the consequences of sin an atonement for sin, when the consequences of sin are to be borne by one who has not sinned, and the one who has sinned is to reap the reward of virtue? No honorable man should be willing that another should suffer for him. No good law can accept the sufferings of innocence as an atonement for the guilty; and besides, if there was no atonement until the crucifixion of Christ, what became of the countless millions who died before that time? We must remember that the Jews did not kill animals for the Gentiles. Jehovah hated foreigners. There was no way provided for the forgiveness of a heathen. What has become of the millions who have died since, without having heard of the atonement? What becomes of those who hear and do not believe? Can there be a law that demands that the guilty be rewarded. And yet, to reward the guilty is far nearer justice than to punish the innocent. If the doctrine of the atonement is true, there would have been no heaven had no atonement been made.
If Judas had understood the Christian system, if he knew that Christ must be betrayed, and that God was depending on him to betray him, and that without the betrayal no human soul could be saved, what should Judas have done?
Jehovah took special charge of the Jewish people. He did this for the purpose of civilizing them. If he had succeeded in civilizing them, he would have made the damnation of the entire human race a certainty; because if the Jews had been a civilized people when Christ appeared—a people who had not been hardened by the laws of Jehovah—they would not have crucified Christ, and as a consequence, the world would have been lost. If the Jews had believed in religious freedom, in the rights of thought and speech, if the Christian religion is true, not a human soul ever could have been saved. If, when Christ was on his way to Calvary, some brave soul had rescued him from the pious mob, he would not only have been damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the salvation of any human being.
The Christian world has been trying for nearly two thousand years to explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an admission that it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. Has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin? Can men be made better by being taught that sin gives happiness here; that to live a virtuous life is to bear a cross; that men can repent between the last sin and the last breath; and that repentance washes every stain of the soul away? Is it good to teach that the serpent of regret will not hiss in the ear of memory; that the saved will not even pity the victims of their crimes; and that sins forgiven cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned against?
Another objection is, that a certain belief is necessary to save the soul. This doctrine, I admit, is taught in the gospel according to John, and in many of the epistles; I deny that it is taught in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. It is, however, asserted by the church that to believe is the only safe way. To this, I reply: Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or disbelieves in spite of himself. They tell us that to believe is the safe way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest. Nothing can be safer than that. No man in the hour of death ever regretted having been honest. No man when the shadows of the last day were gathering about the pillow of death, ever regretted that he had given to his fellow-man his honest thought. No man, in the presence of eternity, ever wished that he had been a hypocrite. No man ever then regretted that he did not throw away his reason. It certainly cannot be necessary to throw away your reason to save your soul, because after that, your soul is not worth saving. The soul has a right to defend itself. My brain is my castle; and when I waive the right to defend it, I become an intellectual serf and slave.
I do not admit that a man by doing me an injury can place me under obligations to do him a service. To render benefits for injuries is to ignore all distinctions between actions. He who treats friends and enemies alike has neither love nor justice. The idea of non-resistance never occurred to a man with power to defend himself. The mother of this doctrine was weakness. To allow a crime to be committed, even against yourself, when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime yourself. The church has preached the doctrine of non-resistance, and under that banner has shed the blood of millions. In the folds of her sacred vestments have gleamed for centuries the daggers of assassination. With her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. For more than a thousand years larceny held the scales of justice, hypocrisy wore the mitre and tiara, while beggars scorned the royal sons of toil, and ignorant fear denounced the liberty of thought.
XI. CHRIST'S MISSION.
HE came, they tell us, to make a revelation, and what did he reveal? "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? That was in the Old Testament. "Love God with all thy heart"? That was in the Old Testament. "Return good for evil"? That was said by Buddha, seven hundred years before Christ was born. "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you"? That was the doctrine of Lao-tsze. Did he come to give a rule of action? Zoroaster had done this long before: "Whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it." Did he come to tell us of another world? The immortality of the soul had been taught by the Hindoos, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans hundreds of years before he was born. What argument did he make in favor of immortality? What facts did he furnish? What star of hope did he put above the darkness of this world? Did he come simply to tell us that we should not revenge ourselves upon our enemies? Long before, Socrates had said: "One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him." And Cicero had said: "Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive." Is there anything in the literature of the world more nearly perfect than this thought?
Was it from Christ the world learned the first lesson of forbearance, when centuries and centuries before, Chrishna had said, "If a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again?" Is it possible that the son of God threatened to say to a vast majority, of his children, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels," while the Buddhist was great and tender enough to say:
"Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation; never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. Never will I leave this world of sin and sorrow and struggle until all are delivered. Until then, I will remain and suffer where I am?"
Is there anything in the New Testament as beautiful as this, from a Sufi?—"Better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love than seventy thousand years of outward worship."
Is there anything comparable to this?—"Whoever carelessly treads on a worm that crawls on the earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from God."
Is there anything in the New Testament more beautiful than the story of the Sufi?
For seven years a Sufi practised every virtue, and then he mounted the three steps that lead to the doors of Paradise. He knocked and a voice said: "Who is there?" The Sufi replied: "Thy servant, O God." But the doors remained closed.
Yet seven other years the Sufi engaged in every good work. He comforted the sorrowing and divided his substance with the poor. Again he mounted the three steps, again knocked at the doors of Paradise, and again the voice asked: "Who is there?" and the Sufi replied: "Thy slave, O God."—But the doors remained closed.
Yet seven other years the Sufi spent in works of charity, in visiting the imprisoned and the sick. Again he mounted the steps, again knocked at the celestial doors. Again he heard the question: "Who is there?" and he replied: "Thyself, O God."—The gates wide open flew.
Is it possible that St. Paul was inspired of God, when he said: "Let the women learn in silence, with all subjection."—"Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man?"
And is it possible that Epictetus, without the slightest aid from heaven, gave to the world this gem of love:
"What is more delightful than to be so dear to your wife, as to be on that account dearer to yourself?"
Did St. Paul express the sentiments of God when he wrote—
"But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of every woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord?"
And was the author of this, a poor despised heathen?—
"In whatever house the husband is contented with the wife, and the wife with the husband, in that house will fortune dwell; but upon the house where women are not honored, let a curse be pronounced. Where the wife is honored, there the gods are truly worshiped."
Is there anything in the New Testament as beautiful as this?—
"Shall I tell thee where nature is most blest and fair? It is where those we love abide. Though that space be small, it is ample above kingdoms; though it be a desert, through it run the rivers of Paradise."
After reading the curses pronounced in the Old
Testament upon Jew and heathen, the descriptions of slaughter, of treachery and of death, the destruction of women and babes; after you shall have read all the chapters of horror in the New Testament, the threatenings of fire and flame, then read this, from the greatest of human beings:
"The quality of mercy is not strained:
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown."
X. ETERNAL PAIN
UPON passages in the New Testament rests the doctrine of eternal pain. This doctrine subverts every idea of justice. A finite being can neither commit an infinite sin, nor a sin against the Infinite. A being of infinite goodness and wisdom has no right to create any being whose life is not a blessing. Infinite wisdom has no right to create a failure, and surely a man destined to everlasting failure is not a conspicuous success. The doctrine of eternal punishment is the most infamous of all doctrines—born of ignorance, cruelty and fear. Around the angel of immortality, Christianity has coiled this serpent.
Upon Love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp. And yet in the same book in which is taught this most frightful of dogmas, we are assured that "the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works."
A few days ago upon the wide sea, was found a barque called "The Tiger," Captain Kreuger, in command. The vessel had been one hundred and twenty-six days upon the sea. For days the crew had been without water, without food, and were starving. For nine days not a drop had passed their lips. The crew consisted of the captain, a mate, and eleven men. At the end of one hundred and eighteen days from Liverpool they killed the captain's Newfoundland dog. This lasted them four days. During the next five days they had nothing. For weeks they had had no light and were unable to see the compass at night. On the one hundred and twenty-fifth day Captain Kreuger, a German, took a revolver in his hand, stood up before the men, and placing the weapon at his temple said: "Boys, we can't stand this much longer, and to save you all, I am willing to die." The mate grasped the revolver and begged the captain to wait another day. The next day, upon the horizon of their despair, they saw the smoke of the steamship Nebo. They were rescued.
Suppose that Captain Kreuger was not a Christian, and suppose that he had sent the ball crashing through his brain, and had done so simply to keep the crew from starvation, do you tell me that a God of infinite mercy would forever damn that man?
Do not misunderstand me. I insist that every passage in the Bible upholding crime was written by savage man. I insist that if there is a God, he is not, never was, and never will be in favor of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, or religious persecution. Does any Christian believe that if the real God were to write a book now, he would uphold the crimes commanded in the Old Testament? Has Jehovah improved? Has infinite mercy become more merciful? Has infinite wisdom intellectually advanced?
WILL any one claim that the passages upholding slavery have liberated mankind? Are we indebted to polygamy for our modern homes? Was religious liberty born of that infamous verse in which the husband is commanded to kill his wife for worshiping an unknown God?
The usual answer to these objections is, that no country has ever been civilized without a Bible. The Jews were the only people to whom Jehovah made his will directly known. Were they better than other nations? They read the Old Testament and one of the effects of such reading was, that they crucified a kind, loving, and perfectly innocent man. Certainly they could not have done worse, without a Bible. In crucifying Christ the Jews followed the teachings of his Father. If Jehovah was in fact God, and if that God took upon himself flesh and came among the Jews, and preached what the Jews understood to be blasphemy; and if the Jews in accordance with the laws given by this same Jehovah to Moses, crucified him, then I say, and I say it with infinite reverence, he reaped what he had sown. He became the victim of his own injustice.
But I insist that these things are not true. I insist that the real God, if there is one, never commanded man to enslave his fellow-man, never told a mother to sell her babe, never established polygamy, never urged one nation to exterminate another, and never told a husband to kill his wife because she suggested the worship of another God.
From the aspersions of the pulpit, from the slanders of the church, I seek to rescue the reputation of the Deity. I insist that the Old Testament would be a better book with all these passages left out; and whatever may be said of the rest of the Bible, the passages to which I have called attention can, with vastly more propriety, be attributed to a devil than to a god.
Take from the New Testament the idea that belief is necessary to salvation; that Christ was offered as an atonement for the sins of mankind; that heaven is the reward of faith, and hell the penalty of honest investigation, and that the punishment of the human soul will go on forever; take from it all miracles and foolish stories, and I most cheerfully admit that the good passages are true. If they are true, it makes no difference whether they are inspired or not. Inspiration is only necessary to give authority to that which is repugnant to human reason. Only that which never happened needs to be substantiated by a miracle.
The universe is natural.
The church must cease to insist that passages upholding the institutions of savage men were inspired of God. The dogma of atonement must be abandoned. Good deeds must take the place of faith. The savagery of eternal punishment must be renounced. It must be admitted that credulity is not a virtue, and that investigation is not a crime. It must be admitted that miracles are the children of mendacity, and that nothing can be more wonderful than the majestic, unbroken, sublime, and eternal procession of causes and effects. Reason must be the arbiter. Inspired books attested by miracles cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. A religion that does not command the respect of the greatest minds will, in a little while, excite the mockery of all.
A man who does not believe in intellectual liberty is a barbarian. Is it possible that God is intolerant? Could there be any progress, even in heaven, without intellectual liberty? Is the freedom of the future to exist only in perdition? Is it not, after all, barely possible that a man acting like Christ can be saved? Is a man to be eternally rewarded for believing according to evidence, without evidence, or against evidence? Are we to be saved because we are good, or because another was virtuous? Is credulity to be winged and crowned, whilst honest doubt is chained and damned.
If Jehovah, was in fact God, he knew the end from the beginning. He knew that his Bible would be a breast-work behind which all tyranny and hypocrisy would crouch. He knew that his Bible would be the auction-block on which women would stand while their babes were sold from their arms. He knew that this Bible would be quoted by tyrants; that it would be the defence of robbers called kings, and of hypocrites called priests. He knew that he had taught the Jewish people nothing of importance. He knew that he had found them free and left them slaves. He knew that he had never fulfilled a single promise made to them. He knew that while other nations had advanced in art and science his chosen people were savage still. He promised them the world, and gave them a desert. He promised them liberty and he made them slaves. He promised them victory and he gave them defeat. He said they should be kings and he made them serfs. He promised them universal empire and gave them exile. When one finishes the Old Testament he is compelled to say: "Nothing can add to the misery of a nation whose king is Jehovah!"
The Old Testament filled this world with tyranny and injustice, and the New gives us a future filled with pain for nearly all of the sons of men.
The Old Testament describes the hell of the past, and the New the hell of the future.
The Old Testament tells us the frightful things that God has done, the New the frightful things that he will do.
These two books give us the sufferings of the past and the future—the injustice, the agony and the tears of both worlds.
IT is utterly inconceivable that any man believing in the truth of the Christian religion should publicly deny it, because he who believes in that religion would believe that, by a public denial, he would peril the eternal salvation of his soul. It is conceivable, and without any great effort of the mind, that millions who do not believe in the Christian religion should openly say that they did. In a country where religion is supposed to be in power—where it has rewards for pretence, where it pays a premium upon hypocrisy, where it at least is willing to purchase silence—it is easily conceivable that millions pretend to believe what they do not. And yet I believe it has been charged against myself not only that I was insincere, but that I took the side I am on for the sake of popularity; and the audience to-night goes far toward justifying the accusation.
Orthodox Religion Dying Out.
It gives me immense pleasure to say to this audience that orthodox religion is dying out of the civilized world. It is a sick man. It has been attacked with two diseases—softening of the brain and ossification of the heart. It is a religion that no longer satisfies the intelligence of this country; that no longer satisfies the brain; a religion against which the heart of every civilized man and woman protests. It is a religion that gives hope only to a few; that puts a shadow upon the cradle; that wraps the coffin in darkness and fills the future of mankind with flame and fear. It is a religion that I am going to do what little I can while I live to destroy. In its place I want humanity, I want good fellowship, I want intellectual liberty—free lips, the discoveries and inventions of genius, the demonstrations of science—the religion of art, music and poetry—of good houses, good clothes, good wages—that is to say, the religion of this world.
Religious Deaths and Births.
We must remember that this is a world of progress, a world of perpetual change—a succession of coffins and cradles. There is perpetual death, and there is perpetual birth. By the grave of the old, forever stand youth and joy; and when an old religion dies, a better one is born. When we find out that an assertion is a falsehood a shining truth takes its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. The more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true.
There was a time when the astrologer sought to read in the stars the fate of men and nations. The astrologer has faded from the world, but the astronomer has taken his place. There was a time when the poor alchemist, bent and wrinkled and old, over his crucible endeavored to find some secret by which he could change the baser metals into purest gold. The alchemist has gone; the chemist took his place; and, although he finds nothing to change metals into gold, he finds something that covers the earth with wealth. There was a time when the soothsayer and augur flourished. After them came the parson and the priest; and the parson and the priest must go. The preacher must go, and in his place must come the teacher—the real interpreter of Nature. We are done with the supernatural. We are through with the miraculous and the impossible. There was once the prophet who pretended to read the book of the future. His place has been taken by the philosopher, who reasons from cause to effect—who finds the facts by which we are surrounded and endeavors to reason from these premises and to tell what in all probability will happen. The prophet has gone, the philosopher is here. There was a time when man sought aid from heaven—when he prayed to the deaf sky. There was a time when everything depended on the supernaturalist. That time in Christendom is passing away. We now depend upon the naturalist—not upon the believer in ancient falsehoods, but on the discoverer of facts—on the demonstrater of truths. At last we are beginning to build on a solid foundation, and as we progress, the supernatural dies. The leaders of the intellectual world deny the existence of the supernatural. They take from all superstition its foundation.
The Religion of Reciprocity.
Supernatural religion will fade from this world, and in its place we shall have reason. In the place of the worship of something we know not of, will be the religion of mutual love and assistance—the great religion of reciprocity. Superstition must go. Science will remain. The church dies hard. The brain of the world is not yet developed. There are intellectual diseases as well as physical—there are pestilences and plagues of the mind.
Whenever the new comes the old protests, and fights for its place as long as it has a particle of power. We are now having the same warfare between superstition and science that there was between the stage coach and the locomotive. But the stage coach had to go. It had its day of glory and power, but it is gone. It went West. In a little while it will be driven into the Pacific. So we find that there is the same conflict between the different sects and different schools not only of philosophy but of medicine.
Recollect that everything except the demonstrated truth is liable to die. That is the order of Nature. Words die. Every language has a cemetery. Every now and then a word dies and a tombstone is erected, and across it is written "obsolete." New words are continually being born. There is a cradle in which a word is rocked. A thought is married to a sound, and a child-word is born. And there comes a time when the word gets old, and wrinkled, and expressionless, and is carried mournfully to the grave. So in the schools of medicine. You can remember, so can I, when the old allopathists, the bleeders and blisterers, reigned supreme. If there was anything the matter with a man they let out his blood. Called to the bedside, they took him on the point of a lancet to the edge of eternity, and then practiced all their art to bring him back. One can hardly imagine how perfect a constitution it took a few years ago to stand the assault of a doctor. And long after the old practice was found to be a mistake hundreds and thousands of the ancient physicians clung to it, carried around with them, in one pocket a bottle of jalap, and in the other a rusty lancet, sorry that they could not find some patient with faith enough to allow the experiment to be made again.
So these schools, and these theories, and these religions die hard. What else can they do? Like the paintings of the old masters, they are kept alive because so much money has been invested in them. Think of the amount of money that has been invested in superstition! Think of the schools that have been founded for the more general diffusion of useless knowledge! Think of the colleges wherein men are taught that it is dangerous to think, and that they must never use their brains except in the act of faith! Think of the millions and billions of dollars that have been expended in churches, in temples, and in cathedrals! Think of the thousands and thousands of men who depend for their living upon the ignorance of mankind! Think of those who grow rich on credulity and who fatten on faith! Do you suppose they are going to die without a struggle? What are they to do? From the bottom of my heart I sympathize with the poor clergyman that has had all his common sense educated out of him, and is now to be thrown upon the cold and unbelieving world. His prayers are not answered; he gets no help from on high, and the pews are beginning to criticise the pulpit. What is the man to do? If he suddenly changes he is gone. If he preaches what he really believes he will get notice to quit. And yet, if he and the congregation would come together and be perfectly honest, they would all admit that they believe little and know nothing.
Only a little while ago a couple of ladies were riding together from a revival, late at night, and one said to the other, as they rode along: "I am going to say something that will shock you, and I beg of you never to tell it to anybody else. I am going to tell it to you." "Well, what is it?" Said she: "I do not believe the Bible." The other replied: "Neither do I."
I have often thought how splendid it would be if the ministers could but come together and say: "Now, let us be honest. Let us tell each other, honor bright"—like Dr. Curry, of Chicago, did in the meeting the other day—"just what we believe." They tell a story that in the old time a lot of people, about twenty, were in Texas in a little hotel, and one fellow got up before the fire, put his hands behind him, and said: "Boys, let us all tell our real names." If the ministers and their congregations would only tell their real thoughts they would find that they are nearly as bad as I am, and that they believe as little.
Orthodoxy dies hard, and its defenders tell us that this fact shows that it is of divine origin. Judaism dies hard. It has lived several thousand years longer than Christianity. The religion of Mohammed dies hard.
Buddhism dies hard. Why do all these religions die hard? Because intelligence increases slowly.
Let me whisper in the ear of the Protestant: Catholicism dies hard. What does that prove? It proves that the people are ignorant and that the priests are cunning.
Let me whisper in the ear of the Catholic: Protestantism dies hard. What does that prove? It proves that the people are superstitious and the preachers stupid.
Let me whisper in all your ears: Infidelity is not dying—it is growing—it increases every day. And what does that prove? It proves that the people are learning more and more—that they are advancing—that the mind is getting free, and that the race is being civilized.
The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.
The Blows That Have Shattered the Shield and Shivered the Lance of Superstition.
Mohammed.
Mohammed wrested from the disciples of the cross the fairest part of Europe. It was known that he was an impostor, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust and infidelity in the Christian world. Christians made an effort to rescue from the infidels the empty sepulchre of Christ. That commenced in the eleventh century and ended at the close of the thirteenth. Europe was almost depopulated. The fields were left waste, the villages were deserted, nations were impoverished, every man who owed a debt was discharged from payment if he put a cross upon his breast and joined the Crusades. No matter what crime he had committed, the doors of the prison were open for him to join the hosts of the cross. They believed that God would give them victory, and they carried in front of the first Crusade a goat and a goose, believing that both those animals were blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. And I may say that those same animals are in the lead to-day in the orthodox world. Until the year 1291 they endeavored to gain possession of that sepulchre, and finally the hosts of Christ were driven back, baffled and beaten,—a poor, miserable, religious rabble. They were driven back, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust in Christendom. You know that at that time the world believed in trial by battle—that God would take the side of the right—and there had been a trial by battle between the cross and the crescent, and Mohammed had been victorious. Was God at that time governing the world? Was he endeavoring to spread his gospel?
The Destruction of Art.
You know that when Christianity came into power it destroyed every statue it could lay its ignorant hands upon. It defaced and obliterated every painting; it destroyed every beautiful building; it burned the manuscripts, both Greek and Latin; it destroyed all the history, all the poetry, all the philosophy it could find, and reduced to ashes every library that it could reach with its torch. And the result was, that the night of the Middle Ages fell upon the human race. But by accident, by chance, by oversight, a few of the manuscripts escaped the fury of religious zeal; and these manuscripts became the seed, the fruit of which is our civilization of to-day. A few statues had been buried; a few forms of beauty were dug from the earth that had protected them, and now the civilized world is filled with art, the walls are covered with paintings, and the niches filled with statuary. A few manuscripts were found and deciphered. The old languages were learned, and literature was again born. A new day dawned upon mankind. Every effort at mental improvement had been opposed by the church, and yet, the few things saved from the general wreck—a few poems, a few works of the ancient thinkers, a few forms wrought in stone, produced a new civilization destined to overthrow and destroy the fabric of superstition.
The Discovery of America.
What was the next blow that this church received? The discovery of America. The Holy Ghost who inspired men to write the Bible did not know of the existence of this continent, never dreamed of the Western Hemisphere. The Bible left out half the world. The Holy Ghost did not know that the earth is round. He did not dream that the earth is round. He believed it was flat, although he made it himself. At that time heaven was just beyond the clouds. It was there the gods lived, there the angels were, and it was against that heaven that Jacob's ladder leaned when the angels went up and down. It was to that heaven that Christ ascended after his resurrection. It was up there that the New Jerusalem was, with its streets of gold, and under this earth was perdition. There was where the devils lived; where a pit was dug for all unbelievers, and for men who had brains. I say that for this reason: Just in proportion that you have brains, your chances for eternal joy are lessened, according to this religion. And just in proportion that you lack brains your chances are increased. At last they found that the earth is round. It was circumnavigated by Magellan. In 1519 that brave man set sail. The church told him: "The earth is flat, my friend; don't go, you may fall off the edge." Magellan said: "I have seen the shadow of the earth upon the moon, and I have more confidence in the shadow than I have in the church." The ship went round. The earth was circumnavigated. Science passed its hand above it and beneath it, and where was the old heaven and where was the hell? Vanished forever! And they dwell now only in the religion of superstition. We found there was no place there for Jacob's ladder to lean against; no place there for the gods and angels to live; no place to hold the waters of the deluge; no place to which Christ could have ascended. The foundations of the New Jerusalem crumbled. The towers and domes fell, and in their places infinite space, sown with an infinite number of stars; not with New Jerusalems, but with countless constellations.
Copernicus and Kepler.
Then man began to grow great, and with that came Astronomy, In 1473 Copernicus was born. In 1543 his great work appeared. In 1616 the system of Copernicus was condemned by the pope, by the infallible Catholic Church, and the church was about as near right upon that subject as upon any other. The system of Copernicus was denounced. And how long do you suppose the church fought that? Let me tell you. It was revoked by Pius VII. in the year of grace 1821. For two hundred and seventy-eight years after the death of Copernicus the church insisted that his system was false, and that the old Bible astronomy was true. Astronomy is the first help that we ever received from heaven. Then came Kepler in 1609, and you may almost date the birth of science from the night that Kepler discovered his first law. That was the break of the day. His first law, that the planets do not move in circles but in ellipses; his second law, that they describe equal spaces in equal times; his third law, that the squares of their periodic times are proportional to the cubes of their distances. That man gave us the key to the heavens. He opened the infinite book, and in it read three lines.
I have not time to speak of Galileo, of Leonardo da Vinci, of Bruno, and of hundreds of others who contributed to the intellectual wealth of the world.
Special Providence.
The next thing that gave the church a blow was Statistics. We found by taking statistics that we could tell the average length of human life; that this human life did not depend upon infinite caprice; that it depended upon conditions, circumstances, laws and facts, and that these conditions, circumstances, and facts were during long periods of time substantially the same. And now, the man who depends entirely upon special providence gets his life insured. He has more confidence even in one of these companies than he has in the whole Trinity. We found by statistics that there were just so many crimes on an average committed; just so many crimes of one kind and so many of another; just so many suicides, so many deaths by drowning, so many accidents on an average, so many men marrying women, for instance, older than themselves; so many murders of a particular kind; just the same number of mistakes; and I say to-night, statistics utterly demolish the idea of special providence.
Only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special providence. He knew it. He had been the subject of it. A few years ago he was about to go on a ship when he was detained. He did not go, and the ship was lost with all on board.
"Yes!" I said, "Do you think the people who were drowned believed in special providence?" Think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. Here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with five hundred passengers and they go down to the bottom of the sea—fathers, mothers, children, and loving husbands and wives waiting upon the chores of expectation. Here is one poor little wretch that did not happen to go! And he thinks that God, the Infinite Being, interfered in his poor little withered behalf and let the rest all go. That is special providence. Why does special providence allow all the crimes? Why are the wife-beaters protected, and why are the wives and children left defenceless if the hand of God is over us all? Who protects the insane? Why does Providence permit insanity? But the church cannot give up special providence. If there is no such thing, then no prayers, no worship, no churches, no priests. What would become of National Thanksgiving?
You know we have a custom every year of issuing a proclamation of thanksgiving. We say to God, "Although you have afflicted all the other countries, although you have sent war, and desolation, and famine on everybody else, we have been such good children that you have been kind to us, and we hope you will keep on." It does not make a bit of difference whether we have good times or not—the thanksgiving is always exactly the same. I remember a few years ago a governor of Iowa got out a proclamation of that kind. He went on to tell how thankful the people were and how prosperous the State had been. There was a young fellow in that State who got out another proclamation, saying that he feared the Lord might be misled by official correspondence; that the governor's proclamation was entirely false; that the State was not prosperous; that the crops had been an almost utter failure; that nearly every farm in the State was mortgaged, and that if the Lord did not believe him, all he asked was that he would send some angel in whom he had confidence, to look the matter over and report.
Charles Darwin.
This century will be called Darwin's century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance—at the instigation of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts. His light has broken in on some of the clergy, and the greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit of one of the orthodox: churches, Henry Ward Beecher, is a believer in the theories of Charles Darwin—a man of more genius than all the clergy of that entire church put together.
And yet we are told in this little creed that orthodox religion is about to conquer the world! It will be driven to the wilds of Africa. It must go to some savage country; it has lost its hold upon civilization. It is unfortunate to have a religion that cannot be accepted by the intellect of a nation. It is unfortunate to have a religion against which every good and noble heart protests. Let us have a good religion or none. My pity has been excited by seeing these ministers endeavor to warp and twist the passages of Scripture to fit the demonstrations of science. Of course, I have not time to recount all the discoveries and events that have assisted in the destruction of superstition. Every fact is an enemy of the church. Every fact is a heretic. Every demonstration is an infidel. Everything that ever really happened testifies against the supernatural.
The church teaches that man was created perfect, and that for six thousand years he has degenerated. Darwin demonstrated the falsity of this dogma. He shows that man has for thousands of ages steadily advanced; that the Garden of Eden is an ignorant myth; that the doctrine of original sin has no foundation in fact; that the atonement is an absurdity; that the serpent did not tempt, and that man did not "fall."
Charles Darwin destroyed the foundation of orthodox Christianity. There is nothing left but faith in what we know could not and did not happen. Religion and science are enemies. One is a superstition; the other is a fact. One rests upon the false, the other upon the true. One is the result of fear and faith, the other of investigation and reason.
The Creeds.
I have been talking a great deal about the orthodox religion. Often, after having delivered a lecture, I have met some good, religious person who has said to me:
"You do not tell it as we believe it."
"Well, but I tell it as you have it written in your creed."
"Oh, we don't mind the creed any more."
"Then, why do you not change it?"
"Oh, well, we understand it as it is, and if we tried to change it, maybe we would not agree."
Possibly the creeds are in the best condition now. There is a tacit understanding that they do not believe them, that there is a way to get around them, and that they can read between the lines; that if they should meet now to form new creeds they would fail to agree; and that now they can say as they please, except in public. Whenever they do so in public the church, in self-defence, must try them; and I believe in trying every minister that does not preach the doctrine he agrees to. I have not the slightest sympathy with a Presbyterian preacher who endeavors to preach infidelity from a Presbyterian pulpit and receives Presbyterian money. When he changes his views he should step down and out like a man, and say, "I do not believe your doctrine, and I will not preach it. You must hire some other man." The Latest Creed.
But I find that I have correctly interpreted the creeds. There was put into my hands the new Congregational creed. I have read it, and I will call your attention to it to-night, to find whether that church has made any advance; to find whether the sun of science has risen in the heavens in vain; whether they are still the children of intellectual darkness; whether they still consider it necessary for you to believe something that you by no possibility can understand, in order to be a winged angel forever. Now, let us see what their creed is. I will read a little of it.
They commence by saying that they
"Believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible."
They say, now, that there is the one personal God; that he is the maker of the universe and its ruler. I again ask the old question, Of what did he make it? If matter has not existed through eternity, then this God made it. Of what did he make it? What did he use for the purpose? There was nothing in the universe except this God. What had the God been doing for the eternity he had been living? He had made nothing—called nothing into existence; never had had an idea, because it is impossible to have an idea unless there is something to excite an idea. What had he been doing? Why does not the Congregational Church tell us? How do they know about this Infinite Being? And if he is infinite how can they comprehend him? What good is it to believe in something that you know you do not understand, and that you never can understand?
In the Episcopalian creed God is described as follows:
"There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts or passions."
Think of that!—without body, parts, or passions.
I defy any man in the world to write a better description of nothing. You cannot conceive of a finer word-painting of a vacuum than "without body, parts, or passions." And yet this God, without passions, is angry at the wicked every day; this God, without passions, is a jealous God, whose anger burneth to the lowest hell. This God, without passions, loves the whole human race; and this God, without passions, damns a large majority of mankind. This God without body, walked in the Garden of Eden, in the cool of the day. This God, without body, talked with Adam and Eve. This God, without body, or parts met Moses upon Mount Sinai, appeared at the door of the tabernacle, and talked with Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend. This description of God is simply an effort of the church to describe a something of which it has no conception.
God as a Governor.
So, too, I find the following:
"We believe that the Providence of God, by which he executes his eternal purposes in the government of the world, is in and over all events."
Is God the governor of the world? Is this established by the history of nations? What evidence can you find, if you are absolutely honest and not frightened, in the history of the world, that this universe is presided over by an infinitely wise and good God?
How do you account for Russia? How do you account for Siberia? How do you account for the fact that whole races of men toiled beneath the master's lash for ages without recompense and without reward? How do you account for the fact that babes were sold from the arms of mothers—arms that had been reached toward God in supplication? How do you account for it? How do you account for the existence of martyrs? How do you account for the fact that this God allows people to be burned simply for loving him? Is justice always done? Is innocence always acquitted? Do the good succeed? Are the honest fed? Are the charitable clothed? Are the virtuous shielded? How do you account for the fact that the world has been filled with pain, and grief, and tears? How do you account for the fact that people have been swallowed by earthquakes, overwhelmned by volcanoes, and swept from the earth by storms? Is it easy to account for famine, for pestilence and plague if there be above us all a Ruler infinitely good, powerful and wise?
I do not say there is none. I do not know. As I have said before, this is the only planet I was ever on. I live in one of the rural districts of the universe, and do not know about these things as much as the clergy pretend to, but if they know no more about the other world than they do about this, it is not worth mentioning.
How do they answer all this? They say that God "permits" it. What would you say to me if I stood by and saw a ruffian beat out the brains of a child, when I had full and perfect power to prevent it? You would say truthfully that I was as bad as the murderer. Is it possible for this God to prevent it? Then, if he does not he is a fiend; he is no god. But they say he "permits" it. What for? So that we may have freedom of choice. What for? So that God may find, I suppose, who are good and who are bad. Did he not know that when he made us? Did he not know exactly just what he was making? Why should he make those whom he knew would be criminals? If I should make a machine that would walk your streets and take the lives of people you would hang me. And if God made a man whom he knew would commit murder, then God is guilty of that murder. If God made a man knowing that he would beat his wife, that he would starve his children, that he would strew on either side of his path of life the wrecks of ruined homes, then I say the being who knowingly called that wretch into existence is directly responsible. And yet we are to find the providence of God in the history of nations. What little I have read shows me that when man has been helped, man has done it; when the chains of slavery have been broken, they have been broken by man; when something bad has been done in the government of mankind, it is easy to trace it to man, and to fix the responsibility upon human beings. You need not look to the sky; you need throw neither praise nor blame upon gods; you can find the efficient causes nearer home—right here.
The Love of God.
What is the next thing I find in this creed?
"We believe that man was made in the image of God, that he might know, love, and obey God, and enjoy him forever."
I do not believe that anybody ever did love God, because nobody ever knew anything about him. We love each other. We love something that we know. We love something that our experience tells us is good and great and beautiful. We cannot by any possibility love the unknown. We can love truth, because truth adds to human happiness. We can love justice, because it preserves human joy. We can love charity. We can love every form of goodness that we know, or of which we can conceive, but we cannot love the infinitely unknown. And how can we be made in the image of something that has neither body, parts, nor passions?
The Fall of Man.
The Congregational Church has not outgrown the doctrine of "original sin." We are told that:
"Our first parents, by disobedience, fell under the condemnation of God, and that all men are so alienated from God that there is no salvation from the guilt and power of sin except through God's redeeming power."
Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent. Does any intelligent man now believe that God made man of dust, and woman of a rib, and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the midst of it? Was there not room outside of the garden to put his tree, if he did not want people to eat his apples?
If I did not want a man to eat my fruit, I would not put him in my orchard.
Does anybody now believe in the story of the serpent? I pity any man or woman who, in this nineteenth century, believes in that childish fable. Why did Adam and Eve disobey? Why, they were tempted. By whom? The devil. Who made the devil? God. What did God make him for? Why did he not tell Adam and Eve about this serpent? Why did he not watch the devil, instead of watching Adam and Eve? Instead of turning them out, why did he not keep him from getting in? Why did he not have his flood first, and drown the devil, before he made a man and woman.
And yet, people who call themselves intelligent—professors in colleges and presidents of venerable institutions—teach children and young men that the Garden of Eden story is an absolute historical fact. I defy any man to think of a more childish thing. This God, waiting around Eden—knowing all the while what would happen—having made them on purpose so that it would happen, then does what? Holds all of us responsible, and we were not there. Here is a representative before the constituency had been born. Before I am bound by a representative I want a chance to vote for or against him; and if I had been there, and known all the circumstances, I should have voted "No!" And yet, I am held responsible.
We are told by the Bible and by the churches that through this fall of man "Sin and death entered the world?"
According to this, just as soon as Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit, God began to contrive ways by which he could destroy the lives of his children. He invented all the diseases—all the fevers and coughs and colds—all the pains and plagues and pestilences—all the aches and agonies, the malaria and spores; so that when we take a breath of air we admit into our lungs unseen assassins; and, fearing that some might live too long, even under such circumstances, God invented the earthquake and volcano, the cyclone and lightning, animalcules to infest the heart and brain, so small that no eye can detect—no instrument reach. This was all owing to the disobedience of Adam and Eve!
In his infinite goodness, God invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia, cancers and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. Not only this', but he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love and life should crouch the dragons of death and pain. Fearing that some might, by accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs that looked like food. He caught the serpents he had made and gave them fangs and curious organs, ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the deadly drop. He changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on human flesh. He cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of joy. He poisoned every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might bear disease on every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins; touched every nerve, that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy; decreed all accidents and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set the snares of life-long grief, baited with present pleasure,—with a moment's joy. Then and there he foreknew and foreordained all human tears. And yet all this is but the prelude, the introduction, to the infinite revenge of the good God. Increase and multiply all human griefs until the mind has reached imagination's farthest verge, then add eternity to time, and you may faintly tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of this doctrine called "The Fall of Man." The Atonement.
We are further told that:
"All men are so alienated from God that there is no alleviation from the guilt and power of sin except through God's redeeming grace;"
And that:
"We believe that the love of God to sinful man has found its highest expression in the redemptive work of his Son, who became man, uniting his divine nature with our human nature in one person; who was tempted like other men and yet without sin, and by his humiliation, his holy obedience, his sufferings, his death on the cross, and his resurrection, became a perfect redeemer; whose sacrifice of himself for the sins of the world declares the righteousness of God, and is the sole and sufficient ground of forgiveness and of reconciliation with him."
The absurdity of the doctrine known as "The Fall of Man," gave birth to that other absurdity known as "The Atonement." So that now it is insisted that, as we are rightfully charged with the sin of somebody else, we can rightfully be credited with the virtues of another. Let us leave out of our philosophy both these absurdities. Our creed will read a great deal better with both of them out, and will make far better sense.
Now, in consequence of Adam's sin, everybody is alienated from God. How? Why? Oh, we are all depraved, you know; we all do wrong. Well, why? Is that because we are depraved? No. Why do we make so many mistakes? Because there is only one right way, and there is an almost infinite number of wrong ways; and as long as we are not perfect in our intellects we must make mistakes. "There is no darkness but ignorance," and alienation, as they call it, from God, is simply a lack of intellect. Why were we not given better brains? That may account for the alienation.
The church teaches that every soul that finds its way to the shore of this world is against God—naturally hates God; that the little dimpled child in the cradle is simply a chunk of depravity. Everybody against God! It is a libel upon the human race; it is a libel upon all the men who have worked for wife and child; upon all mothers who have suffered and labored, wept and worked; upon all the men who have died for their country; upon all who have fought for human liberty. Leave out the history of religion and there is little left to prove the depravity of man.
Everybody that comes is against God! Every soul, they think, is like the wrecked Irishman, who drifted to an unknown island, and as he climbed the shore saw a man and said to him, "Have you a Government here?" The man replied "We have." "Well," said he, "I'm forninst it!"
The church teaches us that such is the attitude of every soul in the universe of God. Ought a god to take any credit to himself for making depraved people? A god that cannot make a soul that is not totally depraved, I respectfully suggest, should retire from the business. And if a god has made us, knowing that we are totally depraved, why should we go to the same being to be "born again?"
The Second Birth.
The church insists that we must be "born again" and that all who are not the subjects of this second birth are heirs of everlasting fire. Would it not have been much better to have made another Adam and Eve? Would it not have been better to change Noah and his people, so that after that a second birth would not have been necessary? Why not purify the fountain of all human life? Why allow the earth to be peopled with depraved and monstrous beings, each one of whom must be re-made, re-formed, and born again?
And yet, even reformation is not enough. If the man who steals becomes perfectly honest, that is not enough; if the man who hates his fellow-man, changes and loves his fellow-man, that is not enough; he must go through that mysterious thing called the second birth; he must be born again. He must have faith; he must believe something that he does not understand, and experience what they call "conversion." According to the church, nothing so excites the wrath of God—nothing so corrugates the brows of Jehovah with hatred—as a man relying on his own good works. He must admit that he ought to be damned, and that of the two he prefers it, before God will consent to save him.
I met a man the other day, who said to me, "I am a Unitarian Universalist." "What do you mean by that?" I asked. "Well," said he, "this is what I mean: the Unitarian thinks he is too good to be damned, and the Universalist thinks God is too good to damn him, and I believe them both."
Is it possible that the sacrifice of a perfect being was acceptable to God? Will he accept the agony of innocence for the punishment of guilt? Will he release Barabbas and crucify Christ?
Inspiration.
What is the next thing in this great creed?
"We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the record of God's revelation of Himself, the work of redemption; that they were written by men under the special guidance of the holy spirit; that they are able to make wise unto salvation; and that they constitute an authoritative standard by which religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated and judged."
This is the creed of the Congregational Church; that is, the result reached by a high-joint commission appointed to draw up a creed for their churches; and there we have the statement that the Bible was written "by men under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit."
What part of the Bible? All of it? All of it. And yet what is this Old Testament that was written by an infinitely good God? The being who wrote it did not know the shape of the world he had made; knew nothing of human nature. He commands men to love him, as if one could love upon command. The same God upheld the institution of human slavery; and the church says that the Bible that upholds that institution was written by men under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Then I disagree with the Holy Spirit.
This church tells us that men under the guidance of the Holy Spirit upheld the institution of polygamy—I deny it; that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit these men upheld wars of extermination and conquest—I deny it; that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit these men wrote that it was right for a man to destroy the life of his wife if she happened to differ with him on the subject of religion—I deny it. And yet that is the book now upheld in this creed of the Congregational Church.
If the devil had written upon the subject of slavery, which side would he have taken? Let every minister answer. If you knew the devil had written a work on human slavery, in your judgment, would he uphold slavery, or denounce it? Would you regard it as any evidence that he ever wrote it, if it upheld slavery? And yet, here you have a work upholding slavery, and you say that it was written by an infinitely good God! If the devil upheld polygamy, would you be surprised? If the devil wanted to kill men for differing with him would you be astonished? If the devil told a man to kill his wife, would you be shocked? And yet, you say, that is exactly what God did. If there be a God, then that creed is blasphemy. That creed is a libel upon him who sits on heaven's throne. If there be a God, I ask him to write in the book in which my account is kept, that I denied these lies for him.
I do not believe in a slaveholding God! I do not worship a polygamous Holy Ghost, nor a Son who threatens eternal pain; I will not get upon my knees before any being who commands a husband to slay his wife because she expresses her honest thought. Suppose a book should be found old as the Old Testament in which slavery, polygamy and war are all denounced, would Christians think that it was written by the devil?
Did it ever occur to you that if God wrote the Old Testament, and told the Jews to crucify or kill anybody that disagreed with them on religion, and that this God afterward took upon himself flesh and came to Jerusalem, and taught a different religion, and the Jews killed him—did it ever occur to you that he reaped exactly what he had sown? Did it ever occur to you that he fell a victim to his own tyranny, and was destroyed by his own hand? Of course I do not believe that any God ever was the author of the Bible, or that any God was ever crucified, or that any God was ever killed, or ever will be, but I want to ask you that question.
Take this Old Testament, then, with all its stories of murder and massacre; with all its foolish and cruel fables; with all its infamous doctrines; with its spirit of caste; with its spirit of hatred, and tell me whether it was written by a good God. If you will read the maledictions and curses of that book, you will think that God, like Lear, had divided heaven among his daughters, and then, in the insanity of despair, had launched his curses on the human race.
And yet, I must say—I must admit—that the Old Testament is better than the New. In the Old Testament, when God had a man dead, he let him alone. When he saw him quietly in his grave he was satisfied. The muscles relaxed, and the frown gave place to a smile. But in the New Testament the trouble commences at death. In the New Testament God is to wreak his revenge forever and ever. It was reserved for one who said, "Love your enemies," to tear asunder the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the gulfs of eternal fire. The New Testament is just as much worse than the Old, as hell is worse than sleep; just as much worse, as infinite cruelty is worse than dreamless rest; and yet, the New Testament is claimed to be a gospel of love and peace.
Is it possible that: "The Scriptures constitute the authoritative standard by which religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated and judged"?
Are we to judge of conduct by the Old Testament, by the New, or by both? According to the Old, the slaveholder was a just and generous man; a polygamist was a model of virtue. According to the New, the worst can be forgiven and the best can be lost. How can any book be a standard, when the standard itself must be measured by human reason? Is there a standard of a standard? Must not the reason be convinced? and, if so, is not the reason of each man the final arbiter of that man? If he takes a book as a standard, does he so take it because it is to him reasonable? In what way is the human reason to be ignored? Why should a book take its place, unless the reason has been convinced that the book is the proper standard? If this is so, the book rests upon the reason of those who adopt it. Are they to be saved because they act in accordance with their reason, and are others to be damned because they act by the same standard—their reason? No two are alike. Can we demand of all the same result? Suppose the compasses were not constant to the pole—no two compasses exactly alike—would you expect all ships to reach the same harbor?
The Reign of Truth and Love.
I also find in this creed the following:
"We believe that Jesus Christ came to establish among men the Kingdom of God, the reign of truth and love, of righteousness and peace!"
Well, that may have been the object of Jesus Christ. I do not deny it. But what was the result? The Christian world has caused more war than all the rest of the world beside. Most of the cunning instruments of death have been devised by Christians. All the wonderful machinery by which the life is blown from men, by which nations are conquered and enslaved—all these machines have been born in Christian brains. And yet he came to bring peace, they say; but the Testament says otherwise: "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." And the sword was brought. What are the Christian nations doing to-day in Europe? Is there a solitary Christian nation that will trust any other? How many millions of Christians are in the uniform of forgiveness, armed with the muskets of love?
There was an old Spaniard on the bed of death, who sent for a priest, and the priest told him that he would have to forgive his enemies before he died. He said, "I have none." "What! no enemies?" "Not one," said the dying man; "I killed the last one three months ago."
How many millions of Christians are now armed and equipped to destroy their fellow-Christians? Who are the men in Europe crying against war? Who wishes to have the nations disarmed? Is it the church? No; the men who do not believe in what they call this religion of peace. When there is a war, and when they make a few thousand widows and orphans; when they strew the plain with dead patriots, Christians assemble in their churches and sing "Te Deum Laudamus." Why? Because he has enabled a few of his children to kill some others of his children. This is the religion of peace—the religion that invented the Krupp gun, that will hurl a ball weighing two thousand pounds through twenty-four inches of solid steel. This is the religion of peace that covers the sea with men-of-war, clad in mail, in the name of universal forgiveness. This is the religion that drills and uniforms five millions of men to kill their fellows.
The Wars It Brought.
What effect has this religion had upon the nations of the earth? What have the nations been fighting about? What was the Thirty Years' War in Europe for? What was the war in Holland for? Why was it that England persecuted Scotland? Why is it that England persecutes Ireland even to this day? At the bottom of every one of these conflicts you will find a religious question. The religion of Jesus Christ, as preached by his church, causes war, bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness; and why? Because, they say, a certain belief is necessary to salvation. They do not say, if you behave yourself you will get there; they do not say, if you pay your debts and love your wife and love your children, and are good to your friends, and your neighbors, and your country, you will get there; that will do you no good; you have got to believe a certain thing. No matter how bad you are, you can instantly be forgiven; and no matter how good you are, if you fail to believe that which you cannot understand, the moment you get to the day of judgment nothing is left but to damn you, and all the angels will shout "hallelujah."
What do they teach to-day? Nearly every murderer goes to heaven; there is only one step from the gallows to God, only one jerk between the halter and heaven. That is taught by this church.
I believe there ought to be a law to prevent the giving of the slightest religious consolation to any man who has been found guilty of murder. Let a Catholic understand that if he imbrues his hands in his brother's blood, he can have no extreme unction. Let it be understood that he can have no forgiveness through the church; and let the Protestant understand that when he has committed that crime the community will not pray him into heaven. Let him go with his victim. The victim, dying in his sins, goes to hell, and the murderer has the happiness of seeing him there. If heaven grows dull and monotonous, the murderer can again give life to the nerve of pleasure by watching the agony of his victim.
The truth is, Christianity has not made friends; it has made enemies. It is not, as taught, the religion of peace, it is the religion of war. Why should a Christian hesitate to kill a man that his God is waiting to damn? Why should a Christian not destroy an infidel who is trying to assassinate his soul? Why should a Christian pity an unbeliever—one who has rejected the Bible—when he knows that God will be pitiless forever? And yet we are told, in this creed, that "we believe in the ultimate prevalence of the Kingdom of Christ over all the earth."
What makes you? Do you judge from the manner in which you are getting along now? How many people are being born a year? About fifty millions. How many are you converting a year, really, truthfully? Five or six thousand. I think I have overstated the number. Is orthodox Christianity on the increase? No. There are a hundred times as many unbelievers in orthodox Christianity as there were ten years ago. What are you doing in the missionary world? How long is it since you converted a Chinaman? A fine missionary religion, to send missionaries with their Bibles and tracts to China, but if a Chinaman comes here, mob him, simply to show him the difference between the practical and theoretical workings of the Christian religion. How long since you have had an intelligent convert in India? In my judgment, never; there never has been an intelligent Hindoo converted from the time the first missionary put his foot on that soil; and never, in my judgment, has an intelligent Chinaman been converted since the first missionary touched that shore. Where are they? We hear nothing of them, except in the reports. They get money from poor old ladies, trembling on the edge of the grave, and go and tell them stories, how hungry the average Chinaman is for a copy of the New Testament, and paint the sad condition of a gentleman in the interior of Africa without the works of Dr. McCosh, longing for a copy of The Princeton Review,—in my judgment, a pamphlet that would suit a savage. Thus money is scared from the dying, and frightened from the old and feeble.
About how long is it before this kingdom is to be established? No one objects to the establishment of peace and good will. Every good man longs for the time when war shall cease. We are all hoping for a day of universal justice—a day of universal freedom—when man shall control himself, when the passions shall become obedient to the intelligent will. But the coming of that day will not be hastened by preaching the doctrines of total depravity and eternal revenge. That sun will not rise the quicker for preaching salvation by faith. The star that shines above that dawn, the herald of that day, is Science, not superstition,—Reason, not religion.
To show you how little advance has been made, how many intellectual bats and mental owls still haunt the temple, still roost above the altar, I call your attention to the fact that the Congregational Church, according to this creed; still believes in the resurrection of the dead, and in their Confession of Faith, attached to the creed, I find that they also believe in the literal resurrection of the body.
The Resurrection.
Does anybody believe that, who has the courage to think for himself? Here is a man, for instance, that weighs 200 pounds and gets sick and dies weighing 120; how much will he weigh in the morning of the resurrection? Here is a cannibal, who eats another man; and we know that the atoms you eat go into your body and become a part of you. After the cannibal has eaten the missionary, and appropriated his atoms to himself, and then dies, to whom will the atoms belong in the morning of the resurrection? Could the missionary maintain an action of replevin, and if so, what would the cannibal do for a body? It has been demonstrated, in so far as logic can demonstrate anything, that there is no creation and no destruction in Nature. It has been demonstrated, again and again, that the atoms in us have been in millions of other beings; have grown in the forests and in the grass, have blossomed in flowers, and been in the metals. In other words, there are atoms in each one of us that have been in millions of others; and when we die, these atoms return to the earth, again appear in grass and trees, are again eaten by animals, and again devoured by countless vegetable mouths and turned into wood; and yet this church, in the nineteenth century,'in a council composed of, and presided over by, professors and presidents of colleges and theologians, solemnly tells us that it believes in the literal resurrection of the body. This is almost enough to make one despair of the future—almost enough to convince a man of the immortality of the absurd. They know better. There is not one so ignorant but knows better.
The Judgment-Day.
And what is the next thing?
"We believe in a final judgment, the issues of which are everlasting punishment and everlasting life!"
At the final judgment all of us will be there. The thousands, and millions, and billions, and trillions, and quadrillions that have died will be there. The books will be opened, and each case will be called. The sheep and the goats will be divided. The unbelievers will be sent to the left, while the faithful will proudly walk to the right. The saved, without a tear, will bid an eternal farewell to those who loved them here—to those they loved. Nearly all the human race will go away to everlasting punishment, and the fortunate few to eternal life. This is the consolation of the Congregational Church! This is the hope that dispels the gloom of life!
Pious Evasions.
When the clergy are caught, they give a different meaning to the words and say the world was not made in seven days. They say "good whiles"—"epochs."
And in this same Confession of Faith and in this creed they say that the Lord's day is holy—every seventh day. Suppose you lived near the North Pole where the day is three months long. Then which day would you keep? If you could get to the North Pole you could prevent Sunday from ever overtaking you. You could walk around the other way faster than the world could revolve. How would you keep Sunday then? Suppose we invent something that can go one thousand miles an hour? We can chase Sunday clear around the globe. Is there anything that can be more perfectly absurd than that a space of time can be holy? You might as well talk about a virtuous vacuum. We are now told that the Bible is not a scientific book, and that after all we cannot depend on what God said four thousand years ago—that his ways are not as our ways—that we must accept without evidence, and believe without understanding.
I heard the other night of an old man. He was not very well educated, and he got into the notion that he must have reading of the Bible and family worship. There was a bad boy in the family, and they were reading the Bible by course. In the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians is this passage: "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we shall all be changed." This boy had rubbed out the "c" in "changed." So when the old man put on his spectacles, and got down his Bible, he read: "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery, we shall not all die, but we shall all be hanged." The old lady said, "Father, I don't think it reads that way." He said, "Who is reading this?" "Yes mother, it says 'hanged,' and, more than that, I see the sense of it. Pride is the besetting sin of the human heart, and if there is anything calculated to take the pride out of a man it is hanging." It is in this way that ministers avoid and explain the discoveries of Science.
People ask me, if I take away the Bible what are we going to do? How can we get along without the revelation that no one understands? What are we going to do if we have no Bible to quarrel about What are we to do without hell? What are we going to do with our enemies? What are we going to do with the people we love but don't like?
"No Bible, No Civilization."
They tell me that there never would have been any civilization if it had not been for this Bible. The Jews had a Bible; the Romans had not. Which had the greater and the grander government? Let us be honest. Which of those nations produced the greatest poets, the greatest soldiers, the greatest orators, the greatest statesmen, the greatest sculptors? Rome had no Bible. God cared nothing for the Roman Empire. He let the men come up by chance. His time was taken up with the Jewish people. And yet Rome conquered the world, including the chosen people of God. The people who had the Bible were defeated by the people who had not. How was it possible for Lucretius to get along without the Bible?—how did the great and glorious of that empire? And what shall we say of Greece? No Bible. Compare Athens with Jerusalem. From Athens come the beauty and intellectual grace of the world. Compare the mythology of Greece with the mythology of Judea; one covering the earth with beauty, and the other filling heaven with hatred and injustice. The Hindoos had no Bible; they had been forsaken by the Creator, and yet they became the greatest metaphysicians of the world. Egypt had no Bible. Compare Egypt with Judea. What are we to do without the Bible? What became of the Jews who had a Bible? Their temple was destroyed and their city was taken; and they never found real prosperity until their God deserted them. The Turks attributed all their victories to the Koran. The Koran gave them their victories over the believers in the Bible. The priests of each nation have accounted for the prosperity of that nation by its religion.
The Christians mistake an incident for a cause, and honestly imagine that the Bible is the foundation of modern liberty and law. They forget physical conditions, make no account of commerce, care nothing for inventions and discoveries, and ignorantly give the credit to their inspired book.
The foundations of our civilization were laid centuries before Christianity was known. The intelligence of courage, of self-government, of energy, of industry, that uniting made the civilization of this century, did not come alone from Judea, but from every nation of the ancient world.
Miracles of the New Testament.
There are many things in the New Testament that I cannot accept as true.
I cannot believe in the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ. I believe he was the son of Joseph and Mary; that Joseph and Mary had been duly and legally married; that he was the legitimate offspring of that union. Nobody ever believed the contrary until he had been dead at least one hundred and fifty years. Neither Matthew, Mark, nor Luke ever dreamed that he was of divine origin. He did not say to either Matthew, Mark, or Luke, or to any one in their hearing, that he was the Son of God, or that he was miraculously conceived. He did not say it. It may be asserted that he said it to John, but John did not write the gospel that bears his name. The angel Gabriel, who, they say, brought the news, never wrote a word upon the subject. The mother of Christ never wrote a word upon the subject. His alleged father never wrote a word upon the subject, and Joseph never admitted the story. We are lacking in the matter of witnesses. I would not believe such a story now. I cannot believe that it happened then. I would not believe people I know, much less would I believe people I do not know.
At that time Matthew and Luke believed that Christ was the son of Joseph and Mary. And why? they say he descended from David, and in order to show that he was of the blood of David, they gave the genealogy of Joseph. And if Joseph was not his father, why did they not give the genealogy of Pontius Pilate or of Herod? Could they, by giving the genealogy of Joseph, show that he was of the blood of David if Joseph was in no way related to Christ? And yet that is the position into which the Christian world is driven. In the New Testament we find that in giving the genealogy of Christ it says, "who was the son of Joseph?" and the church has interpolated the words "as was supposed." Why did they give a supposed genealogy? It will not do. And that is a thing that cannot in any way, by any human testimony, be established.
If it is important for us to know that he was the Son of God, I say, then, that it devolves upon God to give us the evidence. Let him write it across the face of the heavens, in every language of mankind. If it is necessary for us to believe it, let it grow on every leaf next year. No man should be damned for not believing, unless the evidence is overwhelming. And he ought not to be made to depend upon say so, or upon "as was supposed." He should have it directly, for himself. A man says that God told him a certain thing, and he tells me, and I have only his word. He may have been deceived. If God has a message for me he ought to tell it to me, and not to somebody that has been dead four or five thousand years, and in another language.
Besides, God may have changed his mind on many things; he has on slavery, and polygamy at least, according to the church; and yet his church now wants to go and destroy polygamy in Utah with the sword. Why do they not send missionaries there with copies of the Old Testament? By reading the lives of Abraham and Isaac, and Lot, and a few other patriarchs who ought to have been in the penitentiary, maybe they can soften their hearts.
More Miracles.
There is another miracle I do not believe,—the resurrection. I want to speak about it as we would about any ordinary transaction. In the first place, I do not believe that any miracle was ever performed, and if there was, you cannot prove it. Why? Because it is altogether more reasonable to believe that the people were mistaken about it than that it happened. And why? Because, according to human experience, we know that people will not always tell the truth, and we never saw a miracle ourselves, and we must be governed by our experience; and if we go by our experience, we must say that the miracle never happened—that the witnesses were mistaken.
A man comes into Jerusalem, and the first thing he does is to cure the blind. He lets the light of day visit the night of blindness. The eyes are opened, and the world is again pictured upon the brain. Another man is clothed with leprosy. He touches him and the disease falls from him, and he stands pure, and clean, and whole. Another man is deformed, wrinkled, and bent. He touches him, and throws around him again the garment of youth. A man is in his grave, and he says, "Come forth!" And the man walks in life, feeling his heart throb and his blood going joyously through his veins. They say that actually happened. I do not know.
There is one wonderful thing about the dead people that were raised—we do not hear of them any more. What became of them? If there was a man in this city who had been raised from the dead, I would go to see him to-night. I would say, "Where were you when you got the notice to come back? What kind of a country is it? What kind of opening there for a young man? How did you like it? Did you meet there the friends you had lost? Is there a world without death, without pain, without a tear? Is there a land without a grave, and where good-bye is never heard?" Nobody ever paid the slightest attention to the dead who had been raised. They did not even excite interest when they died the second time. Nobody said, "Why, that man is not afraid. He has been there once. He has walked through the valley of the shadow." Not a word. They pass quietly away.
I do not believe these miracles. There is something wrong somewhere about that business. I may suffer eternal punishment for all this, but I cannot, I do not, believe.
There was a man who did all these things, and thereupon they crucified him. Let us be honest. Suppose a man came into this city and should meet a funeral procession, and say, "Who is dead?" and they should reply, "The son of a widow; her only support." Suppose he should say to the procession, "Halt!" and to the undertaker, "Take out that coffin, unscrew that lid. Young man, I say unto thee, arise!" and the dead should step from the coffin and in a moment afterward hold his mother in his arms. Suppose this stranger should go to your cemetery and find some woman holding a little child in each hand, while the tears fell upon a new-made grave, and he should say to her, "Who lies buried here?" and she should reply, "My husband;" and he should cry, "I say unto thee, oh grave, give up thy dead!" and the husband should rise, and in a moment after have his lips upon his wife's, and the little children with their arms around his neck; do you think that the people of this city would kill him? Do you think any one would wish to crucify him? Do you not rather believe that every one who had a loved one out in that cemetery would go to him, even upon their knees, and beg him to give back their dead? Do you believe that any man was ever crucified who was the master of death?
Let me tell you to-night if there shall ever appear upon this earth the master, the monarch, of death, all human knees will touch the earth. He will not be crucified. All the living who fear death; all the living who have lost a loved one, will bow to him. And yet we are told that this worker of miracles, this man who could clothe the dead dust in the throbbing flesh of life, was crucified. I do not believe that he worked the miracles, I do not believe that he raised the dead, I do not believe that he claimed to be the Son of God, These things were told long after he was dead; told because the ignorant multitude demanded mystery and wonder; told, because at that time the miraculous was believed of all the illustrious dead. Stories that made Christianity powerful then, weaken it now. He who gains a triumph in a conflict with a devil, will be defeated by science.
There is another thing about these foolish miracles. All could have been imitated. Men could pretend to be blind; confederates could feign sickness, and even death.
It is not very difficult to limp or to hold an arm as though it were paralyzed; or to say that one is afflicted with "an issue of blood." It is easy to say that the son of a widow was raised from the dead, and if you fail to give the name of the son, or his mother, or the time and place where the wonder occurred, it is quite difficult to show that it did not happen.
No one can be called upon to disprove anything that has not apparently been established. I say apparently, because there can be no real evidence in support of a miracle.
How could we prove, for instance, the miracle of the loaves and fishes? There were plenty of other loaves and other fishes in the world? Each one of the five thousand could have had a loaf and a fish with him. We would have to show that there was no other possible way for the people to get the bread and fish except by miracle, and then we are only half through. We must then show that they did, in fact, get enough to feed five thousand people, and that more was left than was had in the beginning.
Of course this is simply impossible. And let me ask, why was not the miracle substantiated by some of the multitude?
Would it not have been a greater wonder if Christ had created instead of multiplied the loaves and fishes?
How can we now prove that a certain person more than eighteen hundred years ago was possessed by seven devils?
How was it ever possible to prove a thing like that?
How can it be established that some evil spirits could talk while others were dumb, and that the dumb ones were the hardest to control?
If Christ wished to convince his fellow-men by miracles, why did he not do something that could not by any means have been a counterfeit?
Instead of healing a withered arm, why did he not find some man whose arm had been cut off, and make another grow?
If he wanted to raise the dead, why did he not raise some man of importance, some one known to all?
Why did he do his miracles in the obscurity of the village, in the darkness of the hovel?
Why call back to life people so insignificant that the public did not know of their death?
Suppose that in May, 1865, a man had pretended to raise some person by the name of Smith from the dead, and suppose a religion had been founded on that miracle, would it not be natural for people, hundreds of years after the pretended miracle, to ask why the founder of that religion did not raise from the dead Abraham Lincoln, instead of the unknown and obscure Mr. Smith?
How could any man now, in any court, by any known rule of evidence, substantiate one of the miracles of Christ?
Must we believe anything that cannot in any way be substantiated?
If miracles were necessary to convince men eighteen centuries ago, are they not necessary now?
After all, how many men did Christ convince with his miracles? How many walked beneath the standard of the master of Nature?
How did it happen that so many miracles convinced so few? I will tell you. The miracles were never performed. No other explanation is possible.
It is infinitely absurd to say that a man who cured the sick, the halt and blind, raised the dead, cast out devils, controlled the winds and waves, created food and held obedient to his will the forces of the world, was put to death by men who knew his superhuman power and who had seen his wondrous works. If the crucifixion was public, the miracles were private. If the miracles had been public, the crucifixion could not have been. Do away with the miracles, and the superhuman character of Christ is destroyed. He becomes what he really was—a man. Do away with the wonders, and the teachings of Christ cease to be authoritative. They are then worth the reason, the truth that is in them, and nothing more. Do away with the miracles, and then we can measure the utterances of Christ with the standard of our reason. We are no longer intellectual serfs, believing what is unreasonable in obedience to the command of a supposed god. We no longer take counsel of our fears, of our cowardice, but boldly defend what our reason maintains.
Christ takes his appropriate place with the other teachers of mankind. His life becomes reasonable and admirable. We have a man who hated oppression; who despised and denounced superstition and hypocrisy; who attacked the heartless church of his time; who excited the hatred of bigots and priests, and who rather than be false to his conception of truth, met and bravely suffered even death.
The Resurrection.
The miracle of the resurrection I do not and cannot believe. If it was the fact, if the dead Christ rose from the grave, why did he not appear to his enemies? Why did he not visit Pontius Pilate? Why did he not call upon Caiaphas, the high priest? upon Herod? Why did he not again enter the temple and end the old dispute with demonstration? Why did he not confront the Roman soldiers who had taken money to falsely swear that his body had been stolen by his friends? Why did he not make another triumphal entry into Jerusalem? Why did he not say to the multitude: "Here are the wounds in my feet, and in my hands, and in my side. I am the one you endeavored to kill, but Death is my slave"? Simply because the resurrection is a myth. It makes no difference with his teachings. They are just as good whether he wrought miracles or not. Twice two are four; that needs no miracle. Twice two are five—a miracle can not help that. Christ's teachings are worth their effect upon the human race. It makes no difference about miracle or wonder. In that day every one believed in the impossible. Nobody had any standing as teacher, philosopher, governor, king, general, about whom there was not supposed to be something miraculous. The earth was covered with the sons and daughters of gods and goddesses.
In Greece, in Rome, in Egypt, in India, every great man was supposed to have had either a god for his father, or a goddess for his mother. They accounted for genius by divine origin. Earth and heaven were at that time near together. It was but a step for the gods from the blue arch to the green earth. Every lake and valley and mountain top was made rich with legends of the loves of gods. How could the early Christians have made converts to a man, among a people who believed so thoroughly in gods—in gods that had lived upon the earth; among a people who had erected temples to the sons and daughters of gods? Such people could not have been induced to worship a man—a man born among barbarous people, citizen of a nation weak and poor and paying tribute to the Roman power. The early Christians therefore preached the gospel of a god.
The Ascension.
I cannot believe in the miracle of the ascension, in the bodily ascension of Jesus Christ. Where was he going? In the light shed upon this question by the telescope, I again ask, where was he going?
The New Jerusalem is not above us. The abode of the gods is not there. Where was he going? Which way did he go? Of course that depends upon the time of day he left. If he left in the evening, he went exactly the opposite way from that he would have gone had he ascended in the morning. What did he do with his body? How high did he go? In what way did he overcome the intense cold? The nearest station is the moon, two hundred and forty thousand miles away. Again I ask, where did he go? He must have had a natural body, for it was the same body that died. His body must have been material, otherwise he would not as he rose have circled with the earth, and he would have passed from the sight of his disciples at the rate of more than a thousand miles per hour.
It may be said that his body was "spiritual." Then what became of the body that died? Just before his ascension we are told that he partook of broiled fish with his disciples. Was the fish "spiritual?"
Who saw this miracle?
They say the disciples saw it. Let us see what they say. Matthew did not think it was worth mentioning. He does not speak of it. On the contrary, he says that the last words of Christ were:
"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Is it possible that Matthew saw this, the most miraculous of miracles, and yet forgot to put it in his life of Christ? Think of the little miracles recorded by this saint, and then determine whether it is probable that he witnessed the ascension of Jesus Christ.
Mark says: "So, then, after the Lord had spoken unto them he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God." This is all he says about the most wonderful vision that ever astonished human eyes, a miracle great enough to have stuffed credulity to bursting; and yet all we have is this one, poor, meagre verse. We know now that most of the last chapter of Mark is an interpolation, and as a matter of fact, the author of Mark's gospel said nothing about the ascension one way or the other.
Luke says: "And it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and was carried up into Heaven."
John does not mention it. He gives as Christ's last words this address to Peter: "Follow thou Me." Of course, he did not say that as he ascended. It seems to have made very little impression upon him; he writes the account as though tired of the story. He concludes with an impatient wave of the hand.
In the Acts we have another account. A conversation is given not spoken of in any of the others, and we find there two men clad in white apparel, who said: "Ye men of Galilee why stand ye here gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus that was taken up into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven."
Matthew did not see the men in white apparel, did not see the ascension. Mark forgot the entire transaction, and Luke did not think the men in white apparel worth mentioning. John had not confidence enough in the story to repeat it. And yet, upon such evidence, we are bound to believe in the bodily ascension, or suffer eternal pain.
And here let me ask, why was not the ascension in public?
Casting out Devils.
Most of the miracles said to have been wrought by Christ were recorded to show his power over evil spirits. On many occasions, he is said to have "cast out devils"—devils who could speak, and devils who were dumb.
For many years belief in the existence of evil spirits has been fading from the mind, and as this belief grew thin, ministers endeavored to give new meanings to the ancient words. They are inclined now to put "disease" in the place of "devils," and most of them say, that the poor wretches supposed to have been the homes of fiends, were simply suffering from epileptic fits! We must remember that Christ and these devils often conversed together. Is it possible that fits can talk? These devils often admitted that Christ was God. Can epilepsy certify to divinity? On one occasion the fits told their name, and made a contract to leave the body of a man provided they would be permitted to take possession of a herd of swine. Is it possible that fits carried Christ himself to the pinnacle of a temple? Did fits pretend to be the owner of the whole earth? Is Christ to be praised for resisting such a temptation? Is it conceivable that fits wanted Christ to fall down and worship them?
The church must not abandon its belief in devils. Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell. Throw away a belief in the devil, and most of the miracles of the New Testament become impossible, even if we admit the supernatural. If there is no devil, who was the original tempter in the garden of Eden? If there is no hell, from what are we saved; to what purpose is the atonement? Upon the obverse of the Christian shield is God, upon the reverse, the devil. No devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. No atonement, no preaching, no gospel.
Necessity of Belief.
Does belief depend upon evidence? I think it does somewhat in some cases. How is it when a jury is sworn to try a case, hearing all the evidence, hearing both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing the law, are upon their oaths equally divided, six for the plaintiff and six for the defendant? Evidence does not have the same effect upon all people. Why? Our brains are not alike. They are not the same shape. We have not the same intelligence, or the same experience, the same sense. And yet I am held accountable for my belief. I must believe in the Trinity—three times one is one, once one is three, and my soul is to be eternally damned for failing to guess an arithmetical conundrum. That is the poison part of Christianity—that salvation depends upon belief. That is the accursed part, and until that dogma is discarded Christianity will be nothing but superstition.
No man can control his belief. If I hear certain evidence I will believe a certain thing. If I fail to hear it I may never believe it. If it is adapted to my mind I may accept it; if it is not, I reject it. And what am I to go by? My brain. That is the only light I have from Nature, and if there be a God it is the only torch that this God has given me to find my way through the darkness and night called life. I do not depend upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man nor get upon my knees before a book. Here in the temple of the mind I consult the God, that is to say my reason, and the oracle speaks to me and I obey the oracle. What should I obey? Another man's oracle? Shall I take another man's word—not what he thinks, but what he says some God has said to him?
I would not know a god if I should see one. I have said before, and I say again, the brain thinks in spite of me, and I am not responsible for my thoughts. I cannot control the beating of my heart. I cannot stop the blood that flows through the rivers of my veins. And yet I am held responsible for my belief. Then why does not God give me the evidence? They say he has. In what? In an inspired book. But I do not understand it as they do. Must I be false to my understanding? They say: "When you come to die you will be sorry if you do not." Will I be sorry when I come to die that I did not live a hypocrite? Will I be sorry that I did not say I was a Christian when I was not? Will the fact that I was honest put a thorn in the pillow of death? Cannot God forgive me for being honest? They say that when he was in Jerusalem he forgave his murderers, but now he will not forgive an honest man for differing from him on the subject of the Trinity.
They say that God says to me, "Forgive your enemies." I say, "I do;" but he says, "I will damn mine." God should be consistent. If he wants me to forgive my enemies he should forgive his. I am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. God is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him. He certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be. And I want no God to forgive me unless I am willing to forgive others, and unless I do forgive others. All I ask, if that be true, is that this God should act according to his own doctrine. If I am to forgive my enemies, I ask him to forgive his. I do not believe in the religion of faith, but of kindness, of good deeds. The idea that man is responsible for his belief is at the bottom of religious intolerance and persecution.
How inconsistent these Christians are! In St. Louis the other day I read an interview with a Christian minister—one who is now holding a revival. They call him the boy preacher—a name that he has borne for fifty or sixty years. The question was whether in these revivals, when they were trying to rescue souls from eternal torture, they would allow colored people to occupy seats with white people; and that revivalist, preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ, said he would not allow the colored people to sit with white people; they must go to the back of the church. These same Christians tell us that in heaven there will be no distinction. That Christ cares nothing for the color of the skin. That in Paradise white and black will sit together, swap harps, and cry hallelujah in chorus; yet this minister, believing as he says he does, that all men who fail to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will eternally perish, was not willing that a colored man should sit by a white man and hear the gospel of everlasting peace.
According to this revivalist, the ship of the world is going down; Christ is the only life-boat; and yet he is not willing that a colored man, with a soul to save, shall sit by the side of a white brother, and be rescued from eternal death. He admits that the white brother is totally depraved; that if the white brother had justice done him he would be damned; that it is only through the wonderful mercy of God that the white man is not in hell; and yet such a being, totally depraved, is too good to sit by a colored man! Total depravity becomes arrogant; total depravity draws the color line in religion, and an ambassador of Christ says to the black man, "Stand away; let your white brother hear first about the love of God."
I believe in the religion of humanity. It is far better to love our fellow-men than to love God. We can help them. We cannot help him. We had better do what we can than to be always pretending to do what we cannot.
Virtue is of no color; kindness, justice and love, of no complexion.
Eternal Punishment.
Now I come to the last part of this creed—the doctrine of eternal punishment. I have concluded that I will never deliver a lecture in which I will not attack the doctrine of eternal pain. That part of the Congregational creed would disgrace the lowest savage that crouches and crawls in the jungles of Africa. The man who now, in the nineteenth century, preaches the doctrine of eternal punishment, the doctrine of an eternal hell, has lived in vain. Think of that doctrine! The eternity of punishment! I find in this same creed—in this latest utterance of Congregationalism—that Christ is finally going to triumph in this world and establish his kingdom. This creed declares that "we believe in the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of God over all the earth." If their doctrine is true he will never triumph in the other world. The Congregational Church does not believe in the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of Christ in the world to come. There he is to meet with eternal failure. He will have billions in hell forever.
In this world we never will be perfectly civilized as long as a gallows casts its shadow upon the earth. As long as there is a penitentiary, within the walls of which a human being is immured, we are not a perfectly civilized people. We shall never be perfectly civilized until we do away with crime. And yet, according to this Christian religion, God is to have an eternal penitentiary; he is to be an everlasting jailer, an everlasting turnkey, a warden of an infinite dungeon, and he is going to keep prisoners there forever, not for the purpose of reforming them—because they are never going to get any better, only worse—but for the purpose of purposeless punishment. And for what? For something they failed to believe in this world. Born in ignorance, supported by poverty, caught in the snares of temptation, deformed by toil, stupefied by want—and yet held responsible through the countless ages of eternity! No man can think of a greater horror; no man can dream of a greater absurdity. For the growth of that doctrine ignorance was soil and fear was rain. It came from the fanged mouths of serpents, and yet it is called "glad tidings of great joy." Some Who are Damned.
We are told "God so loved the world" that he is going to damn almost everybody. If this orthodox religion be true, some of the greatest, and grandest, and best who ever lived are suffering God's torments to-night. It does not appear to make much difference with the members of the church. They go right on enjoying themselves about as well as ever. If this doctrine is true, Benjamin Franklin, one of the wisest and best of men, who did so much to give us here a free government, is suffering the tyranny of God to-night, although he endeavored to establish freedom among men. If the churches were honest, their preachers would tell their hearers: "Benjamin Franklin is in hell, and we warn all the youth not to imitate Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, with its self-evident truths, has been damned these many years."
That is what all the ministers ought to have the courage to say. Talk as you believe. Stand by your creed, or change it. I want to impress it upon your minds, because the thing I wish to do in this world is to put out the fires of hell. I will keep on as long as there is one little red coal left in the bottomless pit. As long as the ashes are warm I shall denounce this infamous doctrine.
I want you to know that according to this creed the men who founded this great and splendid Government are in hell to-night. Most of the men who fought in the Revolutionary war, and wrested from the clutch of Great Britain this continent, have been rewarded by the eternal wrath of God. Thousands of the old Revolutionary soldiers are in torment tonight. Let the preachers have the courage to say so. The men who fought in 1812, and gave to the United States the freedom of the seas, have nearly all been damned. Thousands of heroes who served our country in the Civil war, hundreds who starved in prisons, are now in the dungeons of God, compared with which, Andersonville was Paradise. The greatest of heroes are there; the greatest of poets, the greatest scientists, the men who have made the world beautiful—they are all among the damned if this creed is true.
Humboldt, who shed light, and who added to the intellectual wealth of mankind; Goethe, and Schiller, and Lessing, who almost created the German language—all gone—all suffering the wrath of God tonight, and every time an angel thinks of one of those men he gives his harp an extra twang. Laplace, who read the heavens like an open book—he is there. Robert Burns, the poet of human love—he is there. He wrote the "Prayer of Holy Willie." He fastened on the cross the Presbyterian creed, and there it is, a lingering crucifixion. Robert Burns increased the tenderness of the human heart. Dickens put a shield of pity before the flesh of childhood—God is getting even with him. Our own Ralph Waldo Emerson, although he had a thousand opportunities to hear Methodist clergymen, scorned the means of grace, lived to his highest ideal, gave to his fellow-men his best and truest thought, and yet his spirit is the sport and prey of fiends to-night.
Longfellow, who has refined thousands of homes, did not believe in the miraculous origin of the Savior, doubted the report of Gabriel, loved his fellow-men, did what he could to free the slaves, to increase the happiness of man, yet God was waiting for his soul—waiting to cast him out and down forever. Thomas Paine, author of the "Rights of Man;" offering his life in both hemispheres for the freedom of the human race; one of the founders of this Republic, is now among the damned; and yet it seems to me that if he could only get God's attention long enough to point him to the American flag he would let him out. Auguste Comte, author of the "Positive Philosophy," who loved his fellow-men to that degree that he made of humanity a god, who wrote his great work in poverty, with his face covered with tears—they are getting their revenge on him now.
Voltaire, who abolished torture in France; who did more for human liberty than any other man, living or dead; who was the assassin of superstition, and whose dagger still rusts in the heart of Catholicism—he is with the rest. All the priests who have been translated have had their happiness increased by looking at Voltaire.
Giordano Bruno, the first star of the morning after the long night; Benedict Spinoza, the pantheist, the metaphysician, the pure and generous man; Diderot, the encyclopedist, who endeavored to get all knowledge in a small compass, so that he could put the peasant on an equality intellectually with the prince; Diderot, who wished to sow all over the world the seed of knowledge, and loved to labor for mankind, while the priests wanted to burn; who did all he could to put out the fires—he was lost, long, long ago. His cry for water has become so common that his voice is now recognized through all the realms of heaven, and the angels laughing, say to one another, "That is Diderot."
David Hume, the Scotch philosopher, is there, with his inquiry about the "Human Understanding" and his argument against miracles. Beethoven, master of music, and Wagner, the Shakespeare of harmony, who made the air of this world rich forever, they are there; and to-night they have better music in hell than in heaven!
Shelley, whose soul, like his own "Skylark," was a winged joy, has been damned for many, many years; and Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race, who did more to elevate mankind than all the priests who ever lived and died, he is there; but founders of inquisitions, builders of dungeons, makers of chains, inventors of instruments of torture, tearers, and burners, and branders of human flesh, stealers of babes, and sellers of husbands and wives and children, and they who kept the horizon lurid with the fagot's flame for a thousand years—are in heaven to-night. I wish heaven joy!
That is the doctrine with which we are polluting the souls of children. That is the doctrine that puts a fiend by the dying bed and a prophecy of hell over every cradle. That is "glad tidings of great joy."
Only a little while ago, when the great flood came upon the Ohio, sent by him who is ruling the world and paying particular attention to the affairs of nations, just in the gray of the morning they saw a house floating down and on its top a human being. A few men went out to the rescue. They found there a woman, a mother, and they wished to save her life. She said: "No, I am going to stay where I am. In this house I have three dead babes; I will not desert them." Think of a love so limitless—stronger and deeper than despair and death! And yet, the Christian religion says, that if that woman, that mother, did not happen to believe in their creed God would send her soul to eternal fire! If there is another world, and if in heaven they wear hats, when such a woman climbs the opposite bank of the Jordan, Christ should lift his to her.
The doctrine of eternal pain is my trouble with this Christian religion. I reject it on account of its infinite heartlessness. I cannot tell them too often, that during our last war Christians, who knew that if they were shot they would go right to heaven, went and hired wicked men to take their places, perfectly willing that these men should go to hell provided they could stay at home. You see they are not honest in it, or they do not believe it, or as the people say, "they don't sense it." They have not imagination enough to conceive what it is they believe, and what a terrific falsehood they assert. And I beg of every one who hears me to-night, I beg, I implore, I beseech you, never to give another dollar to build a church in which that lie is preached. Never give another cent to send a missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. Why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven, any way, if you let them alone. What is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them? Let them alone. The idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does not believe, he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that he will not believe it, is monstrous. Do not tell him here, and as quick as he gets to the other world and finds it is necessary to believe, he can say "Yes." Give him a chance.
Another Objection.
My objection to orthodox religion is that it destroys human love, and tells us that the love of this world is not necessary to make a heaven in the next.
No matter about your wife, your children, your brother, your sister—no matter about all the affections of the human heart—when you get there, you will be with the angels. I do not know whether I would like the angels. I do not know whether the angels would like me. I would rather stand by the ones who have loved me and whom I know; and I can conceive of no heaven without the loved of this earth. That is the trouble with this Christian relief-ion. Leave your father, leave your mother, leave your wife, leave your children, leave everything and follow Jesus Christ. I will not. I will stay with my people. I will not sacrifice on the altar of a selfish fear all the grandest and noblest promptings of my heart.
Do away with human love and what are we? What would we be in another world, and what would we be here? Can any one conceive of music without human love? Of art, or joy? Human love builds every home. Human love is the author of all beauty. Love paints every picture, and chisels every statue. Love builds every fireside. What could heaven be without human love? And yet that is what we are promised—a heaven with your wife lost, your mother lost, some of your children gone. And you expect to be made happy by falling in with some angel! Such a religion is infamous. Christianity holds human love for naught; and yet Love is the only bow on Life's dark cloud. It is the morning and the evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart—builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody—for music is the voice of love. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.
And how are you to get to this heaven? On the efforts of another. You are to be a perpetual heavenly pauper, and you will have to admit through all eternity that you never would have been there if you had not been frightened. "I am here," you will say, "I have these wings, I have this musical instrument, because I was scared. I am here. The ones who loved me are among the damned; the ones I loved are also there—but I am here, that is enough."
What a glorious' world heaven must be! No reformation in that world—not the slightest. If you die in Arkansas that is the end of you! Think of telling a boy in the next world, who lived and died in Delaware, that he had been fairly treated! Can anything be more infamous?
All on an equality—the rich and the poor, those with parents loving them, those with every opportunity for education, on an equality with the poor, the abject and the ignorant—and this little day called life, this moment with a hope, a shadow and a tear, this little space between your mother's arms and the grave, balances eternity.
God can do nothing for you when you get there. A Methodist preacher can do more for the soul here than its creator can there. The soul goes to heaven, where there is nothing but good society; no bad examples; and they are all there, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and yet they can do nothing for that poor unfortunate except to damn him. Is there any sense in that?
Why should this be a period of probation? It says in the Bible, I believe, "Now is the accepted time." When does that mean? That means whenever the passage is pronounced. "Now is the accepted time." It will be the same to-morrow, will it not? And just as appropriate then as to-day, and if appropriate at any time, appropriate through all eternity.
What I say is this: There is no world—there can be no world—in which every human being will not have the eternal opportunity of doing right.
That is my objection to this Christian religion; and if the love of earth is not the love of heaven, if those we love here are to be separated from us there, then I want eternal sleep. Give me a good cool grave rather than the furnace of Jehovah's wrath. I pray the angel of the resurrection to let me sleep. Gabriel, do not blow! Let me alone! If, when the grave bursts, I am not to meet the faces that have been my sunshine in this life, let me sleep. Rather than that this doctrine of endless punishment should be true, I would gladly see the fabric of our civilization crumbling fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and even memory forgets. I would rather that the blind Samson of some imprisoned force, released by chance, should so wreck and strand the mighty world that man in stress and strain of want and fear should shudderingly crawl back to savage and barbaric night. I would rather that every planet should in its orbit wheel a barren star!
What I Believe.
I think it is better to love your children than to love God, a thousand times better, because you can help them, and I am inclined to think that God can get along without you. Certainly we cannot help a being without body, parts, or passions!
I believe in the religion of the family. I believe that the roof-tree is sacred, from the smallest fibre that feels the soft cool clasp of earth, to the topmost flower that spreads its bosom to the sun, and like a spendthrift gives its perfume to the air. The home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire—the fairest flower in all the world. And I tell you God cannot afford to damn a man in the next world who has made a happy family in this. God cannot afford to cast over the battlements of heaven the man who has a happy home upon this earth. God cannot afford to be unpitying to a human heart capable of pity. God cannot clothe with fire the man who has clothed the naked here; and God cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward improving the condition of his fellow-man. If he can, I had rather go to hell than to heaven and keep the company of such a god.
Immortality.
They tell me that the next terrible thing I do is to take away the hope of immortality! I do not, I would not, I could not. Immortality was first dreamed of by human love; and yet the church is going to take human love out of immortality. We love, therefore we wish to live. A loved one dies and we wish to meet again; and from the affection of the human heart grew the great oak of the hope of immortality. Around that oak has climbed the poisonous vines of superstition. Theologians, pretenders, soothsayers, parsons, priests, popes, bishops, have taken advantage of that. They have stood by graves and promised heaven. They have stood by graves and prophesied a future filled with pain. They have erected their toll-gates on the highway of life and have collected money from fear.
Neither the Bible nor the church gave us the idea of immortality. The Old Testament tells us how we lost immortality, and it does not say a word about another world, from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse in Malachi. There is not in the Old Testament a burial service.
No man in the Old Testament stands by the dead and says, "We shall meet again." From the top of Sinai came no hope of another world.
And when we get to the New Testament, what do we find? "They that are accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead." As though some would be counted unworthy to obtain the resurrection of the dead. And in another place. "Seek for honor, glory, immortality." If you have it, why seek it? And in another place, "God, who alone hath immortality." Yet they tell us that we get our idea of immortality from the Bible. I deny it.
I would not destroy the faintest ray of human hope, but I deny that we got our idea of immortality from the Bible. It existed long before Moses. We find it symbolized through all Egypt, through all India. Wherever man has lived he has made another world in which to meet the lost of this.
The history of this belief we find in tombs and temples wrought and carved by those who wept and hoped. Above their dead they laid the symbols of another life.
We do not know. We do not prophesy a life of pain. We leave the dead with Nature, the mother of us all. Under the bow of hope, under the seven-hued arch, let the dead sleep.
If Christ was in fact God, why did he not plainly say there is another life? Why did he not tell us something about it? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of immortality into the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he go dumbly to his death and leave the world in darkness and in doubt? Why? Because he was a man and did not know.
What consolation has the orthodox religion for the widow of the unbeliever, the widow of a good, brave, kind man? What can the orthodox minister say to relieve the bursting heart of that woman? What can he say to relieve the aching hearts of the orphans as they kneel by the grave of that father, if that father did not happen to be an orthodox Christian? What consolation have they? When a Christian loses a friend the tears spring from his eyes as quickly as from the eyes of others. Their tears are as bitter as ours. Why? The echoes of the words spoken eighteen hundred years ago are so low, and the sounds of the clods upon the coffin are so loud; the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near.
We do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings; the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life that brings the rapture of love to everyone. A Fable.
There is the fable of Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice had been captured and taken to the infernal regions, and Orpheus went after her, taking with him his harp and playing as he went. When he came to Pluto's realm he began to play, and Sysiphus, charmed by the music, sat down upon the stone that he had been heaving up the mountain's side for so many years, and which continually rolled back upon him; Ixion paused upon his wheel of fire; Tantalus ceased his vain efforts for water; the daughters of the Danaides left off trying to fill their sieves with water; Pluto smiled, and for the first time in the history of hell the cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears. The god relented, and said, "Eurydice may go with you, but you must not look back." So Orpheus again threaded the caverns, playing as he went, and as he reached the light he failed to hear the footsteps of Eurydice. He looked back, and in a moment she was gone. Again and again Orpheus sought his love. Again and again looked back.
This fable gives the idea of the perpetual effort made by the human mind to rescue truth from the clutch of error.
Some time Orpheus will not look back. Some day Eurydice will reach the blessed light, and at last there will fade from the memory of men the monsters of superstition.
HAPPINESS is the true end and aim of life. It is the task of intelligence to ascertain the conditions of happiness, and when found the truly wise will live in accordance with them. By happiness is meant not simply the joy of eating and drinking—the gratification of the appetite—but good, wellbeing, in the highest and noblest forms. The joy that springs from obligation discharged, from duty done, from generous acts, from being true to the ideal, from a perception of the beautiful in nature, art and conduct. The happiness that is born of and gives birth to poetry and music, that follows the gratification of the highest wants.
Happiness is the result of all that is really right and sane.
But there are many people who regard the desire to be happy as a very low and degrading ambition. These people call themselves spiritual. They pretend to care nothing for the pleasures of "sense." They hold this world, this life, in contempt. They do not want happiness in this world—but in another. Here, happiness degrades—there, it purifies and ennobles.
These spiritual people have been known as prophets, apostles, augurs, hermits, monks, priests, popes, bishops and parsons. They are devout and useless. They do not cultivate the soil. They produce nothing. They live on the labor of others. They are pious and parasitic. They pray for others, if the others will work for them. They claim to have been selected by the Infinite to instruct and govern mankind. They are "meek" and arrogant, "long-suffering" and revengeful.
They ever have been, now are, and always will be the enemies of liberty, of investigation and science. They are believers in the supernatural, the miraculous and the absurd. They have filled the world with hatred, bigotry and fear. In defence of their creeds they have committed every crime and practiced every cruelty.
They denounce as worldly and sensual those who are gross enough to love wives and children, to build homes, to fell the forests, to navigate the seas, to cultivate the earth, to chisel statues, to paint pictures and fill the world with love and art.
They have denounced and maligned the thinkers, the poets, the dramatists, the composers, the actors, the orators, the workers—those who have conquered the world for man.
According to them this world is only the vestibule of the next, a kind of school, an ordeal, a place of probation. They have always insisted that this life should be spent in preparing for the next; that those who supported and obeyed the "spiritual guides"—the shepherds, would be rewarded with an eternity of joy, and that all others would suffer eternal pain.
These spiritual people have always hated labor. They have added nothing to the wealth of the world. They have always lived on alms—on the labor of others. They have always been the enemies of innocent pleasure, and of human love.
These spiritual people have produced a literature. The books they have written are called sacred. Our sacred books are called the Bible. The Hindoos have the Vedas and many others, the Persians the Zend Avesta—the Egyptians had the Book of the Dead—the Aztecs the Popol Vuh, and the Mohammedans have the Koran.
These books, for the most part, treat of the unknowable. They describe gods and winged phantoms of the air. They give accounts of the origin of the universe, the creation of man and the worlds beyond this. They contain nothing of value. Millions and millions of people have wasted their lives studying these absurd and ignorant books.
The "spiritual people" in each country claimed that their books had been written by inspired men—that God was the real author, and that all men and women who denied this would be, after death, tormented forever.
And yet, the worldly people, the uninspired, the wicked, have produced a far greater literature than the spiritual and the inspired.
Not all the sacred books of the world equal Shakespeare's "volume of the brain." A purer philosophy, grander, nobler, fell from the lips of Shakespeare's clowns than the Old Testament, or the New, contains.
The Declaration of Independence is nobler far than all the utterances from Sinai's cloud and flame. "A Man's a Man for a' That," by Robert Burns, is better than anything the sacred books contain. For my part, I would rather hear Beethoven's Sixth Symphony than to read the five books of Moses. Give me the Sixth Symphony—this sound-wrought picture of the fields and woods, of flowering hedge and happy home, where thrushes build and swallows fly, and mothers sing to babes; this echo of the babbled lullaby of brooks that, dallying, wind and fall where meadows bare their daisied bosoms to the sun; this joyous mimicry of summer rain, the laugh of children, and the rhythmic rustle of the whispering leaves; this strophe of peasant life; this perfect poem of content and love.
I would rather listen to Tristan and Isolde—that Mississippi of melody—where the great notes, winged like eagles, lift the soul above the cares and griefs of this weary world—than to all the orthodox sermons ever preached. I would rather look at the Venus de Milo than to read the Presbyterian creed.
The spiritual have endeavored to civilize the world through fear and faith—by the promise of reward and the threat of pain in other worlds. They taught men to hate and persecute their fellow-men. In all ages they have appealed to force. During all the years they have practiced fraud. They have pretended to have influence with the gods—that their prayers gave rain, sunshine and harvest—that their curses brought pestilence and famine, and that their blessings filled the world with plenty. They have subsisted on the fears their falsehoods created. Like poisonous vines, they have lived on the oak of labor. They have praised charity, but they never gave. They have denounced revenge, but they never forgave.
Whenever the spiritual have had power, art has died, learning has languished, science has been despised, liberty destroyed, the thinkers have been imprisoned, the intelligent and honest have been outcasts, and the brave have been murdered.
The "spiritual" have been, are, and always will be the enemies of the human race.
For all the blessings that we now enjoy—for progress in every form, for science and art—for all that has lengthened life, that has conquered disease, that has lessened pain, for raiment, roof and food, for music in its highest forms—for the poetry that has ennobled and enriched our lives—for the marvellous machines now working for the world—for all this we are indebted to the worldly—to those who turned their attention to the affairs of this life. They have been the only benefactors of our race.
II.
AND yet all of these religions—these "sacred books," these priests, have been naturally produced. From the dens and caves of savagery to the palaces of civilization men have traveled by the necessary paths and roads. Back of every step has been the efficient cause. In the history of the world there has been no chance, no interference from without, nothing miraculous. Everything in accordance with and produced by the facts in nature.
We need not blame the hypocritical and cruel. They thought and acted as they were compelled to think and act.
In all ages man has tried to account for himself and his surroundings. He did the best he could. He wondered why the water ran, why the trees grew, why the clouds floated, why the stars shone, why the sun and moon journeyed through the heavens. He was troubled about life and death, about darkness and dreams. The seas, the volcanoes, the lightning and thunder, the earthquake and cyclone, filled him with fear. Behind all life and growth and motion, and even inanimate things, he placed a spirit—an intelligent being—a fetich, a person, something like himself—a god, controlled by love and hate. To him causes and effects became gods—supernatural beings. The Dawn was a maiden, wondrously fair, the Sun, a warrior and lover; the Night, a serpent, a wolf—the Wind, a musician; Winter, a wild beast; Autumn, Proserpine gathering flowers.
Poets were the makers of these myths. They were the first to account for what they saw and felt. The great multitude mistook these fancies for facts. Myths strangely alike, were produced by most nations, and gradually took possession of the world.
The Sleeping Beauty, a myth of the year, has been found among most peoples. In this myth, the Earth was a maiden—the Sun was her lover, She had fallen asleep in winter. Her blood was still and her breath had gone. In the Spring the lover came, clasped her in his arms, covered her lips and cheeks with kisses. She was thrilled, her heart began to beat, she breathed, her blood flowed, and she awoke to love and joy. This myth has made the circuit of the globe.
So, Red Riding-Hood is the history of a day. Little Red Riding-Hood—the morning, touched with red, goes to visit her kindred, a day that is past. She is attacked by the wolf of night and is rescued by the hunter, Apollo, who pierces the heart of the beast with an arrow of light.
The beautiful myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is the story of the year. Eurydice has been captured and carried to the infernal world. Orpheus, playing upon his harp, goes after her. Such is the effect of his music when he reaches the realm of Pluto, the laughterless, that Tantalus ceases his efforts to slake his thirst. He listens and forgets his withered lips, the daughters of the Danaides cease their vain efforts to fill the sieve with water, Sisyphus sits down on the stone that he so often had heaved against the mountain's misty side, Ixion pauses upon his wheel of fire, even Pluto smiles, and for the first time in the history of hell the cheeks of the Furies are wet with tears.
"Give me back Eurydice," cried Orpheus, and Pluto said: "Take her, but look not back." Orpheus led the way and Eurydice followed. Just as he reached the upper world, he missed her footsteps, turned, looked, and she vanished.
And thus the summer comes, is lost, and comes again through all the years.
So, our ancestors believed in the Garden of Eden, in the Golden Age, in the blessed time when all were good and pure—when nature satisfied the wants of all. The race, like the old man, has golden dreams of youth. The morning was filled with light and life and joy, and the evening is always sad. When the old man was young, girls were beautiful and men were honest. He remembers his Eden. And so the whole world has had its age of gold.
Our fathers were believers in the Elysian Fields. They were in the far, far West. They saw them at the setting of the sun. They saw the floating isles of gold in sapphire seas; the templed mist with spires and domes of emerald and amethyst; the magic caverns of the clouds, resplendent with the rays of every gem. And as they looked, they thought the curtain had been drawn aside and that their eyes had for a moment feasted on the glories of another world.
The myth of the Flood has also been universal. Finding shells of the seas on plain and mountain, and everywhere some traces of the waves, they thought the world had been submerged—that God in wrath had drowned the race, except a few his mercy saved.
The Hindus say that Menu, a holy man, dipped from the Ganges some water, and in the basin saw a little fish. The fish begged him to throw him back into the river, and Menu, having pity, cast him back. The fish then told Menu that there was to be a flood—told him to build an ark, to take on board, people, animals and food, and that when the flood came, he, the fish, would save him. The saint did as he was told, the flood came, the fish returned. By that time he had grown to be a whale with a horn in his head. About this horn Menu fastened a rope, attached the other end to the ark, and the fish towed the boat across the raging waves to a mountain's top, where it rested until the waters subsided. The name of this wonderful fish was Matsaya.
Many other nations told similar stories of floods and arks and the sending forth of doves.
In all these myths and legends of the past we find philosophies and dreams and efforts, stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mysteries of life and death, to answer the questions of the whence and whither, and who vainly sought with bits of shattered glass to make a mirror that would in very truth reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes and fears, of tears and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them the winds and waves were music, and all the springs, the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire, made tawny Summer's billowy breast the throne and home of love, filled Autumn's arms with sun-kissed grapes and gathered sheaves, and pictured Winter as a weak old king, who felt, like Lear, upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears.
These myths, though false in fact, are beautiful and true in thought, and have for many ages and in countless ways enriched the heart and kindled thought.
III.
IN all probability the first religion was Sun-worship. Nothing could have been more natural. Light was life and warmth and love. The sun was the fireside of the world. The sun was the "all-seeing"—the "Sky Father." Darkness was grief and death, and in the shadows crawled the serpents of despair and fear.
The sun was a great warrior, fighting the hosts of Night. Apollo was the sun, and he fought and conquered the serpent of Night. Agni, the generous, who loved the lowliest and visited the humblest, was the sun. He was the god of fire, and the crossed sticks that by friction leaped into flame were his emblem. It was said that, in spite of his goodness, he devoured his father and mother, the two pieces of wood being his parents. Baldur was the sun. He was in love with the Dawn—a maiden—he deserted her and traveled through the heavens alone. At the twilight they met, were reconciled, and the drops of dew were the tears of joy they shed.
Chrishna was the sun. At his birth the Ganges thrilled from its source to the sea. All the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf and bud and flower.
Hercules was a sun-god.
Jonah the same, rescued from the fiends of Night and carried by the fish through the under world. Samson was a sun-god. His strength was in his hair—in his beams. He was shorn of his strength by Delilah, the shadow—the darkness. So, Osiris, Bacchus, Mithra, Hermes, Buddha, Quelzalcoatle, Prometheus, Zoroaster, Perseus, Codom Lao-tsze Fo-hi, Horus and Rameses were all sun-gods.
All these gods had gods for fathers and all their mothers were virgins.
The births of nearly all were announced by stars.
When they were born there was celestial music—voices declared that a blessing had come upon the earth.
When Buddha was born, the celestial choir sang: "This day is born for the good of men Buddha, and to dispel the darkness of their ignorance—to give joy and peace to the world."
Chrishna was born in a cave, and protected by shepherds. Bacchus, Apollo, Mithra and Hermes were all born in caves. Buddha was born in an inn—according to some, under a tree.
Tyrants sought to kill all of these gods when they were babes.
When Chrishna was born, a tyrant killed the babes of the neighborhood.
Buddha was the child of Maya, a virgin, in the kingdom of Madura. The king arrested Maya before the child was born, imprisoned her in a tower. During the night when the child was born, a great wind wrecked the tower, and carried mother and child to a place of safety. The next morning the king sent his soldiers to kill the babes, and when they came to Buddha and his mother, the babe appeared to be about twelve years of age, and the soldiers passed on.
So Typhon sought in many ways to destroy the babe Horus. The king pursued the infant Zoroaster. Cadmus tried to kill the infant Bacchus.
All of these gods were born on the 25th of December.
Nearly all were worshiped by "wise men."
All of them fasted for forty days.
All met with a violent death.
All rose from the dead.
The history of these gods is the history of our Christ. He had a god for a father, a virgin for a mother. He was born in a manger, or a cave—on the 2 5th of December. His birth was announced by angels. He was worshiped by wise men, guided by a star. Herod, seeking his life, caused the death of many babes. Christ fasted for forty days. So, it rained for forty days before the flood—Moses was on Mt. Sinai for forty days. The temple had forty pillars and the Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Christ met with a violent death, and rose from the dead.
These things are not accidents—not coincidences. Christ was a sun-god. All religions have been born of sun-worship. To-day, when priests pray, they shut their eyes. This is a survival of sun-worship. When men worshiped the sun, they had to shut their eyes. Afterwards, to flatter idols, they pretended that the glory of their faces was more than the eyes could bear.
In the religion of our day there is nothing original. All of its doctrines, its symbols and ceremonies are but the survivals of creeds that perished long ago. Baptism is far older than Christianity—than Judaism. The Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans had holy water. The eucharist was borrowed from the Pagans. Ceres was the goddess of the fields, Bacchus the god of the vine. At the harvest festival they made cakes of wheat and said: "These are the flesh of the goddess." They drank wine and cried: "This is the blood of our god."
The cross has been a symbol for many thousands of years. It was a symbol of immortality—of life, of the god Agni, the form of the grave of a man. An ancient people of Italy, who lived long before the Romans, long before the Etruscans, so long that not one word of their language is known, used the cross, and beneath that emblem, carved on stone, their dead still rest. In the forests of Central America, ruined temples have been found, and on the walls the cross with the bleeding victim. On Babylonian cylinders is the impression of the cross. The Trinity came from Egypt. Osiris, Isis and Horus were worshiped thousands of years before our Father, Son and Holy Ghost were thought of. So the Tree of Life grew in India, China and among the Aztecs long before the Garden of Eden was planted. Long before our Bible was known, other nations had their sacred books, temples and altars, sacrifices, ceremonies and priests. The "Fall of Man" is far older than our religion, and so are the "Atonement" and the Scheme of Redemption.
In our blessed religion there is nothing new, nothing original.
Among the Egyptians the cross was a symbol of the life to come. And yet the first religion was, and all religions growing out of that, were naturally produced. Every brain was a field in which Nature sowed the seeds of thought. The rise and set of sun, the birth and death of day, the dawns of silver and the dusks of gold, the wonders of the rain and snow, the shroud of Winter and the many colored robe of Spring, the lonely moon with nightly loss or gain, the serpent lightning and the thunder's voice, the tempest's fury and the zephyr's sigh, the threat of storm and promise of the bow, cathedral clouds with dome and spire, earthquake and strange eclipse, frost and fire, the snow-crowned mountains with their tongues of flame, the fields of space sown thick with stars, the wandering comets hurrying past the fixed and sleepless sentinels of night, the marvels of the earth and air, the perfumed flower, the painted wing, the waveless pool that held within its magic breast the image of the startled face, the mimic echo that made a record in the viewless air, the pathless forests and the boundless seas, the ebb and flow of tides—the slow, deep breathing of some vague and monstrous life—the miracle of birth, the mystery of dream and death, and over all the silent and immeasurable dome. These were the warp and woof, and at the loom sat Love and Fancy, Hope and Fear, and wove the wondrous tapestries whereon we find pictures of gods and fairy lands and all the legends that were told when Nature rocked the cradle of the infant world.
IV.
WE must remember that there is a great difference. Myth is the idealization of a fact. A miracle is the counterfeit of a fact. There is the same difference between a myth and a miracle that there is between fiction and falsehood—between poetry and perjury. Miracles belong to the far past and the far future. The little line of sand, called the present, between the seas, belongs to common sense, to the natural.
If you should tell a man that the dead were raised two thousand years ago, he would probably say: "Yes, I know that." If you should say that a hundred thousand years from now all the dead will be raised, he might say: "Probably they will." But if you should tell him that you saw a dead man raised and given life that day, he would likely ask the name of the insane asylum from which you had escaped.
Our Bible is filled with accounts of miracles and yet they always fail to convince.
Jehovah, according to the Scriptures, wrought hundreds of miracles for the benefit of the Jews. With many miracles he rescued them from slavery, guided them on their journey with a miraculous cloud by day and a miraculous pillar of fire by night—divided the sea that they might escape from the Egyptians, fed them with miraculous manna and supernatural quails, raised up hornets to attack their enemies, caused water to follow them wherever they wandered and in countless ways manifested his power, and yet the Jews cared nothing for these wonders. Not one of them seems to have been convinced that Jehovah had done anything for the people.
In spite of all these miracles, the Jews had more confidence in a golden calf, made by themselves, than in Jehovah. The reason of this is, that the miracles were never performed, and never invented until hundreds of years after those, who had wandered over the desert of Sinai, were dust.
The miracles attributed to Christ had no effect. No human being seems to have been convinced by them. Those whom he raised from the dead, cured of leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his followers. Not one of them appeared at his trial. Not one offered to bear witness of his miraculous power.
To this there is but one explanation: The miracles were never performed. These stories were the growth of centuries. The casting out of devils, the changing of water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few loaves and fishes, resisting the devil, using a fish for a pocketbook, curing the blind with clay and saliva, stilling the tempest, walking on the water, the resurrection and ascension, happened and only happened, in the imaginations of men, who were not born until several generations after Christ was dead.
In those days the world was filled with ignorance and fear. Miracles happened every day. The supernatural was expected. Gods were continually interfering with the affairs of this world. Everything was told except the truth, everything believed except the facts. History was a circumstantial account of occurrences that never occurred. Devils and goblins and ghosts were as plentiful as saints. The bones of the dead were used to cure the living. Cemeteries were hospitals and corpses were physicians. The saints practiced magic, the pious communed with God in dreams, and the course of events was changed by prayer. The credulous demanded the marvelous, the miraculous, and the priests supplied the demand. The sky was full of signs, omens of death and disaster, and the darkness thick with devils endeavoring to mislead and enslave the souls of men.
Our fathers thought that everything had been made for man, and that demons and gods gave their entire attention to this world. The people believed that they were the sport and prey, the favorites or victims, of these phantoms. And they also believed that the Creator, the God, could be influenced by sacrifice, by prayers and ceremonies.
This has been the mistake of the world. All the temples have been reared, all the altars erected, all the sacrifices offered, all the prayers uttered in vain. No god has interfered, no prayer has been answered, no help received from heaven. Nothing was created, nothing has happened for, or with reference to man. If not a human being lived,—if all Were in' their graves, the sun would continue to shine, the wheeling world would still pursue its flight, violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the day, the spendthrift roses give their perfume to the air, the climbing vines would hide with leaf and flower the fallen and the dead, the changing seasons would come-and go,-time would repeat the poem of the year, storms would wreck and whispering rains repair, Spring with deft and unseen hands would weave her robes of green, life with countless lips would seek fair Summer's swelling breasts, Autumn would reap the wealth of leaf and fruit and seed, Winter, the artist, would etch in frost the pines and ferns, while Wind and Wave and Fire, old architects, with ceaseless toil would still destroy and build, still wreck and change, and from the dust of death produce again the throb and breath of life.
V.
A FEW years ago a few men began to think, to investigate, to reason. They began to doubt the legends of the church, the miracles of the past. They began to notice what happened. They found that eclipses came at certain intervals and that their coming could be foretold. They became satisfied that the conduct of men had nothing to do with eclipses—and that the stars moved in their orbits unconscious of the sons of men. Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler' destroyed the astronomy of the Bible, and demonstrated that the "inspired" story of creation could not be true, and that the church was as ignorant as the priests were dishonest.
They found that the myth-makers were mistaken, that the sun and stars did not revolve about the earth, that the firmament was not solid, that the earth was not flat, and that the so-called philosophy of the theologians was absurd and idiotic.
The stars became witnesses against the creeds of superstition.
With the telescope the heavens were explored. The New Jerusalem could not be found.
It had faded away.
The church persecuted the astronomers and denied the facts. In February, in the year of grace sixteen hundred, the Catholic Church, the "Triumphant Beast," having in her hands, her paws, the keys of heaven and hell, accused Giordano Bruno of having declared that there were other worlds than this. He was tried, convicted, imprisoned in a dungeon for seven years. He was offered his liberty if he would recant. Bruno, the atheist, the philosopher, refused to stain his soul by denying what he believed to be true. He was taken from his cell by the priests, by those who loved their enemies, led to the place of execution. He was clad in a robe on which representations of devils had been painted—the devils that were soon to claim his soul. He was chained to a stake and about his body the wood was piled. Then priests, followers of Christ, lighted the fagots and flames consumed the greatest, the most perfect martyr, that ever suffered death.
And yet the Italian agent of God, the infallible Leo XIII., only a few years ago, denounced Bruno, the "bravest of the brave," as a coward.
The church murdered him, and the pope maligned his memory. Fagot and falsehood—two weapons of the church.
A little while ago a few men began to examine rocks and soils, mountains, islands, reefs and seas. They noticed the valleys and deltas that had been formed by rivers, the many strata of lava that had been changed to soil, the vast deposits of metals and coal, the immense reefs that the coral had formed, the work of glaciers in the far past, the production of soil by the disintegration of rock, by the growth and decay of vegetation and the countless evidences of the countless ages through which the Earth has passed. The geologists read the history of the world written by wave and flame, attested by fossils, by the formation of rocks, by mountain ranges, by volcanoes, by rivers, islands, continents and seas.
The geology of the Bible—of the "divinely inspired" church, of the "infallible" pope, was found to be utterly false and foolish.
The Earth became a witness against the creeds of superstition.
Then came Watt and Galvani with the miracles of steam and electricity, while countless inventors created the wonderful machines that do the work of the world. Investigation took the place of credulity. Men became dissatisfied with huts and rags, with crusts and creeds. They longed for the comforts, the luxuries of life. The intellectual horizon enlarged, new truths were discovered, old ideas were thrown aside, the brain was developed, the heart civilized and science was born. Humboldt, Laplace and hundreds of others explained the phenomena of nature, called attention to the ancient and venerable mistakes of sanctified ignorance and added to the sum of knowledge. Darwin and Haeckel gave their conclusions to the world. Men began to really think, the myths began to fade, the miracles to grow mean and small, and the great structure, known as theology, fell with a crash.
Science denies the truth of myth and miracle, denies that human testimony can substantiate the miraculous, denies the existence of the supernatural. Science asserts the absolute, the unvarying uniformity of nature. Science insists that the present is the child of all the past,—that no power can change the past, and that nature is forever the same.
The chemist has found that just so many atoms of one kind unite with just so many of another—no more, no less, always the same. No caprice in chemistry; no interference from without.
The astronomers know that the planets remain in their orbits—that their forces are constant. They know that light is forever the same, always obeying the angle of incidence, traveling with the same rapidity,—casting the same shadow, under the same circumstances in all worlds. They know that the eclipses will occur at the times foretold—neither hastening nor delaying. They know that the attraction of gravitation is always the same, always in perfect proportion to mass and distance, neither weaker nor stronger, unvarying forever. They know that the facts in nature cannot be changed or destroyed, and that the qualities of all things are eternal.
The men of science know that the atomic integrity of the metals is always the same, that each metal is true to its nature and that the particles cling to each other with the same tenacity,—the same force. They have demonstrated the persistence of force, that it is forever active, forever the same, and that it cannot be destroyed.
These great truths have revolutionized the thought of the world.
Every art, every employment, all study, all experiment, the value of experience, of judgment, of hope, all rest on a belief in the uniformity of nature, on the eternal persistence and indestructibility of force.
Break one link in the infinite chain of cause and effect, and the Master of Nature appears. The broken link would become the throne of a god.
The uniformity of Nature denies the supernatural and demonstrates that there is no interference from without. There is no place, no office left for gods. Ghosts fade from the brain and the shrivelled deities fall palsied from their thrones.
The uniformity of Nature renders a belief in "special providence" impossible. Prayer becomes a useless agitation of the air, and religious ceremonies are but motions, pantomimes, mindless and meaningless.
The naked savage, worshiping a wooden god, is the religious equal of the robed pope kneeling before an image of the Virgin. The poor African who carries roots and bark to protect himself from evil spirits is on the same intellectual plane of one who sprinkles his body with "holy water."
All the creeds of Christendom, all the religions of the heathen world are equally absurd. The cathedral, the mosque and the joss house have the same foundation. Their builders do not believe in the uniformity of Nature, and the business of all priests is to induce a so-called infinite being to change the order of events, to make causes barren of effects and to produce effects without, and in spite of, natural causes. They all believe in the unthinkable and pray for the impossible.
Science teaches us that there was no creation and that there can be no destruction. The infinite denies creation and defies destruction. An infinite person, an "infinite being" is an infinite impossibility. To conceive of such a being is beyond the power of the mind. Yet all religions rest upon the supposed existence of the unthinkable, the inconceivable. And the priests of these religions pretend to be perfectly familiar with the designs, will, and wishes of this unthinkable, this inconceivable.
Science teaches that that which really is has always been, that behind every effect is the efficient and necessary cause, that there is in the universe neither chance nor interference, and that energy is eternal. Day by day the authority of the theologian grows weaker and weaker. As the people become intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers. Their confidence in knowledge, in thought and investigation increases. They are eager to know the discoveries, the useful truths, the important facts made, ascertained and demonstrated by the explorers in the domain of the natural. They are no longer satisfied with the platitudes of the pulpit, and the assertions of theologians. They are losing confidence in the "sacred Scriptures" and in the protecting power and goodness of the supernatural. They are satisfied that credulity is not a virtue and that investigation is not a crime.
Science is the providence of man, the worker of true miracles, of real wonders. Science has "read a little in Nature's infinite book of secrecy." Science knows the circuits of the winds, the courses of the stars. Fire is his servant, and lightning his messenger. Science freed the slaves and gave liberty to their masters. Science taught man to enchain, not his fellows, but the forces of nature, forces that have no backs to be scarred, no limbs for chains to chill and eat, forces that have no hearts to break, forces that never know fatigue, forces that shed no tears. Science is the great physician. His touch has given sight. He has made the lame to leap, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and in the pallid face his hand has set the rose of health. Science has given his beloved sleep and wrapped in happy dreams the throbbing nerves of pain. Science is the destroyer of disease, builder of happy homes, the preserver of life and love. Science is the teacher of every virtue, the enemy of every vice. Science has given the true basis of morals, the origin and office of conscience, revealed the nature of obligation, of duty, of virtue in its highest, noblest forms, and has demonstrated that true happiness is the only possible good. Science has slain the monsters of superstition, and destroyed the authority of inspired books. Science has read the records of the rocks, records that priestcraft cannot change, and on his wondrous scales has weighed the atom and the star.
Science has founded the only true religion. Science is the only Savior of this world.
VI.
FOR many ages religion has been tried. For countless centuries man has sought for help from heaven. To soften the heart of God, mothers sacrificed their babes! but the God did not hear, did not see, and did not help. Naked savages were devoured by beasts, bitten by serpents, killed by flood and frost. They prayed for help, but their God was deaf. They built temples and altars, employed priests and gave of their substance, but the volcano destroyed and the famine came. For the sake of God millions murdered their fellow-men, but the God was silent. Millions of martyrs died for the honor of God, but the God was blind. He did not see the flames, the scaffolds. He did not hear the prayers, the groans. Thousands of priests in the name of God tortured their fellow-men, stretched them on racks, crushed their feet in iron boots, tore out their tongues, extinguished their eyes. The victims implored the protection of God, but their god did not hear, did not see. He was deaf and blind. He was willing that his enemies should torture his friends.
Nations tried to destroy each other for the sake of God, and the banner of the cross dripping with blood floated over a thousand fields—but the god was silent. He neither knew nor cared. Pestilence covered the earth with dead, the priests prayed, the altars were heaped with sacrifices, but the god did not see, did not hear. The miseries of the world did not lessen the joys of heaven. The clouds gave no rain, the famine came, withered babes with pallid lips sought the breasts of dead mothers, while starving fathers knelt and prayed, but the god did not hear. Through many centuries millions were enslaved, babes were sold from mothers, husbands from wives, backs were scarred with the lash. The poor wretches lifted their clasped hands toward heaven and prayed for justice, for liberty—but their god did not hear. He cared nothing for the sufferings of slaves, nothing for the tears of wives and mothers, nothing for the agony of men. He answered no prayers. He broke no chains. He freed no slaves.
The miserable wretches appealed to the priests of God, but they were on the other side. They defended the masters. The slaves had nothing to give.
During all these years it was claimed by the theologians that their God was governing the world, that he was infinitely powerful, wise and good—and that the "powers" of the earth were "ordained" by him. During all these years the church was the enemy of progress. It hated all physicians and told the people to rely on prayer, amulets and relics. It persecuted the astronomers and geologists, denounced them as infidels and atheists, as enemies of the human race. It poisoned the fountains of learning and insisted that teachers should distort the facts in nature to the end that they might harmonize with the "inspired" book. During all these years the church misdirected the energies of man, and when it reached the zenith of its power, darkness fell upon the world.
In all nations and in all ages, religion has failed. The gods have never interfered. Nature has produced and destroyed without mercy and without hatred. She has cared no more for man than for the leaves of the forest, no more for nations than for hills of ants, nothing for right or wrong, for life or death, for pain or joy.
Man through his intelligence must protect himself. He gets no help from any other world. The church has always claimed and still claims that it is the only reforming power, that it makes men honest, virtuous and merciful, that it prevents violence and war, and that without its influence the race would return to barbarism.
Nothing can exceed the absurdity of these claims.
If we wish to improve the condition of mankind—if we wish for nobler men and women we must develop the brain, we must encourage thought and investigation. We must convince the world that credulity is a vice,—that there is no virtue in believing without, or against evidence, and that the really honest man is true to himself. We must fill the world with intellectual light. We must applaud mental courage. We must educate the children, rescue them from ignorance and crime. School-houses are the real temples, and teachers are the true priests. We must supply the wants of the mind, satisfy the hunger of the brain. The people should be familiar with the great poets, with the tragedies of �?schylus, the dramas of Shakespeare, with the poetry of Homer and Virgil. Shakespeare should be taught in every school, found in every house.
Through photography the whole world may become acquainted with the great statues, the great paintings, the victories of art. In this way the mind is enlarged, the sympathies quickened, the appreciation of the beautiful intensified, the taste refined and the character ennobled.
The great novels should be read by all. All should be acquainted with the men and women of fiction, with the ideal world. The imagination should be developed, trained and strengthened. Superstition has degraded art and literature. It gave us winged monsters, scenes from heaven and hell, representations of gods and devils, sculptured the absurd and painted the impossible in the name of Art. It gave us the dreams of the insane, the lives of fanatical saints, accounts of miracles and wonders, of cures wrought by the bones of the dead, descriptions of Paradise, purgatory and the eternal dungeon, discourses on baptism, on changing wine and wafers into the the blood and flesh of God, on the forgiveness of sins by priests, on fore-ordination and accountability, predestination and free will, on devils, ghosts and goblins, the ministrations of guardian angels, the virtue of belief and the wickedness of doubt. And this was called "sacred literature."
The church taught that those who believed, counted beads, mumbled prayers, and gave their time or property for the support of the gospel were the good and that all others were traveling the "broad road" to eternal pain. According to the theologians, the best people, the saints, were dead, and real beauty was to be found only in heaven. They denounced the joys of life as husks and filthy rags, declared that the world had been cursed, and that it brought forth thistles and thorns because of the sins of man. They regarded the earth as a kind of dock, running out into the sea of eternity,—on which the pious waited for the ship on which they were to be transported to another world.
But the real poets and the real artists clung to this world, to this life. They described and represented things that exist. They expressed thoughts of the brain, emotions of the heart, the griefs and joys, the hope and despair of men and women. They found strength and beauty on every hand. They found their angels here. They were true to human experience and they touched the brain and heart of the world. In the tragedies and comedies of life, in the smiles and tears, in the ecstasies of love, in the darkness of death, in the dawn of hope, they found their materials for statue and song, for poem and painting. Poetry and art are the children of this world, born and nourished here. They are human. They have left the winged monsters of heaven, the malicious deformities of hell, and have turned their attention to men and women, to the things of this life.
There is a poem called "The Skylark," by Shelley, graceful as the motions of flames. Another by Robert Burns, called "The Daisy," exquisite, perfect as the pearl of virtue in the beautiful breast of a loving girl. Between this lark and this daisy, neither above nor below, you will find all the poetry of the world. Eloquence, sublimity, poetry and art must have the foundation of fact, of reality. Imaginary worlds and beings are nothing to us.
At last the old creeds are becoming cruel and vulgar. We now have imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of others. Believers in hell, in eternal pain, like murderers, lack imagination. The murderer has not imagination enough to see his victim dead. He does not see the sightless and pathetic eyes. He does not see the widow's arms about the corpse, her lips upon the dead. He does not hear the sobs of children. He does not see the funeral. He does not hear the clods as they fall on the coffin. He does not feel the hand of arrest, the scene of the trial is not before him. He does not hear the awful verdict, the sentence of the court, the last words. He does not see the scaffold, nor feel about his throat the deadly noose.
Let us develop the brain, civilize the heart, and give wings to the imagination.
VII.
IF we abandon myth and miracle, if we discard the supernatural and the scheme of redemption, how are we to civilize the world?
Is falsehood a reforming power? Is credulity the mother of virtue? Is there any saving grace in the impossible and absurd? Did wisdom perish with the dead? Must the civilized accept the religion of savages?
If we wish to reform the world we must rely on truth, on fact, on reason. We must teach men that they are good or bad for themselves, that others cannot be good or bad for them, that they cannot be charged with the crimes, or credited with the virtues of others. We must discard the doctrine of the atonement, because it is absurd and immoral. We are not accountable for the sins of "Adam" and the virtues of Christ cannot be transferred to us. There can be no vicarious virtue, no vicarious vice. Why should the sufferings of the innocent atone for the crimes of the guilty. According to the doctrine of the atonement right and wrong do not exist in the nature of things, but in the arbitrary will of the Infinite. This is a subversion of all ideas of justice and mercy.
An act is good, bad, or indifferent, according to its consequences. No power can step between an act and its natural consequences. A governor may pardon the criminal, but the natural consequences of the crime remain untouched. A god may forgive, but the consequences of the act forgiven, are still the same. We must teach the world that the consequences of a bad action cannot be avoided, that they are the invisible police, the unseen avengers, that accept no gifts, that hear no prayers, that no cunning can deceive.
We do not need the forgiveness of gods, but of ourselves and the ones we injure. Restitution without repentance is far better than repentance without restitution.
We know nothing of any god who rewards, punishes or forgives.
We must teach our fellow-men that honor comes from within, not from without, that honor must be earned, that it is not alms, that even an infinite God could not enrich the beggar's palm with the gem of honor.
Teach them also that happiness is the bud, the blossom and the fruit of good and noble actions, that it is not the gift of any god; that it must be earned by man—must be deserved.
In this world of ours there is no magic, no sleight-of-hand, by which consequences can be made to punish the good and reward the bad.
Teach men not to sacrifice this world for some other, but to turn their attention to the natural, to the affairs of this life. Teach them that theology has no known foundation, that it was born of ignorance and fear, that it has hardened the heart, polluted the imagination and made fiends of men.
Theology is not for this world. It is no part of real religion. It has nothing to do with goodness or virtue. Religion does not consist in worshiping gods, but in adding to the well-being, the happiness of man. No human being knows whether any god exists or not, and all that has been said and written about "our god," or the gods of other people, has no known fact for a foundation. Words without thoughts, clouds without rain.
Let us put theology out of religion.
Church and state should be absolutely divorced. Priests pretend that they have been selected by, and that they get their power from God. Kings occupy their thrones in accordance with the will of God. The pope declares that he is the agent, the deputy of God and that by right he should rule the world. All these pretentions and assertions are perfectly absurd and yet they are acknowledged and believed by millions. Get theology out of government and kings will descend from their thrones. All will admit that governments get their powers from the consent of the governed, and that all persons in office are the servants of the people. Get theology out of government and chaplains will be dismissed from Legislatures, from Congress, from the army and navy. Get theology out of government and people will be allowed to express their honest thoughts about "inspired books" and superstitious creeds. Get theology out of government and priests will no longer steal a seventh of our time. Get theology out of government and the clergy will soon take their places with augurs and soothsayers, with necromancers and medicine-men.
Get theology out of education. Nothing should be taught in a school that somebody does not know.
There are plenty of things to be learned about this world, about this life. Every child should be taught to think, and that it is dangerous not to think. Children should not be taught the absurdities, the cruelties and imbecilities of superstition. No church should be allowed to control the common school, and public money should not be divided between the hateful and warring sects. The public school should be secular, and only the useful should be taught. Many of our colleges are under the control of churches. Presidents and professors are mostly ministers of the gospel and the result is that all facts inconsistent with the creeds are either suppressed or denied. Only those professors who are naturally stupid or mentally dishonest can retain their places. Those who tell the truth, who teach the facts, are discharged.
In every college truth should be a welcome guest. Every professor should be a finder, and every student a learner, of facts. Theology and intellectual dishonesty go together. The teacher of children should be intelligent and perfectly sincere.
Let us get theology out of education.
The pious denounce the secular schools as godless. They should be. The sciences are all secular, all godless. Theology bears the same relation to science that the black art does to chemistry, that magic does to mathematics. It is something that cannot be taught, because it cannot be known. It has no foundation in fact. It neither produces, nor accords with, any image in the mind. It is not only unknowable but unthinkable. Through hundreds and thousands of generations men have been discussing, wrangling and fighting about theology. No advance has been made. The robed priest has only reached the point from which the savage tried to start.
We know that theology always has and always will make enemies. It sows the seeds of hatred in families and nations. It is selfish, cruel, revengeful and malicious. It has heaven for the few and perdition for the many. We now know that credulity is not a virtue and that intellectual courage is. We must stop rewarding hypocrisy and bigotry. We must stop persecuting the thinkers, the investigators, the creators of light, the civilizers of the world.
VIII.
WILL the unknown, the mysteries of life and itiations of the mind, forever furnish food for superstition? Will the gods and ghosts perish or simply retreat before the advancing hosts of science, and continue to crouch and lurk just beyond the horizon of the known? Will darkness forever be the womb and mother of the supernatural?
A little while ago priests told peasants that the New Jerusalem, the celestial city was just above the clouds. They said that its walls and domes and spires were just beyond the reach of human sight. The telescope was invented and those who looked at the wilderness of stars, saw no city, no throne. They said to the priests: "Where is your New Jerusalem?" The priests cheerfully and confidently replied. "It is just beyond where you see."
At one time it was believed that a race of men existed "with their heads beneath their shoulders." Returning travelers from distant lands were asked about these wonderful people and all replied that they had not seen them. "Oh," said the believers in the monsters, "the men with heads beneath their shoulders live in a country that you did not visit." And so the monsters lived and flourished until all the world was known. We cannot know the universe. We cannot travel infinite distances, and so, somewhere in shoreless space there will always be room for gods and ghosts, for heavens and hells. And so it may be that superstition will live and linger until the world becomes intelligent enough to build upon the foundation of the known, to keep the imagination within the domain of the probable, and to believe in the natural—until the supernatural shall have been demonstrated.
Savages knew all about gods, about heavens and hells before they knew anything about the world in which they lived. They were perfectly familiar with evil spirits, with the invisible phantoms of the air, long before they had any true conception of themselves. So, they knew all about the origin and destiny of the human race. They were absolutely certain about the problems, the solution of which, philosophers know, is beyond the limitations of the mind. They understood astrology, but not astronomy, knew something of magic, but nothing about chemistry. They were wise only as to those things about which nothing can be known.
The poor Indian believed in the "Great Spirit" and saw "design" on every hand.—Trees were made that he might have bows and arrows, wood for his fire and bark for his wigwam—rivers and lakes to give him fish, wild beasts and corn that he might have food, and the animals had skins that he might have clothes.
Primitive peoples all reasoned in the same way, and modern Christians follow their example. They knew but little of the world and thought that it had been made expressly for the use of man. They did not know that it was mostly water, that vast regions were locked in eternal ice and that in most countries the conditions were unfavorable to human life. They knew nothing of the countless enemies of man that live unseen in water, food and air. Back of the little good they knew they put gods and back of the evil, devils. They thought it of the greatest importance to gain the good will of the gods, who alone could protect them from the devils. Those who worshiped these gods, offered sacrifices, and obeyed priests, were considered loyal members of the tribe or community, and those who refused to worship were regarded as enemies and traitors. The believers, in order to protect themselves from the anger of the gods, exiled or destroyed the infidels.
Believing as they did, the course they pursued was natural. They not only wished to protect themselves from disease and death, from pestilence and famine in this world but the souls of their children from eternal pain in the next. Their gods were savages who demanded flattery and worship not only, but the acceptance of a certain creed. As long as Christians believe in eternal punishment they will be the enemies of those who investigate and contend for the authority of reason, of those who demand evidence, who care nothing for the unsupported assertions of the dead or the illogical inferences of the living.
Science always has been, is, and always will be modest, thoughtful, truthful. It has but one object: The ascertainment of truth. It has no prejudice, no hatred. It is in the realm of the intellect and cannot be swayed or changed by passion. It does not try to please God, to gain heaven or avoid hell. It is for this world, for the use of man. It is perfectly candid. It does not try to conceal, but to reveal. It is the enemy of mystery, of pretence and canc. It does not ask people to be solemn, but sensible. It calls for and insists on the use of all the senses, of all the faculties of the mind. It does not pretend to be "holy" or "inspired." It courts investigation, criticism and even denial. It asks for the application of every test, for trial by every standard. It knows nothing of blasphemy and does not ask for the imprisonment of those who ignorantly or knowingly deny the truth. The good that springs from a knowledge of the truth is the only reward it offers, and the evil resulting from ignorance is the only punishment it threatens. Its effort is to reform the world through intelligence.
On the other hand theology is, always has been, and always will be, ignorant, arrogant, puerile and cruel. When the church had power, hypocrisy was crowned and honesty imprisoned. Fraud wore the tiara and truth was a convict, Liberty was in chains, Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.
Let me give you a scene from the day of judgment. Christ is upon his throne, his secretary by his side. A soul appears. This is what happens—
"What is your name?"
Torquemada.
"Were you a Christian?"
I was.
"Did you endeavor to convert your fellow-men?"
I did. I tried to convert them by persuasion, by preaching and praying and even by force.
"What did you do?"
I put the heretics in prison, in chains. I tore out their tongues, put out their eyes, crushed their bones, stretched them upon racks, roasted their feet, and if they remained obdurate I flayed them alive or burned them at the stake.
"And did you do all this for my glory?"
Yes, all for you. I wanted to save some, I wanted to protect the young and the weak minded.
"Did you believe the Bible, the miracles—that I was God, that I was born of a virgin and kept money in the mouth of a fish?"
Yes, I believed it all. My reason was the slave of faith.
"Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord. I was hungry and you gave me meat, naked and you clothed me.." Another soul arises.
"What is your name?"
Giordano Bruno.
"Were you a Christian?"
At one time I was, but for many years I was a philosopher, a seeker after truth.
"Did you seek to convert your fellow-men?"
Not to Christianity, but to the religion of reason. I tried to develop their minds, to free them from the slavery of ignorance and superstition. In my day the church taught the holiness of credulity—the virtue of unquestioning obedience, and in your name tortured and destroyed the intelligent and courageous. I did what I could to civilize the world, to make men tolerant and merciful, to soften the hearts of priests, and banish torture from the world. I expressed my honest thoughts and walked in the light of reason.
"Did you believe the Bible, the miracles? Did you believe that I was God, that I was born of a virgin and that I suffered myself to be killed by the Jews to appease the wrath of God—that is, of myself—so that God could save the souls of a few?"
"No, I did not. I did not believe that God was ever born into my world, or that God learned the trade of a carpenter, or that he 'increased in knowledge,' or that he cast devils out of men, or that his garments could cure diseases, or that he allowed himself to be murdered, and in the hour of death "forsook" himself. These things I did not and could not believe. But I did all the good I could. I enlightened the ignorant, comforted the afflicted, defended the innocent, divided even my poverty with the poor, and did the best I could to increase the happiness of my fellow-men. I was a soldier in the army of progress.—I was arrested, imprisoned, tried and convicted by the church—by the 'Triumphant Beast.' I was burned at the stake by ignorant and heartless priests and my ashes given to the winds."
Then Christ, his face growing dark, his brows contracted with wrath, with uplifted hands, with half averted face, cries or rather shrieks: "Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
This is the justice of God—the mercy of the compassionate Christ. This is the belief, the dream and hope of the orthodox theologian—"the consummation devoutly to be wished."
Theology makes God a monster, a tyrant, a savage; makes man a servant, a serf, a slave; promises heaven to the obedient, the meek, the frightened, and threatens the self-reliant with the tortures of hell.
It denounces reason and appeals to the passions—to hope and fear. It does not answer the arguments of those who attack, but resorts to sophistry, falsehood and slander. It is incapable of advancement. It keeps its back to the sunrise, lives on myth and miracle, and guards with a misers care the "sacred" superstitions of the past.
In the great struggle between the supernatural and the natural, between gods and men, we have passed midnight. All the forces of civilization, all the facts that have been found, all the truths that have been discovered are the allies of science—the enemies of the supernatural.
We need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no devils.
IX.
FOR thousands of generations the myths have been taught and the miracles believed. Every mother was a missionary and told with loving care the falsehoods of "faith" to her babe. The poison of superstition was in the mother's milk. She was honest and affectionate and her character, her goodness, her smiles and kisses, entered into, mingled with, and became a part of the superstition that she taught. Fathers, friends and priests united with the mothers, and the children thus taught, became the teachers of their children and so the creeds were kept alive.
Childhood loves the romantic, the mysterious, the monstrous. It lives in a world where cause has nothing to do with effect, where the fairy waves her hand and the prince appears. Where wish creates the thing desired and facts become the slaves of amulet and charm. The individual lives the life of the race, and the child is charmed with what the race in its infancy produced.
There seems to be the same difference between mistakes and facts that there is between weeds and corn. Mistakes seem to take care of themselves, while the facts have to be guarded with all possible care. Falsehoods like weeds flourish without care. Weeds care nothing for soil or rain. They not only ask no help but they almost defy destruction. In the minds of children, superstitions, legends, myths and miracles find a natural, and in most instances a lasting home. Thrown aside in manhood, forgotten or denied, in old age they oft return and linger to the end.
This in part accounts for the longevity of religious lies. Ministers with clasped hands and uplifted eyes ask the man who is thinking for himself how he can be wicked and heartless enough to attack the religion of his mother. This question is regarded by the clergy as unanswerable. Of course it is not to be asked by the missionaries, of the Hindus and the Chinese. The heathen are expected to desert the religion of their mothers as Christ and his apostles deserted the religion of their mothers. It is right for Jews and heathen, but not for thinkers and philosophers.
A cannibal was about to kill a missionary for food.
The missionary objected and asked the cannibal how he could be so cruel and wicked.
The cannibal replied that he followed the example of his mother. "My mother," said he, "was good enough for me. Her religion is my religion. The last time I saw her she was sitting, propped up against a tree, eating cold missionary."
But now the mother argument has mostly lost its force, and men of mind are satisfied with nothing less than truth.
The phenomena of nature have been investigated and the supernatural has not been found. The myths have faded from the imagination, and of them nothing remains but the poetic. The miraculous has become the absurd, the impossible. Gods and phantoms have been driven from the earth and sky. We are living in a natural world.
Our fathers, some of them, demanded the freedom of religion. We have taken another step. We demand the Religion of Freedom.
O Liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry! Thou art the only deity that hateth bended knees. In thy vast and unwalled temple, beneath the roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminous with suns, thy worshipers stand erect! They do not cringe, or crawl, or bend their foreheads to the earth. The dust has never borne the impress of their lips. Upon thy altars mothers do not sacrifice their babes, nor men their rights. Thou askest naught from man except the things that good men hate—the whip, the chain, the dungeon key. Thou hast no popes, no priests, who stand between their fellow-men and thee. Thou carest not for foolish forms, or selfish prayers. At thy sacred shrine hypocrisy does not bow, virtue does not tremble, superstition's feeble tapers do not burn, but Reason holds aloft her inextinguishable torch whose holy light will one day flood the world.
"GIVE ME THE STORM AND TEMPEST OF THOUGHT AND ACTION, RATHER THAN THE DEAD CALM OF IGNORANCE AND FAITH. BANISH ME FROM EDEN WHEN YOU WILL; BUT FIRST LET ME EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE."
(1891.)
I. The Greatest Genius of our World—Not of Supernatural Origin or
of Royal Blood—Illiteracy of his Parents—Education—His Father—His
Mother a Great Woman—Stratford Unconscious of the Immortal
Child—Social Position of Shakespeare—Of his Personal
Peculiarities—Birth, Marriage, and Death—What we Know of Him—No Line
written by him to be Found—The Absurd Epitaph—II. Contemporaries
by whom he was Mentioned—III. No direct Mention of any of his
Contemporaries in the Plays—Events and Personages of his Time—IV.
Position of the Actor in Shakespeare's Time—Fortunately he was Not
Educated at Oxford—An Idealist—His Indifference to Stage-carpentry
and Plot—He belonged to All Lands—Knew the Brain and Heart of Man—An
Intellectual Spendthrift—V. The Baconian Theory—VI. Dramatists before
and during the Time of Shakespeare—Dramatic Incidents Illustrated in
Passages from "Macbeth" and "Julius Cæsar"—VII. His Use of the Work of
Others—The Pontic Sea—A Passage from "Lear"—VIII. Extravagance that
touches the Infinite—The Greatest Compliment—"Let me not live after
my flame lacks oil"—Where Pathos almost Touches the Grotesque—IX.
An Innovator and Iconoclast—Disregard of the "Unities"—Nature
Forgets—Violation of the Classic Model—X. Types—The Secret of
Shakespeare—Characters who Act from Reason and Motive—What they Say
not the Opinion of Shakespeare—XI. The Procession that issued from
Shakespeare's Brain—His Great Women—Lovable Clowns—His Men—Talent
and Genius—XII. The Greatest of all Philosophers—Master of the
Human Heart—Love—XIII. In the Realm of Comparison—XIV. Definitions:
Suicide, Drama, Death, Memory, the Body, Life, Echo, the
World, Rumor—The Confidant of Nature—XV. Humor and
Pathos—Illustrations—XVI. Not a Physician, Lawyer, or Botanist—He was
a Man of Imagination—He lived the Life of All—The Imagination had a
Stage in Shakespeare's Brain.
(1878.)
Poetry and Poets—Milton, Dante, Petrarch—Old-time Poetry in
Scotland—Influence of Scenery on Literature—Lives that are
Poems—Birth of Burns—Early Life and Education—Scotland Emerging from
the Gloom of Calvinism—A Metaphysical Peasantry—Power of the Scotch
Preacher—Famous Scotch Names—John Barleycorn vs. Calvinism—Why Robert
Burns is Loved—His Reading—Made Goddesses of Women—Poet of Love: His
"Vision," "Bonnie Doon," "To Mary in Heaven"—Poet of Home:
"Cotter's Saturday Night," "John Anderson, My Jo"—Friendship: "Auld
Lang-Syne"—Scotch Drink: "Willie brew'd a peck o' maut"—Burns the
Artist: The "Brook," "Tam O'Shanter"—A Real Democrat: "A man's a man
for a' that"—His Theology: The Dogma of Eternal Pain, "Morality,"
"Hypocrisy," "Holy Willie's Prayer"—On the Bible—A Statement of his
Religion—Contrasted with Tennyson—From Cradle to Coffin—His Last
words—Lines on the Birth-place of Burns.
(1894.)
I. Simultaneous Birth of Lincoln and Darwin—Heroes of Every
Generation—Slavery—Principle Sacrificed to Success—Lincoln's
Childhood—His first Speech—A Candidate for the Senate against
Douglass—II. A Crisis in the Affairs of the Republic—The South Not
Alone Responsible for Slavery—Lincoln's Prophetic Words—Nominated for
President and Elected in Spite of his Fitness—III. Secession and
Civil War—The Thought uppermost in his Mind—IV. A Crisis in the
North—Proposition to Purchase the Slaves—V. The Proclamation of
Emancipation—His Letter to Horace Greeley—Waited on by Clergymen—VI.
Surrounded by Enemies—Hostile Attitude of Gladstone, Salisbury,
Louis Napoleon, and the Vatican—VII. Slavery the Perpetual
Stumbling-block—Confiscation—VIII. His Letter to a Republican
Meeting in Illinois—Its Effect—IX. The Power of His Personality—The
Embodiment of Mercy—Use of the Pardoning Power—X. The Vallandigham
Affair—The Horace Greeley Incident—Triumphs of Humor—XI. Promotion of
General Hooker—A Prophecy and its Fulfillment—XII.—States Rights vs.
Territorial Integrity—XIII. His Military Genius—The Foremost Man in
all the World: and then the Horror Came—XIV. Strange Mingling of Mirth
and Tears—Deformation of Great Historic Characters—Washington now
only a Steel Engraving—Lincoln not a Type—Virtues Necessary in a
New Country—Laws of Cultivated Society—In the Country is the Idea
of Home—Lincoln always a Pupil—A Great Lawyer—Many-sided—Wit and
Humor—As an Orator—His Speech at Gettysburg contrasted with the
Oration of Edward Everett—Apologetic in his Kindness—No Official
Robes—The gentlest Memory of our World.
(1894.)
I. Changes wrought by Time—Throne and Altar Twin Vultures—The King and
the Priest—What is Greatness?—Effect of Voltaire's Name on Clergyman
and Priest—Born and Baptized—State of France in 1694—The Church
at the Head—Efficacy of Prayers and Dead Saints—Bells and Holy
Water—Prevalence of Belief in Witches, Devils, and Fiends—Seeds of
the Revolution Scattered by Noble and Priest—Condition in England—The
Inquisition in full Control in Spain—Portugal and Germany burning
Women—Italy Prostrate beneath the Priests, the Puritans in America
persecuting Quakers, and stealing Children—II. The Days of Youth—His
Education—Chooses Literature as a Profession and becomes a Diplomat—In
Love and Disinherited—Unsuccessful Poem Competition—Jansenists
and Molinists—The Bull Unigenitus—Exiled to Tulle—Sent to the
Bastile—Exiled to England—Acquaintances made there—III. The Morn
of Manhood—His Attention turned to the History of the Church—The
"Triumphant Beast" Attacked—Europe Filled with the Product of his
Brain—What he Mocked—The Weapon of Ridicule—His Theology—His
"Retractions"—What Goethe said of Voltaire—IV. The Scheme of
Nature—His belief in the Optimism of Pope Destroyed by the Lisbon
Earthquake—V. His Humanity—Case of Jean Calas—The Sirven Family—The
Espenasse Case—Case of Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde—Voltaire
Abandons France—A Friend of Education—An Abolitionist—Not
a Saint—VI. The Return—His Reception—His Death—Burial at
Romilli-on-the-Seine—VII. The Death-bed Argument—Serene Demise of
the Infamous—God has no Time to defend the Good and protect the
Pure—Eloquence of the Clergy on the Death-bed Subject—The
Second Return—Throned upon the Bastile—The Grave Desecrated by
Priests—Voltaire.
A Testimonial to Walt Whitman—Let us put Wreaths on the Brows of the
Living—Literary Ideals of the American People in 1855—"Leaves of
Grass"—Its reception by the Provincial Prudes—The Religion of the
Body—Appeal to Manhood and Womanhood—Books written for the
Market—The Index Expurgatorius—Whitman a believer in
Democracy—Individuality—Humanity—An Old-time Sea-fight—What is
Poetry?—Rhyme a Hindrance to Expression—Rhythm the Comrade of
the Poetic—Whitman's Attitude toward Religion—Philosophy—The Two
Poems—"A Word Out of the Sea"—"When Lilacs Last in the Door"—"A Chant
for Death"—
The History of Intellectual Progress is written in the Lives of
Infidels—The King and the Priest—The Origin of God and Heaven, of
the Devil and Hell—The Idea of Hell born of Ignorance, Brutality,
Cowardice, and Revenge—The Limitations of our Ancestors—The Devil
and God—Egotism of Barbarians—The Doctrine of Hell not an Exclusive
Possession of Christianity—The Appeal to the Cemetery—Religion and
Wealth, Christ and Poverty—The "Great" not on the Side of Christ and
his Disciples—Epitaphs as Battle-cries—Some Great Men in favor of
almost every Sect—Mistakes and Superstitions of Eminent Men—Sacred
Books—The Claim that all Moral Laws came from God through
the Jews—Fear—Martyrdom—God's Ways toward Men—The Emperor
Constantine—The Death Test—Theological Comity between Protestants and
Catholics—Julian—A childish Fable still Believed—Bruno—His Crime,
his Imprisonment.
(1890.)
"Old Age"—"Leaves of Grass"
(1881.)
Martyrdom—The First to die for Truth without Expectation of Reward—The
Church in the Time of Voltaire—Voltaire—Diderot—David Hume—Benedict
Spinoza—Our Infidels—Thomas Paine—Conclusion.
(1884.)
I. The Natural and the Supernatural—Living for the Benefit of
your Fellow-Man and Living for Ghosts—The Beginning of Doubt—Two
Philosophies of Life—Two Theories of Government—II. Is our God
superior to the Gods of the Heathen?—What our God has done—III. Two
Theories about the Cause and Cure of Disease—The First Physician—The
Bones of St. Anne Exhibited in New York—Archbishop Corrigan and
Cardinal Gibbons Countenance a Theological Fraud—A Japanese Story—The
Monk and the Miraculous Cures performed by the Bones of a Donkey
represented as those of a Saint—IV.—Two Ways of accounting for Sacred
Books and Religions—V-Two Theories about Morals—Nothing Miraculous
about Morality—The Test of all Actions—VI. Search for the
Impossible—Alchemy—"Perpetual Motion"—Astrology—Fountain of Perpetual
Youth—VII. "Great Men" and the Superstitions in which they have
Believed—VIII. Follies and Imbecilities of Great Men—We do not know
what they Thought, only what they Said—Names of Great Unbelievers—Most
Men Controlled by their Surroundings—IX. Living for God in Switzerland,
Scotland, New England—In the Dark Ages—Let us Live for Man—X. The
Narrow Road of Superstition—The Wide and Ample Way—Let us Squeeze the
Orange Dry—This Was, This Is, This Shall Be.
(1894.)
The Truth about the Bible Ought to be Told—I. The Origin of the
Bible—Establishment of the Mosaic Code—Moses not the Author of the
Pentateuch—Some Old Testament Books of Unknown Origin—II. Is the Old
Testament Inspired?—What an Inspired Book Ought to Be—What the Bible
Is—Admission of Orthodox Christians that it is not Inspired as to
Science—The Enemy of Art—III. The Ten Commandments—Omissions and
Redundancies—The Story of Achan—The Story of Elisha—The Story of
Daniel—The Story of Joseph—IV. What is it all Worth?—Not True, and
Contradictory—Its Myths Older than the Pentateuch—Other Accounts
of the Creation, the Fall, etc.—Books of the Old Testament Named
and Characterized—V. Was Jehovah a God of Love?—VI. Jehovah's
Administration—VII. The New Testament—Many Other Gospels besides
our Four—Disagreements—Belief in Devils—Raising of the Dead—Other
Miracles—Would a real Miracle-worker have been Crucified?—VIII.
The Philosophy of Christ—Love of
Enemies—Improvidence—Self-Mutilation—The Earth as a
Footstool—Justice—A Bringer of War—Division of Families—IX. Is Christ
our Example?—X. Why should we place Christ at the Top and Summit of the
Human Race?—How did he surpass Other Teachers?—What he left Unsaid,
and Why—Inspiration—Rejected Books of the New Testament—The Bible and
the Crimes it has Caused.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was the greatest genius of our world. He left to us the richest legacy of all the dead—the treasures of the rarest soul that ever lived and loved and wrought of words the statues, pictures, robes and gems of thought.
It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance.
Shakespeare is too great a theme. I feel as though endeavoring to grasp a globe so large that the hand obtains no hold. He who would worthily speak of the great dramatist should be inspired by "a muse of fire that should ascend the brightest heaven of invention"—he should have "a kingdom for a stage, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene."
More than three centuries ago, the most intellectual of the human race was born. He was not of supernatural origin. At his birth there were no celestial pyrotechnics. His father and mother were both English, and both had the cheerful habit of living in this world. The cradle in which he was rocked was canopied by neither myth nor miracle, and in his veins there was no drop of royal blood.
This babe became the wonder of mankind. Neither of his parents could read or write. He grew up in a small and ignorant village on the banks of the Avon, in the midst of the common people of three hundred years ago. There was nothing in the peaceful, quiet landscape on which he looked, nothing in the low hills, the cultivated and undulating fields, and nothing in the murmuring stream, to excite the imagination—nothing, so far as we can see, calculated to sow the seeds of the subtlest and sublimest thought.
So there is nothing connected with his education, or his lack of education, that in any way accounts for what he did. It is supposed that he attended school in his native town—but of this we are not certain. Many have tried to show that he was, after all, of gentle blood, but the fact seems to be the other way. Some of his biographers have sought to do him honor by showing that he was patronized by Queen Elizabeth, but of this there is not the slightest proof.
As a matter of fact, there never sat on any throne a king, queen, or emperor who could have honored William Shakespeare.
Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called education. The sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of poverty, think of wealth as the mother of joy. On the other hand, the children of the rich, finding that gold does not produce happiness, are apt to underrate the value of wealth. So the children of the educated often care but little for books, and hold all culture in contempt. The children of great authors do not, as a rule, become writers.
Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for itself.
Possibly, many generations of culture breed a desire for the rude joys of savagery, and possibly generations of ignorance breed such a longing for knowledge, that of this desire, of this hunger of the brain, Genius is born. It may be that the mind, by lying fallow, by remaining idle for generations, gathers strength.
Shakespeare's father seems to have been an ordinary man of his time and class. About the only thing we know of him is that he was officially reported for not coming monthly to church. This is good as far as it goes. We can hardly blame him, because at that time Richard Bifield was the minister at Stratford, and an extreme Puritan, one who read the Psalter by Sternhold and Hopkins.
The church was at one time Catholic, but in John Shakespeare's day it was Puritan, and in 1564, the year of Shakespeare's birth, they had the images defaced. It is greatly to the honor of John Shakespeare that he refused to listen to the "tidings of great joy" as delivered by the Puritan Bifield.
Nothing is known of his mother, except her beautiful name—Mary Arden. In those days but little attention was given to the biographies of women. They were born, married, had children, and died. No matter how celebrated their sons became, the mothers were forgotten. In old times, when a man achieved distinction, great pains were taken to find out about the father and grandfather—the idea being that genius is inherited from the father's side. The truth is, that all great men have had great mothers. Great women have had, as a rule, great fathers.
The mother of Shakespeare was, without doubt, one of the greatest of women. She dowered her son with passion and imagination and the higher qualities of the soul, beyond all other men. It has been said that a man of genius should select his ancestors with great care—and yet there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. The children of the great are often small. Pigmies are born in palaces, while over the children of genius is the roof of straw. Most of the great are like mountains, with the valley of ancestors on one side and the depression of posterity on the other.
In his day Shakespeare was of no particular importance. It may be that his mother had some marvelous and prophetic dreams, but Stratford was unconscious of the immortal child. He was never engaged in a reputable business. Socially he occupied a position below servants. The law described him as "a sturdy vagabond." He was neither a noble, a soldier, nor a priest. Among the half-civilized people of England, he who amused and instructed them was regarded as a menial. Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. Mozart was patronized by an Archbishop—lived in the palace,—but was compelled to eat with the scullions.
The composer of divine melodies was not fit to sit by the side of the theologian, who long ago would have been forgotten but for the fame of the composer.
We know but little of the personal peculiarities, of the daily life, or of what may be called the outward Shakespeare, and it may be fortunate that so little is known. He might have been belittled by friendly fools. What silly stories, what idiotic personal reminiscences, would have been remembered by those who scarcely saw him! We have his best—his sublimest—and we have probably lost only the trivial and the worthless. All that is known can be written on a page.
We are tolerably certain of the date of his birth, of his marriage and of his death. We think he went to London in 1586, when he was twenty-two years old. We think that three years afterward he was part owner of Blackfriars' Theatre. We have a few signatures, some of which are supposed to be genuine. We know that he bought some land—that he had two or three law-suits. We know the names of his children. We also know that this incomparable man—so apart from, and so familiar with, all the world—lived during his literary life in London—that he was an actor, dramatist and manager—that he returned to Stratford, the place of his birth,—that he gave his writings to negligence, deserted the children of his brain—that he died on the anniversary of his birth at the age of fifty-two, and that he was buried in the church where the images had been defaced, and that on his tomb was chiseled a rude, absurd and ignorant epitaph.
No letter of his to any human being has been found, and no line written by him can be shown.
And here let me give my explanation of the epitaph. Shakespeare was an actor—a disreputable business—but he made money—always reputable. He came back from London a rich man. He bought land, and built houses. Some of the supposed great probably treated him with deference. When he died he was buried in the church. Then came a reaction. The pious thought the church had been profaned. They did not feel that the ashes of an actor were fit to lie in holy ground. The people began to say the body ought to be removed. Then it was, as I believe, that Dr. John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law, had this epitaph cut on the tomb:
"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed heare:
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones,
And curst be he yt moves my bones."
Certainly Shakespeare could have had no fear that his tomb would be violated. How could it have entered his mind to have put a warning, a threat and a blessing, upon his grave? But the ignorant people of that day were no doubt convinced that the epitaph was the voice of the dead, and so feeling they feared to invade the tomb. In this way the dust was left in peace.
This epitaph gave me great trouble for years. It puzzled me to explain why he, who erected the intellectual pyramids,—great ranges of mountains—should put such a pebble at his tomb. But when I stood beside the grave and read the ignorant words, the explanation I have given flashed upon me.
II.
IT has been said that Shakespeare was hardly mentioned by his contemporaries, and that he was substantially unknown. This is a mistake. In 1600 a book was published called England's Parnassus, and it contained ninety extracts from Shakespeare. In the same year was published the Garden of the Muses, containing several pieces from Shakespeare, Chapman, Marston and Ben Jonson. England's Helicon was printed in the same year, and contained poems from Spenser, Greene, Harvey and Shakespeare.
In 1600 a play was acted at Cambridge, in which Shakespeare was alluded to as follows: "Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare who puts them all down." John Weaver published a book of poems in 1595, in which there was a sonnet to Shakespeare. In 1598 Richard Bamfield wrote a poem to Shakespeare. Francis Meres, "clergyman, master of arts in both universities, compiler of school books," was the author of the Wits Treasury. In this he compares the ancient and modern tragic poets, and mentions Marlowe, Peele, Kyd and Shakespeare. So he compares the writers of comedies, and mentions Lilly, Lodge, Greene and Shakespeare. He speaks of elegiac poets, and names Surrey, Wyatt, Sidney, Raleigh and Shakespeare. He compares the lyric poets, and names Spenser, Drayton, Shakespeare and others. This same writer, speaking of Horace, says that England has Sidney, Shakespeare and others, and that "as the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet-wittie soul of Ovid lives in the mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare." He also says: "If the Muses could speak English, they would speak in Shakespeare's phrase." This was in 1598. In 1607, John Davies alludes in a poem to Shakespeare.
Of course we are all familiar with what rare Ben Jonson wrote. Henry Chettle took Shakespeare to task because he wrote nothing on the death of Queen Elizabeth.
It may be wonderful that he was not better known. But is it not wonderful that he gained the reputation that he did in so short a time, and that twelve years after he began to write he stood at least with the first?
III.
BUT there is a wonderful fact connected with the writings of Shakespeare: In the Plays there is no direct mention of any of his contemporaries. We do not know of any poet, author, soldier, sailor, statesman, priest, nobleman, king, or queen, that Shakespeare directly mentioned.
Is it not marvelous that he, living in an age of great deeds, of adventures in far-off lands and unknown seas—in a time of religious wars—in the days of the Armada—the massacre of St. Bartholomew—the Edict of Nantes—the assassination of Henry III.—the victory of Lepanto—the execution of Marie Stuart—did not mention the name of any man or woman of his time? Some have insisted that the paragraph ending with the lines: "The imperial votress passed on in maiden meditation fancy-free," referred to Queen Elizabeth; but it is impossible for me to believe that the daubed and wrinkled face, the small black eyes, the cruel nose, the thin lips, the bad teeth, and the red wig of Queen Elizabeth could by any possibility have inspired these marvelous lines.
It is perfectly apparent from Shakespeare's writings that he knew but little of the nobility, little of kings and queens. He gives to these supposed great people great thoughts, and puts great words in their mouths and makes them speak—not as they really did—but as Shakespeare thought such people should. This demonstrates that he did not know them personally.
Some have insisted that Shakespeare mentions Queen Elizabeth in the last scene of Henry VIII. The answer to this is that Shakespeare did not write the last scene in that Play. The probability is that Fletcher was the author.
Shakespeare lived during the great awakening of the world, when Europe emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages, when the discovery of America had made England, that blossom of the Gulf-Stream, the centre of commerce, and during a period when some of the greatest writers, thinkers, soldiers and discoverers were produced.
Cervantes was born in 1547, dying on the same day that Shakespeare died. He was undoubtedly the greatest writer that Spain has produced. Rubens was born in 1577. Camoens, the Portuguese, the author of the Lusiad, died in 1597. Giordano Bruno—greatest of martyrs—was born in 1548—visited London in Shakespeare's time—delivered lectures at Oxford, and called that institution "the widow of learning." Drake circled the globe in 1580. Galileo was born in 1564—the same year with Shakespeare. Michael Angelo died in 1563. Kepler—he of the Three Laws—born in 1571. Calderon, the Spanish dramatist, born in 1601. Corneille, the French poet, in 1606. Rembrandt, greatest of painters, 1607. Shakespeare was born in 1564. In that year John Calvin died. What a glorious exchange!
Seventy-two years after the discovery of America Shakespeare was born, and England was filled with the voyages and discoveries written by Hakluyt, and the wonders that had been seen by Raleigh, by Drake, by Frobisher and Hawkins. London had become the centre of the world, and representatives from all known countries were in the new metropolis. The world had been doubled. The imagination had been touched and kindled by discovery. In the far horizon were unknown lands, strange shores beyond untraversed seas. Toward every part of the world were turned the prows of adventure. All these things fanned the imagination into flame, and this had its effect upon the literary and dramatic world. And yet Shakespeare—the master spirit of mankind—in the midst of these discoveries, of these adventures, mentioned no navigator, no general, no discoverer, no philosopher.
Galileo was reading the open volume of the sky, but Shakespeare did not mention him. This to me is the most marvelous thing connected with this most marvelous man.
At that time England was prosperous—was then laying the foundation of her future greatness and power.
When men are prosperous, they are in love with life. Nature grows beautiful, the arts begin to flourish, there is work for painter and sculptor, the poet is born, the stage is erected—and this life with which men are in love, is represented in a thousand forms.
Nature, or Fate, or Chance prepared a stage for Shakespeare, and Shakespeare prepared a stage for Nature.
Famine and faith go together. In disaster and want the gaze of man is fixed upon another world. He that eats a crust has a creed. Hunger falls upon its knees, and heaven, looked for through tears, is the mirage of misery. But prosperity brings joy and wealth and leisure—and the beautiful is born.
One of the effects of the world's awakening was Shakespeare. We account for this man as we do for the highest mountain, the greatest river, the most perfect gem. We can only say: He was.
"It hath been taught us from the primal state
That he which is was wished until he were."
IV.
IN Shakespeare's time the actor was a vagabond, the dramatist a disreputable person—and yet the greatest dramas were then written. In spite of law, and social ostracism, Shakespeare reared the many-colored dome that fills and glorifies the intellectual heavens.
Now the whole civilized world believes in the theatre—asks for some great dramatist—is hungry for a play worthy of the century, is anxious to give gold and fame to any one who can worthily put our age upon the stage—and yet no great play has been written since Shakespeare died.
Shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. He did not seek to put his characters in a position where it was right to do wrong. He was sound and healthy to the centre. It never occurred to him to write a play in which a wife's lover should be jealous of her husband.
There was in his blood the courage of his thought. He was true to himself and enjoyed the perfect freedom of the highest art. He did not write according to rules—but smaller men make rules from what he wrote.
How fortunate that Shakespeare was not educated at Oxford—that the winged god within him never knelt to the professor. How fortunate that this giant was not captured, tied and tethered by the literary Lilliputians of his time.
He was an idealist. He did not—like most writers of our time—take refuge in the real, hiding a lack of genius behind a pretended love of truth. All realities are not poetic, or dramatic, or even worth knowing. The real sustains the same relation to the ideal that a stone does to a statue—or that paint does to a painting. Realism degrades and impoverishes. In no event can a realist be more than an imitator and copyist. According to the realist's philosophy, the wax that receives and retains an image is an artist.
Shakespeare did not rely on the stage-carpenter, or the scenic painter. He put his scenery in his lines. There you will find mountains and rivers and seas, valleys and cliffs, violets and clouds, and over all "the firmament fretted with gold and fire." He cared little for plot, little for surprise. He did not rely on stage effects, or red fire. The plays grow before your eyes, and they come as the morning comes. Plot surprises but once. There must be something in a play besides surprise. Plot in an author is a kind of strategy—that is to say, a sort of cunning, and cunning does not belong to the highest natures.
There is in Shakespeare such a wealth of thought that the plot becomes almost immaterial—and such is this wealth that you can hardly know the play—there is too much. After you have heard it again and again, it seems as pathless as an untrodden forest.
He belonged to all lands. "Timon of Athens" is as Greek as any tragedy of Eschylus. "Julius Cæsar" and "Coriolanus" are perfect Roman, and as you read, the mighty ruins rise and the Eternal City once again becomes the mistress of the world. No play is more Egyptian than "Antony and Cleopatra"—the Nile runs through it, the shadows of the pyramids fall upon it, and from its scenes the Sphinx gazes forever on the outstretched sands.
In "Lear" is the true pagan spirit. "Romeo and Juliet" is Italian—everything is sudden, love bursts into immediate flower, and in every scene is the climate of the land of poetry and passion.
The reason of this is that Shakespeare dealt with elemental things, with universal man. He knew that locality colors without changing, and that in all surroundings the human heart is substantially the same.
Not all the poetry written before his time would make his sum—not all that has been written since, added to all that was written before, would equal his.
There was nothing within the range of human thought, within the horizon of intellectual effort, that he did not touch. He knew the brain and heart of man—the theories, customs, superstitions, hopes, fears, hatreds, vices and virtues of the human race.
He knew the thrills and ecstasies of love, the savage joys of hatred and revenge. He heard the hiss of envy's snakes and watched the eagles of ambition soar. There was no hope that did not put its star above his head—no fear he had not felt—no joy that had not shed its sunshine on his face. He experienced the emotions of mankind. He was the intellectual spendthrift of the world. He gave with the generosity, the extravagance, of madness.
Read one play, and you are impressed with the idea that the wealth of the brain of a god has been exhausted—that there are no more comparisons, no more passions to be expressed, no more definitions, no more philosophy, beauty, or sublimity to be put in words—and yet, the next play opens as fresh as the dewy gates of another day.
The outstretched wings of his imagination filled the sky. He was the intellectual crown o' the earth.
V.
THE plays of Shakespeare show so much knowledge, thought and learning, that many people—those who imagine that universities furnish capacity—contend that Bacon must have been the author.
We know Bacon. We know that he was a scheming politician, a courtier, a time-server of church and king, and a corrupt judge. We know that he never admitted the truth of the Copernican system—that he was doubtful whether instruments were of any advantage in scientific investigation—that he was ignorant of the higher branches of mathematics, and that, as a matter of fact, he added but little to the knowledge of the world. When he was more than sixty years of age he turned his attention to poetry, and dedicated his verses to George Herbert.
If you will read these verses you will say that the author of "Lear" and "Hamlet" did not write them.
Bacon dedicated his work on the Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human, to James I., and in his dedication he stated that there had not been, since the time of Christ, any king or monarch so learned in all erudition, divine or human. He placed James the First before Marcus Aurelius and all other kings and emperors since Christ, and concluded by saying that James the First had "the power and fortune of a king, the illumination of a priest, the learning and universality of a philosopher." This was written of James the First, described by Macaulay as a "stammering, slobbering, trembling coward, whose writings were deformed by the grossest and vilest superstitions—witches being the special objects of his fear, his hatred, and his persecution."
It seems to have been taken for granted that if Shakespeare was not the author of the great dramas, Lord Bacon must have been.
It has been claimed that Bacon was the greatest philosopher of his time. And yet in reading his works we find that there was in his mind a strange mingling of foolishness and philosophy. He takes pains to tell us, and to write it down for the benefit of posterity, that "snow is colder than water, because it hath more spirit in it, and that quicksilver is the coldest of all metals, because it is the fullest of spirit."
He stated that he hardly believed that you could contract air by putting opium on top of the weather glass, and gave the following reason:
"I conceive that opium and the like make spirits fly rather by malignity than by cold."
This great philosopher gave the following recipe for staunching blood:
"Thrust the part that bleedeth into the body of a capon, new ripped and bleeding. This will staunch the blood. The blood, as it seemeth, sucking and drawing up by similitude of substance the blood it meeteth with, and so itself going back."
The philosopher also records this important fact: "Divers witches among heathen and Christians have fed upon man's flesh to aid, as it seemeth, their imagination with high and foul vapors."
Lord Bacon was not only a philosopher, but he was a biologist, as appears from the following:
"As for living creatures, it is certain that their vital spirits are a substance compounded of an airy and flamy matter, and although air and flame being free will not mingle, yet bound in by a body that hath some fixing, will."
Now and then the inventor of deduction reasons by analogy. He says:
"As snow and ice holpen, and their cold activated by nitre or salt, will turn water into ice, so it may be it will turn wood or stiff clay into stone."
Bacon seems to have been a believer in the transmutation of metals, and solemnly gives a formula for changing silver or copper into gold. He also believed in the transmutation of plants, and had arrived at such a height in entomology that he informed the world that "insects have no blood."
It is claimed that he was a great observer, and as evidence of this he recorded the wonderful fact that "tobacco cut and dried by the fire loses weight" that "bears in the winter wax fat in sleep, though they eat nothing" that "tortoises have no bones" that "there is a kind of stone, if ground and put in water where cattle drink, the cows will give more milk" that "it is hard to cure a hurt in a Frenchman's head, but easy in his leg;" that "it is hard to cure a hurt in an Englishman's leg, but easy in his head;" that "wounds made with brass weapons are easier to cure than those made with iron;" that "lead will multiply and increase, as in statues buried in the ground" and that "the rainbow touching anything causeth a sweet smell."
Bacon seems also to have turned his attention to ornithology, and says that "eggs laid in the full of the moon breed better birds," and that "you can make swallows white by putting ointment on the eggs before they are hatched."
He also informs us "that witches cannot hurt kings as easily as they can common people" that "perfumes dry and strengthen the brain" that "any one in the moment of triumph can be injured by another who casts an envious eye, and the injury is greatest when the envious glance comes from the oblique eye."
Lord Bacon also turned his attention to medicine, and he states that "bracelets made of snakes are good for curing cramps" that "the skin of a wolf might cure the colic, because a wolf has great digestion" that "eating the roasted brains of hens and hares strengthens the memory" that "if a woman about to become a mother eats a good many quinces and considerable coriander seed, the child will be ingenious," and that "the moss which groweth on the skull of an unburied dead man is good for staunching blood."
He expresses doubt, however, "as to whether you can cure a wound by putting ointment on the weapon that caused the wound, instead of on the wound itself."
It is claimed by the advocates of the Baconian theory that their hero stood at the top of science; and yet "it is absolutely certain that he was ignorant of the law of the acceleration of falling bodies, although the law had been made known and printed by Galileo thirty years before Bacon wrote upon the subject. Neither did this great man understand the principle of the lever. He was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes, and as a matter of fact was ill-read in those branches of learning in which, in his time, the most rapid progress had been made."
After Kepler discovered his third law, which was on the 15th of May, 1618, Bacon was more than ever opposed to the Copernican system. This great man was far behind his own time, not only in astronomy, but in mathematics. In the preface to the "De-scriptio Globi Intellectualis," it is admitted either that Bacon had never heard of the correction of the parallax, or was unable to understand it. He complained on account of the want of some method for shortening mathematical calculations; and yet "Napier's Logarithms" had been printed nine years before the date of his complaint.
He attempted to form a table of specific gravities by a rude process of his own, a process that no one has ever followed; and he did this in spite of the fact that a far better method existed.
We have the right to compare what Bacon wrote with what it is claimed Shakespeare produced. I call attention to one thing—to Bacon's opinion of human love. It is this:
"The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. As to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies, but in life it doth much mischief—sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. Amongst all the great and worthy persons there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love, which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion."
The author of "Romeo and Juliet" never wrote that.
It seems certain that the author of the wondrous Plays was one of the noblest of men.
Let us see what sense of honor Bacon had.
In writing commentaries on certain passages of Scripture, Lord Bacon tells a courtier, who has committed some offence, how to get back into the graces of his prince or king. Among other things he tells him not to appear too cheerful, but to assume a very grave and modest face; not to bring the matter up himself; to be extremely industrious, so that the prince will see that it is hard to get along without him; also to get his friends to tell the prince or king how badly he, the courtier, feels; and then he says, all these failing, "let him contrive to transfer the fault to others."
It is true that we know but little of Shakespeare, and consequently do not positively know that he did not have the ability to write the Plays—but we do know Bacon, and we know that he could not have written these Plays—consequently, they must have been written by a comparatively unknown man—that is to say, by a man who was known by no other writings. The fact that we do not know Shakespeare, except through the Plays and Sonnets, makes it possible for us to believe that he was the author.
Some people have imagined that the Plays were written by several—but this only increases the wonder, and adds a useless burden to credulity.
Bacon published in his time all the writings that he claimed. Naturally, he would have claimed his best. Is it possible that Bacon left the wondrous children of his brain on the door-step of Shakespeare, and kept the deformed ones at home? Is it possible that he fathered the failures and deserted the perfect?
Of course, it is wonderful that so little has been found touching Shakespeare—but is it not equally wonderful, if Bacon was the author, that not a line has been found in all his papers, containing a suggestion, or a hint, that he was the writer of these Plays? Is it not wonderful that no fragment of any scene—no line—no word—has been found?
Some have insisted that Bacon kept the authorship secret because it was disgraceful to write Plays. This argument does not cover the Sonnets—and besides, one who had been stripped of the robes of office for receiving bribes as a judge, could have borne the additional disgrace of having written "Hamlet." The fact that Bacon did not claim to be the author, demonstrates that he was not. Shakespeare claimed to be the author, and no one in his time or day denied the claim. This demonstrates that he was.
Bacon published his works, and said to the world: This is what I have done.
Suppose you found in a cemetery a monument erected to John Smith, inventor of the Smith-churn, and suppose you were told that Mr. Smith provided for the monument in his will, and dictated the inscription—would it be possible to convince you that Mr. Smith was also the inventor of the locomotive and telegraph?
Bacon's best can be compared with Shakespeare's common, but Shakespeare's best rises above Bacon's best, like a domed temple above a beggar's hut.
VI.
OF course it is admitted that there were many dramatists before and during the time of Shakespeare—but they were only the foot hills of that mighty peak the top of which the clouds and mists still hide. Chapman and Marlowe, Heywood and Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher wrote some great lines, and in the monotony of declamation now and then is found a strain of genuine music—but all of them together constituted only a herald of Shakespeare. In all these Plays there is but a hint, a prophecy, of the great drama destined to revolutionize the poetic thought of the world.
Shakespeare was the greatest of poets. What Greece and Rome produced was great until his time. "Lions make leopards tame."
The great poet is a great artist. He is painter and sculptor. The greatest pictures and statues have been painted and chiseled with words. They outlast all others. All the galleries of the world are poor and cheap compared with the statues and pictures in Shakespeare's book.
Language is made of pictures represented by sounds. The outer world is a dictionary of the mind, and the artist called the soul uses this dictionary of things to express what happens in the noiseless and invisible world of thought. First a sound represents something in the outer world, and afterwards something in the inner, and this sound at last is represented by a mark, and this mark stands for a picture, and every brain is a gallery, and the artists—that is to say, the souls—exchange pictures and statues.
All art is of the same parentage. The poet uses words—makes pictures and statues of sounds. The sculptor expresses harmony, proportion, passion, in marble; the composer, in music; the painter in form and color. The dramatist expresses himself not only in words, not only paints these pictures, but he expresses his thought in action.
Shakespeare was not only a poet, but a dramatist, and expressed the ideal, the poetic, not only in words, but in action. There are the wit, the humor, the pathos, the tragedy of situation, of relation. The dramatist speaks and acts through others—his personality is lost. The poet lives in the world of thought and feeling, and to this the dramatist adds the world of action. He creates characters that seem to act in accordance with their own natures and independently of him. He compresses lives into hours, tells us the secrets of the heart, shows us the springs of action—how desire bribes the judgment and corrupts the will—how weak the reason is when passion pleads, and how grand it is to stand for right against the world.
It is not enough to say fine things,—great things, dramatic things, must be done.
Let me give you an illustration of dramatic incident accompanying the highest form of poetic expression:
Macbeth having returned from the murder of Duncan says to his wife:
"Methought I heard a voice cry: Sleep no more,
Macbeth does murder sleep; the innocent sleep;
Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."...
"Still it cried: Sleep no more, to all the house,
Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more—Macbeth shall sleep no more."
She exclaims:
"Who was it that thus cried?
Why, worthy Thane, you do unbend your noble strength
To think so brain-sickly of things; get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring the daggers from the place?"
Macbeth was so overcome with horror at his own deed, that he not only mistook his thoughts for the words of others, but was so carried away and beyond himself that he brought with him the daggers—the evidence of his guilt—the daggers that he should have left with the dead. This is dramatic.
In the same play, the difference of feeling before and after the commission of a crime is illustrated to perfection. When Macbeth is on his way to assassinate the king, the bell strikes, and he says, or whispers:
"Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell."
Afterward, when the deed has been committed, and a knocking is heard at the gate, he cries:
"Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst."
Let me give one more instance of dramatic action. When Antony speaks above the body of Cæsar he says:
"You all do know this mantle:
I remember The first time ever Cæsar put it on—
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii:
Look! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through:
See what a rent the envious Casca made!
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed,
And as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it."
VII.
THERE are men, and many of them, who are always trying to show that somebody else chiseled the statue or painted the picture,—that the poem is attributed to the wrong man, and that the battle was really won by a subordinate.
Of course Shakespeare made use of the work of others—and, we might almost say, of all others. Every writer must use the work of others. The only question is, how the accomplishments of other minds are used, whether as a foundation to build higher, or whether stolen to the end that the thief may make a reputation for himself, without adding to the great structure of literature.
Thousands of people have stolen stones from the Coliseum to make huts for themselves. So thousands of writers have taken the thoughts of others with which to adorn themselves. These are plagiarists. But the man who takes the thought of another, adds to it, gives it intensity and poetic form, throb and life,—is in the highest sense original.
Shakespeare found nearly all of his facts in the writings of others, and was indebted to others for most of the stories of his plays. The question is not: Who furnished the stone, or who owned the quarry, but who chiseled the statue?
We now know all the books that Shakespeare could have read, and consequently know many of the sources of his information. We find in Pliny's Natural History, published in 1601, the following: "The sea Pontis evermore floweth and runneth out into the Propontis; but the sea never retireth back again with the Impontis." This was the raw material, and out of it Shakespeare made the following:
"Like to the Pontic Sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont—
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er turn back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge Swallow them up."
Perhaps we can give an idea of the difference between Shakespeare and other poets, by a passage from "Lear." When Cordelia places her hand upon her father's head and speaks of the night and of the storm, an ordinary poet might have said:
"On such a night, a dog
Should have stood against my fire."
A very great poet might have gone a step further and exclaimed:
"On such a night, mine enemy's dog
Should have stood against my fire."
But Shakespeare said:
"Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me,
Should have stood, that night, against my fire."
Of all the poets—of all the writers—Shakespeare is the most original. He is as original as Nature.
It may truthfully be said that "Nature wants stuff to vie strange forms with fancy, to make another."
VIII.
THERE is in the greatest poetry a kind of extravagance that touches the infinite, and in this Shakespeare exceeds all others.
You will remember the description given of the voyage of Paris in search of Helen:
"The seas and winds, old wranglers, made a truce,
And did him service; he touched the ports desired,
And for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive,
He brought a Grecian queen whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo, and makes stale the morning."
So, in Pericles, when the father finds his daughter, he cries out:
"O Helicanus! strike me, honored sir;
Give me a gash, put me to present pain,
Lest this great sea of joys, rushing upon me,
O'erbear the shores of my mortality."
The greatest compliment that man has ever paid to the woman he adores is this line:
"Eyes that do mislead the morn."
Nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic. In that marvelous play, the "Midsummer Night's Dream," is one of the most extravagant things in literature:
"Thou rememberest Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music."
This is so marvelously told that it almost seems probable.
So the description of Mark Antony:
"For his bounty
There was no winter in't—an autumn t'was
That grew the more by reaping.
His delights
Were dolphin-like—they showed his back above
The element they lived in."
Think of the astronomical scope and amplitude of this:
"Her bed is India—there she lies a pearl."
Is there anything more intense than these words of Cleopatra?
"Rather on Nilus mud lay me stark naked
And let the water-flies blow me into abhorring."
Or this of Isabella:
"The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death as to a bed
That longing I've been sick for, ere I yield
My body up to shame."
Is there an intellectual man in the world who will not agree with this?
"Let me not live
After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits."
Can anything exceed the words of Troilus when parting with Cressida:
"We two, that with so many thousand sighs
Did buy each other, most poorly sell ourselves
With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
Injurious time now with a robber's haste
Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how;
As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them,
He fumbles up into a loos'e adieu,
And scants us with a single famished kiss,
Distasted with the salt of broken tears."
Take this example, where pathos almost touches the grotesque.
"O dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair?
Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous,
And that the lean, abhorred monster keeps thee here.
I' the dark, to be his paramour?"
Often when reading the marvelous lines of Shakespeare, I feel that his thoughts are "too subtle potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, for the capacity of my ruder powers." Sometimes I cry out, "O churl!—write all, and leave no thoughts for those who follow after."
IX.
SHAKESPEARE was an innovator, an iconoclast. He cared nothing for the authority of men or of schools. He violated the "unities," and cared nothing for the models of the ancient world.
The Greeks insisted that nothing should be in a play that did not tend to the catastrophe. They did not believe in the episode—in the sudden contrasts of light and shade—in mingling the comic and the tragic. The sunlight never fell upon their tears, and darkness did not overtake their laughter. They believed that nature sympathized or was in harmony with the events of the play. When crime was about to be committed—some horror to be perpetrated—the light grew dim, the wind sighed, the trees shivered, and upon all was the shadow of the coming event.
Shakespeare knew that the play had little to do with the tides and currents of universal life—that Nature cares neither for smiles nor tears, for life nor death, and that the sun shines as gladly on coffins as on cradles.
The first time I visited the Place de la Concorde, where during the French Revolution stood the guillotine, and where now stands an Egyptian obelisk—a bird, sitting on the top, was singing with all its might.—Nature forgets.
One of the most notable instances of the violation by Shakespeare of the classic model, is found in the 6th scene of the I. Act of Macbeth.
When the King and Banquo approach the castle in which the King is to be murdered that night, no shadow falls athwart the threshold. So beautiful is the scene that the King says:
"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses."
And Banquo adds:
"This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
The air is delicate."
Another notable instance is the porter scene immediately following the murder. So, too, the dialogue with the clown who brings the asp to Cleopatra just before the suicide, illustrates my meaning.
I know of one paragraph in the Greek drama worthy of Shakespeare. This is in "Medea." When Medea kills her children she curses Jason, using the ordinary Billingsgate and papal curse, but at the conclusion says: "I pray the gods to make him virtuous, that he may the more deeply feel the pang that I inflict."
Shakespeare dealt in lights and shadows. He was intense. He put noons and midnights side by side. No other dramatist would have dreamed of adding to the pathos—of increasing our appreciation of Lear's agony, by supplementing the wail of the mad king with the mocking laughter of a loving clown.
X.
THE ordinary dramatists—the men of talent—(and there is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone-mason and a sculptor) create characters that become types. Types are of necessity caricatures—actual men and women are to some extent contradictory in their actions. Types are blown in the one direction by the one wind—characters have pilots.
In real people, good and evil mingle. Types are all one way, or all the other—all good, or all bad, all wise, or all foolish.
Pecksniff was a perfect type, a perfect hypocrite—and will remain a type as long as language lives—a hypocrite that even drunkenness could not change. Everybody understands Pecksniff, and compared with him Tartuffe was an honest man.
Hamlet is an individual, a person, an actual being—and for that reason there is a difference of opinion as to his motives and as to his character. We differ about Hamlet as we do about Cæsar, or about Shakespeare himself.
Hamlet saw the ghost of his father and heard again his fathers voice, and yet, afterward, he speaks of "the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns."
In this there is no contradiction. The reason outweighs the senses. If we should see a dead man rise from his grave, we would not, the next day, believe that we did. No one can credit a miracle until it becomes so common that it ceases to be miraculous.
Types are puppets—controlled from without—characters act from within. There is the same difference between characters and types that there is between springs and water-works, between canals and rivers, between wooden soldiers and heroes.
In most plays and in most novels the characters are so shadowy that we have to piece them out with the imagination.
One waking in the morning sometimes sees at the foot of his bed a strange figure—it may be of an ancient lady with cap and ruffles and with the expression of garrulous and fussy old age—but when the light gets stronger, the figure gradually changes and he sees a few clothes on a chair.
The dramatist lives the lives of others, and in order to delineate character must not only have imagination but sympathy with the character delineated. The great dramatist thinks of a character as an entirety, as an individual.
I once had a dream, and in this dream I was discussing a subject with another man. It occurred to me that I was dreaming, and I then said to myself: If this is a dream, I am doing the talking for both sides—consequently I ought to know in advance what the other man is going to say. In my dream I tried the experiment. I then asked the other man a question, and before he answered made up my mind what the answer was to be. To my surprise, the man did not say what I expected he would, and so great was my astonishment that I awoke.
It then occurred to me that I had discovered the secret of Shakespeare. He did, when awake, what I did when asleep—that is, he threw off a character so perfect that it acted independently of him.
In the delineation of character Shakespeare has no rivals. He creates no monsters. His characters do not act without reason, without motive.
Iago had his reasons. In Caliban, nature was not destroyed—and Lady Macbeth certifies that the woman still was in her heart, by saying:
"Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it."
Shakespeare's characters act from within. They are centres of energy. They are not pushed by unseen hands, or pulled by unseen strings. They have objects, desires. They are persons—real, living beings.
Few dramatists succeed in getting their characters loose from the canvas—their backs stick to the wall—they do not have free and independent action—they have no background, no unexpressed motives—no untold desires. They lack the complexity of the real.
Shakespeare makes the character true to itself. Christopher Sly, surrounded by the luxuries of a lord, true to his station, calls for a pot of the smallest ale.
Take one expression by Lady Macbeth. You remember that after the murder is discovered—after the alarm bell is rung—she appears upon the scene wanting to know what has happened. Macduff refuses to tell her, saying that the slightest word would murder as it fell. At this moment Banquo comes upon the scene and Macduff cries out to him:
"Our royal master's murdered."
What does Lady Macbeth then say? She in fact makes a confession of guilt. The weak point in the terrible tragedy is that Duncan was murdered in Macbeth's castle. So when Lady Macbeth hears what they suppose is news to her, she cries:
"What! In our house!"
Had she been innocent, her horror of the crime would have made her forget the place—the venue. Banquo sees through this, and sees through her.
Her expression was a light, by which he saw her guilt—and he answers:
"Too cruel anywhere."
No matter whether Shakespeare delineated clown or king, warrior or maiden—no matter whether his characters are taken from the gutter or the throne—each is a work of consummate art, and when he is unnatural, he is so splendid that the defect is forgotten.
When Romeo is told of the death of Juliet, and thereupon makes up his mind to die upon her grave, he gives a description of the shop where poison could be purchased. He goes into particulars and tells of the alligators stuffed, of the skins of ill-shaped fishes, of the beggarly account of empty boxes, of the remnants of pack-thread, and old cakes of roses—and while it is hardly possible to believe that under such circumstances a man would take the trouble to make an inventory of a strange kind of drug-store, yet the inventory is so perfect—the picture is so marvelously drawn—that we forget to think whether it is natural or not.
In making the frame of a great picture—of a great scene—Shakespeare was often careless, but the picture is perfect. In making the sides of the arch he was negligent, but when he placed the keystone, it burst into blossom. Of course there are many lines in Shakespeare that never should have been written. In other words, there are imperfections in his plays. But we must remember that Shakespeare furnished the torch that enables us to see these imperfections.
Shakespeare speaks through his characters, and we must not mistake what the characters say, for the opinion of Shakespeare. No one can believe that Shakespeare regarded life as "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." That was the opinion of a murderer, surrounded by avengers, and whose wife—partner in his crimes—troubled with thick-coming fancies—had gone down to her death.
Most actors and writers seem to suppose that the lines called "The Seven Ages" contain Shakespeare's view of human life. Nothing could be further from the truth. The lines were uttered by a cynic, in contempt and scorn of the human race.
Shakespeare did not put his characters in the livery and uniform of some weakness, peculiarity or passion. He did not use names as tags or brands. He did not write under the picture, "This is a villain." His characters need no suggestive names to tell us what they are—we see them and we know them for ourselves.
It may be that in the greatest utterances of the greatest characters in the supreme moments, we have the real thoughts, opinions and convictions of Shakespeare.
Of all writers Shakespeare is the most impersonal. He speaks through others, and the others seem to speak for themselves. The didactic is lost in the dramatic. He does not use the stage as a pulpit to enforce some maxim. He is as reticent as Nature.
He idealizes the common and transfigures all he touches—but he does not preach. He was interested in men and things as they were. He did not seek to change them—but to portray. He was Natures mirror—and in that mirror Nature saw herself.
When I stood amid the great trees of California that lift their spreading capitals against the clouds, looking like Nature's columns to support the sky, I thought of the poetry of Shakespeare.
IX.
THAT a procession of men and women—statesmen and warriors—kings and clowns—issued from Shakespeare's brain! What women!
Isabella—in whose spotless life love and reason blended into perfect truth.
Juliet—within whose heart passion and purity met like white and red within the bosom of a rose.
Cordelia—who chose to suffer loss, rather than show her wealth of love with those who gilded lies in hope of gain.
Hermione—"tender as infancy and grace"—who bore with perfect hope and faith the cross of shame, and who at last forgave with all her heart.
Desdemona—so innocent, so perfect, her love so pure, that she was incapable of suspecting that another could suspect, and who with dying words sought to hide her lover's crime—and with her last faint breath uttered a loving lie that burst into a perfumed lily between her pallid lips.
Perdita—"a violet dim, and sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes"—"The sweetest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sward." And
Helena—who said:
"I know I love in vain, strive against hope—
Yet in this captious and intenable sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still,
Thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun that looks upon his worshiper,
But knows of him no more."
Miranda—who told her love as gladly as a flower gives its bosom to the kisses of the sun. And Cordelia—whose kisses cured and whose tears restored. And stainless
Imogen—who cried: "What is it to be false?" And here is the description of the perfect woman:
"To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth—
Outliving beauty's outward with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays."
Shakespeare has done more for woman than all the other dramatists of the world.
For my part, I love the Clowns. I love Launce and his dog Crabb, and Gobbo, whose conscience threw its arms around the neck of his heart, and Touchstone, with his lie seven times removed; and dear old Dogberry—a pretty piece of flesh, tedious as a king. And Bottom, the very paramour for a sweet voice, longing to take the part to tear a cat in; and Autolycus, the snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, sleeping out the thought for the life to come. And great Sir John, without conscience, and for that reason unblamed and enjoyed—and who at the end babbles of green fields, and is almost loved. And ancient Pistol, the world his oyster. And Bardolph, with the flea on his blazing nose, putting beholders in mind of a damned soul in hell. And the poor Pool, who followed the mad king, and went "to bed at noon." And the clown who carried the worm of Nilus, whose "biting was immortal." And Corin, the shepherd—who described the perfect man: "I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat—get that I wear—owe no man aught—envy no man's happiness—glad of other men's good—content."
And mingling in this motley throng, Lear, within whose brain a tempest raged until the depths were stirred, and the intellectual wealth of a life was given back to memory?—and then by madness thrown to storm and night—and when I read the living lines I feel as though I looked upon the sea and saw it wrought by frenzied whirlwinds, until the buried treasures and the sunken wrecks of all the years were cast upon the shores.
And Othello—who like the base Indian threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe.
And Hamlet—thought-entangled—hesitating between two worlds.
And Macbeth—strange mingling of cruelty and conscience, reaping the sure harvest of successful crime—"Curses not loud but deep—mouth-honor—breath."
And Brutus, falling on his sword that Cæsar might be still.
And Romeo, dreaming of the white wonder of Juliet's hand. And Ferdinand, the patient log-man for Miranda's sake. And Florizel, who, "for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide," would not be faithless to the low-born lass. And Constance, weeping for her son, while grief "stuffs out his vacant garments with his form."
And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime, we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts of good and evil—and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that hurries by a ruined mill.
From every side the characters crowd upon us—the men and women born of Shakespeare's brain. They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and vividly as though they really lived with us.
Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase—has ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has imagined. I do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "Romeo and Juliet." It is a symphony in which all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine perfume.
In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to gold—passions became virtues—weeds became exotics from some diviner land—and common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the Olympian Gods. In his brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite—that belongs to genius. Talent is measured and mathematical—dominated by prudence and the thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems.
Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the Greeks, and the music of Wagner.
XII.
SHAKESPEARE was the greatest of philosophers. He knew the conditions of success—of happiness—the relations that men sustain to each other, and the duties of all. He knew the tides and currents of the heart—the cliffs and caverns of the brain. He knew the weakness of the will, the sophistry of desire—and
"That pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than
Adders to the voice of any true decision."
He knew that the soul lives in an invisible world—that flesh is but a mask, and that
"There is no art to find the mind's construction
In the face."
He knew that courage should be the servant of judgment, and that
"When valor preys on reason it eats the sword
It fights with."
He knew that man is never master of the event, that he is to some extent the sport or prey of the blind forces of the world, and that
"In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men."
Feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that that which must happen is as much beyond control as though it had happened, he says:
"Let determined things to destiny
Hold unbewailed their way."
Shakespeare was great enough to know that every human being prefers happiness to misery, and that crimes are but mistakes. Looking in pity upon the human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes and cruelties, the limping travelers on the thorny paths, he was great and good enough to say:
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
In all the philosophies there is no greater line. This great truth fills the heart with pity.
He knew that place and power do not give happiness—that the crowned are subject as the lowest to fate and chance.
"For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps death his court; and there the antick sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit.—
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus;
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell king!"
So, too, he knew that gold could not bring joy—that death and misfortune come alike to rich and poor, because:
"If thou art rich thou art poor;
For like an ass whose back with ingots bows
Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee."
In some of his philosophy there was a kind of scorn—a hidden meaning that could not in his day and time have safely been expressed. You will remember that Laertes was about to kill the king, and this king was the murderer of his own brother, and sat upon the throne by reason of his crime—and in the mouth of such a king Shakespeare puts these words:
"There's such divinity doth hedge a king."
So, in Macbeth:
"How he solicits
Heaven himself best knows; but strangely visited people
All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despairs of surgery, he cures;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken
To the succeeding royalty—he leaves
The healing benediction.
With this strange virtue
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace."
Shakespeare was the master of the human heart—knew all the hopes, fears, ambitions and passions that sway the mind of man; and thus knowing, he declared that
"Love is not love that alters
When it alteration finds."
This is the sublimest declaration in the literature of the world.
Shakespeare seems to give the generalization—the result—without the process of thought. He seems always to be at the conclusion—standing where all truths meet.
In one of the Sonnets is this fragment of a line that contains the highest possible truth:
"Conscience is born of love."
If man were incapable of suffering, the words right and wrong never could have been spoken. If man were destitute of imagination, the flower of pity never could have blossomed in his heart.
We suffer—we cause others to suffer—those that we love—and of this fact conscience is born.
Love is the many-colored flame that makes the fireside of the heart. It is the mingled spring and autumn—the perfect climate of the soul.
XIII.
IN the realm of comparison Shakespeare seems to have exhausted the relations, parallels and similitudes of things, He only could have said:
"Tedious as a twice-told tale
Vexing the ears of a drowsy man."
"Duller than a great thaw.
Dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage."
In the words of Ulysses, spoken to Achilles, we find the most wonderful collection of pictures and comparisons ever compressed within the same number of lines:
"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,—
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes—
Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done; perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honor bright: to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honor travels in a strait so narrow
Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide, they all rush by
And leave you hindmost:
Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'errun and trampled on: then what they do in present,
Tho' less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
For time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretched as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
And Farewell goes out sighing."
So the words of Cleopatra, when Charmain speaks:
"Peace, peace:
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast
That sucks the nurse asleep?"
XIV.
NOTHING is more difficult than a definition—a crystallization of thought so perfect that it emits light. Shakespeare says of suicide:
"It is great to do that thing
That ends all other deeds,
Which shackles accident, and bolts up change."
He defines drama to be:
"Turning the accomplishments of many years
Into an hour glass."
Of death:
"This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod,
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot."
Of memory:
"The warder of the brain."
Of the body:
"This muddy vesture of decay."
And he declares that
"Our little life is rounded with a sleep."
He speaks of Echo as:
"The babbling gossip of the air"—
Romeo, addressing the poison that he is about to take, says:
"Come, bitter conduct, come unsavory guide,
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark."
He describes the world as
"This bank and shoal of time."
He says of rumor—
"That it doubles, like the voice and echo."
It would take days to call attention to the perfect definitions, comparisons and generalizations of Shakespeare. He gave us the deeper meanings of our words—taught us the art of speech. He was the lord of language—master of expression and compression.
He put the greatest thoughts into the shortest words—made the poor rich and the common royal.
Production enriched his brain. Nothing exhausted him. The moment his attention was called to any subject—comparisons, definitions, metaphors and generalizations filled his mind and begged for utterance. His thoughts like bees robbed every blossom in the world, and then with "merry march" brought the rich booty home "to the tent royal of their emperor."
Shakespeare was the confidant of Nature. To him she opened her "infinite book of secrecy," and in his brain were "the hatch and brood of time."
XV.
THERE is in Shakespeare the mingling of laughter and tears, humor and pathos. Humor is the rose, wit the thorn. Wit is a crystallization, humor an efflorescence. Wit comes from the brain, humor from the heart. Wit is the lightning of the soul.
In Shakespeare's nature was the climate of humor. He saw and felt the sunny side even of the saddest things. You have seen sunshine and rain at once. So Shakespeare's tears fell oft upon his smiles. In moments of peril—on the very darkness of death—there comes a touch of humor that falls like a fleck of sunshine.
Gonzalo, when the ship is about to sink, having seen the boatswain, exclaims:
"I have great comfort from this fellow;
Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him;
His complexion is perfect gallows."
Shakespeare is filled with the strange contrasts of grief and laughter. While poor Hero is supposed to be dead—wrapped in the shroud of dishonor—Dogberry and Verges unconsciously put again the wedding wreath upon her pure brow.
The soliloquy of Launcelot—great as Hamlet's—offsets the bitter and burning words of Shylock.
There is only time to speak of Maria in "Twelfth Night," of Autolycus in the "Winter's Tale," of the parallel drawn by Fluellen between Alexander of Macedon and Harry of Monmouth, or of the marvelous humor of Falstaff, who never had the faintest thought of right or wrong—or of Mercutio, that embodiment of wit and humor—or of the gravediggers who lamented that "great folk should have countenance in this world to drown and hang themselves, more than their even Christian," and who reached the generalization that "the gallows does well because it does well to those who do ill."
There is also an example of grim humor—an example without a parallel in literature, so far as I know. Hamlet having killed Polonius is asked:
"Where's Polonius?"
"At supper."
"At supper! where?"
"Not where he eats, but where he is eaten."
Above all others, Shakespeare appreciated the pathos of situation.
Nothing is more pathetic than the last scene in "Lear." No one has ever bent above his dead who did not feel the words uttered by the mad king,—words born of a despair deeper than tears:
"Oh, that a horse, a dog, a rat hath life
And thou no breath!"
So Iago, after he has been wounded, says:
"I bleed, sir; but not killed."
And Othello answers from the wreck and shattered remnant of his life:
"I would have thee live;
For in my sense it is happiness to die."
When Troilus finds Cressida has been false, he cries:
"Let it not be believed for womanhood;
Think! we had mothers."
Ophelia, in her madness, "the sweet bells jangled out o' tune," says softly:
"I would give you some violets;
But they withered all when my father died."
When Macbeth has reaped the harvest, the seeds of which were sown by his murderous hand, he exclaims,—and what could be more pitiful?
"I 'gin to be aweary of the sun."
Richard the Second feels how small a thing it is to be, or to have been, a king, or to receive honors before or after power is lost; and so, of those who stood uncovered before him, he asks this piteous question:
"I live with bread, like you; feel want,
Taste grief, need friends; subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a king?"
Think of the salutation of Antony to the dead Cæsar:
"Pardon me, thou piece of bleeding earth."
When Pisanio informs Imogen that he had been ordered by Posthumus to murder her, she bares her neck and cries:
"The lamb entreats the butcher:
Where is thy knife? Thou art too slow
To do thy master's bidding when I desire it."
Antony, as the last drops are falling from his self-inflicted wound, utters with his dying breath to Cleopatra, this:
"I here importune death awhile, until
Of many thousand kisses the poor last
I lay upon thy lips."
To me, the last words of Hamlet are full of pathos:
"I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite o' er crows my spirit...
The rest is silence."
XVI.
SOME have insisted that Shakespeare must have been a physician, for the reason that he shows such knowledge of medicine—of the symptoms of disease and death—was so familiar with the brain, and with insanity in all its forms.
I do not think he was a physician. He knew too much—his generalizations were too splendid. He had none of the prejudices of that profession in his time. We might as well say that he was a musician, a composer, because we find in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" nearly every musical term known in Shakespeare's time.
Others maintain that he was a lawyer, perfectly acquainted with the forms, with the expressions familiar to that profession—yet there is nothing to show that he was a lawyer, or that he knew more about law than any intelligent man should know.
He was not a lawyer. His sense of justice was never dulled by reading English law.
Some think that he was a botanist, because he named nearly all known plants. Others, that he was an astronomer, a naturalist, because he gave hints and suggestions of nearly all discoveries.
Some have thought that he must have been a sailor, for the reason that the orders given in the opening of "The Tempest" were the best that could, under the circumstances, have been given to save the ship.
For my part, I think there is nothing in the plays to show that he was a lawyer, doctor, botanist or scientist. He had the observant eyes that really see, the ears that really hear, the brain that retains all pictures, all thoughts, logic as unerring as light,-the imagination that supplies defects and builds the perfect from a fragment. And these faculties, these aptitudes, working together, account for what he did.
He exceeded all the sons of men in the splendor of his imagination. To him the whole world paid tribute, and nature poured her treasures at his feet. In him all races lived again, and even those to be were pictured in his brain.
He was a man of imagination—that is to say, of genius, and having seen a leaf, and a drop of water, he could construct the forests, the rivers, and the seas—and in his presence all the cataracts would fall and foam, the mists rise, the clouds form and float.
If Shakespeare knew one fact, he knew its kindred and its neighbors. Looking at a coat of mail, he instantly imagined the society, the conditions, that produced it and what it, in turn, produced. He saw the castle, the moat, the draw-bridge, the lady in the tower, and the knightly lover spurring across the plain. He saw the bold baron and the rude retainer, the trampled serf, and all the glory and the grief of feudal life.
He lived the life of all.
He was a citizen of Athens in the days of Pericles. He listened to the eager eloquence of the great orators, and sat upon the cliffs, and with the tragic poet heard "the multitudinous laughter of the sea." He saw Socrates thrust the spear of question through the shield and heart of falsehood. He was present when the great man drank hemlock, and met the night of death, tranquil as a star meets morning. He listened to the peripatetic philosophers, and was unpuzzled by the sophists. He watched Phidias as he chiseled shapeless stone to forms of love and awe.
He lived by the mysterious Nile, amid the vast and monstrous. He knew the very thought that wrought the form and features of the Sphinx. He heard great Memnon's morning song when marble lips were smitten by the sun. He laid him down with the embalmed and waiting dead, and felt within their dust the expectation of another life, mingled with cold and suffocating doubts—the children born of long delay.
He walked the ways of mighty Rome, and saw great Cæsar with his legions in the field. He stood with vast and motley throngs and watched the triumphs given to victorious men, followed by uncrowned kings, the captured hosts, and all the spoils of ruthless war. He heard the shout that shook the Coliseum's roofless walls, when from the reeling gladiator's hand the short sword fell, while from his bosom gushed the stream of wasted life.
He lived the life of savage men. He trod the forests' silent depths, and in the desperate game of life or death he matched his thought against the instinct of the beast.
He knew all crimes and all regrets, all virtues and their rich rewards. He was victim and victor, pursuer and pursued, outcast and king. He heard the applause and curses of the world, and on his heart had fallen all the nights and noons of failure and success.
He knew the unspoken thoughts, the dumb desires, the wants and ways of beasts. He felt the crouching tiger's thrill, the terror of the ambushed prey, and with the eagles he had shared the ecstasy of flight and poise and swoop, and he had lain with sluggish serpents on the barren rocks uncoiling slowly in the heat of noon.
He sat beneath the bo-tree's contemplative shade, wrapped in Buddha's mighty thought, and dreamed all dreams that light, the alchemist, has wrought from dust and dew, and stored within the slumbrous poppy's subtle blood.
He knelt with awe and dread at every shrine—he offered every sacrifice, and every prayer—felt the consolation and the shuddering fear—mocked and worshiped all the gods—enjoyed all heavens, and felt the pangs of every hell.
He lived all lives, and through his blood and brain there crept the shadow and the chill of every death, and his soul, like Mazeppa, was lashed naked to the wild horse of every fear and love and hate.
The Imagination had a stage in. Shakespeare's brain, whereon were set all scenes that lie between the morn of laughter and the night of tears, and where his players bodied forth the false and true, the joys and griefs, the careless shallows and the tragic deeps of universal life.
From Shakespeare's brain there poured a Niagara of gems spanned by Fancy's seven-hued arch. He was as many-sided as clouds are many-formed. To him giving was hoarding—sowing was harvest—and waste itself the source of wealth. Within his marvelous mind were the fruits of all thought past, the seeds of all to be. As a drop of dew contains the image of the earth and sky, so all there is of life was mirrored forth in Shakespeare's brain.
Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought; within which were all the tides and waves of destiny and will; over which swept all the storms of fate, ambition and revenge; upon which fell the gloom and darkness of despair and death and all the sunlight of content and love, and within which was the inverted sky lit with the eternal stars—an intellectual ocean—towards which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their dew and rain.
* This lecture is printed from notes found among Colonel
Ingersoll's papers, but was not revised by him for
publication.
A facsimile of the original manuscript as written by Colonel Ingersoll in the Burns' cottage at Ayr, August 19, 1878.
We have met to-night to honor the memory of a poet—possibly the next to the greatest that has ever written in our language. I would place one above him, and only one—Shakespeare.
It may be well enough at the beginning to inquire, What is a poet? What is poetry?
Every one has some idea of the poetic, and this idea is born of his experience—of his education—of his surroundings.
There have been more nations than poets.
Many people suppose that poetry is a kind of art depending upon certain rules, and that it is only necessary to find out these rules to be a poet. But these rules have never been found. The great poet follows them unconsciously. The great poet seems as unconscious as Nature, and the product of the highest art seems to have been felt instead of thought.
The finest definition perhaps that has been given is this:
"As nature unconsciously produces that which appears to be the result of consciousness, so the greatest artist consciously produces that which appears the unconscious result."
Poetry must rest on the experience of men—the history of heart and brain. It must sit by the fireside of the heart. It must have to do with this world, with the place in which we live, with the men and women we know, with their loves, their hopes, their fears and their joys.
After all, we care nothing about gods and goddesses, or folks with wings.
The cloud-compelling Jupiters, the ox-eyed Junos, the feather-heeled Mercurys, or the Minervas that leaped full-armed from the thick skull of some imaginary god, are nothing to us. We know nothing of their fears or loves, and for that reason, the poetry that deals with them, no matter how ingenious it may be, can never touch the human heart.
I was taught that Milton was a wonderful poet, and above all others sublime. I have read Milton once. Few have read him twice.
With splendid words, with magnificent mythological imagery, he musters the heavenly militia—puts epaulets on the shoulders of God, and describes the Devil as an artillery officer of the highest rank.
Then he describes the battles in which immortals undertake the impossible task of killing each other.
Take this line:
"Flying with indefatigable wings over the vast abrupt."
This is called sublime, but what does it mean?
We have been taught that Dante was a wonderful poet.
He described with infinite minuteness the pangs and agonies endured by the damned in the torture—dungeons of God.
The vicious twins of superstition—malignity and solemnity—struggle for the mastery in his revengeful lines.
But there was one good thing about Dante: he had the courage, and what might be called the religious democracy, to see a pope in hell.
That is something to be thankful for.
So, the sonnets of Petrarch are as unmeaning as the promises of candidates. They are filled not with genuine passion, but with the feelings that lovers are supposed to have.
Poetry cannot be written by rule; it is nota trade, or a profession. Let the critics lay down the laws, and the true poet will violate them all.
By rule you can make skeletons, but you cannot clothe them with flesh, put blood in their veins, thoughts in their eyes, and passions in their hearts.
This can be done only by following the impulses of the heart, the winged fancies of the brain—by wandering from paths and roads, keeping step with the rhythmic ebb and flow of the throbbing blood.
In the olden time in Scotland, most of the so-called poetry was written by pedagogues and parsons—gentlemen who found out what little they knew of the living world by reading the dead languages—by studying epitaphs in the cemeteries of literature.
They knew nothing of any life that they thought poetic. They kept as far from the common people as they could. They wrote countless verses, but no poems. They tried to put metaphysics, that is to say, Calvinism, in poetry.
As a matter of fact, a Calvinist cannot be a poet. Calvinism takes all the poetry out of the world.
If the existence of the Calvinistic, the Christian, hell could be demonstrated, another poem never could be written. .
In those days they made poetry about geography, and the beauties of the Scotch Kirk, and even about law.
The critics have always been looking for mistakes, not beauties—not for the perfection of expression and feeling. They would object to the lark and nightingale because they do not sing by note—to the clouds because they are not square.
At one time it was thought that scenery, the grand in nature, made the poet. We now know that the poet makes the scenery. Holland has produced far more genius than the Alps. Where nature is prodigal—where the crags tower above the clouds—man is overcome, or overawed. In England and Scotland the hills are low, and there is nothing in the scenery calculated to rouse poetic blood, and yet these countries have produced the greatest literature of all time.
The truth is that poets and heroes make the scenery. The place where man has died for man is grander than all the snow-crowned summits of the world.
A poem is something like a mountain stream that flashes in light, then lost in shadow, leaps with a kind of wild joy into the abyss, emerges victorious, and winding runs amid meadows, lingers in quiet places, holding within its breast the hills and vales and clouds—then running by the cottage door, babbling of joy, and murmuring delight, then sweeping on to join its old mother, the sea.
Thousands, millions of men live poems, but do not write them; but every great poem has been lived.
I say to-night that every good and self-denying man, every one who lives and labors for those he loves, for wife and child, is living a poem. The loving mother rocking a cradle, singing the slumber song, lives a poem pure and tender as the dawn; the man who bares his breast to shot and shell lives a poem, and all the great men of the world, and all the brave and loving women have been poets in action, whether they have written one word or not. The poor woman of the tenement, sewing, blinded by tears, lives a poem holier, it may be, than the fortunate can know. The pioneers—the home builders, the heroes of toil, are all poets, and their deeds are filled with the pathos and perfection of the highest art.
But to-night we are going to talk of a poet—one who poured out his soul in song. How does a country become great? By producing great poets. Why is it that Scotland, when the roll of nations is called, can stand up and proudly answer "here"? Because Robert Burns has lived. It is Robert Burns that put Scotland in the front rank.
On the 25th of January, 1759, Robert Burns was born. William Burns, a gardener, his father; Agnes Brown, his mother. He was born near the little town of Ayr, in a little cottage made of mud and thatched with straw. From the first, poverty was his portion,—"Poverty, the half-sister of Death." The father struggled as best he could, but at last overcome more by misfortunes than by disease, died in 1784, at the age of 63. Robert attended school at Alloway Mill, and had been taught a little by John Murdock, and some by his father. That was his education—with this exception, that whenever nature produces a genius, the old mother holds him close to her heart and whispers secrets to his ears that others do not know.
He had spent most of his time working on a farm, raising very poor crops, getting deeper and deeper into debt, until finally the death of his father left him to struggle as best he might for himself.
In the year 1759, Scotland was emerging from the darkness and gloom of Calvinism. The attention of the people had been drawn from the other world, or rather from the other worlds, to the affairs of this. The commercial spirit, the interests of trade, were winning men from the discussion of predestination and the sacred decrees of God. Mechanics and manufacturers were undermining theology. The influence of the clergy was gradually diminishing, and the beggarly elements of this life were beginning to attract the attention of the Scotch. The people at that time were mostly poor. They had made but little progress in art and science. They had been engaged for many years fighting for their political or theological rights, or to destroy the rights of others. They had great energy, great natural sense, and courage without limit, and it may be well enough to add that they were as obstinate as brave.
Several countries have had a metaphysical peasantry. It is true of parts of Switzerland about the time of Calvin. In Holland, after the people had suffered all the cruelties that Spain could inflict, they began to discuss as to foreordination and free will, and upon these questions destroyed each other. The same is true of New England, and peculiarly true of Scotland—a metaphysical peasantry—men who lived in mud houses thatched with straw and discussed the motives of God and the means by which the Infinite Being was to accomplish his ends.
For many years the Scotch had been ruled by the clergy. The power of the Scotch preacher was unlimited. It so happened that the religion of Scotland became synonymous with patriotism, and those who were fighting Scotland were also fighting her religion. This drew priest and people together; and the priest naturally took advantage of the situation. They not only determined upon the policy to be pursued by the people, but they went into every detail of life. And in this world there has never been established a more odious tyranny or a more odious form of government than that of the Scotch Kirk.
A few men had made themselves famous—David Hume, Adam Smith, Doctor Hugh Blair, he of the grave, Beattie and Ramsay, Reid and Robertson—but the great body of the people were orthodox to the last drop of their blood. Nothing seemed to please them like attending church, like hearing sermons. Before Communion Sabbath they frequently met on Friday, having two or three sermons on that day, three or four on Saturday, more if possible on Sunday, and wound up with a kind of gospel spree on Monday. They loved it. I think it was Heinrich Heine who said, "It is not true, it is not true that the damned in hell are compelled to hear all the sermons preached on earth." He says this is not true. This shows that there is some mercy even in hell. They were infinitely interested in these questions.
And yet, the people were social, fond of games, of outdoor sports, full of song and story, and no folks ever passed the cup with a happier smile.
Sometimes I have thought that they were saved from the gloom of Calvinism by the use of intoxicating liquors. It may be that John Barleycorn redeemed the Scotch and saved them from the divine dyspepsia of the Calvinistic creed. So, too, it may be that the Puritan was saved by rum, and the Hollander by schnapps. Yet, in spite of the gloom of the creed, in spite of the climate of mists and fogs, and the maniac winters, the songs of Scotland are the sweetest and the tenderest in all the world.
Robert Burns was a peasant—a ploughman—a poet. Why is it that millions and millions of men and women love this man? He was a Scotchman, and all the tendrils of his heart struck deep in Scotland's soil. He voiced the ideals of the best and greatest of his race and blood. And yet he is as dear to the citizens of this great Republic as to Scotia's sons and daughters.
All great poetry has a national flavor. It tastes of the soil. No matter how great it is, how wide, how universal, the flavor of locality is never lost. Burns made common life beautiful. He idealized the sun-burnt girls who worked in the fields. He put honest labor above titled idleness. He made a cottage far more poetic than a palace. He painted the simple joys and ecstasies and raptures of sincere love. He put native sense above the polish of schools.
We love him because he was independent, sturdy, self-poised, social, generous, susceptible, thrilled by a look, by a touch, full of pity, carrying the sorrows of others in his heart, even those of animals; hating to see anybody suffer, and lamenting the death of everything—even of trees and flowers. We love him because he was a natural democrat, and hated tyranny in every form.
We love him because he was always on the side of the people, feeling the throb of progress.
Burns read but little, had but few books; had but a little of what is called education; had only an outline of history, a little of philosophy, in its highest sense. His library consisted of the Life of Hannibal, the History of Wallace, Ray's Wisdom of God, Stackhouse's History of the Bible; two or three plays of Shakespeare, Ferguson's Scottish Poems, Pope's Homer, Shenstone, McKenzie's Man of Feeling and Ossian.
Burns was a man of genius. He was like a spring—something that suggests no labor.
A spring seems to be a perpetual free gift of nature. There is no thought of toil. The water comes whispering to the pebbles without effort. There is no machinery, no pipes, no pumps, no engines, no water-works, nothing that suggests expense or trouble. So a natural poet is, when compared with the educated, with the polished, with the industrious.
Burns seems to have done everything without effort. His poems wrote themselves. He was overflowing with sympathies, with suggestions, with ideas, in every possible direction. There is no midnight oil. There is nothing of the student—no suggestion of their having been re-written or re-cast. There is in his heart a poetic April and May, and all the poetic seeds burst into sudden life. In a moment the seed is a plant, and the plant is in blossom, and the fruit is given to the world.
He looks at everything from a natural point of view; and he writes of the men and women with whom he was acquainted. He cares nothing for mythology, nothing for the legends of the Greeks and Romans. He draws but little from history. Everything that he uses is within his reach, and he knows it from centre to circumference. All his figures and comparisons are perfectly natural. He does not endeavor to make angels of fine ladies.
He takes the servant girls with whom he is acquainted, the dairy maids that he knows. He puts wings upon them and makes the very angels envious.
And yet this man, so natural, keeping his cheek so close to the breast of nature, strangely enough thought that Pope and Churchill and Shenstone and Thomson and Lyttelton and Beattie were great poets.
His first poem was addressed to Nellie Kilpatrick, daughter of the blacksmith. He was in love with Ellison Begbie, offered her his heart and was refused. She was a servant, working in a family and living on the banks of the Cessnock. Jean Armour, his wife, was the daughter of a tailor, and Highland Mary, a servant—a milk-maid.
He did not make women of goddesses, but he made goddesses of women.
POET OF LOVE.
Burns was the poet of love. To him woman was divine. In the light of her eyes he stood transfigured. Love changed this peasant to a king; the plaid became a robe of purple; the ploughman became a poet; the poor laborer an inspired lover.
In his "Vision" his native Muse tells the story of his verse:
"When youthful Love, warm-blushing strong,
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
Th' adored Name,
I taught thee how to pour in song,
To soothe thy flame."
Ah, this light from heaven: how it has purified the heart of man!
Was there ever a sweeter song than "Bonnie Doon"?
"Thou'lt break my heart thou bonnie bird
That sings beside thy mate,
For sae I sat and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate."
or,
"O, my luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O, my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune."
It would consume days to give the intense and tender lines—lines wet with the heart's blood, lines that throb and sigh and weep, lines that glow like flames, lines that seem to clasp and kiss.
But the most perfect love-poem that I know—pure the tear of gratitude—is "To Mary in Heaven:"
"Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usher'st in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
"That sacred hour can I forget?
Can I forget the hallow'd grove
Where, by the winding Ayr, we met,
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity will not efface
Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!
"Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on ev'ry spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of wingèd day.
"Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but the impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy blissful place of rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?"
Above all the daughters of luxury and wealth, above all of Scotland's queens rises this pure and gentle girl made deathless by the love of Robert Burns.
POET OF HOME
He was the poet of the home—of father, mother, child—of the purest wedded love.
In the "Cotter's Saturday Night," one of the noblest and sweetest poems in the literature of the world, is a description of the poor cotter going from his labor to his home:
"At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle, bClinkin' bonnilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil."
And in the same poem, after having described the courtship, Burns bursts into this perfect flower:
"O happy love! where love like this is found!
O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've pacèd much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare:
If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,
In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale."
Is there in the world a more beautiful—a more touching picture than the old couple sitting by the ingleside with clasped hands, and the pure, patient, loving old wife saying to the white-haired man who won her heart when the world was young:
"John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent;
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.
"John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;
And monie a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither;
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo."
Burns taught that the love of wife and children was the highest—that to toil for them was the noblest.
"The sacred lowe o' weel placed love,
Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt the illicit rove,
Though naething should divulge it."
"I waine the quantum of the sin,
The hazzard o'concealing;
But och! it hardens all within,
And petrifies the feeling."
"To make a happy fireside clime
To weans and wife,
That's the true pathos, and sublime,
Of human life."
FRIENDSHIP.
He was the poet of friendship:
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' auld lang syne?"
Wherever those who speak the English language assemble—wherever the Anglo-Saxon people meet with clasp and smile—these words are given to the air.
SCOTCH DRINK.
The poet of good Scotch drink, of merry meetings, of the cup that cheers, author of the best drinking song in the world:
"O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut,
And Rob and Allen came to see;
Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night,
Ye wadna find in Christendie.
Chorus.
"We are na fou, we're no that fou,
But just a drappie in our ee;
The cock may craw, the day may daw,
And aye we'll taste the barley bree.
"Here are we met, three merry boys,
Three merry boys, I trow, are we;
And monie a night we've merry been,
And monie mae we hope to be!
We are na fou, &c.
"It is the moon, I ken her horn,
That's bClinkin in the lift say hie;
She shines sae bright to wyle us hame,
But by my sooth she'll wait a wee!
We are na fou, &c.
"Wha first shall rise to gang awa,
A cuckold, coward loun is he!
Wha last beside his chair shall fa',
He is the King amang us three!
We are na fou, &c."
POETS BORN, NOT MADE.
He did not think the poet could be made—that colleges could furnish feeling, capacity, genius. He gave his opinion of these manufactured minstrels:
"A set o' dull, conceited hashes,
Confuse their brains in college classes!
They gang in stirks, and come out asses,
Plain truth to speak;
An' syne they think to climb Parnassus
By dint o' Greek!"
"Gie me ane spark o' Nature's fire,
That's a' the learning I desire;
Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire
At pleugh or cart,
My Muse, though hamely in attire,
May touch the heart."
BURNS, THE ARTIST.
He was an artist—a painter of pictures.
This of the brook:
"Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
As thro' the glen it wimpl't;
Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;
Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
Whyles glitter's to the nightly rays,
Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle;
Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
Below the spreading hazel,
Unseen that night."
Or this from Tam O'Shanter:
"But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed,
Or, like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white—then melts forever;
Or, like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or, like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm."
This:
"As in the bosom of the stream
The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en;
So, trembling, pure, was tender love,
Within the breast o' bonnie Jean."
"The sun had clos'd the winter day,
The Curlers quat their roarin play,
An' hunger's Maukin ta'en her way
To kail-yards green,
While faithless snaws ilk step betray
Whare she had been."
"O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods,
When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
And jinkin' hares, in amorous whids,
Their loves enjoy,
While thro' the braes the cushat croons
Wi' wailfu' cry!"
"Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me
When winds rave thro' the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray;
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
Dark'ning the day!"
This of the lark and daisy—the daintiest and nearest perfect in our language:
"Alas! it's no' thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie Lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
Wi' spreckl'd breast,
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east."
A REAL DEMOCRAT.
He was in every fibre of his being a sincere democrat. He was a believer in the people—in the sacred rights of man. He believed that honest peasants were superior to titled parasites. He knew the so-called "gentrv" of his time.
In one of his letters to Dr. Moore is this passage: "It takes a few dashes into the world to give the young great man that proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils—the mechanics and peasantry around him—who were born in the same village."
He knew the infinitely cruel spirit of caste—a spirit that despises the useful—the children of toil—those who bear the burdens of the world.
"If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave,
By nature's law design'd,
Why was an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind?
If not, why am I subject to .
His cruelty, or scorn?
Or why has man the will and pow'r
To make his fellow mourn?"
Against the political injustice of his time—against the artificial distinctions among men by which the lowest were regarded as the highest—he protested in the great poem, "A man's a man for a' that," every line of which came like lava from his heart.
"Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea stamp;
The man's the gowd for a' that."
"What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden-gray, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, and a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that."
"Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
His riband, star, and a' that,
The man' o' independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a' that."
"A prince can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Guid faith he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities, and a' that,
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,
Are higher ranks than a' that.
"Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that;
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree and a' that.
For a' that, and a' that;
It's cornin' yet for a' that
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that."
No grander declaration of independence was ever uttered. It stirs the blood like a declaration of war. It is the apotheosis of honesty, independence, sense and worth. And it is a prophecy of that better day when men will be brothers the world over.
HIS THEOLOGY.
Burns was superior in heart and brain to the theologians of his time. He knew that the creed of Calvin was infinitely cruel and absurd, and he attacked it with every weapon that his brain could forge.
He was not awed by the clergy, and he cared nothing for what was called "authority." He insisted on thinking for himself. Sometimes he faltered, and now and then, fearing that some friend might take offence, he would say or write a word in favor of the Bible, and sometimes he praised the Scriptures in words of scorn.
He laughed at the dogma of eternal pain—at hell as described by the preacher:
"A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit,
Fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane,
Wha's ragin' flame an' scorchin' heat
Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!
The half asleep start up wi' fear,
An' think they hear it roarin',
When presently it does appear,
'Twas but some neebor snorin'.
Asleep that day."
The dear old doctrine that man is totally depraved, that morality is a snare—a flowery path leading to perdition—excited the indignation of Burns. He put the doctrine in verse:
"Morality, thou deadly bane,
Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain!
Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is
In moral mercy, truth and justice."
He understood the hypocrites of his day:
"Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it!
That holy robe, O dinna tear it!
Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it,
The lads in black;
But your curst wit, when it comes near it,
Rives't aff their back."
"Then orthodoxy yet may prance,
And Learning in a woody dance,
And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense,
That bites sae sair,
Be banish'd owre the seas to France;
Let him bark there."
"They talk religion in their mouth;
They talk o' mercy, grace, an' truth,
For what? to gie their malice skouth On some puir wight,
An' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth,
To ruin straight."
"Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac,
Ye should stretch on a rack,
To strike evil doers wi' terror;
To join faith and sense Upon any pretence,
Was heretic damnable error,
Doctor Mac,
Was heretic damnable error."
But the greatest, the sharpest, the deadliest, the keenest, the wittiest thing ever said or written against Calvinism is Holy Willie's Prayer:—
"O Thou, wha in the Heavens dost dwell,
Wha, as it pleases best thysel',
Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,
A' for thy glory,
And no for onie guid or ill
They've done afore thee!
"I bless and praise thy matchless might,
When thousands thou has left in night,
That I am here afore thy sight
For gifts an' grace,
A burnin' an' a shinin' light,
To a' this place.
"What was I, or my generation,
That I should get sic exaltation?
I, wha deserve sic just damnation,
For broken laws,
Five thousand years 'fore my creation,
Thro' Adam's cause?
"When frae my mither's womb I fell,
Thou might hae plunged me into hell,
To gnash my gums, to weep and wail,
In burnin' lake,
Where damnèd devils roar and yell,
Chained to a stake.
"Yet I am here a chosen sample,
To show Thy grace is great and ample;
I'm here a pillar in Thy temple,
Strong as a rock,
A guide, a buckler, an example
To a' Thy flock."
In this poem you will find the creed stated just as it is—with fairness and accuracy—and at the same time stated so perfectly that its absurdity fills the mind with inextinguishable laughter.
In this poem Burns nailed Calvinism to the cross, put it on the rack, subjected it to every instrument of torture, flayed it alive, burned it at the stake, and scattered its ashes to the winds.
In 1787 Burns wrote this curious letter to Miss Chalmers:
"I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and have got through the five books of Moses and half way in Joshua.
"It is really a glorious book."
This must have been written in the spirit of Voltaire.
Think of Burns, with his loving, tender heart, half way in Joshua, standing in blood to his knees, surrounded by the mangled bodies of old men, women and babes, the swords of the victors dripping with innocent blood, shouting—"This is really a glorious sight."
A letter written on the seventh of March, 1788, contains the clearest, broadest and most philosophical statement of the religion of Burns to be found in his works:
"An honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the valley—be it so; at least there is an end of pain and care, woes and wants. If that part of us called Mind does survive the apparent destruction of the man, away with old-wife prejudices and tales!
"Every age and every nation has a different set of stories; and, as the many are always weak, of consequence they have often, perhaps always, been deceived.
"A man conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow creatures, even granting that he may have been the sport at times of passions and instincts, he goes to a great Unknown Being, who could have had no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy; who gave him those passions and instincts and well knows their force.
"These, my worthy friend, are my ideas.
"It becomes a man of sense to think for himself, particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark."
"Religious nonsense is the most nonsensical nonsense."
"Why has a religious turn of mind always a tendency to narrow and harden the heart?"
"All my fears and cares are for this world."
We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination for wonders—there are millions of miracles under our feet.
Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can comprehend.
The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible—he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound of the distant bell—two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful for—nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they soften with their tears—nothing. And yet as you look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for—that they have life, love, and hope—and so the distant bell makes music in their simple hearts.
Let me give you the difference between culture and nature—between educated talent and real genius.
A little while ago one of the great poets died. I was reading some of his volumes and during the same period was reading a little from Robert Burns. And the difference between these two poets struck me forcibly.
Tennyson was a piece of rare china decorated by the highest art.
Burns was made of honest, human clay, moulded by sympathy and love.
Tennyson dwelt in his fancy, for the most part, with kings and queens, with lords and ladies, with knights and nobles.
Burns lingered by the fireside of the poor and humble, in the thatched cottage of the peasant, with the imprisoned and despised. He loved men and women in spite of their titles, and without regard to the outward. Through robes and rags he saw and loved the man.
Tennyson was touched by place and power, the insignia given by chance or birth. As he grew old he grew narrower, lost interest in the race, and gave his heart to the class to which he had been lowered as a reward for melodious flattery.
Burns broadened and ripened with the flight of his few years. His sympathies widened and increased to the last.
Tennyson had the art born of intellectual taste, of the sense of mental proportion, knowing the color of adjectives and the gradations of emphasis. His pictures were born in his brain, exquisitely shaded by details, carefully wrought by painful and conscious art.
Burns's brain was the servant of his heart. His melody was a rhythm taught by love. He was touched by the miseries, the injustice, the agony of his time. While Tennyson wrote of the past—of kings long dead, of ladies who had been dust for many centuries, Burns melted with his love the walls of caste—the cruel walls that divide the rich and the poor.
Tennyson celebrated the birth of royal babes, the death of the titled useless; gave wings to degraded dust, wearing the laurels given by those who lived upon the toil of men whom they despised. Burns poured poems from his heart, filled with tears and sobs for the suffering poor; poems that helped to break the chains of millions; poems that the enfranchised love to repeat; poems that liberty loves to hear.
Tennyson was the poet of the past, of the twilight, of the sunset, of decorous regret, of the vanished glories of barbarous times, of the age of chivalry in which great nobles clad in steel smote to death with battle axe and sword the unarmed peasants of the field.
Burns was the poet of the dawn, glad that the night was fading from the east. He kept his face toward the sunrise, caring nothing for the midnight of the past, but loved with all the depth and sincerity of his nature the few great souls—the lustrous stars—that darkness cannot quench.
Tennyson was surrounded with what gold can give, touched with the selfishness of wealth. He was educated at Oxford, and had what are called the advantages of his time, and in maturer years was somewhat swayed by the spirit of caste, by the descendants of the ancient Pharisees, and at last became a lord.
Burns had but little knowledge of the world. What he knew was taught him by his sympathies. Being a genius, he absorbed the good and noble of which he heard or dreamed, and thus he happily outgrew the smaller things with which he came in contact, and journeyed toward the great—the wider world, until he reached the end.
Tennyson was what is called religious. He believed in the divinity of decorum, not falling on his face before the Eternal King, but bowing gracefully, as all lords should, while uttering thanks for favors partly undeserved, and thanks more fervid still for those to come.
Burns had the deepest and the tenderest feelings in his heart. The winding stream, the flowering shrub, the shady vale—these were trysting places where the real God met those he loved, and where his spirit prompted thoughts and words of thankfulness and praise, took from their hearts the dross of selfishness and hate, leaving the gold of love.
In the religion of Burns, form was nothing, creed was nothing, feeling was everything. He had the religious climate of the soul, the April that receives the seed, the June of blossom, and the month of harvest.
Burns was a real poet of nature. He put fields and woods in his lines. There were principles like oaks, and there were thoughts, hints and suggestions as shy as violets beneath the withered leaves. There were the warmth of home, the social virtues born of equal state, that touched the heart and softened grief; that make breaches in the cruel walls of pride; that make the rich and poor clasp hands and feel like comrades, warm and true.
The house in which his spirit lived was not large. It enclosed only space enough for common needs, built near the barren land of want; but through the open door the sunlight streamed, and from its windows all the stars were seen, while in the garden grew the common flowers—the flowers that all the ages through have been the messengers of honest love; and in the fields were heard the rustling corn, and reapers songs, telling of well-requited toil; and there were trees whose branches rose and fell and swayed while birds filled all the air with music born of joy. He read with tear-filled eyes the human page, and found within his breast the history of hearts.
Tennyson's imagination lived in a palace ample, wondrous fair, with dome and spire and galleries, where eyes of proud old pedigree grew dim with gazing at the portraits of the worthless dead; and there were parks and labyrinths of walks and ways and artificial lakes where sailed the "double swans;" and there were flowers from far-off lands with strange perfume, and men and women of the grander sort, telling of better days and nobler deeds than men in these poor times of commerce, trade and toil have hearts to do; and, yet, from this fair dwelling—too vast, too finely wrought, to be a home—he uttered wondrous words, painting pictures that will never fade, and told, with every aid of art, old tales of love and war, sometimes beguiling men of tears, enchanting all with melody of speech, and sometimes rousing blood and planting seeds of high resolve and noble deeds; and sometimes thoughts were woven like tapestries in patterns beautiful, involved and strange, where dreams and fancies interlaced like tendrils of a vine, like harmonies that wander and return to catch the music of the central theme, yet cold as traceries in frost wrought on glass by winter's subtle art.
Tennyson was ingenious—Burns ingenuous. One was exclusive, and in his exclusiveness a little disdain. The other pressed the world against his heart.
Tennyson touched art on many sides, dealing with vast poetic themes, and satisfied in many ways the intellectual tastes of cultured men.
Tennyson is always perfectly self-possessed. He has poetic sympathy, but not the fire and flame. No one thinks of him as having been excited, as being borne away by passion's storm. His pulse never rises. In artistic calm, he turns, polishes, perfects, embroiders and beautifies. In him there is nothing of the storm and chaos, nothing of the creative genius, no sea wrought to fury, filling the heavens with its shattered cry.
Burns dwelt with simple things—with those that touch the heart; that tell of joy; that spring from labor done; that lift the burdens of despair from fainting souls; that soften hearts until the pearls of pity fall from eyes unused to weep.
To illustrate his thought, he used the things he knew—the things familiar to the world—not caring for the vanished things—the legends told by artful tongues to artless ears—but clinging to the common things of life and love and death, adorning them with countless gems; and, over all, he placed the bow of hope.
With him the man was greater than the king, the woman than the queen. The greatest were the noblest, and the noblest were those who loved their fellow-men the best, the ones who filled their lives with generous deeds. Men admire Tennyson. Men love Robert Burns.
He was a believer in God, and had confidence that this God was sitting at the loom weaving with warp and woof of cause and effect, of fear and fancy, pain and hope, of dream and shadows, of despair and death, mingled with the light of love, the tapestries in which at last all souls will see that all was perfect from the first. He believed or hoped that the spirit of infinite goodness, soft as the autumn air, filled all of heaven's dome with love.
Such a religion is easy to understand when it includes all races through all times. It is consistent, if not with the highest thought, with the deepest and the tenderest feelings of the heart.
FROM CRADLE TO COFFIN.
There is no time to follow the steps of Burns from old Alloway, by the Bonnie Doon in the clay-built hut, where the January wind blew hansel in on Robin—to Mt. Oliphant, with its cold and stingy soil, the hard factor, whose letters made the children weep—working in the fields, or tired with "The thresher's weary flinging tree," where he was thrilled, for the first time with love's sweet pain that set his heart to music.
To Lochlea, still giving wings to thought—still working in the unproductive fields, Lochlea where his father died, and reached the rest that life denied.
To Mossgiel, where Burns reached the top and summit of his art and wrote like one enrapt, inspired. Here he met and loved and gave to immortality his Highland Mary.
To Edinburgh and fame, and back to Mauchline to Jean Armour and honor, the noblest deed of all his life.
To Ellisland, by the winding Nith.
To Dumfries, a poor exciseman, wearing out his heart in the disgusting details of degrading drudgery—suspected of treason because he preferred Washington to Pitt—because he sympathized with the French Revolution—because he was glad that the American colonies had become a free nation.
At a banquet once, being asked to drink the health of Pitt, Burns said: "I will give you a better toast—George Washington." A little while after, when they wanted him to drink to the success of the English arms, Burns said: "No; I will drink this: May their success equal the justice of their cause." He sent three or four little cannon to the French Convention, because he sympathized with the French Revolution, and because of these little things, his love of liberty, of freedom and justice, at Dumfries he was suspected of being a traitor, and, as a result of these trivial things, as a result of that suspicion, Burns was obliged to join the Dumfries volunteers.
How pitiful that the author of "Scots wha hae with Wallace bled," should be thought an enemy of Scotland!
Poor Burns! Old and broken before his time—surrounded by the walking lumps of Dumfries' clay!
To appease the anger of his fellow-citizens—to convince them that he was a patriot, he actually joined the Dumfries volunteers,—bought his uniform on credit—amount about seven pounds—was unable to pay—was threatened with arrest and a jail by Matthew Penn.
These threats embittered his last hours.
A little while before his death, he said: "Do not let that awkward squad—the Dumfries volunteers—fire over my grave." We have a true insight into what his feelings were. But they fired. They were bound to fire or die.
The last words uttered by Robert Burns were these: "That damned scoundrel Matthew Penn."
Burns had another art, the art of ending—of stopping at the right place. Nothing is more difficult than this. It is hard to end a play—to get the right kind of roof on a house. Not one story-teller in a thousand knows just the spot where the rocket should explode. They go on talking after the stick has fallen.
Burns wrote short poems, and why? All great poems are short. There cannot be a long poem any more than there can be a long joke. I believe the best example of an ending perfectly accomplished you will find in his "Vision."
There comes into his house, into that "auld clay biggin," his muse, the spirit of a beautiful woman, and tells him what he can do, and what he can't do, as a poet. He has a long talk with her and now the thing is how to get her out of the house. You may think that it is an easy thing. It is easy to get yourself into difficulty, but not to get out.
I was struck with the beautiful manner in which Burns got that angel out of the house.
Nothing could be happier than the ending of the "Vision"—the leave-taking of the Muse:
"And wear thou this, she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head:
The polished leaves and berries red
Did rustling play;
And, like a passing thought she fled.
In light away."
How that man rose above all his fellows in death! Do you know, there is something wonderful in death. What a repose! What a piece of sculpture! The common man dead looks royal; a genius dead, sublime.
When a few years ago I visited all the places where Burns had been, from the little house of clay with one room where he was born, to the little house with one room where he now sleeps, I thought of this. Yes, I visited them all, all the places made immortal by his genius, the field where love first touched his heart, the field where he ploughed up the home of the Mouse. I saw the cottage where Robert and Jean first lived as man and wife, and walked on "the banks and braes of Bonnie Doon." And when I stood by his grave, I said: This man was a radical, a real genuine man. This man believed in the dignity of labor, in the nobility of the useful. This man believed in human love, in making a heaven here, in judging men by their deeds instead of creeds and titles. This man believed in the liberty of the soul, of thought and speech. This man believed in the sacred rights of the individual; he sympathized with the suffering and oppressed. This man had the genius to change suffering and toil into song, to enrich poverty, to make a peasant feel like a prince of the blood, to fill the lives of the lowly with love and light. This man had the genius to make robes of glory out of squalid rags. This man had the genius to make Cleopatras, and Sapphos and Helens out of the freckled girls of the villages and fields—and he had the genius to make Auld Ayr, and Bonnie Doon, and Sweet Afton and the Winding Nith murmur the name of Robert Burns forever.
This man left a legacy of glory to Scotland and the whole world; he enriched our language, and with a generous hand scattered the gems of thought. This man was the companion of poverty, and wept the tears of grief, and yet he has caused millions to shed the happy tears of joy.
His heart blossomed in a thousand songs—songs for all times and all seasons—suited to every experience of the heart—songs for the dawn of love—for the glance and clasp and kiss of courtship—for "favors secret, sweet and precious"—for the glow and flame, the ecstasy and rapture of wedded life—songs of parting and despair—songs of hope and simple joy—songs for the vanished days—songs for birth and burial—songs for wild war's deadly blast, and songs for gentle peace—songs for the dying and the dead—songs for labor and content—songs for the spinning wheel, the sickle and the plow—songs for sunshine and for storm, for laughter and for tears—songs that will be sung as long as language lives and passion sways the heart of man.
And when I was at his birth-place, at that little clay house where he was born, standing in that sacred place, I wrote these lines:
Though Scotland boasts a thousand names,
Of patriot, king and peer,
The noblest, grandest of them all,
Was loved and cradled here.
Here lived the gentle peasant-prince,
The loving cotter-king,
Compared with whom the greatest lord
Is but a titled thing.
'Tis but a cot roofed in with straw,
A hovel made of clay;
One door shuts out the snow and storm,
One window greets the day;
And yet I stand within this room,
And hold all thrones in scorn;
For here beneath this lowly thatch,
Love's sweetest bard was born.
Within this hallowed hut I feel
Like one who clasps a shrine,
When the glad lips at last have touched
The something deemed divine.
And here the world through all the years,
As long as day returns,
The tribute of its love and tears,
Will pay to Robert Burns.
ON the 12th of February, 1809, two babes were born—one in the woods of Kentucky, amid the hardships and poverty of pioneers; one in England, surrounded by wealth and culture. One was educated in the University of Nature, the other at Cambridge.
One associated his name with the enfranchisement of labor, with the emancipation of millions, with the salvation of the Republic. He is known to us as Abraham Lincoln.
The other broke the chains of superstition and filled the world with intellectual light, and he is known as Charles Darwin.
Nothing is grander than to break chains from the bodies of men—nothing nobler than to destroy the phantoms of the soul.
Because of these two men the nineteenth century is illustrious.
A few men and women make a nation glorious—Shakespeare made England immortal, Voltaire civilized and humanized France; Goethe, Schiller and Humboldt lifted Germany into the light. Angelo, Raphael, Galileo and Bruno crowned with fadeless laurel the Italian brow, and now the most precious treasure of the Great Republic is the memory of Abraham Lincoln.
Every generation has its heroes, its iconoclasts, its pioneers, its ideals. The people always have been and still are divided, at least into classes—the many, who with their backs to the sunrise worship the past, and the few, who keep their faces toward the dawn—the many, who are satisfied with the world as it is; the few, who labor and suffer for the future, for those to be, and who seek to rescue the oppressed, to destroy the cruel distinctions of caste, and to civilize mankind.
Yet it sometimes happens that the liberator of one age becomes the oppressor of the next. His reputation becomes so great—he is so revered and worshiped—that his followers, in his name, attack the hero who endeavors to take another step in advance.
The heroes of the Revolution, forgetting the justice for which they fought, put chains upon the limbs of others, and in their names the lovers of liberty were denounced as ingrates and traitors.
During the Revolution our fathers to justify their rebellion dug down to the bed-rock of human rights and planted their standard there. They declared that all men were entitled to liberty and that government derived its power from the consent of the governed. But when victory came, the great principles were forgotten and chains were put upon the limbs of men. Both of the great political parties were controlled by greed and selfishness. Both were the defenders and protectors of slavery. For nearly three-quarters of a century these parties had control of the Republic. The principal object of both parties was the protection of the infamous institution. Both were eager to secure the Southern vote and both sacrificed principle and honor upon the altar of success.
At last the Whig party died and the Republican was born. This party was opposed to the further extension of slavery. The Democratic party of the South wished to make the "divine institution" national—while the Democrats of the North wanted the question decided by each territory for itself.
Each of these parties had conservatives and extremists. The extremists of the Democratic party were in the rear and wished to go back; the extremists of the Republican party were in the front, and wished to go forward. The extreme Democrat was willing to destroy the Union for the sake of slavery, and the extreme Republican was willing to destroy the Union for the sake of liberty.
Neither party could succeed without the votes of its extremists.
This was the condition in 1858-60.
When Lincoln was a child his parents removed from Kentucky to Indiana. A few trees were felled—a log hut open to the south, no floor, no window, was built—a little land plowed and here the Lincolns lived. Here the patient, thoughtful, silent, loving mother died—died in the wide forest as a leaf dies, leaving nothing to her son but the memory of her love.
In a few years the family moved to Illinois. Lincoln then almost grown, clad in skins, with no woven stitch upon his body—walking and driving the cattle. Another farm was opened—a few acres subdued and enough raised to keep the wolf from the door. Lincoln quit the farm—went down the Ohio and Mississippi as a hand on a flat-boat—afterward clerked in a country store—then in partnership with another bought the store—failed. Nothing left but a few debts—learned the art of surveying—made about half a living and paid something on the debts—read law—admitted to the bar—tried a few small cases—nominated for the Legislature and made a speech.
This speech was in favor of a tariff, not only for revenue, but to encourage American manufacturers and to protect American workingmen. Lincoln knew then as well as we do now, that everything, to the limits of the possible, that Americans use should be produced by the energy, skill and ingenuity of Americans. He knew that the more industries we had, the greater variety of things we made, the greater would be the development of the American brain. And he knew that great men and great women are the best things that a nation can produce,—the finest crop a country can possibly raise.
He knew that a nation that sells raw material will grow ignorant and poor, while the people who manufacture will grow intelligent and rich. To dig, to chop, to plow, requires more muscle than mind, more strength than thought.
To invent, to manufacture, to take advantage of the forces of nature—this requires thought, talent, genius. This develops the brain and gives wings to the imagination.
It is better for Americans to purchase from Americans, even if the things purchased cost more.
If we purchase a ton of steel rails from England for twenty dollars, then we have the rails and England the money; But if we buy a ton of steel rails from an American for twenty-five dollars, then America has both the rails and the money.
Judging from the present universal depression and the recent elections, Lincoln, in his first speech, stood on solid rock and was absolutely right. Lincoln was educated in the University of Nature—educated by cloud and star—by field and winding stream—by billowed plains and solemn forests—by morning's birth and death of day—by storm and night—by the ever eager Spring—by Summer's wealth of leaf and vine and flower—the sad and transient glories of the Autumn woods—and Winter, builder of home and fireside, and whose storms without, create the social warmth within.
He was perfectly acquainted with the political questions of the day—heard them discussed at taverns and country stores, at voting places and courts and on the stump. He knew all the arguments for and against, and no man of his time was better equipped for intellectual conflict. He knew the average mind—the thoughts of the people, the hopes and prejudices of his fellow-men. He had the power of accurate statement. He was logical, candid and sincere. In addition, he had the "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin."
In 1858 he was a candidate for the Senate against Stephen A. Douglas.
The extreme Democrats would not vote for Douglas, but the extreme Republicans did vote for Lincoln. Lincoln occupied the middle ground, and was the compromise candidate of his own party. He had lived for many years in the intellectual territory of compromise—in a part of our country settled by Northern and Southern men—where Northern and Southern ideas met, and the ideas of the two sections were brought together and compared.
The sympathies of Lincoln, his ties of kindred, were with the South. His convictions, his sense of justice, and his ideals, were with the North. He knew the horrors of slavery, and he felt the unspeakable ecstasies and glories of freedom. He had the kindness, the gentleness, of true greatness, and he could not have been a master; he had the manhood and independence of true greatness, and he could not have been a slave. He was just, and was incapable of putting a burden upon others that he himself would not willingly bear.
He was merciful and profound, and it was not necessary for him to read the history of the world to know that liberty and slavery could not live in the same nation, or in the same brain. Lincoln was a statesman.. And there is this difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician schemes and works in every way to make the people do something for him. A statesman wishes to do something for the people. With him place and power are means to an end, and the end is the good of his country.
In this campaign Lincoln demonstrated three things—first, that he was the intellectual superior of his opponent; second, that he was right; and third, that a majority of the voters of Illinois were on his side.
II.
IN 1860 the Republic reached a crisis. The conflict between liberty and slavery could no longer be delayed. For three-quarters of a century the forces had been gathering for the battle.
After the Revolution, principle was sacrificed for the sake of gain. The Constitution contradicted the Declaration. Liberty as a principle was held in contempt. Slavery took possession of the Government. Slavery made the laws, corrupted courts, dominated Presidents and demoralized the people.
I do not hold the South responsible for slavery any more than I do the North. The fact is, that individuals and nations act as they must. There is no chance. Back of every event—of every hope, prejudice, fancy and dream—of every opinion and belief—of every vice and virtue—of every smile and curse, is the efficient cause. The present moment is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past.
Northern politicians wanted office, and so they defended slavery; Northern merchants wanted to sell their goods to the South, and so they were the enemies of freedom. The preacher wished to please the people who paid his salary, and so he denounced the slave for not being satisfied with the position in which the good God had placed him.
The respectable, the rich, the prosperous, the holders of and the seekers for office, held liberty in contempt. They regarded the Constitution as far more sacred than the rights of men. Candidates for the presidency were applauded because they had tried to make slave States of free territory, and the highest court solemnly and ignorantly decided that colored men and women had no rights. Men who insisted that freedom was better than slavery, and that mothers should not be robbed of their babes, were hated, despised and mobbed. Mr. Douglas voiced the feelings of millions when he declared that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. Upon this question the people, a majority of them, were almost savages. Honor, manhood, conscience, principle—all sacrificed for the sake of gain or office.
From the heights of philosophy—standing above the contending hosts, above the prejudices, the sentimentalities of the day—Lincoln was great enough and brave enough and wise enough to utter these prophetic words:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it further until it becomes alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."
This declaration was the standard around which gathered the grandest political party the world has ever seen, and this declaration made Lincoln the leader of that vast host.
In this, the first great crisis, Lincoln uttered the victorious truth that made him the foremost man in the Republic.
The Republican party nominated him for the presidency and the people decided at the polls that a house divided against itself could not stand, and that slavery had cursed soul and soil enough.
It is not a common thing to elect a really great man to fill the highest official position. I do not say that the great Presidents have been chosen by accident. Probably it would be better to say that they were the favorites of a happy chance.
The average man is afraid of genius. He feels as an awkward man feels in the presence of a sleight-of-hand performer. He admires and suspects. Genius appears to carry too much sail—to lack prudence, has too much courage. The ballast of dullness inspires confidence.
By a happy chance Lincoln was nominated and elected in spite of his fitness—and the patient, gentle, just and loving man was called upon to bear as great a burden as man has ever borne.
III.
THEN came another crisis—the crisis of Secession and Civil war.
Again Lincoln spoke the deepest feeling and the highest thought of the Nation. In his first message he said:
"The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy."
He also showed conclusively that the North and South, in spite of secession, must remain face to face—that physically they could not separate—that they must have more or less commerce, and that this commerce must be carried on either between the two sections as friends, or as aliens.
This situation and its consequences he pointed out to absolute perfection in these words:
"Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws among friends?"
After having stated fully and fairly the philosophy of the conflict, after having said enough to satisfy any calm and thoughtful mind, he addressed himself to the hearts of America. Probably there are few finer passages in literature than the close of Lincoln's inaugural address:
"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriotic grave to every loving heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
These noble, these touching, these pathetic words, were delivered in the presence of rebellion, in the midst of spies and conspirators—surrounded by but few friends, most of whom were unknown, and some of whom were wavering in their fidelity—at a time when secession was arrogant and organized, when patriotism was silent, and when, to quote the expressive words of Lincoln himself, "Sinners were calling the righteous to repentance."
When Lincoln became President, he was held in contempt by the South—underrated by the North and East—not appreciated even by his cabinet—and yet he was not only one of the wisest, but one of the shrewdest of mankind. Knowing that he had the right to enforce the laws of the Union in all parts of the United States, and Territories—knowing, as he did, that the secessionists were in the wrong, he also knew that they had sympathizers not only in the North, but in other lands.
Consequently, he felt that it was of the utmost importance that the South should fire the first shot, should do some act that would solidify the North, and gain for us the justification of the civilized world.
He proposed to give food to the soldiers at Sumter. He asked the advice of all his cabinet on this question, and all, with the exception of Montgomery Blair, answered in the negative, giving their reasons in writing. In spite of this, Lincoln took his own course—endeavored to send the supplies, and while thus engaged, doing his simple duty, the South commenced actual hostilities and fired on the fort. The course pursued by Lincoln was absolutely right, and the act of the South to a great extent solidified the North, and gained for the Republic the justification of a great number of people in other lands.
At that time Lincoln appreciated the scope and consequences of the impending conflict. Above all other thoughts in his mind was this:
"This conflict will settle the question, at least for centuries to come, whether man is capable of governing himself, and consequently is of greater importance to the free than to the enslaved."
He knew what depended on the issue and he said: "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth."
HEN came a crisis in the North. It became clearer and clearer to Lincoln's mind, day by day, that the Rebellion was slavery, and that it was necessary to keep the border States on the side of the Union. For this purpose he proposed a scheme of emancipation and colonization—a scheme by which the owners of slaves should be paid the full value of what they called their "property."
He knew that if the border States agreed to gradual emancipation, and received compensation for their slaves, they would be forever lost to the Confederacy, whether secession succeeded or not. It was objected at the time, by some, that the scheme was far too expensive; but Lincoln, wiser than his advisers—far wiser than his enemies—demonstrated that from an economical point of view, his course was best.
IV.
He proposed that $400 be paid for slaves, including men, women and children. This was a large price, and yet he showed how much cheaper it was to purchase than to carry on the war.
At that time, at the price mentioned, there were about $750,000 worth of slaves in Delaware. The cost of carrying on the war was at least two millions of dollars a day, and for one-third of one day's expenses, all the slaves in Delaware could be purchased. He also showed that all the slaves in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri could be bought, at the same price, for less than the expense of carrying on the war for eighty-seven days.
This was the wisest thing that could have been proposed, and yet such was the madness of the South, such the indignation of the North, that the advice was unheeded.
Again, in July, 1862, he urged on the Representatives of the border States a scheme of gradual compensated emancipation; but the Representatives were too deaf to hear, too blind to see.
Lincoln always hated slavery, and yet he felt the obligations and duties of his position. In his first message he assured the South that the laws, including the most odious of all—the law for the return of fugitive slaves—would be enforced. The South would not hear. Afterward he proposed to purchase the slaves of the border States, but the proposition was hardly discussed—hardly heard. Events came thick and fast; theories gave way to facts, and everything was left to force.
The extreme Democrat of the North was fearful that slavery might be destroyed, that the Constitution might be broken, and that Lincoln, after all, could not be trusted; and at the same time the radical Republican feared that Lincoln loved the Union more than he did liberty.
The fact is, that he tried to discharge the obligations of his great office, knowing from the first that slavery must perish. The course pursued by Lincoln was so gentle, so kind and persistent, so wise and logical, that millions of Northern Democrats sprang to the defence, not only of the Union, but of his administration. Lincoln refused to be led or hurried by Fremont or Hunter, by Greeley or Sumner. From first to last he was the real leader, and he kept step with events.
V.
ON the 22d of July, 1862, Lincoln sent word to the members of his cabinet that he wished to see them. It so happened that Secretary Chase was the first to arrive. He found Lincoln reading a book. Looking up from the page, the President said: "Chase, did you ever read this book?" "What book is it?" asked Chase. "Artemus Ward," replied Lincoln. "Let me read you this chapter, entitled 'Wax Wurx in Albany.'" And so he began reading while the other members of the cabinet one by one came in. At last Stanton told Mr. Lincoln that he was in a great hurry, and if any business was to be done he would like to do it at once. Whereupon Mr. Lincoln laid down the open book, opened a drawer, took out a paper and said: "Gentlemen, I have called you together to notify you what I have determined to do. I want no advice. Nothing can change my mind."
He then read the Proclamation of Emancipation. Chase thought there ought to be something about God at the close, to which Lincoln replied: "Put it in, it won't hurt it." It was also agreed that the President would wait for a victory in the field before giving the Proclamation to the world.
The meeting was over, the members went their way. Mr. Chase was the last to go, and as he went through the door looked back and saw that Mr. Lincoln had taken up the book and was again engrossed in the Wax Wurx at Albany.
This was on the 22d of July, 1862. On the 22d of August of the same year—after Lincoln wrote his celebrated letter to Horace Greeley, in which he stated that his object was to save the Union; that he would save it with slavery if he could; that if it was necessary to destroy slavery in order to save the Union, he would; in other words, he would do what was necessary to save the Union.
This letter disheartened, to a great degree, thousands and millions of the friends of freedom. They felt that Mr. Lincoln had not attained the moral height upon which they supposed he stood. And yet, when this letter was written, the Emancipation Proclamation was in his hands, and had been for thirty days, waiting only an opportunity to give it to the world.
Some two weeks after the letter to Greeley, Lincoln was waited on by a committee of clergymen, and was by them informed that it was God's will that he should issue a Proclamation of Emancipation. He replied to them, in substance, that the day of miracles had passed. He also mildly and kindly suggested that if it were God's will this Proclamation should be issued, certainly God would have made known that will to him—to the person whose duty it was to issue it.
On the 22d day of September, 1862, the most glorious date in the history of the Republic, the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued.
Lincoln had reached the generalization of all argument upon the question of slavery and freedom—a generalization that never has been, and probably never will be, excelled:
"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free."
This is absolutely true. Liberty can be retained, can be enjoyed, only by giving it to others. The spendthrift saves, the miser is prodigal. In the realm of Freedom, waste is husbandry. He who puts chains upon the body of another shackles his own soul. The moment the Proclamation was issued the cause of the Republic became sacred. From that moment the North fought for the human race.
From that moment the North stood under the blue and stars, the flag of Nature, sublime and free.
In 1831, Lincoln went down the Mississippi on a flat-boat. He received the extravagant salary of ten dollars a month. When he reached New Orleans, he and some of his companions went about the city.
Among other places, they visited a slave market, where men and women were being sold at auction. A young colored girl was on the block. Lincoln heard the brutal words of the auctioneer—the savage remarks of bidders. The scene filled his soul with indignation and horror.
Turning to his companions, he said, "Boys, if I ever get a chance to hit slavery, by God I'll hit it hard!"
The helpless girl, unconsciously, had planted in a great heart the seeds of the Proclamation.
Thirty-one years afterward the chance came, the oath was kept, and to four millions of slaves, of men, women and children, was restored liberty, the jewel of the soul.
In the history, in the fiction of the world, there is nothing more intensely dramatic than this.
Lincoln held within his brain the grandest truths, and he held them as unconsciously, as easily, as naturally, as a waveless pool holds within its stainless breast a thousand stars.
In these two years we had traveled from the Ordinance of Secession to the Proclamation of Emancipation.
VI.
WE were surrounded by enemies. Many of the so-called great in Europe and England were against us. They hated the Republic, despised our institutions, and sought in many ways to aid the South.
Mr. Gladstone announced that Jefferson Davis had made a nation, and that he did not believe the restoration of the American Union by force attainable.
From the Vatican came words of encouragement for the South.
It was declared that the North was fighting for empire and the South for independence.
The Marquis of Salisbury said: "The people of the South are the natural allies of England. The North keeps an opposition shop in the same department of trade as ourselves."
Not a very elevated sentiment—but English.
Some of their statesmen declared that the subjugation of the South by the North would be a calamity to the world.
Louis Napoleon was another enemy, and he endeavored to establish a monarchy in Mexico, to the end that the great North might be destroyed. But the patience, the uncommon common sense, the statesmanship of Lincoln—in spite of foreign hate and Northern division—triumphed over all. And now we forgive all foes. Victory makes forgiveness easy.
Lincoln was by nature a diplomat. He knew the art of sailing against the wind. He had as much shrewdness as is consistent with honesty. He understood, not only the rights of individuals, but of nations. In all his correspondence with other governments he neither wrote nor sanctioned a line which afterward was used to tie his hands. In the use of perfect English he easily rose above all his advisers and all his fellows.
No one claims that Lincoln did all. He could have done nothing without the generals in the field, and the generals could have done nothing without their armies. The praise is due to all—to the private as much as to the officer; to the lowest who did his duty, as much as to the highest.
My heart goes out to the brave private as much as to the leader of the host.
But Lincoln stood at the centre and with infinite patience, with consummate skill, with the genius of goodness, directed, cheered, consoled and conquered.
VII.
SLAVERY was the cause of the war, and slavery was the perpetual stumbling-block. As the war went on, question after question arose—questions that could not be answered by theories. Should we hand back the slave to his master, when the master was using his slave to destroy the Union? If the South was right, slaves were property, and by the laws of war anything that might be used to the advantage of the enemy might be confiscated by us. Events did not wait for discussion. General Butler denominated the negro as "a contraband." Congress provided that the property of the rebels might be confiscated.
The extreme Democrats of the North regarded the slave as more sacred than life. It was no harm to kill the master—to burn his house, to ravage his fields—but you must not free his slave. If in war a nation has the right to take the property of its citizens—of its friends—certainly it has the right to take the property of those it has the right to kill.
Lincoln was wise enough to know that war is governed by the laws of war, and that during the conflict constitutions are silent. All that he could do he did in the interests of peace. He offered to execute every law—including the most infamous of all—to buy the slaves in the border States—to establish gradual, compensated emancipation; but the South would not hear. Then he confiscated the property of rebels—treated the slaves as contraband of war, used them to put down the Rebellion, armed them and clothed them in the uniform of the Republic—was in favor of making them citizens and allowing them to stand on an equality with their white brethren under the flag of the Nation. During these years Lincoln moved with events, and every step he took has been justified by the considerate judgment of mankind.
VIII.
LINCOLN not only watched the war, but kept his hand on the political pulse. In 1863 a tide set in against the administration. A Republican meeting was to be held in Springfield, Illinois, and Lincoln wrote a letter to be read at this convention. It was in his happiest vein. It was a perfect defence of his administration, including the Proclamation of Emancipation. Among other things he said:
"But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or it is not valid. If it is not valid it needs no retraction, but if it is valid it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life."
To the Northern Democrats who said they would not fight for negroes, Lincoln replied:
"Some of them seem willing to fight for you—but no matter."
Of negro soldiers:
"But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise, being made, must be kept."
There is one line in this letter that will give it immortality:
"The Father of waters again goes unvexed to the sea."
This line is worthy of Shakespeare.
Another:
"Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet."
He draws a comparison between the white men against us and the black men for us:
"And then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it."
Under the influence of this letter, the love of country, of the Union, and above all, the love of liberty, took possession of the heroic North.
There was the greatest moral exaltation ever known.
The spirit of liberty took possession of the people. The masses became sublime.
To fight for yourself is natural—to fight for others is grand; to fight for your country is noble—to fight for the human race—for the liberty of hand and brain—is nobler still.
As a matter of fact, the defenders of slavery had sown the seeds of their own defeat. They dug the pit in which they fell. Clay and Webster and thousands of others had by their eloquence made the Union almost sacred. The Union was the very tree of life, the source and stream and sea of liberty and law.
For the sake of slavery millions stood by the Union, for the sake of liberty millions knelt at the altar of the Union; and this love of the Union is what, at last, overwhelmed the Confederate hosts.
It does not seem possible that only a few years ago our Constitution, our laws, our Courts, the Pulpit and the Press defended and upheld the institution of slavery—that it was a crime to feed the hungry—to give water to the lips of thirst—shelter to a woman flying from the whip and chain!
The old flag still flies—the stars are there—the stains have gone.
IX.
LINCOLN always saw the end. He was unmoved by the storms and currents of the times. He advanced too rapidly for the conservative politicians, too slowly for the radical enthusiasts. He occupied the line of safety, and held by his personality—by the force of his great character, by his charming candor—the masses on his side.
The soldiers thought of him as a father.
All who had lost their sons in battle felt that they had his sympathy—felt that his face was as sad as theirs. They knew that Lincoln was actuated by one motive, and that his energies were bent to the attainment of one end—the salvation of the Republic.
They knew that he was kind, sincere and merciful. They knew that in his veins there was no drop of tyrants' blood. They knew that he used his power to protect the innocent, to save reputation and life—that he had the brain of a philosopher—the heart of a mother.
During all the years of war, Lincoln stood the embodiment of mercy, between discipline and death. He pitied the imprisoned and condemned. He took the unfortunate in his arms, and was the friend even of the convict. He knew temptation's strength—the weakness of the will—and how in fury's sudden flame the judgment drops the scales, and passion—blind and deaf—usurps the throne.
One day a woman, accompanied by a Senator, called on the President. The woman was the wife of one of Mosby's men. Her husband had been captured, tried and condemned to be shot. She came to ask for the pardon of her husband. The President heard her story and then asked what kind of man her husband was. "Is he intemperate, does he abuse the children and beat you?" "No, no," said the wife, "he is a good man, a good husband, he loves me and he loves the children, and we cannot live without him. The only trouble is that he is a fool about politics—I live in the North, born there, and if I get him home, he will do no more fighting for the South." "Well," said Mr. Lincoln, after examining the papers, "I will pardon your husband and turn him over to you for safe keeping." The poor woman, overcome with joy, sobbed as though her heart would break.
"My dear woman," said Lincoln, "if I had known how badly it was going to make you feel, I never would have pardoned him." "You do not understand me," she cried between her sobs. "You do not understand me." "Yes, yes, I do," answered the President, "and if you do not go away at once I shall be crying with you."
On another occasion, a member of Congress, on his way to see Lincoln, found in one of the anterooms of the White House an old white-haired man, sobbing—his wrinkled face wet with tears. The old man told him that for several days he had tried to see the President—that he wanted a pardon for his son. The Congressman told the old man to come with him and he would introduce him to Mr. Lincoln. On being introduced, the old man said: "Mr. Lincoln, my wife sent me to you. We had three boys. They all joined your army. One of 'em has been killed, one's a fighting now, and one of 'em, the youngest, has been tried for deserting and he's going to be shot day after to-morrow. He never deserted. He's wild, and he may have drunk too much and wandered off, but he never deserted. 'Taint in the blood. He's his mother's favorite, and if he's shot, I know she'll die." The President, turning to his secretary, said: "Telegraph General Butler to suspend the execution in the case of————[giving the name] until further orders from me, and ask him to answer————."
The Congressman congratulated the old man on his success—but the old man did not respond. He was not satisfied. "Mr. President," he began, "I can't take that news home. It won't satisfy his mother. How do I know but what you'll give further orders to-morrow?" "My good man," said Mr. Lincoln, "I have to do the best I can. The generals are complaining because I pardon so many. They say that my mercy destroys discipline. Now, when you get home you tell his mother what you said to me about my giving further orders, and then you tell her that I said this: 'If your son lives until they get further orders from me, that when he does die people will say that old Methusaleh was a baby compared to him.'"
The pardoning power is the only remnant of absolute sovereignty that a President has. Through all the years, Lincoln will be known as Lincoln the loving, Lincoln the merciful.
X.
LINCOLN had the keenest sense of humor, and always saw the laughable side even of disaster. In his humor there was logic and the best of sense. No matter how complicated the question, or how embarrassing the situation, his humor furnished an answer and a door of escape.
Vallandigham was a friend of the South, and did what he could to sow the seeds of failure. In his opinion everything, except rebellion, was unconstitutional.
He was arrested, convicted by a court martial, and sentenced to imprisonment.
There was doubt about the legality of the trial, and thousands in the North denounced the whole proceeding as tyrannical and infamous. At the same time millions demanded that Vallandigham should be punished.
Lincoln's humor came to the rescue. He disapproved of the findings of the court, changed the punishment, and ordered that Mr. Vallandigham should be sent to his friends in the South.
Those who regarded the act as unconstitutional almost forgave it for the sake of its humor.
Horace Greeley always had the idea that he was greatly superior to Lincoln, because he lived in a larger town, and for a long time insisted that the people of the North and the people of the South desired peace. He took it upon himself to lecture Lincoln. Lincoln, with that wonderful sense of humor, united with shrewdness and profound wisdom, told Greeley that, if the South really wanted peace, he (Lincoln) desired the same thing, and was doing all he could to bring it about. Greeley insisted that a commissioner should be appointed, with authority to negotiate with the representatives of the Confederacy. This was Lincoln's opportunity. He authorized Greeley to act as such commissioner. The great editor felt that he was caught. For a time he hesitated, but finally went, and found that the Southern commissioners were willing to take into consideration any offers of peace that Lincoln might make, consistent with the independence of the Confederacy.
The failure of Greeley was humiliating, and the position in which he was left, absurd.
Again the humor of Lincoln had triumphed.
Lincoln, to satisfy a few fault-finders in the North, went to Grant's headquarters and met some Confederate commissioners. He urged that it was hardly proper for him to negotiate with the representatives of rebels in arms—that if the South wanted peace, all they had to do was to stop fighting. One of the commissioners cited as a precedent the fact that Charles the First negotiated with rebels in arms. To which Lincoln replied that Charles the First lost his head.
The conference came to nothing, as Mr. Lincoln expected.
The commissioners, one of them being Alexander H. Stephens, who, when in good health, weighed about ninety pounds, dined with the President and Gen. Grant. After dinner, as they were leaving, Stephens put on an English ulster, the tails of which reached the ground, while the collar was somewhat above the wearer's head.
As Stephens went out, Lincoln touched Grant and said: "Grant, look at Stephens. Did you ever see as little a nubbin with as much shuck?"
Lincoln always tried to do things in the easiest way. He did not waste his strength. He was not particular about moving along straight lines. He did not tunnel the mountains. He was willing to go around, and reach the end desired as a river reaches the sea.
XI.
One of the most wonderful things ever done by Lincoln was the promotion of General Hooker. After the battle of Fredericksburg, General Burnside found great fault with Hooker, and wished to have him removed from the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln disapproved of Burnside's order, and gave Hooker the command. He then wrote Hooker this memorable letter:
"I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier—which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession—in which you are right. You have confidence—which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition to thwart him as much as you could—in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military successes, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you, so far as I can, to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive, can get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."
This letter has, in my judgment, no parallel. The mistaken magnanimity is almost equal to the prophecy:
"I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their command and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you."
Chancellorsville was the fulfillment.
XII.
MR. LINCOLN was a statesman. The great stumbling-block—the great obstruction—in Lincoln's way, and in the way of thousands, was the old doctrine of States Rights.
This doctrine was first established to protect slavery. It was clung to to protect the inter-State slave trade. It became sacred in connection with the Fugitive Slave Law, and it was finally used as the corner-stone of Secession.
This doctrine was never appealed to in defence of the right—always in support of the wrong. For many years politicians upon both sides of this question endeavored to express the exact relations existing between the Federal Government and the States, and I know of no one who succeeded, except Lincoln. In his message of 1861, delivered on July the 4th, the definition is given, and it is perfect:
"Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole—to the General Government. Whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State."
When that definition is realized in practice, this country becomes a Nation. Then we shall know that the first allegiance of the citizen is not to his State, but to the Republic, and that the first duty of the Republic is to protect the citizen, not only when in other lands, but at home, and that this duty cannot be discharged by delegating it to the States.
Lincoln believed in the sovereignty of the people—in the supremacy of the Nation—in the territorial integrity of the Republic.
XIII.
A GREAT actor can be known only when he has assumed the principal character in a great drama. Possibly the greatest actors have never appeared, and it may be that the greatest soldiers have lived the lives of perfect peace. Lincoln assumed the leading part in the greatest drama ever enacted upon the stage of this continent.
His criticisms of military movements, his correspondence with his generals and others on the conduct of the war, show that he was at all times master of the situation—that he was a natural strategist, that he appreciated the difficulties and advantages of every kind, and that in "the still and mental" field of war he stood the peer of any man beneath the flag.
Had McClellan followed his advice, he would have taken Richmond.
Had Hooker acted in accordance with his suggestions, Chancellorsville would have been a victory for the Nation.
Lincoln's political prophecies were all fulfilled.
We know now that he not only stood at the top, but that he occupied the centre, from first to last, and that he did this by reason of his intelligence, his humor, his philosophy, his courage and his patriotism.
In passion's storm he stood, unmoved, patient, just and candid. In his brain there was no cloud, and in his heart no hate. He longed to save the South as well as North, to see the Nation one and free.
He lived until the end was known.
He lived until the Confederacy was dead—until Lee surrendered, until Davis fled, until the doors of Libby Prison were opened, until the Republic was supreme.
He lived until Lincoln and Liberty were united forever.
He lived to cross the desert—to reach the palms of victory—to hear the murmured music of the welcome waves.
He lived until all loyal hearts were his—until the history of his deeds made music in the souls of men—until he knew that on Columbia's Calendar of worth and fame his name stood first.
He lived until there remained nothing for him to do as great as he had done.
What he did was worth living for, worth dying for.
He lived until he stood in the midst of universal
Joy, beneath the outstretched wings of Peace—the foremost man in all the world.
And then the horror came. Night fell on noon. The Savior of the Republic, the breaker of chains, the liberator of millions, he who had "assured freedom to the free," was dead.
Upon his brow Fame placed the immortal wreath, and for the first time in the history of the world a Nation bowed and wept.
The memory of Lincoln is the strongest, tenderest tie that binds all hearts together now, and holds all States beneath a Nation's flag.
XIV.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN—strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Democritus, of �?sop and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the use of man; while through all, and over all, were an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all, the shadow of the tragic end.
Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. About these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity.
Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who lived and loved and hated and schemed, we know but little. The glass through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are exceedingly indistinct.
Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face—forcing all features to the common mould—so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he should have been.
Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone—no ancestors, no fellows, and no successors.
He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. He preserved his individuality and his self-respect. He knew and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the best books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the seasons.
In a new country a man must possess at least three virtues—honesty, courage and generosity. In cultivated society, cultivation is often more important than soil. A well-executed counterfeit passes more readily than a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe the unwritten laws of society—to be honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous enough to subscribe in public—where the subscription can be defended as an investment.
In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is sufficient. In the new, they find what a man really is; in the old, he generally passes for what he resembles. People separated only by distance are much nearer together, than those divided by the walls of caste.
It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved streets, and the great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more poetic than steeples and chimneys.
In the country is the idea of home. There you see the rising and setting sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. The constellations are your friends. You hear the rain on the roof and listen to the rhythmic sighing of the winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection called Spring, touched and saddened by Autumn—the grace and poetry of death. Every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem; every flower a tender thought, and every forest a fairy-land. In the country you preserve your identity—your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation.
In the country you keep your cheek close to the breast of Nature. You are calmed and ennobled by the space, the amplitude and scope of earth and sky—by the constancy of the stars.
Lincoln never finished his education. To the night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker after knowledge. You have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most part, colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. If Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling attorney, or a hypocritical parson.
Lincoln was a great lawyer. There is nothing shrewder in this world than intelligent honesty. Perfect candor is sword and shield.
He understood the nature of man. As a lawyer he endeavored to get at the truth, at the very heart of a case. He was not willing even to deceive himself. No matter what his interest said, what his passion demanded, he was great enough to find the truth and strong enough to pronounce judgment against his own desires.
Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid to ask—never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit, or kinder humor.
It may be that humor is the pilot of reason. People without humor drift unconsciously into absurdity. Humor sees the other side—stands in the mind like a spectator, a good-natured critic, and gives its opinion before judgment is reached. Humor goes with good nature, and good nature is the climate of reason. In anger, reason abdicates and malice extinguishes the torch. Such was the humor of Lincoln that he could tell even unpleasant truths as charmingly as most men can tell the things we wish to hear.
He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy—it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid.
He was natural in his life and thought—master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect.
He was a logician. His logic shed light. In its presence the obscure became luminous, and the most complex and intricate political and metaphysical knots seemed to untie themselves. Logic is the necessary product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the child of a clear head and a good heart.
Lincoln was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant—that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit.
He was an orator—clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought.
If you wish to be sublime you must be natural—you must keep close to the grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds it is too cold. You must be simple in your speech; too much polish suggests insincerity.
The great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light the gold hoarded by memory the miser, shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift hope, enriches the brain, ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience. Between his lips words bud and blossom.
If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist—between what is felt and what is said—between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone—read Lincoln's wondrous speech at Gettysburg, and then the oration of Edward Everett.
The speech of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. The oration of Everett will never be read.
The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture.
The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places the thought above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the shortest words—that the greatest statues need the least drapery.
Lincoln was an immense personality—firm but not obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism—firmness, heroism. He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature—unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for that reason lenient with others.
He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows.
He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes.
Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds with that charming confusion, that awkwardness, that is the perfect grace of modesty.
As a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth or a pretence of payment, so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the best he knew.
A great man stooping, not wishing to make his fellows feel that they were small or mean.
By his candor, by his kindness, by his perfect freedom from restraint, by saying what he thought, and saying it absolutely in his own way, he made it not only possible, but popular, to be natural. He was the enemy of mock solemnity, of the stupidly respectable, of the cold and formal.
He wore no official robes either on his body or his soul. He never pretended to be more or less, or other, or different, from what he really was.
He had the unconscious naturalness of Nature's self.
He built upon the rock. The foundation was secure and broad. The structure was a pyramid, narrowing as it rose. Through days and nights of sorrow, through years of grief and pain, with unswerving purpose, "with malice towards none, with charity for all," with infinite patience, with unclouded vision, he hoped and toiled. Stone after stone was laid, until at last the Proclamation found its place. On that the Goddess stands.
He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared nothing for place, but everything for principle; little for money, but everything for independence. Where no principle was involved, easily swayed—willing to go slowly, if in the right direction—sometimes willing to stop; but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong.
He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting, and that fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but no defence, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves.
He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned.
With him, men were neither great nor small—they were right or wrong.
Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real—that which is. Beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end.
He was patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face.
Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy.
Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving man.
He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master—seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices—he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the nobility of a Nation.
He spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince.
He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction.
He longed to pardon.
He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death.
Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.
THE infidels of one age have often been the aureoled saints of the next.
The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new.
As time sweeps on the old passes away and the new in its turn becomes old.
There is in the intellectual world, as in the physical, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy.
The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels.
Political rights have been preserved by traitors, the liberty of mind by heretics.
To attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest was blasphemy.
For many centuries the sword and cross were allies. Together they attacked the rights of man. They defended each other.
The throne and altar were twins—two vultures from the same egg.
James I. said: "No bishop, no king." He might have added: "No cross, no crown." The king owned the bodies of men; the priest, the souls. One lived on taxes collected by force, the other on alms collected by fear—both robbers, both beggars.
These robbers and these beggars controlled two worlds. The king made laws, the priest made creeds. Both obtained their authority from God, both were the agents of the Infinite.
With bowed backs the people carried the burdens of one, and with wonder's open mouth received the dogmas of the other.
If the people aspired to be free, they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a Herod who slaughtered the children of the brain.
The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both.
The king said to the people: "God made you peasants, and He made me king; He made you to labor, and me to enjoy; He made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. He made you to obey, and me to command. Such is the justice of God."
And the priest said: "God made you ignorant and vile; He made me holy and wise; you are the sheep, I am the shepherd; your fleeces belong to me. If you do not obey me here, God will punish you now and torment you forever in another world. Such is the mercy of God."
"You must not reason. Reason is a rebel. You must not contradict—contradiction is born of egotism; you must believe. He that hath ears to hear let him hear." Heaven was a question of ears.
Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of liberty, men of genius who have given their lives to better the condition of their fellow-men.
It may be well enough here to ask the question: What is greatness?
A great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the Bastile of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind. A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others.
A great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes changed to men. If the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be barbarians now.
A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy.
Greatness is not the gift of majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man; men cannot give it to another; they can give place and power, but not greatness.
The place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. Greatness is from within.
The great men are the heroes who have freed the bodies of men; they are the philosophers and thinkers who have given liberty to the soul; they are the poets who have transfigured the common and filled the lives of many millions with love and song.
They are the artists who have covered the bare walls of weary life with the triumphs of genius.
They are the heroes who have slain the monsters of ignorance and fear, who have outgazed the Gorgon and driven the cruel gods from their thrones.
They are the inventors, the discoverers, the great mechanics, the kings of the useful who have civilized this world.
At the head of this heroic army, foremost of all, stands Voltaire, whose memory we are honoring tonight.
Voltaire! a name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. Pronounce that name in the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have made a declaration of war. Pronounce that name, and from the face of the priest the mask of meekness will fall, and from the mouth of forgiveness will pour a Niagara of vituperation and calumny. And yet Voltaire was the greatest man of his century, and did more to free the human race than any other of the sons of men.
On Sunday, the 21st of November, 1694, a babe was born—a babe so exceedingly frail that the breath hesitated about remaining, and the parents had him baptized as soon as possible. They were anxious to save the soul of this babe, and they knew that if death came before baptism the child would be doomed to an eternity of pain. They knew that God despised an unsprinkled child. The priest who, with a few drops of water, gave the name of Francois-Marie Arouet to this babe and saved his soul—little thought that before him, wrapped in many folds, weakly wailing, scarcely breathing, was the one destined to tear from the white throat of Liberty the cruel, murderous claws of the "Triumphant Beast."
When Voltaire came to this "great stage of fools," his country had been Christianized—not civilized—for about fourteen hundred years. For a thousand years the religion of peace and good-will had been supreme. The laws had been given by Christian kings, and sanctioned by "wise and holy men." Under the benign reign of universal love, every court had its chamber of torture, and every priest relied on the thumb-screw and rack.
Such had been the success of the blessed gospel that every science was an outcast.
To speak your honest thoughts, to teach your fellow-men, to investigate for yourself, to seek the truth, these were all crimes, and the "holy-mother church" pursued the criminals with sword and flame.
The believers in a God of love—an infinite father—punished hundreds of offences with torture and death. Suspected persons were tortured to make them confess. Convicted persons were tortured to make them give the names of their accomplices. Under the leadership of the church, cruelty had become the only reforming power.
In this blessed year, 1694, all authors were at the mercy of king and priest. The most of them were cast into prisons, impoverished by fines and costs, exiled or executed.
The little time that hangmen could snatch from professional duties was occupied in burning books.
The courts of justice were traps, in which the innocent were caught. The judges were almost as malicious and cruel as though they had been bishops or saints. There was no trial by jury, and the rules of evidence allowed the conviction of the supposed criminal by the proof of suspicion or hearsay.
The witnesses, being liable to be tortured, generally told what the judges wished to hear.
The supernatural and the miraculous controlled the world. Everything was explained, but nothing was understood. The church was at the head. The sick bought from monks little amulets of consecrated paper. They did not send for a doctor, but for a priest, and the priest sold the diseased and the dying these magical amulets. These little pieces of paper with the help of some saint would cure diseases of every kind. If you would put one in a cradle, it would keep the child from being bewitched. If you would put one in the barn, the rats would not eat your corn. If you would keep one in the house, evil spirits would not enter your doors, and if you buried them in the fields, you would have good weather, the frost would be delayed, rain would come when needed, and abundant crops would bless your labor. The church insisted that all diseases could be cured in the name of God, and that these cures could be effected by prayers, exorcism, by touching bones of saints, pieces of the true cross; by being sprinkled with holy water or with sanctified salt, or touched with magical oil.
In that day the dead saints were the best physicians; St. Valentine cured the epilepsy; St. Gervasius was exceedingly good for rheumatism; St. Michael for cancer; St. Judas for coughs and colds; St. Ovidius restored the hearing; St. Sebastian was good for the bites of snakes and the stings of poisonous insects; St. Apollonia for toothache; St. Clara for any trouble with the eyes; and St. Hubert for hydrophobia. It was known that doctors reduced the revenues of the church; that was enough—science was the enemy of religion.
The church thought that the air was filled with devils; that every sinner was a kind of tenement house inhabited by evil spirits; that angels were on one side of men and evil spirits on the other, and that God would, when the subscriptions and donations justified the effort, drive the evil spirits from the field.
Satan had power over the air; consequently he controlled the frost, the mildew, the lightning and the flood; and the principal business of the church was with bells, and holy water, and incense, and crosses, to defeat the machinations of that prince of the power of the air.
Great reliance was placed upon the bells; they were sprinkled with holy water, and their clangor cleared the air of imps and fiends. And bells also protected the people from storms and lightning. In that day the church used to anathematize insects. Suits were commenced against rats, and judgment rendered. Every monastery had its master magician, who sold incense and salt and tapers and consecrated palms and relics. Every science was regarded as an enemy; every fact held the creed of the church in scorn. Investigators were regarded as dangerous; thinkers were traitors, and the church exerted its vast power to prevent the intellectual progress of man.
There was no real liberty, no real education, no real philosophy, no real science—-nothing but credulity and superstition. The world was under the control of Satan and the church.
The church firmly believed in the existence of witches and devils and fiends. In this way the church had every enemy within her power. It simply had to charge him with being a wizard, of holding communications with devils, and the ignorant mob were ready to tear him to pieces. So prevalent was this belief, this belief in the supernatural, that the poor people were finally driven to make the best possible terms they could with the spirit of evil. This frightful doctrine filled every friend with suspicion of his friend; it made the husband denounce the wife, children their parents, parents their children. It destroyed the amenities of humanity; it did away with justice in courts; it broke the bond of friendship; it filled with poison the golden cup of life; it turned earth into a very perdition peopled with abominable, malicious and hideous fiends. Such was the result of a belief in the supernatural; such was the result of giving up the evidence of their own senses and relying upon dreams, visions and fears. Such was the result of the attack upon the human reason; such the result of depending on the imagination, on the supernatural; such the result of living in this world for another; of depending upon priests instead of upon ourselves. The Protestants vied with Catholics; Luther stood side by side with the priests he had deserted in promoting this belief in devils and fiends. To the Catholic every Protestant was possessed by a devil; to the Protestant every Catholic was the home of a fiend. All order, all regular succession of causes and effects were known no more; the natural ceased to exist; the learned and the ignorant were on a level. The priest was caught in the net he had spread for the peasant, and Christendom became a vast madhouse, with the insane for keepers.
When Voltaire was born the church ruled and owned France. It was a period of almost universal corruption. The priests were mostly libertines, the judges cruel and venal. The royal palace was a house of prostitution. The nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant and cruel to the last degree. The common people were treated as beasts. It took the church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of things.
The seeds of the Revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every noble and by every priest.
They were germinating slowly in the hearts of the wretched; they were being watered by the tears of agony; blows began to bear interest. There was a faint longing for blood. Workmen, blackened by the sun, bowed by labor, deformed by want, looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought about cutting them.
In those days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture; the church was the arsenal of superstition; miracles, relics, angels and devils were as common as lies.
In order to appreciate a great man we must know his surroundings. We must understand the scope of the drama in which he played—the part he acted, and we must also know his audience.
In England George I. was disporting with the "May-pole" and "Elephant," and then George II., jealous and choleric, hating the English and their language, making, however, an excellent image or idol before whom the English were glad to bow—snobbery triumphant—the criminal code getting bloodier every day—223 offences punishable with death—the prisons filled and the scaffolds crowded—efforts on every hand to repress the ambition of men to be men—the church relying on superstition and ceremony to make men good—and the state dependent on the whip, the rope and axe to make men patriotic.
In Spain the Inquisition in full control—all the instruments of torture used to prevent the development of the mind, Spain, that had driven out the Jews, that is to say, her talent; that had driven out the Moors, that is to say, her taste and her industry, was still endeavoring by all religious means to reduce the land to the imbecility of the true faith.
In Portugal they were burning women and children for having eaten meat on a holy day, and this to please the most merciful God.
In Italy the nation prostrate, covered with swarms of cardinals and bishops and priests and monks and nuns and every representative of holy sloth. The Inquisition there also—while hands that were clasped in prayer or stretched for alms, grasped with eagerness and joy the lever of the rack, or gathered fagots for the holy flame.
In Germany they were burning men and women charged with having made a compact with the enemy of man.
And in our own fair land, persecuting Quakers, stealing men and women from another shore, stealing children from their mother's breasts, and paying labor with the cruel lash.
Superstition ruled the world!
There is but one use for law, but one excuse for government—the preservation of liberty—to give to each man his own, to secure to the farmer what he produces from the soil, the mechanic what he invents and makes, to the artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to express his thoughts. Liberty is the breath of progress.
In France, the people were the sport of a king's caprice. Everywhere was the shadow of the Bastile.
It fell upon the sunniest field, upon the happiest home. With the king walked the headsman; back of the throne was the chamber of torture. The Church appealed to the rack, and Faith relied on the fagot. Science was an outcast, and Philosophy, so-called, was the pander of superstition.
Nobles and priests were sacred. Peasants were vermin. Idleness sat at the banquet, and Industry gathered the crumbs and the crusts.
II. THE DAYS OF YOUTH.
VOLTAIRE was of the people. In the language of that day, he had no ancestors. His real name was Francois-Marie Arouet. His mother was Marguerite d'Aumard. This mother died when he was seven years of age. He had an elder brother, Armand, who was a devotee, very religious and exceedingly disagreeable. This brother used to present offerings to the church, hoping to make amends for the unbelief of his brother. So far as we know, none of his ancestors were literary people.
The Arouets had never written a line. The Abbe de Chaulieu was his godfather, and, although an abbe, was a Deist who cared nothing about religion except in connection with his salary. Voltaire's father wanted to make a lawyer of him, but he had no taste for law. At the age of ten he entered the college of Louis Le Grand. This was a Jesuit school, and here he remained for seven years, leaving at seventeen, and never attending any other school. According to Voltaire, he learned nothing at this school but a little Greek, a good deal of Latin and a vast amount of nonsense.
In this college of Louis Le Grand they did not teach geography, history, mathematics or any science. This was a Catholic institution, controlled by the Jesuits. In that day the religion was defended, was protected or supported by the state. Behind the entire creed were the bayonet, the axe, the wheel, the fagot and the torture chamber.
While Voltaire was attending the college of Louis Le Grand the soldiers of the king were hunting Protestants in the mountains of Cevennes for magistrates to hang on gibbets, to put to torture, to break on the wheel, or to burn at the stake.
At seventeen Voltaire determined to devote his life to literature. The father said, speaking of his two sons Armand and Francois, "I have a pair of fools for sons, one in verse and the other in prose."
In 1713, Voltaire, in a small way, became a diplomat. He went to The Hague attached to the French minister, and there he fell in love. The girl's mother objected. Voltaire sent his clothes to the young lady that she might visit him. Everything was discovered and he was dismissed. To this girl he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the key note of Voltaire: "Do not expose yourself to the fury of your mother. You know what she is capable of. You have experienced it too well. Dissemble; it is your only chance. Tell her that you have forgotten me, that you hate me; then after telling her, love me all the more."
On account of this episode Voltaire was formally disinherited by his father. The father procured an order of arrest and gave his son the choice of going to prison or beyond the seas. He finally consented to become a lawyer, and says: "I have already been a week at work in the office of a solicitor learning the trade of a pettifogger."
About this time he competed for a prize, writing a poem on the king's generosity in building the new choir in the Cathedral Notre Dame. He did not win it. After being with the solicitor a little while, he hated the law, began to write poetry and the outlines of tragedy. Great questions were then agitating the public mind, questions that throw a flood of light upon that epoch.
In 1552 Dr. Baius took it into his head to sustain a number of propositions touching predestination to the prejudice of the doctrine of free will. The Cordelian monks selected seventy-six of the propositions and denounced them to the Pope as heretical, and from the Pope obtained what was called a Bull. This Bull contained a doubtful passage, the meaning of which was dependent upon the position of a comma. The friends of Dr. Baius wrote to Rome to find where the comma ought to be placed. Rome, busy with other matter, sent as an answer a copy of the Bull in which the doubtful sentence was left without any comma. So the dispute continued.
Then there was the great controversy between the Jansenists and Molinists. Molini was a Spanish Jesuit, who sustained the doctrine of free will with a subtlety of his own, "man's will is free, but God sees exactly how he will use it." The Presbyterians of our country are still wrestling with this important absurdity.
Jansenius was a French Jesuit who carried the doctrine of predestination to the extreme, asserting that God commands things that are impossible, and that Christ did not die for all.
In 1641 the Jesuits obtained a Bull condemning five propositions of Jansenius. The Jansenists there upon denied that the five propositions—or any of them—were found in the works of Jansenius.
This question of Jansenism and Molinism occupied France for about two hundred years.
In Voltaire's time the question had finally dwindled down to whether the five propositions condemned by the Papal Bull were in fact in the works of Jansenius. The Jansenists proved that the five propositions were not in his book, because a niece of Pascal had a diseased eye cured by the application of a thorn from the crown of Christ.
The Bull Unigenitus was launched in 1713, and then all the prisons were filled with Jansenists. This great question of predestination and free will, of free moral agency and accountability, and being saved by the grace of God, and damned for the glory of God, have occupied the mind of what we call the civilized world for many centuries. All these questions were argued pro and con through Switzerland; all of them in Holland for centuries; in Scotland and England and New England, and millions of people are still busy harmonizing foreordination and free will, necessity and morality, predestination and accountability.
Louis XIV. having died, the Regent took possession, and then the prisons were opened. The Regent called for a list of all persons then in the prisons sent there at the will of the king. He found that, as to many prisoners, nobody knew any cause why they had been in prison. They had been forgotten. Many of the prisoners did not know themselves, and could not guess why they had been arrested. One Italian had been in the Bastile thirty-three years without ever knowing why. On his arrival in Paris, thirty-three years before, he was arrested and sent to prison. He had grown old. He had survived his family and friends. When the rest were liberated he asked to remain where he was, and lived there the rest of his life. The old prisoners were pardoned, but in a little while their places were taken by new ones.
At this time Voltaire was not interested in the great world—knew very little of religion or of government. He was busy writing poetry, busy thinking of comedies and tragedies. He was full of life. All his fancies were winged like moths.
He was charged with having written some cutting epigrams. He was exiled to Tulle, three hundred miles away. From this place he wrote in the true vein—"I am at a chateau, a place that would be the most agreeable in the world if I had not been exiled to it, and where there is nothing wanting for my perfect happiness except the liberty of leaving. It would be delicious to remain, if I only were allowed to go."
At last the exile was allowed to return. Again he was arrested; this time sent to the Bastile, where he remained for nearly a year. While in prison he changed his name from Francois-Marie Arouet to Voltaire, and by that name he has since been known.
Voltaire, as full of life as summer is full of blossoms, giving his ideas upon all subjects at the expense of prince and king, was exiled to England. From sunny France he took his way to the mists and fogs of Albion. He became acquainted with the highest and the best in Britain. He met Pope, a most wonderful verbal mechanic, a maker of artificial flowers, very much like natural ones, except that they lack perfume and the seeds of suggestion. He made the acquaintance of Young, who wrote the "Night Thoughts;" Young, a fine old hypocrite with a virtuous imagination, a gentleman who electioneered with the king's mistress that he might be made a bishop. He became acquainted with Chesterfield—all manners, no man; with Thomson, author of "The Seasons," who loved to see the sun rise in bed and visit the country in town; with Swift, whose poisoned arrows were then festering in the flesh of Mr. Bull—Swift, as wicked as he was witty, and as heartless as he was humorous—with Swift, a dean and a devil; with Congreve, whom Addison thought superior to Shakespeare, and who never wrote but one great line, "The cathedral looking tranquillity."
III. THE MORN OF MANHOOD.
VOLTAIRE began to think, to doubt, to inquire. He studied the history of the church, of the creed. He found that the religion of his time rested on the inspiration of the Scriptures—the infallibility of the church—the dreams of insane hermits—the absurdities of the Fathers—the mistakes and falsehoods of saints—the hysteria of nuns—the cunning of priests and the stupidity of the people. He found that the Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice, to decide whether Christ was a man or the Son of God. The Council decided, in the year 325, that Christ was consubstantial with the Father. He found that the church was indebted to a husband who assassinated his wife—a father who murdered his son, for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior. He found that Theodosius called a council at Constantinople in 381, by which it was decided that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father—that Theodosius, the younger, assembled a council at Ephesus in 431, that declared the Virgin Mary to be the mother of God—that the Emperor Marcian called another council at Chalcedon in 451, that decided that Christ had two wills—that Pognatius called another in 680, that declared that Christ had two natures to go with his two wills—and that in 1274, at the council of Lyons, the important fact was found that the Holy Ghost "proceeded," not only from the Father, but also from the Son at the same time.
So, it took about 1,300 years to find out a few things that had been revealed by an infinite God to his infallible church.
Voltaire found that this insane creed had filled the world with cruelty and fear. He found that vestments were more sacred than virtues—that images and crosses—pieces of old bones and bits of wood were more precious than the rights and lives of men, and that the keepers of these relics were the enemies of the human race.
With all the energy of his nature—with every faculty of his mind—he attacked this "Triumphant Beast."
Voltaire was the apostle of common sense. He knew that there could have been no primitive or first language from which all other languages had been formed. He knew that every language had been influenced by the surroundings of the people. He knew that the language of snow and ice was not the language of palm and flower. He knew also that there had been no miracle in language. He knew that it was impossible that the story of the Tower of Babel should be true. He knew that everything in the whole world had been natural. He was the enemy of alchemy, not only in language but in science. One passage from him is enough to show his philosophy in this regard. He says; "To transmute iron into gold, two things are necessary: first, the annihilation of the iron; second, the creation of gold."
Voltaire gave us the philosophy of history.
Voltaire was a man of humor, of good nature, of cheerfulness. He despised with all his heart the philosophy of Calvin, the creed of the sombre, of the severe, of the unnatural. He pitied those who needed the aid of religion to be honest, to be cheerful. He had the courage to enjoy the present and the philosophy to bear what the future might bring.
And yet for more than a hundred and fifty years the Christian world has fought this man and has maligned his memory. In every Christian pulpit his name has been pronounced with scorn, and every pulpit has been an arsenal of slander. He is one man of whom no orthodox minister has ever told the truth. He has been denounced equally by Catholics and Protestants.
Priests and ministers, bishops and exhorters, presiding elders and popes have filled the world with slanders, with calumnies about Voltaire. I am amazed that ministers will not or cannot tell the truth about an enemy of the church. As a matter of fact, for more than one thousand years, almost every pulpit has been a mint in which slanders have been coined.
Voltaire made up his mind to destroy the superstition of his time.
He fought with every weapon that genius could devise or use. He was the greatest of all caricaturists, and he used this wonderful gift without mercy. For pure crystallized wit, he had no equal. The art of flattery was carried by him to the height of an exact science. He knew and practiced every subterfuge. He fought the army of hypocrisy and pretence, the army of faith and falsehood.
Voltaire was annoyed by the meaner and baser spirits of his time, by the cringers and crawlers, by the fawners and pretenders, by those who wished to gain the favor of priests, the patronage of nobles. Sometimes he allowed himself to be annoyed by these wretches; sometimes he attacked them. And, but for these attacks, long ago they would have been forgotten. In the amber of his genius Voltaire preserved these insects, these tarantulas, these scorpions.
It is fashionable to say that he was not profound. This is because he was not stupid. In the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was called irreverent. He thought God would not damn even a priest forever—this was regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored to prevent Christians from murdering each other, and did what he could to civilize the disciples of Christ. Had he founded a sect, obtained control of some country, and burned a few heretics at slow fires, he would have won the admiration, respect and love of the Christian world. Had he only pretended to believe all the fables of antiquity, had he mumbled Latin prayers, counted beads, crossed himself, devoured now and then the flesh of God, and carried fagots to the feet of Philosophy in the name of Christ, he might have been in heaven this moment, enjoying a sight of the damned.
If he had only adopted the creed of his time—if he had asserted that a God of infinite power and mercy had created millions and billions of human beings to suffer eternal pain, and all for the sake of his glorious justice—that he had given his power of attorney to a cunning and cruel Italian Pope, authorizing him to save the soul of his mistress and send honest wives to hell—if he had given to the nostril's of this God the odor of burning flesh—the incense of the fagot—if he had filled his ears with the shrieks of the tortured—the music of the rack, he would now be known as Saint Voltaire.
For many years this restless man filled Europe with the product of his brain. Essays, epigrams, epics, comedies, tragedies, histories, poems, novels, representing every phase and every faculty of the human mind. At the same time engrossed in business, full of speculation, making money like a millionaire, busy with the gossip of courts, and even with the scandals of priests. At the same time alive to all the discoveries of science and the theories of philosophers, and in this Babel never forgetting for one moment to assail the monster of superstition.
Sleeping and waking he hated the church. With the eyes of Argus he watched, and with the arms of Briareus he struck. For sixty years he waged continuous and unrelenting war, sometimes in the open field, sometimes striking from the hedges of opportunity—taking care during all this time to remain independent of all men. He was in the highest sense successful. He lived like a prince, became one of the powers of Europe, and in him, for the first time, literature was crowned.
It has been claimed by the Christian critics that Voltaire was irreverent; that he examined sacred things without solemnity; that he refused to remove his shoes in the presence of the Burning Bush; that he smiled at the geology of Moses, the astronomical ideas of Joshua, and that the biography of Jonah filled him with laughter. They say that these stories, these sacred impossibilities, these inspired falsehoods, should be read and studied with a believing mind in humbleness of spirit; that they should be examined prayerfully, asking God at the same time to give us strength to triumph over the conclusions of our reason. These critics imagine that a falsehood can be old enough to be venerable, and that to stand covered in its presence is the act of an irreverent scoffer. Voltaire approached the mythology of the Jews precisely as he did the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, or the mythology of the Chinese or the Iroquois Indians. There is nothing in this world too sacred to be investigated, to be understood. The philosopher does not hide. Secrecy is not the friend of truth. No man should be reverent at the expense of his reason. Nothing should be worshiped until the reason has been convinced that it is worthy of worship.
Against all miracles, against all holy superstition, against sacred mistakes, he shot the arrows of ridicule.
These arrows, winged by fancy, sharpened by wit, poisoned by truth, always reached the centre.
It is claimed by many that anything, the best and holiest, can be ridiculed. As a matter of fact, he who attempts to ridicule the truth, ridicules himself. He becomes the food of his own laughter.
The mind of man is many-sided. Truth must be and is willing to be tested in every way, tested by all the senses.
But in what way can the absurdity of the "real presence" be answered, except by banter, by raillery, by ridicule, by persiflage? How are you going to convince a man who believes that when he swallows the sacred wafer he has eaten the entire Trinity, and that a priest drinking a drop of wine has devoured the Infinite? How are you to reason with a man who believes that if any of the sacred wafers are left over they should be put in a secure place, so that mice should not eat God?
What effect will logic have upon a religious gentleman who firmly believes that a God of infinite compassion sent two bears to tear thirty or forty children in pieces for laughing at a bald-headed prophet?
How are such people to be answered? How can they be brought to a sense of their absurdity? They must feel in their flesh the arrows of ridicule..
So Voltaire has been called a mocker.
What did he mock? He mocked kings that were unjust; kings who cared nothing for the sufferings of their subjects. He mocked the titled fools of his day. He mocked the corruption of courts; the meanness, the tyranny and the brutality of judges. He mocked the absurd and cruel laws, the barbarous customs. He mocked popes and cardinals and bishops and priests, and all the hypocrites on the earth. He mocked historians who filled their books with lies, and philosophers who defended superstition. He mocked the haters of liberty, the persecutors of their fellow-men. He mocked the arrogance, the cruelty, the impudence, and the unspeakable baseness of his time.
He has been blamed because he used the weapon of ridicule.
Hypocrisy has always hated laughter, and always will. Absurdity detests humor, and stupidity despises wit. Voltaire was the master of ridicule. He ridiculed the absurd, the impossible. He ridiculed the mythologies and the miracles, the stupid lives and lies of the saints. He found pretence and mendacity crowned by credulity. He found the ignorant many controlled by the cunning and cruel few. He found the historian, saturated with superstition, filling his volumes with the details of the impossible, and he found the scientists satisfied with "they say."
Voltaire had the instinct of the probable. He knew the law of average, the sea level; he had the idea of proportion, and so he ridiculed the mental monstrosities and deformities—the non sequiturs—of his day. Aristotle said women had more teeth than men. This was repeated again and again by the Catholic scientists of the eighteenth century.
Voltaire counted the teeth. The rest were satisfied with "they say."
Voltaire for many years, in spite of his surroundings, in spite of almost universal tyranny and oppression, was a believer in God and what he was pleased to call the religion of Nature. He attacked the creed of his time because it was dishonorable to his God. He thought of the Deity as a father, as the fountain of justice, intelligence and mercy, and the creed of the Catholic Church made him a monster of cruelty and stupidity. He attacked the Bible with all the weapons at his command. He assailed its geology, its astronomy, its ideas of justice, its laws and customs, its absurd and useless miracles, its foolish wonders, its ignorance on all subjects, its insane prophecies, its cruel threats and its extravagant promises.
At the same time he praised the God of nature, the God who gives us rain and light and food and flowers and health and happiness—who fills the world with youth and beauty.
Attacked on every side, he fought with every weapon that wit, logic, reason, scorn, contempt, laughter, pathos and indignation could sharpen, form, devise or use. He often apologized, and the apology was an insult. He often recanted, and the recantation was a thousand times worse than the thing recanted. He took it back by giving more. In the name of eulogy he flayed his victim. In his praise there was poison. He often advanced by retreating, and asserted by retraction.
He did not intend to give priests the satisfaction of seeing him burn or suffer. Upon this very point of recanting he wrote:
"They say I must retract. Very willingly. I will declare that Pascal is always right. That if St. Luke and St. Mark contradict one another, it is only another proof of the truth of religion to those who know how to understand such things; and that another lovely proof of religion is that it is unintelligible. I will even avow that all priests are gentle and disinterested; that Jesuits are honest people; that monks are neither proud nor given to intrigue, and that their odor is agreeable; that the Holy Inquisition is the triumph of humanity and tolerance. In a word, I will say all that may be desired of me, provided they leave me in repose, and will not persecute a man who has done harm to none."
He gave the best years of his wondrous life to succor the oppressed, to shield the defenceless, to reverse infamous decrees, to rescue the innocent, to reform the laws of France, to do away with torture, to soften the hearts of priests, to enlighten judges, to instruct kings, to civilize the people, and to banish from the heart of man the love and lust of war.
You may think that I have said too much; that I have placed this man too high. Let me tell you what Goethe, the great German, said of this man:
"If you wish depth, genius, imagination, taste, reason, sensibility, philosophy, elevation, originality, nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude, facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance, variety, fertility, warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle sweep of vision, vast understanding, instruction rich, tone excellent, urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness, purity, clearness, eloquence, harmony, brilliancy, rapidity, gaiety, pathos, sublimity and universality, perfection indeed, behold Voltaire."
Even Carlyle, that old Scotch terrier, with the growl of a grizzly bear, who attacked shams, as I have sometimes thought, because he hated rivals, was forced to admit that Voltaire gave the death stab to modern superstition.
It is the duty of every man to destroy the superstitions of his time, and yet there are thousands of men and women, fathers and mothers, who repudiate with their whole hearts the creeds of superstition, and still allow their children to be taught these lies. They allow their imaginations to be poisoned with the dogma of eternal pain. They allow arrogant and ignorant parsons, meek and foolish teachers, to sow the seeds of barbarism in the minds of their children—seeds that will fill their lives with fear and pain. Nothing can be more important to a human being than to be free and to live without fear.
It is far better to be a mortal free man than an immortal slave.
Fathers and mothers should do their utmost to make their children free. They should teach them to doubt, to investigate, to inquire, and every father and mother should know that by the cradle of every child, as by the cradle of the infant Hercules, crawls the serpent of superstition.
IV. THE SCHEME OF NATURE.
AT that time it was pretended by the believers in God that the plan, or the scheme of nature, was not cruel; that the lower was sacrificed for the benefit of the higher; that while life lived upon life, while animals lived upon each other, and while man was the king or sovereign of all, still the higher lived upon the lower. Consequently, a lower life was sacrificed that a higher life might exist. This reasoning satisfied many. Yet there were thousands that could not see why the lower should be sacrificed, or why all joy should be born of pain. But, since the construction of the microscope, since man has been allowed to look toward the infinitely small, as well as toward the infinitely great, he finds that our fathers were mistaken when they laid down the proposition that only the lower life was sacrificed for the sake of the higher.
Now we find that the lives of all visible animals are liable to be, and in countless cases are, destroyed by a far lower life; that man himself is destroyed by the microbes, the bacilli, the infinitesimal. We find that for the sake of preserving the yellow fever germs millions and millions have died, and that whole nations have been decimated for the sake of the little beast that gives us the cholera. We have also found that there are animals, call them what you please, that live on the substance of the human heart, others that prefer the lungs, others again so delicate in their palate that they insist on devouring the optic nerve, and when they have destroyed the sight of one eye have sense enough to bore through the cartilage of the nose to attack the other. Thus we find the other side of this proposition. At first sight the lower seemed to be sacrificed for the sake of the higher, but on closer inspection the highest are sacrificed for the sake of the lowest.
Voltaire was, for a long time, a believer in the optimism of Pope—"All partial evil, universal good." This is a very fine philosophy for the fortunate. It suits the rich. It is flattering to kings and priests. It sounds well. It is a fine stone to throw at a beggar. It enables you to bear with great fortitude the misfortunes of others.
It is not the philosophy for those who suffer—for industry clothed in rags, for patriotism in prison, for honesty in want, or for virtuous outcasts. It is a philosophy of a class, of a few, and of the few who are fortunate; and, when misfortune overtakes them, this philosophy fades and withers.
In 1755 came the earthquake at Lisbon. This frightful disaster became an immense interrogation. The optimist was compelled to ask, "What was my God doing? Why did the Universal Father crush to shapelessness thousands of his poor children, even at the moment when they were upon their knees returning thanks to him?"
What could be done with this horror? If earthquake there must be, why did it not occur in some uninhabited desert, on some wide waste of sea? This frightful fact changed the theology of Voltaire. He became convinced that this is not the best possible of all worlds. He became convinced that evil is evil here, now, and forever.
The Theist was silent. The earthquake denied the existence of God.
V. HIS HUMANITY.
TOULOUSE was a favored town. It was rich in relics. The people were as ignorant as wooden images, but they had in their possession the dried bodies of seven apostles—the bones of many of the infants slain by Herod—part of a dress of the Virgin Mary, and lots of skulls and skeletons of the infallible idiots known as saints.
In this city the people celebrated every year with great joy two holy events: The expulsion of the Huguenots, and the blessed massacre of St. Bartholomew. The citizens of Toulouse had been educated and civilized by the church.
A few Protestants, mild because in the minority, lived among these jackals and tigers.
One of these Protestants was Jean Calas—a small dealer in dry goods. For forty years he had been in this business, and his character was without a stain. He was honest, kind and agreeable. He had a wife and six children—four sons and two daughters. One of the sons became a Catholic. The eldest son, Marc Antoine, disliked his father's business and studied law. He could not be allowed to practice unless he became a Catholic. He tried to get his license by concealing that he was a Protestant. He was discovered—grew morose. Finally he became discouraged and committed suicide, by hanging himself one evening in his father's store.
The bigots of Toulouse started the story that his parents had killed him to prevent his becoming a Catholic.
On this frightful charge the father, mother, one son, a servant, and one guest at their house, were arrested.
The dead son was considered a martyr, the church taking possession of the body.
This happened in 1761.
There was what was called a trial. There was no evidence, not the slightest, except hearsay. All the facts were in favor of the accused.
The united strength of the defendants could not have done the deed.
Jean Calas was doomed to torture and to death upon the wheel. This was on the 9th of March, 1762, and the sentence was to be carried out the next day.
On the morning of the 10th the father was taken to the torture room. The executioner and his assistants were sworn on the cross to administer the torture according to the judgment of the court.
They bound him by the wrists to an iron ring in the stone wall four feet from the ground, and his feet to another ring in the floor. Then they shortened the ropes and chains until every joint in his arms and legs was dislocated. Then he was questioned. He declared that he was innocent. Then the ropes were again shortened until life fluttered in the torn body; but he remained firm.
This was called "the question ordinaire."
Again the magistrates exhorted the victim to confess, and again he refused, saying that there was nothing to confess.
Then came "the question extraordinaire."
Into the mouth of the victim was placed a horn holding three pints of water. In this way thirty pints of water were forced into the body of the sufferer. The pain was beyond description, and yet Jean Calas remained firm.
He was then carried to the scaffold in a tumbril.
He was bound to a wooden cross that lay on the scaffold. The executioner then took a bar of iron, broke each leg and each arm in two places, striking eleven blows in all. He was then left to die if he could. He lived for two hours, declaring his innocence to the last. He was slow to die, and so the executioner strangled him. Then his poor lacerated, bleeding and broken body was chained to a stake and burned.
All this was a spectacle—a festival for the savages of Toulouse. What would they have done if their hearts had not been softened by the glad tidings of great joy—peace on earth and good will to men?
But this was not all. The property of the family was confiscated; the son was released on condition that he become a Catholic; the servant if she would enter a convent. The two daughters were consigned to a convent, and the heart-broken widow was allowed to wander where she would.
Voltaire heard of this case. In a moment his soul was on fire. He took one of the sons under his roof. He wrote a history of the case. He corresponded with kings and queens, with chancellors and lawyers. If money was needed, he advanced it. For years he filled Europe with the echoes of the groans of Jean Calas. He succeeded. The horrible judgment was annulled—the poor victim declared innocent and thousands of dollars raised to support the mother and family.
This was the work of Voltaire.
THE SIRVEN FAMILY.
Sirven, a Protestant, lived in Languedoc with his wife and three daughters. The housekeeper of the bishop wanted to make one of the daughters a Catholic.
The law allowed the bishop to take the child of Protestants from their parents for the sake of its soul. This little girl was so taken and placed in a convent. She ran away and came back to her parents. Her poor little body was covered with the marks of the convent whip.
"Suffer little children to come unto me."
The child was out of her mind—suddenly she disappeared, and a few days after her little body was found in a well, three miles from home.
The cry was raised that her folks had murdered her to keep her from becoming a Catholic.
This happened only a little way from the Christian City of Toulouse while Jean Calas was in prison. The Sirvens knew that a trial would end in conviction. They fled. In their absence they were convicted, their property confiscated, the parents sentenced to die by the hangman, the daughters to be under the gallows during the execution of their mother, and then to be exiled.
The family fled in the midst of winter; the married daughter gave birth to a child in the snows of the Alps; the mother died, and, at last reaching Switzerland, the father found himself without means of support.
They went to Voltaire. He espoused their cause. He took care of them, gave them the means to live, and labored to annul the sentence that had been pronounced against them for nine long and weary years. He appealed to kings for money, to Catharine II. of Russia, and to hundreds of others. He was successful. He said of this case: The Sirvens were tried and condemned in two hours in January, 1762, and now in January, 1772, after ten years of effort, they have been restored to their rights.
This was the work of Voltaire. Why should the worshipers of God hate the lovers of men?
THE ESPENASSE CASE.
Espenasse was a Protestant, of good estate. In 1740 he received into his house a Protestant clergyman, to whom he gave supper and lodging.
In a country where priests repeated the parable of the "Good Samaritan," this was a crime.
For this crime Espenasse was tried, convicted and sentenced to the galleys for life.
When he had been imprisoned for twenty-three years his case came to the knowledge of Voltaire, and he was, through the efforts of Voltaire, released and restored to his family.
This was the work of Voltaire. There is not time to tell of the case of General Lally, of the English General Byng, of the niece of Corneille, of the Jesuit Adam, of the writers, dramatists, actors, widows and orphans for whose benefit he gave his influence, his money and his time. But I will tell another case:
In 1765, at the town of Abbeville, an old wooden cross on a bridge had been mutilated—whittled with a knife—a terrible crime. Sticks, when crossing each other, were far more sacred than flesh and blood. Two young men were suspected—the Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde. D'Etallonde fled to Prussia and enlisted as a common soldier.
La Barre remained and stood his trial.
He was convicted without the slightest evidence, and he and D'Etallonde were both sentenced:
First, to endure the torture, ordinary and extraordinary.
Second, to have their tongues torn out by the roots with pincers of iron.
Third, to have their right hands cut off at the door of the church.
Fourth, to be bound to stakes by chains of iron and burned to death by a slow fire.
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
Remembering this, the judges mitigated the sentence by providing that their heads should be cut off before their bodies were given to the flames.
The case was appealed to Paris; heard by a court composed of twenty-five judges, learned in the law, and the judgment was confirmed.
The sentence was carried out on the first day of July, 1766.
When Voltaire heard of this judicial infamy he made up his mind to abandon France. He wished to leave forever a country where such cruelties were possible.
He wrote a pamphlet, giving the history of the case.
He ascertained the whereabouts of D'Etallonde, wrote in his behalf to the King of Prussia; got him released from the army; took him to his own house; kept him for a year and a half; saw that he was instructed in drawing, mathematics, engineering, and had at last the happiness of seeing him a captain of engineers in the army of Frederick the Great.
Such a man was Voltaire. He was the champion of the oppressed and the helpless. He was the Cæsar to whom the victims of church and state appealed. He stood for the intellect and heart of his time.
And yet for a hundred and fifty years those who love their enemies have exhausted the vocabulary of hate, the ingenuity of malice and mendacity, in their efforts to save their stupid creeds from the genius of Voltaire.
From a great height he surveyed the world. His horizon was large. He had some vices—these he shared in common with priests—his virtues were his own.
He was in favor of universal education—of the development of the brain. The church despised him. He wished to put the knowledge of the whole world within the reach of all. Every priest was his enemy. He wished to drive from the gate of Eden the cherubim of superstition, so that the children of Adam might return and eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The church opposed this because it had the fruit of the tree of ignorance for sale.
He was one of the foremost friends of the Encyclopedia—of Diderot, and did all in his power to give information to all. So far as principles were concerned, he was the greatest lawyer of his time. I do not mean that he knew the terms and decisions, but that he clearly perceived not only what the law should be, but its application and administration. He understood the philosophy of evidence, the difference between suspicion and proof, between belief and knowledge, and he did more to reform the laws of the kingdom and the abuses at courts than all the lawyers and statesmen of his time.
At school, he read and studied the works of Cicero—the lord of language—probably the greatest orator that has uttered speech, and the words of the Roman remained in his brain. He became, in spite of the spirit of caste, a believer in the equality of men. He said:
"Men are born equal."
"Let us respect virtue and merit."
"Let us have it in the heart that men are equal." He was an abolitionist—the enemy of slavery in all its forms. He did not think that the color of one man gave him the right to steal from another man on account of that man's color. He was the friend of serf and peasant, and did what he could to protect animals, wives and children from the fury of those who loved their neighbors as themselves.
It was Voltaire who sowed the seeds of liberty in the heart and brain of Franklin, of Jefferson and Thomas Paine.
Pufendorf had taken the ground that slavery was, in part, founded on contract.
Voltaire said: "Show me the contract, and if it is signed by the party to be the slave, I may believe."
He thought it absurd that God should drown the fathers, and then come and die for the children. This is as good as the remark of Diderot: "If Christ had the power to defend himself from the Jews and refused to use it, he was guilty of suicide."
He had sense enough to know that the flame of the fagot does not enlighten the mind. He hated the cruel and pitied the victims of church and state. He was the friend of the unfortunate—the helper of the striving. He laughed at the pomp of kings—the pretensions of priests. He was a believer in the natural and abhorred with all his heart the miraculous and absurd.
Voltaire was not a saint. He was educated by the Jesuits. He was never troubled about the salvation of his soul. All the theological disputes excited his laughter, the creeds his pity, and the conduct of bigots his contempt. He was much better than a saint.
Most of the Christians in his day kept their religion not for every day use but for disaster, as ships carry life boats to be used only in the stress of storm.
Voltaire believed in the religion of humanity—of good and generous deeds. For many centuries the church had painted virtue so ugly, sour and cold, that vice was regarded as beautiful. Voltaire taught the beauty of the useful, the hatefulness and hideousness of superstition.
He was not the greatest of poets, or of dramatists, but he was the greatest man of his time, the greatest friend of freedom and the deadliest foe of superstition.
He did more to break the chains of superstition—to drive the phantoms of fear from the heart and brain, to destroy the authority of the church and to give liberty to the world than any other of the sons of men. In the highest, the holiest sense he was the most profoundly religious man of his time.
VI. THE RETURN.
AFTER an exile of twenty-seven years, occupying during all that time a first place in the civilized world, Voltaire returned to Paris. His journey was a triumphal march. He was received as a conqueror. The Academy, the Immortals, came to meet him—a compliment that had never been paid to royalty. His tragedy of "Irene" was performed. At the theatre he was crowned with laurel, covered with flowers; he was intoxicated with perfume and with incense of worship. He was the supreme French poet, standing above them all. Among the literary men of the world he stood first—a monarch by the divine right of genius. There were three mighty forces in France—the throne, the altar and Voltaire.
The king was the enemy of Voltaire. The court could have nothing to do with him. The church, malign and morose, was waiting for her revenge, and yet, such was the reputation of this man—such the hold he had upon the people—that he became, in spite of Throne, in spite of Church, the idol of France.
He was an old man of eighty-four. He had been surrounded with the comforts, the luxuries of life. He was a man of great wealth, the richest writer that the world had known. Among the literary men of the earth he stood first. He was an intellectual king—one who had built his own throne and had woven the purple of his own power. He was a man of genius. The Catholic God had allowed him the appearance of success. His last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery—of almost worship. He stood at the summit of his age.
The priests became anxious. They began to fear that God would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of Voltaire.
Towards the last of May, 1778, it was whispered in Paris that Voltaire was dying. Upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey.
"Two days before his death, his nephew went to seek the Curé of Saint Sulpice and the Abbé Gautier, and brought them into his uncle's sick chamber. 'Ah, well!' said Voltaire, 'give them my compliments and my thanks.' The Abbé spoke some words to him, exhorting him to patience. The curé of Saint Sulpice then came forward, having announced himself, and asked of Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The sick man pushed one of his hands against the curés coif, shoving him back and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, 'Let me die in peace.' The curé seemingly considered his person soiled and his coif dishonored by the touch of a philosopher. He made the nurse give him a little brushing and went out with the Abbé Gautier."
He expired, says Wagnière, on the 30th of May, 1778, at about a quarter-past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. A few minutes before his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his valet de chambre, who was watching by him, pressed it, and said: "Adieu, my dear Morand, I am gone." These were his last words. Like a peaceful river with green and shaded banks, he flowed without a murmur into the waveless sea, where life is rest.
From this death, so simple and serene, so kind, so philosophic and tender, so natural and peaceful; from these words, so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances, have been drawn and made. From these materials, and from these alone, or rather, in spite of these facts, have been constructed by priests and clergymen and their dupes all the shameless lies about the death of this great and wonderful man. A man, compared with whom all of his calumniators, dead and living, were, and are, but dust and vermin.
Let us be honest. Did all the priests of Rome increase the mental wealth of man as much as Bruno? Did all the priests of France do as great a work for the civilization of the world as Voltaire or Diderot? Did all the ministers of Scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as David Hume? Have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, from the day of Pentecost to the last election, done as much for human liberty as Thomas Paine?
What would the world be if infidels had never been?
The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be.
Why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellow-men should have been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended slavery—practiced polygamy—-justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor, are supposed to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the angels? Why should we think that the brave thinkers, the investigators, the honest men, must have left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear, while the instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the inventors and users of thumb-screws, of iron boots and racks; the burners and tearers of human flesh; the stealers, the whippers and the enslavers of men; the buyers and beaters of maidens, mothers and babes; the founders of the Inquisition; the makers of chains; the builders of dungeons; the calumniators of the living; the slanderers of the dead, and even the murderers of Jesus Christ, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice, the apostles of humanity, the soldiers of liberty, the breakers of fetters, the creators of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of God?
In those days the philosophers—that is to say, the thinkers—were not buried in holy ground. It was feared that their principles might contaminate the ashes of the just. And they also feared that on the morning of the resurrection they might, in a moment of confusion, slip into heaven. Some were burned, and their ashes scattered; and the bodies of some were thrown naked to beasts, and others buried in unholy earth.
Voltaire knew the history of Adrienne Le Couvreur, a beautiful actress, denied burial.
After all, we do feel an interest in what is to become of our bodies. There is a modesty that belongs to death. Upon this subject Voltaire was infinitely sensitive. It was that he might be buried that he went through the farce of confession, of absolution, and of the last sacrament. The priests knew that he was not in earnest, and Voltaire knew that they would not allow him to be buried in any of the cemeteries of Paris.
His death was kept a secret. The Abbé Mignot made arrangements for the burial at Romilli-on-the-Seine, more than 100 miles from Paris. On Sunday evening, on the last day of May, 1778, the body of Voltaire, clad in a dressing gown, clothed to resemble an invalid, posed to simulate life, was placed in a carriage; at its side, a servant, whose business it was to keep it in position. To this carriage were attached six horses, so that people might think a great lord was going to his estates. Another carriage followed, in which were a grand nephew and two cousins of Voltaire. All night they traveled, and on the following day arrived at the courtyard of the Abbey. The necessary papers were shown, the mass was performed in the presence of the body, and Voltaire found burial. A few moments afterwards, the prior, who "for charity had given a little earth," received from his bishop a menacing letter forbidding the burial of Voltaire. It was too late.
Voltaire was dead. The foundations of State and Throne had been sapped. The people were becoming acquainted with the real kings and with the actual priests. Unknown men born in misery and want, men whose fathers and mothers had been pavement for the rich, were rising toward the light, and their shadowy faces were emerging from darkness. Labor and thought became friends. That is, the gutter and the attic fraternized. The monsters of the Night and the angels of the Dawn—the first thinking of revenge, and the others dreaming of equality, liberty and fraternity.
VII. THE DEATH-BED ARGUMENT.
ALL kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. As a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The man who has succeeded in making his home a hell, meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ, or the eternal "procession" of the Holy Ghost. The king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint.
All the believing kings are in heaven—all the doubting philosophers in perdition. All the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who burned their brothers, sleep in consecrated ground. Libraries could hardly contain the names of the Christian wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defence of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and no priest, no minister, describes the agony and fear, the remorse and horror with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of their lives. These men had never doubted—they had never thought—they accepted the creed as they did the fashion of their clothes. They were not infidels, they could not be—they had been baptized, they had not denied the divinity of Christ, they had partaken of the "last supper." They respected priests, they admitted that Christ had two natures and the same number of wills; they admitted that the Holy Ghost had "proceeded," and that, according to the multiplication table of heaven, once one is three, and three times one is one, and these things put pillows beneath their heads and covered them with the drapery of peace.
They admitted that while kings and priests did nothing worse than to make their fellows wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, God would maintain the strictest neutrality; but when some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scriptures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.
There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed—no truthful account in all the literature of the world of the innocent child being shielded by God. Thousands of crimes are being committed every day—men are at this moment lying in wait for their human prey—wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and death—little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring, tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers—sweet girls are deceived, lured and outraged, but God has no time to prevent these things—no time to defend the good and protect the pure. He is too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows. He listens for blasphemy; looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal registers; watches professors in college who begin to doubt the geology of Moses and the astronomy of Joshua. He does not particularly object to stealing, if you won't swear. A great many persons have fallen dead in the act of taking God's name in vain, but millions of men, women and children have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of burden, but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of God.
Now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty, has appeared. Such men have denounced the superstitions of their day. They have pitied the multitude. To see priests devour the substance of the people—priests who made begging one of the learned professions—filled them with loathing and contempt. These men were honest enough to tell their thoughts, brave enough to speak the truth. Then they were denounced, tried, tortured, killed by rack or flame. But some escaped the fury of the fiends who love their enemies, and died naturally in their beds. It would not do for the church to admit that they died peacefully. That would show that religion was not essential at the last moment. Superstition gets its power from the terror of death. It would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the Bible—refuse to kiss the cross—contend that Humanity was greater than Christ, and then die as sweetly as Torquemada did, after pouring molten lead into the ears of an honest man; or as calmly as Calvin after he had burned Servetus; or as peacefully as King David after advising with his last breath one son to assassinate another.
The church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all infidels (that Christians did not succeed in burning) were infinitely wretched and despairing. It was alleged that words could not paint the horrors that were endured by a dying infidel. Every good Christian was expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts. They have been told and retold in every pulpit of the world. Protestant ministers have repeated the lies invented by Catholic priests, and Catholics, by a kind of theological comity, have sworn to the lies told by the Protestants. Upon this point they have always stood together, and will as long as the same falsehood can be used by both.
Instead of doing these things, Voltaire wilfully closed his eyes to the light of the gospel, examined the Bible for himself, advocated intellectual liberty, struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant faith, assisted the weak, cried out against the torture of man, appealed to reason, endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored the indigent, and defended the oppressed.
He demonstrated that the origin of all religions is the same—the same mysteries—the same miracles—the same imposture—the same temples and ceremonies—the same kind of founders, apostles and dupes—the same promises and threats—the same pretence of goodness and forgiveness and the practice of the same persecution and murder. He proved that religion made enemies—philosophy friends—and that above the rights of Gods were the rights of man.
These were his crimes. Such a man God would not suffer to die in peace. If allowed to meet death with a smile, others might follow his example, until none would be left to light the holy fires of the auto da fe. It would not do for so great, so successful, an enemy of the church to die without leaving some shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer of chattered horror uttered by lips covered with blood and foam.
For many centuries the theologians have taught that an unbeliever—an infidel—one who spoke or wrote against their creed, could not meet death with composure; that in his last moments God would fill his conscience with the serpents of remorse.
For a thousand years the clergy have manufactured the facts to fit this theory—this infamous conception of the duty of man and the justice of God.
The theologians have insisted that crimes against man were, and are, as nothing compared with crimes against God.
Upon the death-bed subject the clergy grow eloquent. When describing the shudderings and shrieks of the dying unbeliever, their eyes glitter with delight.
It is a festival.
They are no longer men. They become hyenas. They dig open graves. They devour the dead.
It is a banquet.
Unsatisfied still, they paint the terrors of hell. They gaze at the souls of the infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies. They see them in flames—in oceans of fire—in gulfs of pain—in abysses of despair. They shout with joy. They applaud.
It is an auto da fe, presided over by God.
VIII. THE SECOND RETURN.
FOR four hundred years the Bastile had been the outward symbol of oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a perpetual threat. It was the last, and often the first, argument of king and priest. Its dungeons, damp and rayless, its massive towers, its secret cells, its instruments of torture, denied the existence of God.
In 1789, on the 14th of July, the people, the multitude, frenzied by suffering, stormed and captured the Bastile. The battle-cry was "Vive Voltaire."
In 1791 permission was given to place in the Pantheon the ashes of Voltaire. He had been buried 110 miles from Paris. Buried by stealth, he was to be removed by a nation. A funeral procession of a hundred miles; every village with its flags and arches; all the people anxious to honor the philosopher of France—the Savior of Calas—the Destroyer of Superstition.
On reaching Paris the great procession moved along the Rue St. Antoine. Here it paused, and for one night upon the ruins of the Bastile rested the body of Voltaire—rested in triumph, in glory—rested on fallen wall and broken arch, on crumbling stone still damp with tears, on rusting chain and bar and useless bolt—above the dungeons dark and deep, where light had faded from the lives of men and hope had died in breaking hearts.
The conqueror resting upon the conquered.—Throned upon the Bastile, the fallen fortress of Night, the body of Voltaire, from whose brain had issued the Dawn.
For a moment his ashes must have felt the Promethean fire, and the old smile must have illumined once more the face of death.
The vast multitude bowed in reverence, hushed with love and awe heard these words uttered by a priest: "God shall be avenged."
The cry of the priest was a prophecy. Priests skulking in the shadows with faces sinister as night, ghouls in the name of the gospel, desecrated the grave. They carried away the ashes of Voltaire.
The tomb is empty.
God is avenged.
The world is filled with his fame.
Man has conquered.
Was there in the eighteenth century, a man wearing the vestments of the church, the equal of Voltaire?
What cardinal, what bishop, what priest in France raised his voice for the rights of men? What ecclesiastic, what nobleman, took the side of the oppressed—of the peasant? Who denounced the frightful criminal code—the torture of suspected persons? What priest pleaded for the liberty of the citizen? What bishop pitied the victims of the rack? Is there the grave of a priest in France on which a lover of liberty would now drop a flower or a tear? Is there a tomb holding the ashes of a saint from which emerges one ray of light?
If there be another life—a day of judgment, no God can afford to torture in another world the man who abolished torture in this. If God be the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, he should not imprison there the men who broke the chains of slavery here. He cannot afford to make an eternal convict of Voltaire.
Voltaire was a perfect master of the French language, knowing all its moods, tenses and declinations, in fact and in feeling—playing upon it as skillfully as Paganini on his violin, finding expression for every thought and fancy, writing on the most serious subjects with the gayety of a harlequin, plucking jests from the crumbling mouth of death, graceful as the waving of willows, dealing in double meanings that covered the asp with flowers and flattery—master of satire and compliment—mingling them often in the same line, always interested himself, and therefore interesting others—handling thoughts, questions, subjects as a juggler does balls, keeping them in the air with perfect ease—dressing old words in new meanings, charming, grotesque, pathetic, mingling mirth with tears, wit and wisdom, and sometimes wickedness, logic and laughter. With a woman's instinct knowing the sensitive nerves—just where to touch—hating arrogance of place, the stupidity of the solemn—snatching masks from priest and king, knowing the springs of action and ambition's ends—perfectly familiar with the great world—the intimate of kings and their favorites, sympathizing with the oppressed and imprisoned, with the unfortunate and poor, hating tyranny, despising superstition, and loving liberty with all his heart. Such was Voltaire writing "Odipus" at seventeen, "Irene" at eighty-three, and crowding between these two tragedies the accomplishment of a thousand lives.
From his throne at the foot of the Alps, he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Europe. For half a century, past rack and stake, past dungeon and cathedral, past altar and throne, he carried with brave hands the sacred torch of Reason, whose light at last will flood the world.
* An address delivered in Philadelphia, Oct. 21, 1890. Used
by permission of the Truth Seeker Co.
I. LET US PUT WREATHS ON THE BROWS OF THE LIVING.
IN the year 1855 the American people knew but little of books. Their ideals, their models, were English. Young and Pollok, Addison and Watts, were regarded as great poets. Some of the more reckless read Thomson's "Seasons" and the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott. A few, not quite orthodox, delighted in the mechanical monotony of Pope, and the really wicked—those lost to all religious shame—were worshipers of Shakespeare. The really orthodox Protestant, untroubled by doubts, considered Milton the greatest poet of them all. Byron and Shelley were hardly respectable—not to be read by young persons. It was admitted on all hands that Burns was a child of nature of whom his mother was ashamed and proud.
In the blessed year aforesaid, candor, free and sincere speech, were under the ban. Creeds at that time were entrenched behind statutes, prejudice, custom, ignorance, stupidity, Puritanism and slavery; that is to say, slavery of mind and body.
Of course it always has been, and forever will be, impossible for slavery, or any kind or form of injustice, to produce a great poet. There are hundreds of verse makers and writers on the side of wrong—enemies of progress—but they are not poets, they are not men of genius.
At this time a young man—he to whom this testimonial is given—he upon whose head have fallen the snows of more than seventy winters—this man, born within the sound of the sea, gave to the world a book, "Leaves of Grass." This book was, and is, the true transcript of a soul. The man is unmasked. No drapery of hypocrisy, no pretence, no fear. The book was as original in form as in thought. All customs were forgotten or disregarded, all rules broken—nothing mechanical—no imitation—spontaneous, running and winding like a river, multitudinous in its thoughts as the waves of the sea—nothing mathematical or measured—in everything a touch of chaos; lacking what is called form, as clouds lack form, but not lacking the splendor of sunrise or the glory of sunset. It was a marvelous collection and aggregation of fragments, hints, suggestions, memories, and prophecies, weeds and flowers, clouds and clods, sights and sounds, emotions and passions, waves, shadows and constellations.
His book was received by many with disdain, with horror, with indignation and protest—by the few as a marvelous, almost miraculous, message to the world—full of thought, philosophy, poetry and music.
In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. A great soul appears and fills the world with new and marvelous harmonies. In his words is the old Promethean flame. The heart of nature beats and throbs in his line. The respectable prudes and pedagogues sound the alarm, and cry, or rather screech: "Is this a book for a young person?"
A poem true to life as a Greek statue—candid as nature—fills these barren souls with fear.
They forget that drapery about the perfect was suggested by immodesty.
The provincial prudes, and others of like mold, pretend that love is a duty rather than a passion—a kind of self-denial—not an over-mastering joy. They preach the gospel of pretence and pantalettes, In the presence of sincerity, of truth, they cast down their eyes and endeavor to feel immodest. To them, the most beautiful thing is hypocrisy adorned with a blush.
They have no idea of an honest, pure passion, glorying in its strength—intense, intoxicated with the beautiful, giving even to inanimate things pulse and motion, and that transfigures, ennobles, and idealizes the object of its adoration.
They do not walk the streets of the city of life—they explore the sewers; they stand in the gutters and cry "Unclean!" They pretend that beauty is a snare; that love is a Delilah; that the highway of joy is the broad road, lined with flowers and filled with perfume, leading to the city of eternal sorrow.
Since the year 1855 the American people have developed; they are somewhat acquainted with the literature of the world. They have witnessed the most tremendous of revolutions, not only upon the fields of battle, but in the world of thought. The American citizen has concluded that it is hardly worth while being a sovereign unless he has the right to think for himself.
And now, from this height, with the vantage-ground of to-day, I propose to examine this book and to state, in a general way, what Walt Whitman has done, what he has accomplished, and the place he has won in the world of thought.
II. THE RELIGION OF THE BODY.
WALT WHITMAN stood when he published his book, where all stand to-night, on the perpetually moving line where history ends and prophecy begins. He was full of life to the very tips of his fingers—brave, eager, candid, joyous with health. He was acquainted with the past. He knew something of song and story, of philosophy and art; much of the heroic dead, of brave suffering, of the thoughts of men, the habits of the people—rich as well as poor—familiar with labor, a friend of wind and wave, touched by love and friendship, liking the open road, enjoying the fields and paths, the crags, friend of the forest—feeling that he was free—neither master nor slave; willing that all should know his thoughts; open as the sky, candid as nature, and he gave his thoughts, his dreams, his conclusions, his hopes and his mental portrait to his fellow-men.
Walt Whitman announced the gospel of the body. He confronted the people. He denied the depravity of man. He insisted that love is not a crime; that men and women should be proudly natural; that they need not grovel on the earth and cover their faces for shame, He taught the dignity and glory of the father and mother; the sacredness of maternity.
Maternity, tender and pure as the tear of pity, holy as suffering—the crown, the flower, the ecstasy of love!
People had been taught from Bibles and from creeds that maternity was a kind of crime; that the woman should be purified by some ceremony in some temple built in honor of some god. This barbarism was attacked in "Leaves of Grass."
The glory of simple life was sung; a declaration of independence was made for each and all.
And yet this appeal to manhood and to womanhood was misunderstood. It was denounced simply because it was in harmony with the great trend of nature. To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.
It was not the fashion for people to speak or write their thoughts. We were flooded with the literature of hypocrisy. The writers did not faithfully describe the worlds in which they lived. They endeavored to make a fashionable world. They pretended that the cottage or the hut in which they dwelt was a palace, and they called the little area in which they threw their slops their domain, their realm, their empire. They were ashamed of the real, of what their world actually was. They imitated; that is to say, they told lies, and these lies filled the literature of most lands.
Walt Whitman defended the sacredness of love, the purity of passion—the passion that builds every home and fills the world with art and song.
They cried out: "He is a defender of passion—he is a libertine! He lives in the mire. He lacks spirituality!"
Whoever differs with the multitude, especially with a led multitude—that is to say, with a multitude of taggers—will find out from their leaders that he has committed an unpardonable sin. It is a crime to travel a road of your own, especially if you put up guide-boards for the information of others.
Many, many centuries ago Epicurus, the greatest man of his century, and of many centuries before and after, said: "Happiness is the only good; happiness is the supreme end." This man was temperate, frugal, generous, noble—and yet through all these years he has been denounced by the hypocrites of the world as a mere eater and drinker.
It was said that Whitman had exaggerated the importance of love—that he had made too much of this passion. Let me say that no poet—not excepting Shakespeare—has had imagination enough to exaggerate the importance of human love—a passion that contains all heights and all depths—ample as space, with a sky in which glitter all constellations, and that has within it all storms, all lightnings, all wrecks and ruins, all griefs, all sorrows, all shadows, and all the joy and sunshine of which the heart and brain are capable.
No writer must be measured by a word or paragraph. He is to be measured by his work—by the tendency, not of one line, but by the tendency of all.
Which way does the great stream tend? Is it for good or evil? Are the motives high and noble, or low and infamous?
We cannot measure Shakespeare by a few lines, neither can we measure the Bible by a few chapters, nor "Leaves of Grass" by a few paragraphs. In each there are many things that I neither approve nor believe—but in all books you will find a mingling of wisdom and foolishness, of prophecies and mistakes—in other words, among the excellencies there will be defects. The mine is not all gold, or all silver, or all diamonds—there are baser metals. The trees of the forest are not all of one size. On some of the highest there are dead and useless limbs, and there may be growing beneath the bushes weeds, and now and then a poisonous vine.
If I were to edit the great books of the world, I might leave out some lines and I might leave out the best. I have no right to make of my brain a sieve and say that only that which passes through belongs to the rest of the human race. I claim the right to choose. I give that right to all.
Walt Whitman had the courage to express his thought—the candor to tell the truth. And here let me say it gives me joy—a kind of perfect satisfaction—to look above the bigoted bats, the satisfied owls and wrens and chickadees, and see the great eagle poised, circling higher and higher, unconscious of their existence. And it gives me joy, a kind of perfect satisfaction, to look above the petty passions and jealousies of small and respectable people, above the considerations of place and power and reputation, and see a brave, intrepid man.
It must be remembered that the American people had separated from the Old World—that we had declared not only the independence of colonies, but the independence of the individual. We had done more—we had declared that the state could no longer be ruled by the church, and that the church could not be ruled by the state, and that the individual could not be ruled by the church.
These declarations were in danger of being forgotten. We needed a new voice, sonorous, loud and clear, a new poet for America, for the new epoch, somebody to chant the morning song of the new day.
The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind, fascinates and instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please the public. They flatter the stupid and pander to the prejudice of their readers. They write for the market, making books as other mechanics make shoes. They have no message, they bear no torch, they are simply the slaves of customers.
The books they manufacture are handled by "the trade;" they are regarded as harmless. The pulpit does not object; the young person can read the monotonous pages without a blush—or a thought.
On the title pages of these books you will find the imprint of the great publishers; on the rest of the pages, nothing. These books might be prescribed for insomnia.
III.
Men of talent, men of business, touch life upon few sides. They travel but the beaten path. The creative spirit is not in them. They regard with suspicion a poet who touches life on every side. They have little confidence in that divine thing called sympathy, and they do not and cannot understand the man who enters into the hopes, the aims and the feelings of all others.
In all genius there is the touch of chaos—a little of the vagabond; and the successful tradesman, the man who buys and sells, or manages a bank, does not care to deal with a person who has only poems for collaterals; they have a little fear of such people, and regard them as the awkward countryman does a sleight-of-hand performer.
In every age in which books have been produced the governing class, the respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius. If what are known as the best people could have had their way, if the pulpit had been consulted—the provincial moralists—the works of Shakespeare would have been suppressed. Not a line would have reached our time. And the same may be said of every dramatist of his age.
If the Scotch Kirk could have decided, nothing would have been known of Robert Burns. If the good people, the orthodox, could have had their say, not one line of Voltaire would now be known. All the plates of the French Encyclopedia would have been destroyed with the thousands that were destroyed. Nothing would have been known of D'Alembert, Grimm, Diderot, or any of the Titans who warred against the thrones and altars and laid the foundation of modern literature not only, but what is of far greater moment, universal education.
It is not too much to say that every book now held in high esteem would have been destroyed, if those in authority could have had their will. Every book of modern times that has a real value, that has enlarged the intellectual horizon of mankind, that has developed the brain, that has furnished real food for thought, can be found in the Index Expurgatorius of the Papacy, and nearly every one has been commended to the free minds of men by the denunciations of Protestants.
If the guardians of society, the protectors of "young persons," could have had their way, we should have known nothing of Byron or Shelley. The voices that thrill the world would now be silent. If authority could have had its way, the world would have been as ignorant now as it was when our ancestors lived in holes or hung from dead limbs by their prehensile tails.
But we are not forced to go very far back. If Shakespeare had been published for the first time now, those divine plays—greater than continents and seas, greater even than the constellations of the midnight sky—would be excluded from the mails by the decision of the present enlightened postmaster-general.
The poets have always lived in an ideal world, and that ideal world has always been far better than the real world. As a consequence, they have forever roused, not simply the imagination, but the energies—the enthusiasm of the human race.
The great poets have been on the side of the oppressed—of the downtrodden. They have suffered with the imprisoned and the enslaved, and whenever and wherever man has suffered for the right, wherever the hero has been stricken down—whether on field or scaffold—some man of genius has walked by his side, and some poet has given form and expression, not simply to his deeds, but to his aspirations.
From the Greek and Roman world we still hear the voices of a few. The poets, the philosophers, the artists and the orators still speak. Countless millions have been covered by the waves of oblivion, but the few who uttered the elemental truths, who had sympathy for the whole human race, and who were great enough to prophesy a grander day, are as alive to-night as when they roused, by their bodily presence, by their living voices, by their works of art, the enthusiasm of their fellow-men.
Think of the respectable people, of the men of wealth and position, those who dwelt in mansions, children of success, who went down to the grave voiceless, and whose names we do not know. Think of the vast multitudes, the endless processions, that entered the caverns of eternal night, leaving no thought, no truth as a legacy to mankind!
The great poets have sympathized with the people. They have uttered in all ages the human cry. Unbought by gold, unawed by power, they have lifted high the torch that illuminates the world.
IV.
Walt Whitman is in the highest sense a believer in democracy. He knows that there is but one excuse for government—the preservation of liberty, to the end that man may be happy. He knows that there is but one excuse for any institution, secular or religious—the preservation of liberty; and that there is but one excuse for schools, lor universal education, for the ascertainment of facts, namely, the preservation of liberty. He resents the arrogance and cruelty of power. He has sworn never to be tyrant or slave. He has solemnly declared:
"I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy, By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms."
This one declaration covers the entire ground. It is a declaration of independence, and it is also a declaration of justice, that is to say, a declaration of the independence of the individual, and a declaration that all shall be free. The man who has this spirit can truthfully say:
"I have taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown. I am for those that have never been master'd."
There is in Whitman what he calls "The boundless impatience of restraint," together with that sense of justice which compelled him to say, "Neither a servant nor a master am I."
He was wise enough to know that giving others the same rights that he claims for himself could not harm him, and he was great enough to say: "As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same."
He felt as all should feel, that the liberty of no man is safe unless the liberty of each is safe.
There is in our country a little of the old servile spirit, a little of the bowing and cringing to others. Many Americans do not understand that the officers of the government are simply the servants of the people. Nothing is so demoralizing as the worship of place. Whitman has reminded the people of this country that they are supreme, and he has said to them:
"The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them. Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you."
He describes the ideal American citizen—the one who
"Says indifferently and alike 'How are you, friend?' to the President at his levee, And he says 'Good-day, my brother,' to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field."
Long ago, when the politicians were wrong, when the judges were subservient, when the pulpit was a coward, Walt Whitman shouted:
"Man shall not hold property in man."
"The least develop'd person on earth is just as important and sacred to himself or herself as the most develop'd person is to himself or herself."
This is the very soul of true democracy.
Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It is both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty.
Walt Whitman utters the elemental truths and is the poet of democracy. He is also the poet of individuality.
V. INDIVIDUALITY.
IN order to protect the liberties of a nation, we must protect the individual. A democracy is a nation of free individuals. The individuals are not to be sacrificed to the nation. The nation exists only for the purpose of guarding and protecting the individuality of men and women. Walt Whitman has told us that: "The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual—namely to You."
And he has also told us that the greatest city—the greatest nation—is "where the citizen is always the head and ideal."
And that
"A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world."
By this test maybe the greatest city on the continent to-night is Camden.
This poet has asked of us this question:
"What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?"
The man who asks this question has left no impress of his lips in the dust, and has no dirt upon his knees.
He was great enough to say:
"The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own."
He carries the idea of individuality to its utmost height:
"What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as God? And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?"
Glorying in individuality, in the freedom of the soul, he cries out:
"O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! To be indeed a God!"
And again:
"O the joy of a manly self-hood! To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown, To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, To speak with full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth."
Walt Whitman is willing to stand alone. He is sufficient unto himself, and he says:
"Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune. Strong and content I travel the open road."
He is one of
"Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors, as to say 'Who are you? '"
And not only this, but he has the courage to say: "Nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self." Walt Whitman is the poet of Individuality—the defender of the rights of each for the sake of all—and his sympathies are as wide as the world. He is the defender of the whole race.
VI. HUMANITY.
THE great poet is intensely human, infinitely sympathetic, entering into the joys and griefs of others, bearing their burdens, knowing their sorrows. Brain without heart is not much; they must act together. When the respectable people of the North, the rich, the successful, were willing to carry out the Fugitive Slave Law, Walt Whitman said:
"I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen, I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin, I fall on the weeds and stones, The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, Taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks. Agonies are one of my changes of garments, I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.... I... see myself in prison shaped like another man, And feel the dull unintermitted pain. For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch, It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night. Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him and walk by his side. Judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a helpless thing."
Of the very worst he had the infinite tenderness to say: "Not until the sun excludes you will I exclude you."
In this age of greed when houses and lands and stocks and bonds outrank human life; when gold is of more value than blood, these words should be read by all:
"When the psalm sings instead of the singer, When the script preaches instead of the preacher, When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk, When I can touch the body of books by night or day, and when they touch my body back again," When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince, When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter, When warrantee deeds loaf in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you."
VII.
The poet is also a painter, a sculptor—he, too, deals in form and color. The great poet is of necessity a great artist. With a few words he creates pictures, filling his canvas with living men and women—with those who feel and speak. Have you ever read the account of the stage-driver's funeral? Let me read it:
"Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets, A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short, last daylight of December, A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers. Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, The gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses. The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in, The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence, A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done, He is decently put away—is there anything more? He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking, Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was helped by a contribution, Died, aged forty-one years—and that was his funeral."
Let me read you another description, one of a woman:
"Behold a woman! She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky. She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, The sun just shines on her old white head. Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel. The melodious character of the earth. The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go, The justified mother of men."
Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
"Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me. Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us. We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd, My captain lash'd fast with his own hands. We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, On our lower gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead. Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported, The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves. The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels, They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.
Our frigate takes fire, The other asks if we demand quarter? If our colors are struck and the fighting done? Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, 'We have not struck,' he composedly cries, 'we have just begun our part of the fighting.' Only three guns are in use, One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast, Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks. The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top, They hold out bravely during the whole of the action. Not a moment's cease, The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazines. One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking. Serene stands the little captain, He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low, His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns. Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon the surrender to us. Stretch'd and still lies the midnight, Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness. Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer'd, The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet, Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl'd whiskers, The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below, The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars, Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves, Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent, A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors, The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan."
Some people say that this is not poetry—that it lacks measure and rhyme.
VIII. WHAT IS POETRY?
THE whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. That is to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, colors and forms. The motions of the silent, invisible world, where feeling glows and thought flames—that contains all seeds of action—are made known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, relations, uses and qualities, so that the visible universe is a dictionary, an aggregation of symbols, by which and through which is carried on the invisible commerce of thought. Each object is capable of many meanings, or of being used in many ways to convey ideas or states of feeling or of facts that take place in the world of the brain.
The greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. Each man occupies a world of his own. He is the only citizen of his world. He is subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the facts concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other worlds. No two of these worlds are alike. They are of all kinds, from the flat, barren, and uninteresting—from the small and shriveled and worthless—to those whose rivers and mountains and seas and constellations belittle and cheapen the visible world. The inhabitants of these marvelous worlds have been the singers of songs, utterers of great speech—the creators of art.
And here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the creator tells what passes in his own world—the imitator does not. The imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. He is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he has traveled.
In nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged. For the sake of beauty, they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told the story of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest men and even the pity of tyrants. He, above all others, has added to the intellectual beauty of the world. He has been the true creator of language, and has left his impress on mankind.
What I have said is not only true of poetry—it is true of all speech. All are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. Words have been invented and are being invented, for the reason that new powers are found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses and meanings. The growth of language is necessary on account of the development of the human mind. The savage needs but few symbols—the civilized many—the poet most of all.
The old idea was, however, that the poet must be a rhymer. Before printing was known, it was said: the rhyme assists the memory. That excuse no longer exists.
Is rhyme a necessary part of poetry? In my judgment, rhyme is a hindrance to expression. The rhymer is compelled to wander from his subject, to say more or less than he means, to introduce irrelevant matter that interferes continually with the dramatic action and is a perpetual obstruction to sincere utterance.
All poems, of necessity, must be short. The highly and purely poetic is the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. The planting of the seed, the growth, the bud and flower must be rapid. The spring must be quick and warm, the soil perfect, the sunshine and rain enough—everything should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. In poetry, as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden.
The greatest poems are rhythmical. While rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm seems to be the comrade of the poetic. Rhythm has a natural foundation. Under emotion the blood rises and falls, the muscles contract and relax, and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as the rise and fall of the sea. In the highest form of expression the thought should be in harmony with this natural ebb and flow.
The highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. I have sometimes thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own garments, and that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the speaker or writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself.
The great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves.
I do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured intervals. Perfect time is the death of music. There should always be room for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there may be in the rhythm or time, the action itself should suggest perfect freedom.
A word more about rhythm. I believe that certain feelings and passions—-joy, grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular movements in the brain—that every thought is accompanied by certain physical phenomena. Now, it may be that certain sounds, colors, and forms produce the same molecular action in the brain that accompanies certain feelings, and that these sounds, colors and forms produce first the molecular movements and these in their turn reproduce the feelings, emotions and states of mind capable of producing the same or like molecular movements. So that what we call heroic music produces the same molecular action in the brain—the same physical changes—that are produced by the real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call plaintive produce the same molecular movement in the brain that grief, or the twilight of grief, actually produces. There may be a rhythmical molecular movement belonging to each state of mind, that accompanies each thought or passion, and it may be that music, or painting, or sculpture, produces the same state of mind or feeling that produces the music or painting or sculpture, by producing the same molecular movements.
All arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in different ways—that is to say, they produce like states of mind and feeling. The sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the orator, work to the same end, with different materials. The painter expresses through form and color and relation; the sculptor through form and relation. The poet also paints and chisels—his words give form, relation and color. His statues and his paintings do not crumble, neither do they fade, nor will they as long as language endures. The composer touches the passions, produces the very states of feeling produced by the painter and sculptor, the poet and orator. In all these there must be rhythm—that is to say, proportion—that is to say, harmony, melody.
So that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who gives new meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary things of life. He must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the experiences of the people.
The poetic is not the exceptional. A perfect poem is like a perfect day. It has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. It must not appear to be the result of great labor. We feel, in spite of ourselves, that man does best that which he does easiest.
The great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but of the best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the ideals of his race. The sublimer he is, the simpler he is. The thoughts of the people must be clad in the garments of feeling—the words must be known, apt, familiar. The height must be in the thought, in the sympathy.
In the olden time they used to have May day parties, and the prettiest child was crowned Queen of May. Imagine an old blacksmith and his wife looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses. They would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have so beautiful a child. It is thus that the poet clothes the intellectual children or ideals of the people. They must not be gemmed and garlanded beyond the recognition of their parents. Out from all the flowers and beauty must look the eyes of the child they know.
We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination for wonders—there are millions of miracles under our feet.
Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can comprehend.
The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible—he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound of the distant bell—two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful for, nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they soften with their tears—nothing. And yet as you look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for—that they have life, love, and hope—and so the distant bell makes music in their simple hearts.
IX.
The attitude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood. Toward all forms of worship, toward all creeds, he has maintained the attitude of absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has given her last message to man. He does not believe that all has been ascertained. He denies that any sect has written down the entire truth. He believes in progress, and so believing he says:
"We consider Bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine, I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still, It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life." "His [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent." "Have you thought there could be but a single supreme? There can be any number of supremes—one does not countervail another anymore than one eyesight countervails another."
Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the serenity of a great and well-poised soul:
"No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death. I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.... In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name."
The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes:
"Not objecting to special revelations—considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation."
The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this lack in that which has been written and preached, Whitman says:
"Magnifying and applying come I, Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved, With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and every idol and image, Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more."
Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends his hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is wrinkled and old and has a long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks, on stupidity and fear. Neither does he reject or accept the new because it is new. He wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows just who and what they are.
X. PHILOSOPHY.
WALT WHITMAN is a philosopher. The more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has traveled intellectually, the less certain he is. Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him.
A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one day that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was heard to remark: "Who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our home?"
Walt Whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to fathom the mystery of being; and he said:
"I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, A few sands and dead leaves to gather, Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift. Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.... I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can."
There is in our language no profounder poem than the one entitled "Elemental Drifts."
The effort to find the origin has ever been, and will forever be, fruitless. Those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a man looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick enough he could grasp the image that he sees behind the glass.
The latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows:
"To me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape and life here somehow giving an important, perhaps the main outline to something further. Somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands behind it, is inside of all facts, and the concrete and material, and the worldly affairs of life and sense. That is the purport and meaning behind all the other meanings of Leaves of Grass."
As a matter of fact, the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the grasp of the human mind. We can see a certain distance; beyond that, everything is indistinct; and beyond the indistinct is the unseen. In the presence of these mysteries—and everything is a mystery so far as origin, destiny, and nature are concerned—the intelligent, honest man is compelled to say, "I do not know."
In the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever, and from the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light, a few momentary sparks.
Some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything is matter; and again, others have maintained that a part is matter and a part is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others that matter was first and spirit after; and others that matter and spirit have existed together.
But none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter.
The materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; and the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling. These spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, matter is quite a mystery. Y ou take in your hand a little earth—a little dust. Do you know what it is? In this dust you put a seed; the rain falls upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts into blossom; it produces fruit.
What is this dust—this womb? Do you understand it? Is there anything in the wide universe more wonderful than this?
Take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate its every part for days, and it remains the citadel of a secret—an impregnable fortress. Bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in serried ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts and arms of thought and force. The citadel does not fall. Over the battlements floats the flag, and the victorious secret smiles at the baffled hosts.
Walt Whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the limit—the end of the road traveled by the human race. He knows that every victory over nature is but the preparation for another battle. This truth was in his mind when he said: "Understand me well; it is provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary."
This is the generalization of all history.
XI. THE TWO POEMS.
THERE are two of these poems to which I will call special attention. The first is entitled, "A Word Out of the Sea."
The boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of briers and blackberries—from the memories of birds—from the thousand responses of his heart—goes back to the sea and his childhood, and sings a reminiscence.
Two guests from Alabama—two birds—build their nest, and there were four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for joy:
"Shine! shine! shine! Pour down your warmth, great sun! While we bask, we two together. Two together! Winds blow south, or winds blow north, Day come white, or night come black, . Home, or rivers and mountains from home, Singing all time, minding no time, While we two keep together."
In a little while one of the birds is missed and never appeared again, and all through the summer the mate, the solitary guest, was singing of the lost:
"Blow! blow! blow! Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore; I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me."
And the boy that night, blending himself with the shadows, with bare feet, went down to the sea, where the white arms out in the breakers were tirelessly tossing; listening to the songs and translating the notes.
And the singing bird called loud and high for the mate, wondering what the dusky spot was in the brown and yellow, seeing the mate whichever way he looked, piercing the woods and the earth with his song, hoping that the mate might hear his cry; stopping that he might not lose her answer; waiting and then crying again: "Here I am! And this gentle call is for you. Do not be deceived by the whistle of the wind; those are the shadows;" and at last crying:
"O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! In the air, in the woods, over fields, Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! But my mate no more, no more with me! We two together no more."
And then the 'boy, understanding the song that had awakened in his breast a thousand songs clearer and louder and more sorrowful than the birds, knowing that the cry of unsatisfied love would never again be absent from him; thinking then of the destiny of all, and asking of the sea the final word, and the sea answering, delaying not and hurrying not, spoke the low delicious word "Death!" "ever Death!"
The next poem, one that will live as long as our language, entitled: "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd," is on the death of Lincoln,
"The sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands."
One who reads this will never forget the odor of the lilac, "the lustrous western star" and "the gray-brown bird singing in the pines and cedars."
In this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the atmosphere and climate in harmony with every event.
Never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of inlooped flags, the processions long and winding, the flambeaus of night, the torches' flames, the silent sea of faces, the unbared heads, the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, the dirges, the shuddering organs, the tolling bells—and the sprig of lilac.
And then for a moment they will hear the gray-brown bird singing in the cedars, bashful and tender, while the lustrous star lingers in the west, and they will remember the pictures hung on the chamber walls to adorn the burial house—pictures of spring and farms and homes, and the gray smoke lucid and bright, and the floods of yellow gold—of the gorgeous indolent sinking sun—the sweet herbage under foot—the green leaves of the trees prolific—the breast of the river with the wind-dapple here and there, and the varied and ample land—and the most excellent sun so calm and haughty—the violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes—the gentle soft-born measureless light—the miracle spreading, bathing all—the fulfill'd noon—the coming eve delicious, and the welcome night and the stars.
And then again they will hear the song of the gray-brown bird in the limitless dusk amid the cedars and pines. Again they will remember the star, and again the odor of the lilac.
But most of all, the song of the bird translated and becoming the chant for death:
A CHANT FOR DEATH.
"Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death. Prais'd be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. Approach strong deliveress, When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death. From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and 'feastings for thee, And the sights of the open landscape and the high spread sky are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death."
This poem, in memory of "the sweetest, wisest soul of all our days and lands," and for whose sake lilac and star and bird entwined, will last as long as the memory of Lincoln.
XII. OLD AGE.
WALT WHITMAN is not only the poet of childhood, of youth, of manhood, but, above all, of old age. He has not been soured by slander or petrified by prejudice; neither calumny nor flattery has made him revengeful or arrogant. Now sitting by the fireside, in the winter of life,
"His jocund heart still beating in his breast," he is just as brave and calm and kind as in his manhood's proudest days, when roses blossomed in his cheeks.
He has taken life's seven steps. Now, as the gamester might say, "on velvet," he is enjoying "old age, expanded, broad, with the haughty breadth of the universe; old age, flowing free, with the delicious near-by freedom of death; old age, superbly rising, welcoming the ineffable aggregation of dying days."
He is taking the "loftiest look at last," and before he goes he utters thanks:
"For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air—for life, mere life, For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother dear—you, father—you, brothers, sisters, friends,) For all my days—not those of peace alone—the days of war the same, For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands, For shelter, wine and meat—for sweet appreciation, (You distant, dim unknown—or young or old—countless, unspecified, readers belov'd, We never met, and ne'er shall meet—and yet our souls embrace, long, close and long;) For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books—for colors, forms, For all the brave strong men—devoted, hardy men—who've forward sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands, For braver, stronger, more devoted men—(a special laurel ere I go, to life's war's chosen ones, The cannoneers of song and thought—the great artillerists— the foremost leaders, captains of the soul:"
It is a great thing to preach philosophy—far greater to live it. The highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a smile, and greets it as though it were desired.
To be satisfied: This is wealth—success.
The real philosopher knows that everything has happened that could have happened—consequently he accepts. He is glad that he has lived—glad that he has had his moment on the stage. In this spirit Whitman has accepted life.
"I shall go forth, I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long, Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my v voice will suddenly cease. O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this? Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?—and yet it is enough, O soul; O soul, we have positively appear'd—that is enough."
Yes, Walt Whitman has appeared. He has his place upon the stage. The drama is not ended. His voice is still heard. He is the Poet of Democracy—of all people. He is the poet of the body and soul. He has sounded the note of Individuality. He has given the pass-word primeval. He is the Poet of Humanity—of Intellectual Hospitality. He has voiced the aspirations of America—and, above all, he is the poet of Love and Death.
How grandly, how bravely he has given his thought, and how superb is his farewell—his leave-taking:
"After the supper and talk—after the day is done, As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging, Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating, (So hard for his hand to release those hands—no more will they meet, No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young, A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,) Shunning, postponing severance—seeking to ward off the last word ever so little, E'en at the exit-door turning—charges superfluous calling back— e'en as he descends the steps, Something to eke out a minute additional—shadows of nightfall deepening, Farewells, messages lessening—dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form, Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness—loth, O so loth to depart!"
And is this all? Will the forthgoer be lost, and forever? Is death the end? Over the grave bends Love sobbing, and by her side stands Hope and whispers:
We shall meet again. Before all life is death, and after all death is life. The falling leaf, touched with the hectic flush, that testifies of autumn's death, is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring.
Walt Whitman has dreamed great dreams, told great truths and uttered sublime thoughts. He has held aloft the torch and bravely led the way.
As you read the marvelous book, or the person, called "Leaves of Grass," you feel the freedom of the antique world; you hear the voices of the morning, of the first great singers—voices elemental as those of sea and storm. The horizon enlarges, the heavens grow ample, limitations are forgotten—the realization of the will, the accomplishment of the ideal, seem to be within your power. Obstructions become petty and disappear. The chains and bars are broken, and the distinctions of caste are lost. The soul is in the open air, under the blue and stars—the flag of Nature. Creeds, theories and philosophies ask to be examined, contradicted, reconstructed. Prejudices disappear, superstitions vanish and custom abdicates. The sacred places become highways, duties and desires clasp hands and become comrades and friends. Authority drops the scepter, the priest the mitre, and the purple falls from kings. The inanimate becomes articulate, the meanest and humblest things utter speech, and the dumb and voiceless burst into song. A feeling of independence takes possession of the soul, the body expands, the blood flows full and free, superiors vanish, flattery is a lost art, and life becomes rich, royal, and superb. The world becomes a personal possession, and the oceans, the continents, and constellations belong to you. You are in the center, everything radiates from you, and in your veins beats and throbs the pulse of all life. You become a rover, careless and free. You wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. You feel the silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the intertwined and over-arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds and woods. You are borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear the rush and roar of cataracts as they fall beneath the seven-hued arch, and watch the eagles as they circling soar. You traverse gorges dark and dim, and climb the scarred and threatening cliffs. You stand in orchards where the blossoms fall like snow, where the birds nest and sing, and painted moths make aimless journeys through the happy air. You live the lives of those who till the earth, and walk amid the perfumed fields, hear the reapers' song, and feel the breadth and scope of earth and sky. You are in the great cities, in the midst of multitudes, of the endless processions. You are on the wide plains—the prairies—with hunter and trapper, with savage and pioneer, and you feel the soft grass yielding under your feet. You sail in many ships, and breathe the free air of the sea. You travel many roads, and countless paths. You visit palaces and prisons, hospitals and courts; you pity kings and convicts, and your sympathy goes out to all the suffering and insane, the oppressed and enslaved, and even to the infamous. You hear the din of labor, all sounds of factory, field, and forest, of all tools, instruments and machines. You become familiar with men and women of all employments, trades and professions—with birth and burial, with wedding feast and funeral chant. You see the cloud and flame of war, and you enjoy the ineffable perfect days of peace.
In this one book, in these wondrous "Leaves of Grass," you find hints and suggestions, touches and fragments, of all there is of life that lies between the babe, whose rounded cheeks dimple beneath his mother's laughing, loving eyes, and the old man, snow-crowned, who, with a smile, extends his hand to death.
We have met to-night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of "Leaves of Grass."
* This lecture is printed from notes found among Colonel
Ingersoll's papers, but was not revised by him for
publication.
I HAVE sometimes thought that it will not make great and splendid character to rock children in the cradle of hypocrisy. I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. For my part, I believe men will be nearer honest in business, in politics, grander in art—in everything that is good and grand and beautiful, if they are taught from the cradle to the coffin to tell their honest opinion.
Neither do I believe thought to be dangerous.
It is incredible that only idiots are absolutely sure of salvation. It is incredible that the more brain you have the less your chance is. There can be no danger in honest thought, and if the world ever advances beyond what it is to-day, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.
We have passed midnight in the great struggle between Fact and Faith, between Science and Superstition. The brand of intellectual inferiority is now upon the orthodox brain. There is nothing grander than to rescue from the leprosy of slander the reputation of a good and generous man. Nothing can be nearer just than to benefit our benefactors.
The Infidels of one age have been the aureoled saints of the next. The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new. The old passes away, and the new becomes old. There is in the intellectual world, as in the material, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy.
The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of Infidels. Political rights have been preserved by traitors—the liberty of the mind by heretics. To attack the king was treason—to dispute the priest was blasphemy. The sword and cross were allies. They defended each other. The throne and altar were twins—vultures from the same egg.
It was James I. who said: "No bishop, no king." He might have said: "No cross, no crown."
The king owned the bodies, and the priest the souls, of men. One lived on taxes, the other on alms. One was a robber, the other a beggar, and each was both.
These robbers and beggars controlled two worlds. The king made laws, the priest made creeds. With bowed backs the people received the burdens of the one, and with wonder's open mouth the dogmas of the other. If any aspired to be free they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a Herod who slaughtered the children of the brain. The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both.
The king said to the people: "God made you peasants, and he made me king. He made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. Such is the justice of God." And the priest said: "God made you ignorant and vile. He made me holy and wise. If you do not obey me, God will punish you here and torment you hereafter. Such is the mercy of God."
Infidels are intellectual discoverers. They sail the unknown seas and find new isles and continents in the infinite realms of thought.
An Infidel is one who has found a new fact, who has an idea of his own, and who in the mental sky has seen another star.
He is an intellectual capitalist, and for that reason excites the envy and hatred of the theological pauper.
The Origin of god and Heaven, Of the Devil and Hell.
IN the estimation of good orthodox Christians I am a criminal, because I am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a belief in an eternity of grief and pain. I want to tear, break, and scatter to the winds the God that priests erected in the fields of innocent pleasure—a God made of sticks called creeds, and of old clothes called myths. I shall endeavor to take from the coffin its horror, from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by an infinite fiend.
Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of Hell?
Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal goaler hardens, debases, and pollutes even the vilest soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no good being can be perfectly happy.
Against the heartlessness of the Christian religion every grand and tender soul should enter solemn protest. The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved—cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell—in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.
The idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. This idea testifies that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves, only from mouths filled with cruel fangs, only from hearts of fear and hatred, only from the conscience of hunger and lust, only from the lowest and most debased could come this most cruel, heartless and bestial of all dogmas.
Our barbarian ancestors knew but little of nature. They were too astonished to investigate. They could not divest themselves of the idea that everything happened with reference to them; that they caused storms and earthquakes; that they brought the tempest and the whirlwind; that on account of something they had done, or omitted to do, the lightning of vengeance leaped from the darkened sky. They made up their minds that at least two vast and powerful beings presided over this world; that one was good and the other bad; that both of these beings wished to get control of the souls of men; that they were relentless enemies, eternal foes; that both welcomed recruits and hated deserters; that both demanded praise and worship; that one offered rewards in this world, and the other in the next. The Devil has paid cash—God buys on credit.
Man saw cruelty and mercy in nature, because he imagined that phenomena were produced to punish or to reward him. When his poor hut was torn and broken by the wind, he thought it a punishment. When some town or city was swept away by flood or sea, he imagined that the crimes of the inhabitants had been avenged. When the land was filled with plenty, when the seasons were kind, he thought that he had pleased the tyrant of the skies.
It must be remembered that both gods and devils were supposed to be presided over by the greatest God and the greatest Devil. The God could give infinite rewards and could inflict infinite torments. The Devil could assist man here; could give him wealth and place in this world, in consideration of owning his soul hereafter. Each human soul was a prize contended for by these deities. Of course this God and this Devil had innumerable spirits at their command, to execute their decrees. The God lived in heaven and the Devil in hell. Both were mon-archs and were infinitely jealous of each other. The priests pretended to be the agents and recruiting sergeants of this God, and they were duly authorized to promise and threaten in his name; they had power to forgive and curse. These priests sought to govern the world by force and fear. Believing that men could be frightened into obedience, they magnified the tortures and terrors of perdition. Believing also that man could in part be influenced by the hope of reward, they magnified the joys of heaven. In other words, they promised eternal joy and threatened everlasting pain. Most of these priests, born of the ignorance of the time, believed what they taught. They proved that God was good by sunlight and harvest, by health and happiness; that he was angry, by disease and death. Man, according to this doctrine, was led astray by the Devil, who delighted only in evil. It was supposed that God demanded worship; that he loved to be flattered; that he delighted in sacrifice; that nothing made him happier than to see ignorant faith upon its knees; that above all things he hated and despised doubters and heretics, and that he regarded all investigation as rebellion.
Now and then believers in these ideas, those who had gained great reputation for learning and sanctity, or had enjoyed great power, wrote books, and these books after a time were considered sacred. Most of them were written to frighten mankind, and were filled with threatenings and curses for unbelievers and promises for the faithful. The more frightful the curses, the more extravagant the promises, the more sacred the books were considered. All of the gods were cruel and vindictive, unforgiving and relentless, and the devils were substantially the same.
It was also believed that certain things must be accepted as true, no matter whether they were reasonable or not; that it was pleasing to God to believe a certain creed, especially if it happened to be the creed of the majority. Each community felt it a duty to see that the enemies of God were converted or killed. To allow a heretic to live in peace was to invite the wrath of God. Every public evil—every misfortune—was accounted for by something the community had permitted or done. When epidemics appeared, brought by ignorance and welcomed by filth, the heretic was brought out and sacrificed to appease the vengeance of God. From the knowledge they had—from their premises—they reasoned well. They said, if God will inflict such frightful torments upon us here, simply for allowing a few heretics to live, what will he do with the heretics? Of course the heretics would be punished forever. They knew how cruel was the barbarian king when he had the traitor in his power. They had seen every horror that man could inflict on man. Of course a God could do more than a king. He could punish forever. The fires he would kindle never could be quenched. The torments he would inflict would be eternal. They thought the amount of punishment would be measured only by the power of God.
These ideas were not only prevalent in what are called barbarous times, but they are received by the religious world of to-day.
No death could be conceived more horrible than that produced by flames. To these flames they added eternity, and hell was produced. They exhausted the idea of personal torture.
By putting intention behind what man called good, God was produced. By putting intention behind what man called bad, the Devil was created. Leave this "intention" out, and gods and devils fade away.
If not a human being existed the sun would continue to shine, and tempests now and then would devastate the world; the rain would fall in pleasant showers, and the bow of promise would adorn the cloud; violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the sun, and the earthquake would devour; birds would sing, and daisies bloom, and roses blush, and the volcanoes would fill the heavens with their lurid glare; the procession of the seasons would not be broken, and the stars would shine just as serenely as though the world was filled with loving hearts and happy homes. But in the olden time man thought otherwise. He imagined that he was of great importance. Barbarians are always egotistic. They think that the stars are watching them; that the sun shines on their account; that the rain falls for them, and that gods and devils are really troubling themselves about their poor and ignorant souls.
In those days men fought for their God as they did for their king. They killed the enemies of both. For this their king would reward them here, and their God hereafter. With them it was loyalty to destroy the disloyal. They did not regard God as a vague "spirit," nor as an "essence" without body or parts, but as a being, a person, an infinite man, a king, the monarch of the universe, who had garments of glory for believers and robes of flame for the heretic and infidel.
Do not imagine that this doctrine of hell belongs to Christianity alone. Nearly all religions have had this dogma for a corner-stone. Upon this burning foundation nearly all have built. Over the abyss of pain rose the glittering dome of pleasure. This world was regarded as one of trial. Here a God of infinite wisdom experimented with man. Between the outstretched paws of the Infinite the mouse, man, was allowed to play. Here man had the opportunity of hearing priests and kneeling in temples. Here he could read and hear read the sacred books. Here he could have the example of the pious and the counsels of the holy. Here he could build churches and cathedrals. Here he could burn incense, fast, wear haircloth, deny himself all the pleasures of life, confess to priests, count beads, be miserable one day in seven, make creeds, construct instruments of torture, bow before pictures and images, eat little square pieces of bread, sprinkle water on the heads of babes, shut his eyes and say words to the clouds, and slander and defame all who have the courage to despise superstition, and the goodness to tell their honest thoughts. After death, nothing could be done to make him better. When he should come into the presence of God, nothing was left except to damn him. Priests might convert him here, but God could do nothing there,—all of which shows how much more a priest can do for a soul than its creator; how much more potent is the example of your average Christian than that of all the angels, and how much superior earth is to heaven for the moral development of the soul. In heaven the Devil is not allowed to enter. There all are pure and perfect, yet they cannot influence a soul for good.
Only here, on the earth, where the Devil is constantly active, only where his agents attack every soul, is there the slightest hope of moral improvement.
Strange! that a world cursed by God, filled with temptations and thick with fiends, should be the only place where hope exists, the only place where man can repent, the only place where reform is possible! Strange! that heaven, filled with angels and presided over by God, is the only place where reformation is utterly impossible! Yet these are the teachings of all the believers in the eternity of punishment.
Masters frightened slaves with the threat of hell, and slaves got a kind of shadowy revenge by whispering back the threat. The poor have damned the rich and the rich the poor. The imprisoned imagined a hell for their gaolers; the weak built this place for the strong; the arrogant for their rivals; the vanquished for their victors; the priest for the thinker, religion for reason, superstition for science.
All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed and bore fruit in this one word—Hell.
For the nourishment of this dogma cruelty was soil, ignorance was rain, and fear was light.
Christians have placed upon the throne of the universe a God of eternal hate. I cannot worship a being whose vengeance is boundless, whose cruelty is shoreless, and whose malice is increased by the agonies he inflicts.
THE APPEAL TO THE CEMETERY.
WHOEVER attacks a custom or a creed, will be confronted with a list of the names of the dead who upheld the custom, or believed the creed. He is asked in a very triumphant and sneering way, if he knows more than all the great and honored of the past Every defender of a creed has graven upon his memory the names of all "great" men whose actions or words can be tortured into evidence for his doctrine. The church is always anxious to have some king or president certify to the moral character of Christ, the authority of the Scriptures, and the justice of the Jewish God. Of late years, confessions of gentlemen about to be hanged have been considered of great value, and the scaffold is regarded as a means of grace.
All the churches of our day seek the rich. They are no longer the friends and defenders of the poor. Poverty no longer feels at home in the house of God. In the Temple of the Most High, garments out of fashion are considered out of place. People now, before confessing to God what worthless souls they have, enrich their bodies. Now words of penitence mingle with the rustle of silk, and light thrown from diamonds adorns the repentant tear. We are told that the rich, the fortunate, the holders of place and office, the fashionable, the respectable, are all within the churches. And yet all these people grow eloquent over the poverty of Christ—boast that he was born in a manger—that the Holy Ghost passed by all the ladies of titled wealth and fashion and selected the wife of a poor and unknown mechanic for the Mother of God.
They admit that all the men of Jerusalem who held high positions—all the people of wealth, influence and power—were the enemies of the Savior and held his pretensions in contempt. They admit that he had influence only with the poor, and that he was so utterly unknown—so indigent in acquaintance, that it was necessary to bribe one of his disciples to point him out to the police. They assert that he had done a great number of miracles—had cured the sick, and raised the dead—that he had preached to vast multitudes—had made a kind of triumphal entry into Jerusalem—had scourged from the temple the changers of money—had disputed with the doctors—and yet, notwithstanding all these things, he remained in the very depths of obscurity. Surely he and his disciples could have been met with the argument that the "great" dead were opposed to the new religion.
The apostles, it is claimed, preached the doctrines of Christ in Rome and Athens, and the people of those cities could have used the arguments against Christianity that Christians now use in its support. They could have asked the apostles if they were wiser than all the philosophers, poets, orators, and statesmen dead—if they knew more, coming as they did from a weak and barbarous nation, than the greatest men produced by the highest civilization of the known world. With what scorn would the Greeks listen to a barbarian's criticisms upon Socrates and Plato. How a Roman would laugh to hear a vagrant Hebrew attack a mythology that had been believed by Cato and Virgil.
Every new religion has to overcome this argument of the cemetery—this logic of the grave. Old ideas take shelter behind a barricade of corpses and tombstones. They have epitaphs for battle-cries, and malign the living in the name of the dead. The moment, however, that a new religion succeeds, it becomes the old religion and uses the same argument against a new idea that it once so gallantly refuted. The arguments used to-day against what they are pleased to call infidelity would have shut the mouth of every religious reformer, from Christ to the founder of the last sect. The general objection to the new is, that it differs somewhat from the old, and the fact that it does differ is urged as an argument against its truth.
Every man is forced to admit that he does not agree with all the great men, living or dead. The average Catholic, if not a priest, as a rule will admit that Sir Isaac Newton was in some things his superior, that Demosthenes had the advantage of him in expressing his ideas in public, and that as a sculptor he is far below the unknown man of whose hand and brain was born the Venus de Milo, but he will not, on account of these admissions, change his views upon the important question of transubstantiation.
Most Protestants will cheerfully admit that they are inferior in brain and genius to some men who have lived and died in the Catholic Church; that in the matter of preaching funeral sermons they do not pretend to equal Bossuet; that their letters are not so interesting and polished as those of Pascal; that Torquemada excelled them in the genius of organization, and that for planning a massacre they would not for a moment dispute the palm with Catherine de Medici.
And yet, after all these admissions, they would insist that the Pope is an unblushing impostor, and that the Catholic Church is a vampire fattened by the best blood of a thousand years.
The truth is, that in favor of almost every sect, the names of some great men can be pronounced. In almost every church there have been men whose only weakness was their religion, and who in other directions achieved distinction. If you call men great because they were emperors, kings, noblemen, statesmen, millionaires—because they commanded vast armies and wielded great influence in their day, then more names can be found to support and prop the Church of Rome than any other Christian sect.
Is Protestantism willing to rest its claims upon the "great man" argument? Give me the ideas, the religions, not that have been advanced and believed by the so-called great of the past, but that will be defended and believed by the great souls of the future.
It gives me pleasure to say that Lord Bacon was a great man; but I do not for that reason abandon the Copernican system of astronomy, and insist that the earth is stationary. Samuel Johnson was an excellent writer of latinized English, but I am confident that he never saw a real ghost. Matthew Hale was a reasonably good judge of law, but he was mistaken about witches causing children to vomit crooked pins. John Wesley was quite a man, in a kind of religious way, but in this country few people sympathize with his hatred of republican government, or with his contempt for the Revolutionary Fathers. Sir Isaac Newton, in the domain of science, was the colossus of his time, but his commentary on the book of Revelation would hardly excite envy, even in the breast of a Spurgeon or a Talmage. Upon many questions, the opinions of Napoleon were of great value, and yet about his bed, when dying, he wanted to see burning the holy candles of Rome. John Calvin has been called a logician, and reasoned well from his premises, but the burning of Servetus did not make murder a virtue. Luther weakened somewhat the power of the Catholic Church, and to that extent was a reformer, and yet Lord Brougham affirmed that his "Table Talk" was so obscene that no respectable English publisher would soil paper with a translation. He was a kind of religious Rabelais; and yet a man can defend Luther in his attack upon the church without justifying his obscenity. If every man in the Catholic Church was a good man, that would not convince me that Ignatius Loyola ever met and conversed with the Virgin Mary. The fact is, very few men are right in everything. Great virtues may draw attention from defects, but they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem. No one should attempt to refute an argument by pronouncing the name of some man, unless he is willing to adopt all the ideas and beliefs of that man. It is better to give reasons and facts than names. An argument should not depend for its force upon the name of its author. Facts need no pedigree; logic has no heraldry, and the living should not be awed by the mistakes of the dead.
The greatest men the world has produced have known but little. They had a few facts, mingled with mistakes without number. In some departments they towered above their fellows, while in others they fell below the common level of mankind.
Daniel Webster had great respect for the Scriptures, but very little for the claims of his creditors. Most men are strangely inconsistent. Two propositions were introduced into the Confederate Congress by the same man. One was to hoist the black flag, and the other was to prevent carrying the mails on Sunday. George Whitefield defended the slave trade, because it brought the negroes within the sound of the gospel, and gave them the advantage of associating with the gentlemen who stole them. And yet this same Whitefield believed and taught the dogma of predestination. Volumes might be written upon the follies and imbecilities of great men. A full rounded man—a man of sterling sense and natural logic—is just as rare as a great painter, poet, or sculptor. If you tell your friend that he is not a painter, that he has no genius for poetry, he will probably admit the truth of what you say, without feeling that he has been insulted in the least. But if you tell him that he is not a logician, that he has but little idea of the value of a fact, that he has no real conception of what evidence is, and that he never had an original thought in his life, he will cut your acquaintance. Thousands of men are most wonderful in mechanics, in trade, in certain professions, keen in business, knowing well the men among whom they live, and yet satisfied with religions infinitely stupid, with politics perfectly senseless, and they will believe that wonderful things were common long ago, such things as no amount of evidence could convince them had happened in their day. A man may be a successful merchant, lawyer, doctor, mechanic, statesman, or theologian without one particle of originality, and almost without the ability to think logically upon any subject whatever. Other men display in some directions the most marvelous intellectual power, astonish mankind with their grasp and vigor, and at the same time, upon religious subjects drool and drivel like David at the gates of Gath.
SACRED BOOKS.
WE have found, at last, that other nations have sacred books much older than our own, and that these books and records were and are substantiated by traditions and monuments, by miracles and martyrs, christs and apostles, as well as by prophecies fulfilled. In all of these nations differences of opinion as to the authenticity and meaning of these books arose from time to time, precisely as they have done and still do with us, and upon these differences were founded sects that manufactured creeds. These sects denounced each other, and preached with the sword and endeavored to convince with the fagot. Our theologians were greatly astonished to find in other bibles the same stories, precepts, laws, customs and commands that adorn and stain our own. At first they accounted for this, by saying that these books were in part copies of the Jewish Scriptures, mingled with barbaric myths. To such an extent did they impose upon and insult probability, that they declared that all the morality of the world, all laws commanding right and prohibiting wrong, all ideas respecting the unity of a Supreme Being, were borrowed from the Jews, who obtained them directly from God. The Christian world asserts with warmth, not always born of candor, that the Bible is the source, origin, and fountain of law, liberty, love, charity, and justice; that it is the intellectual and moral sun of the world; that it alone gives happiness here, and alone points out the way to joy hereafter; that it contains the only revelation from the Infinite; that all others are the work of dishonest and mistaken men. They say these things in spite of the fact that the Jewish nation was one of the weakest and most barbaric of the past; in spite of the fact that the civilization of Egypt and India had commenced to wane before that of Palestine existed. To account for all the morality contained in the sacred books of the Hindus, by saying that it was borrowed from the wanderers in the Desert of Sinai, from the escaped slaves of the Egyptians, taxes to the utmost the credulity of ignorance, bigotry, and zeal.
The men who make these assertions are not superior to other men. They have only the facts common to all, and they must admit that these facts do not force the same conclusions upon all. They must admit that men equally honest, equally well informed as themselves, deny their premises and conclusions. They must admit that had they been born and educated in some other country, they would have had a different religion, and would have regarded with reverence and awe the books they now hold as false and foolish. Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the titlepage and preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged. There is the same evidence in favor of the inspiration of the Koran and Bible. Both are substantiated in exactly the same way. It is just as wicked and unreasonable to be a heretic in Constantinople as in New York. To deny the claims of Christ and Mohammed is alike blasphemous. It all depends upon where you are when you make the denial. No religion has ever fallen that carried with it down to dumb death a solitary fact. Mistakes moulder with the temples in which they were taught, and countless superstitions sleep with their dead priests.
Yet Christians insist that the religions of all nations that have fallen from wealth and power were false, with of course the solitary exception of the Jewish, simply because the nations teaching them dropped from their dying hands the swords of power. This argument drawn from the fate of nations proves no more than would one based upon the history of persons. With nations as with individuals, the struggle for life is perpetual, and the law of the survival of the fittest applies equally to both.
It may be that the fabric of our civilization will crumbling fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and even memory forgets. Perhaps the blind Samson of some imprisoned force, released by thoughtless chance, may so wreck and strand the world that man, in stress and strain of want and fear, will shudderingly crawl back to savage and barbaric night. The time may come in which this thrilled and throbbing earth, shorn of all life, will in its soundless orbit wheel a barren star, on which the light will fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love upon the cold, pathetic face of death.
FEAR.
'T'HERE is a view quite prevalent, that in some way you can prove whether the theories defended or advanced by a man are right or not, by showing what kind of man he was, what kind of life he lived, and what manner of death he died.
A man entertains certain opinions; he is persecuted. He refuses to change his mind; he is burned, and in the midst of flames cries out that he dies without change. Hundreds then say that he has sealed his testimony with his blood, and his doctrines must be true.
All the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to establish the correctness of an opinion. Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr,—never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves. Truth cannot be affected by opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. An error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth.
No Christian will admit that any amount of heroism displayed by a Mormon is sufficient to prove that Joseph Smith was divinely inspired. All the courage and culture, all the poetry and art of ancient Greece, do not even tend to establish the truth of any myth.
The testimony of the dying concerning some other world, or in regard to the supernatural, cannot be any better, to say the least, than that of the living. In the early days of Christianity a serene and intrepid death was regarded as a testimony in favor of the church. At that time Pagans were being converted to Christianity—were throwing Jupiter away and taking the Hebrew God instead. In the moment of death many of these converts, without doubt, retraced their steps and died in the faith of their ancestors. But whenever one died clinging to the cross of the new religion, this was seized upon as an evidence of the truth of the gospel. After a time the Christians taught that an unbeliever, one who spoke or wrote against their doctrines, could not meet death with composure—that the infidel in his last moments would necessarily be a prey to the serpent of remorse. For more than a thousand years they have made the "facts" to fit this theory. Crimes against men have been considered as nothing when compared with a denial of the truth of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, or the existence of God.
According to the theologians, God has always acted in this way. As long as men did nothing except to render their fellows wretched; as long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, God maintained the strictest and most heartless neutrality; but when some honest man, some great and tender soul expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scriptures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.
There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed—no truthful account in all the literature of the world of the innocent being shielded by God. Thousands of crimes are committed every day—men are this moment lying in wait for their human prey—wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and death—little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring, tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers—sweet girls are deceived, lured, and outraged, but God has no time to prevent these things—no time to defend the good and to protect the pure. He is too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows.
He listens for blasphemy; looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal registers; watches professors in colleges who begin to doubt the geology of Moses and the astronomy of Joshua. He does not particularly object to stealing if you won't swear. A great many persons have fallen dead in the act of taking God's name in vain, but millions of men, women, and children have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of burden, but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of God.
All kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. As a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The man who has succeeded in making his home a hell, meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ, or the eternal "procession" of the Holy Ghost. The king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint.
The Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta, and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice to decide whether Jesus Christ was a man or the Son of God. The council decided that Christ was consubstantial with the Father. This was in the year 325. We are thus indebted to a wife-murderer for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior. Theodosius called a council at Constantinople in 381, and this council decided that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father. Theodosius, the younger, assembled another council at Ephesus to ascertain who the Virgin Mary really was, and it was solemnly decided in the year 431 that she was the Mother of God. In 451 it was decided by a council held at Chalcedon, called together by the Emperor Marcian, that Christ had two natures—the human and divine. In 680, in another general council, held at Constantinople, convened by order of Pognatius, it was also decided that Christ had two wills, and in the year 1274 it was decided at the Council of Lyons, that the Holy Ghost proceeded not only from the Father, but from the Son as well. Had it not been for these councils, we might have been without a Trinity even unto this day. When we take into consideration the fact that a belief in the Trinity is absolutely essential to salvation, how unfortunate it was for the world that this doctrine was not established until the year 1274. Think of the millions that dropped into hell while these questions were being discussed.
This, however, is a digression. Let us go back to Constantine. This Emperor, stained with every crime, is supposed to have died like a Christian. We hear nothing of fiends leering at him in the shadows of death. He does not see the forms of his murdered wife and son covered with the blood he shed. From his white and shrivelled lips issued no shrieks of terror. He does not cover his glazed eyes with thin and trembling hands to shut out the visions of hell. His chamber is filled with the rustle of wings—of wings waiting to bear his soul to the thrilling realms of joy.
Against the Emperor Constantine the church has hurled no anathema. She has accepted the story of his vision in the clouds, and his holy memory has been guarded by priest and pope. All the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who burned their brothers in the name of Christ rest in consecrated ground. Whole libraries could not contain even the names of the wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defence of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and no priest or minister describes the agony and fear, the remorse and horror, with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of their lives. These men had never doubted—they accepted the creed—they were not infidels—they had not denied the divinity of Christ—they had been baptized—they had partaken of the Last Supper—they had respected priests—they admitted that the Holy Ghost had "proceeded," and these things put pillows beneath their dying heads, and covered them with the drapery of peace.
Now and then, in the history of this world, a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty has appeared. These men have denounced the superstitions of their day. They pitied the multitude. To see priests devour the substance of the people filled them with indignation. These men were honest enough to tell their thoughts. Then they were denounced, tried, condemned, executed. Some of them escaped the fury of the people who loved their enemies, and died naturally in their beds.
It would not do for the church to admit that they died peacefully. That would show that religion was not actually necessary in the last moment. Religion got much of its power from the terror of death.
THE DEATH TEST.
YOU had better live well and die wicked.
You had better live well and die cursing than live badly and die praying.
It would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the Bible, refuse to look at the cross, contend that Christ was only a man, and yet die as calmly as Calvin did after he had murdered Servetus, or as did King David after advising one son to kill another.
The church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all infidels (that Christians did not succeed in burning) were infinitely wretched and despairing. It was alleged that words could not paint the horrors that were endured by a dying infidel. Every good Christian was expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts. They have been told and retold in every pulpit of the world. Protestant ministers have repeated the inventions of Catholic priests, and Catholics, by a kind of theological comity, have sworn to the falsehoods told by Protestants. Upon this point they have always stood together, and will as long as the same calumny can be used by both.
Upon the death-bed subject the clergy grow eloquent. When describing the shudderings and shrieks of the dying unbeliever, their eyes glitter with delight.
It is a festival.
They are no longer men. They become hyenas. They dig open graves. They devour the reputations of the dead.
It is a banquet.
Unsatisfied still, they paint the terrors of hell. They gaze at the souls of the infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies. They see them in flames—in oceans of fire—in gulfs of pain—in abysses of despair. They shout with joy. They applaud.
It is an auto da fe, presided over by God and his angels.
The men they thus describe were not atheists; they were all believers in God, in special providence, and in the immortality of the soul. They believed in the accountability of man—in the practice of virtue, in justice, and liberty, but they did not believe in that collection of follies and fables called the Bible.
In order to show that an infidel must die overwhelmed with remorse and fear, they have generally selected from all the "unbelievers" since the day of Christ five men—the Emperor Julian, Spinoza, Voltaire, Diderot, David Hume, and Thomas Paine.
Hardly a minister in the United States has attempted to "answer" me without referring to the death of one or more of these men.
In vain have these calumniators of the dead been called upon to prove their statements. In vain have rewards been offered to any priestly maligner to bring forward the evidence.
Let us once for all dispose of these slanders—of these pious calumnies.
JULIAN.
THEY say that the Emperor Julian was an apostate that he was once a Christian; that he fell from grace, and that in his last moments, throwing some of his own blood into the air, he cried out to Jesus Christ, "Galilean, thou hast conquered!"
It must be remembered that the Christians had persecuted and imprisoned this very Julian; that they had exiled him; that they had threatened him with death. Many of his relatives were murdered by the Christians. He became emperor, and Christians conspired to take his life. The conspirators were discovered and they were pardoned. He did what he could to prevent the Christians from destroying each other. He held pomp and pride and luxury in contempt, and led his army on foot, sharing the privations of the meanest soldier.
Upon ascending the throne he published an edict proclaiming universal religious toleration. He was then a Pagan. It is claimed by some that he never did entirely forget his Christian education. In this I am inclined to think there is some truth, because he revoked his edict of toleration, and for a time was nearly as unjust as though he had been a saint. He was emperor one year and seven months. In a battle with the Persians he was mortally wounded. "Brought back to his tent, and feeling that he had but a short time to live, he spent his last hours in discoursing with his friends on the immortality of the soul. He reviewed his reign and declared that he was satisfied with his conduct, and had neither penitence nor remorse to express for anything that he had done." His last words were: "I submit willingly to the eternal decrees of heaven, convinced that he who is captivated with life, when his last hour has arrived is more weak and pusillanimous than he who would rush to voluntary death when it is his duty still to live."
When we remember that a Christian emperor murdered Julian's father and most of his kindred, and that he narrowly escaped the same fate, we can hardly blame him for having a little prejudice against a church whose members were fierce, ignorant, and bloody—whose priests were hypocrites, and whose bishops were assassins. If Julian had said he was a Christian—no matter what he actually was, he would have satisfied the church.
The story that the dying emperor acknowledged that he was conquered by the Galilean was originated by some of the so-called Fathers of the Church, probably by Gregory or Theodoret. They are the same wretches who said that Julian sacrificed a woman to the moon, tearing out her entrails with his own hands. We are also informed by these hypocrites that he endeavored to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, and that fire came out of the earth and consumed the laborers employed in the sacrilegious undertaking.
I did not suppose that an intelligent man could be found in the world who believed this childish fable, and yet in the January number for 1880, of the Princeton Review, the Rev. Stuart Robinson (whoever he may be) distinctly certifies to the truth of this story. He says: "Throughout the entire era of the planting of the Christian Church, the gospel preached was assailed not only by the malignant fanaticism of the Jew and the violence of Roman statecraft, but also by the intellectual weapons of philosophers, wits, and poets. Now Celsus denounced the new religion as base imposture. Now Tacitus described it as but another phase of the odium generis humani. Now Julian proposed to bring into contempt the prophetic claims of its founder by the practical test of rebuilding the Temple." Here then in the year of grace 1880 is a Presbyterian preacher, who really believes that Julian tried to rebuild the Temple, and that God caused fire to issue from the earth and consume the innocent workmen.
All these stories rest upon the same foundation—the mendacity of priests.
Julian changed the religion of the Empire, and diverted the revenues of the church. Whoever steps between a priest and his salary, will find that he has committed every crime. No matter how often the slanders may be refuted, they will be repeated until the last priest has lost his body and found his wings. These falsehoods about Julian were invented some fifteen hundred years ago, and they are repeated to-day by just as honest and just as respectable people as those who told them at first. Whenever the church cannot answer the arguments of an opponent, she attacks his character. She resorts to falsehood, and in the domain of calumny she has stood for fifteen hundred years without a rival.
The great Empire was crumbling to its fall. The literature of the world was being destroyed by priests. The gods and goddesses were driven from the earth and sky. The paintings were torn and defaced. The statues were broken. The walls were left desolate, and the niches empty. Art, like Rachel, wept for her children, and would not be comforted. The streams and forests were deserted by the children of the imagination, and the whole earth was barren, poor and mean.
Christian ignorance, bigotry and hatred, in blind unreasoning zeal, had destroyed the treasures of our race. Art was abhorred, Knowledge was despised, Reason was an outcast. The sun was blotted from the intellectual heaven, every star extinguished, and there fell upon the world that shadow—that midnight,—known as "The Dark Ages."
This night lasted for a thousand years.
The First Great Star—Herald of the Dawn—was Bruno.
BRUNO.
THE night of the Middle Ages lasted for a thousand years. The first star that enriched the horizon of this universal gloom was Giordano Bruno. He was the herald of the dawn.
He was born in 1550, was educated for a priest, became a Dominican friar. At last his reason revolted against the doctrine of transubstantiation. He could not believe that the entire Trinity was in a wafer, or in a swallow of wine. He could not believe that a man could devour the Creator of the universe by eating a piece of bread. This led him to investigate other dogmas of the Catholic Church, and in every direction he found the same contradictions and impossibilities supported, not by reason, but by faith.
Those who loved their enemies threatened his life. He was obliged to flee from his native land, and he became a vagabond in nearly every nation of Europe. He declared that he fought, not what priests believed, but what they pretended to believe. He was driven from his native country because of his astronomical opinions. He had lost confidence in the Bible as a scientific work. He was in danger because he had discovered a truth.
He fled to England. He gave some lectures at Oxford. He found that institution controlled by priests. He found that they were teaching nothing of importance—only the impossible and the hurtful. He called Oxford "the widow of true learning." There were in England, at that time, two men who knew more than the rest of the world. Shakespeare was then alive.
Bruno was driven from England. He was regarded as a dangerous man,—he had opinions, he inquired after reasons, he expressed confidence in facts. He fled to France. He was not allowed to remain in that country. He discussed things—that was enough. The church said, "move on." He went to Germany. He was not a believer—he was an investigator. The Germans wanted believers; they regarded the whole Christian system as settled; they wanted witnesses; they wanted men who would assert. So he was driven from Germany.
He returned at last to his native land. He found himself without friends, because he had been true, not only to himself, but to the human race. But the world was false to him because he refused to crucify the Christ of his own soul between the two thieves of hypocrisy and bigotry. He was arrested for teaching that there are other worlds than this; that many of the stars are suns, around which other worlds revolve; that Nature did not exhaust all her energies on this grain of sand called the earth. He believed in a plurality of worlds, in the rotation of this, in the heliocentric theory. For these crimes, and for these alone, he was imprisoned for six years. He was kept in solitary confinement. He was allowed no books, no friends, no visitors. He was denied pen and paper. In the darkness, in the loneliness, he had time to examine the great questions of origin, of existence, of destiny. He put to the test what is called the goodness of God. He found that he could neither depend upon man nor upon any deity. At last, the Inquisition demanded him. He was tried, condemned, excommunicated and sentenced to be burned. According to Professor Draper, he believed that this world is animated by an intelligent soul—the cause of forms, but not of matter; that it lives in all things, even in such as seem not to live; that everything is ready to become organized; that matter is the mother of forms, and then their grave; that matter and the soul of things, together, constitute God. He was a pantheist—that is to say, an atheist. He was a lover of Nature,—a reaction from the asceticism of the church. He was tired of the gloom of the monastery. He loved the fields, the woods, the streams. He said to his brother-priests: Come out of your cells, out of your dungeons: come into the air and light.
Throw away your beads and your crosses. Gather flowers; mingle with your fellow-men; have wives and children; scatter the seeds of joy; throw away the thorns and nettles of your creeds; enjoy the perpetual miracle of life.
On the sixteenth day of February, in the year of grace 1600, by "the triumphant beast," the Church of Rome, this philosopher, this great and splendid man, was burned. He was offered his liberty if he would recant. There was no God to be offended by his recantation, and yet, as an apostle of what he believed to be the truth, he refused this offer. To those who passed the sentence upon him he said: "It is with greater fear that ye pass this sentence upon me than I receive it." This man, greater than any naturalist of his day; grander than the martyr of any religion, died willingly in defence of what he believed to be the sacred truth. He was great enough to know that real religion will not destroy the joy of life on earth; great enough to know that investigation is not a crime—that the really useful is not hidden in the mysteries of faith. He knew that the Jewish records were below the level of the Greek and Roman myths; that there is no such thing as special providence; that prayer is useless; that liberty and necessity are the same, and that good and evil are but relative.
He was the first real martyr,—neither frightened by perdition, nor bribed by heaven. He was the first of all the world who died for truth without expectation of reward. He did not anticipate a crown of glory. His imagination had not peopled the heavens with angels waiting for his soul. He had not been promised an eternity of joy if he stood firm, nor had he been threatened with the fires of hell if he wavered and recanted. He expected as his reward an eternal nothing! Death was to him an everlasting end—nothing beyond but a sleep without a dream, a night without a star, without a dawn—nothing but extinction, blank, utter, and eternal. No crown, no palm, no "well done, good and faithful servant," no shout of welcome, no song of praise, no smile of God, no kiss of Christ, no mansion in the fair skies—not even a grave within the earth—nothing but ashes, wind-blown and priest-scattered, mixed with earth and trampled beneath the feet of men and beasts.
The murder of this man will never be completely and perfectly avenged until from Rome shall be swept every vestige of priest and pope, until over the shapeless ruin of St. Peter's, the crumbled Vatican and the fallen cross, shall rise a monument to Bruno,—the thinker, philosopher, philanthropist, atheist, martyr.
THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF VOLTAIRE.
WHEN Voltaire was born, the natural was about the only thing in which the church did not believe. The monks sold little amulets of consecrated paper. They would cure diseases. If laid in a cradle they would prevent a child being bewitched. So, they could be put into houses and barns to keep devils away, or buried in a field to prevent bad weather, to delay frost, and to insure good crops. There was a regular formulary by which they were made, ending with a prayer, after which the amulets were sprinkled with holy water. The church contended that its servants were the only legitimate physicians. The priests cured in the name of the church, and in the name of God, by exorcism, relics, water, salt, and oil. St. Valentine cured epilepsy, St. Gervasius was good for rheumatism, St. Michael de Sanatis for cancer, St. Judas for coughs, St. Ovidius for deafness, St. Sebastian for poisonous bites, St. Apollonia for toothache, St. Clara for rheum in the eye, St. Hubert for hydrophobia. Devils were driven out with wax tapers, with incense, with holy water, by pronouncing prayers. The church, as late as the middle of the twelfth century, prohibited good Catholics from having anything to do with physicians.
It was believed that the devils produced storms of wind, of rain and of fire from heaven; that the atmosphere was a battlefield between angels and devils; that Lucifer had power to destroy fields and vineyards and dwellings, and the principal business of the church was to protect the people from the Devil. This was the origin of church bells. These bells were sprinkled with holy water, and their clangor cleared the air of imps and fiends. The bells also prevented storms and lightning. The church used to anathematize insects. In the sixteenth century, regular suits were commenced against rats, and judgment was rendered. Every monastery had its master magician, who sold magic incense, salt, and tapers, consecrated palms and relics.
Every science was regarded as an outcast, an enemy. Every fact held the creed of the church in scorn. Investigators were enemies in disguise. Thinkers were traitors, and the church exerted its vast power for centuries to prevent the intellectual progress of man. There was no liberty, no education, no philosophy, no science; nothing but credulity, ignorance, and superstition. The world was really under the control of Satan and his agents. The church, for the purpose of increasing her power, exhausted every means to convince the people of the existence of witches, devils, and fiends. In this way the church had every enemy within her power. She simply had to charge him with being a wizard, of holding communication with devils, and the ignorant mob were ready to tear him to pieces.
To such an extent was this frightful course pursued, and such was the prevalence of the belief in the supernatural, that the worship of the devil was absolutely established. The poor people, brutalized by the church, filled with fear of Satanic influence, finding that the church did not protect, as a last resort began to worship the Devil. The power of the Devil was proven by the Bible. The history of Job, the temptation of Christ in the desert, the carrying of Christ to the top of the temple, and hundreds of other instances, were relied upon as establishing his power; and when people laughed about witches riding upon anointed sticks in the air, invisible, they were reminded of a like voyage when the Devil carried Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple.
This frightful doctrine filled every friend with suspicion of his friend. It the husband denounce the wife, the children the parents, and the parents the children It destroyed all the sweet relations of humanity. It did away with justice in the courts. It destroyed the charity of religion. It broke the bond of friendship. It filled with poison the golden cup of life. It turned earth into a very hell, peopled with ignorant, tyrannical, and malicious demons.
Such was the result of a few centuries of Christianity. Such was the result of a belief in the supernatural. Such was the result of giving up the evidence of our own senses, and relying upon dreams, visions, and fears. Such was the result of destroying human reason, of depending upon the supernatural, of living here for another world instead of for this, of depending upon priests instead of upon ourselves. The Protestants vied with the Catholics. Luther stood side by side with the priests he had deserted, in promoting this belief in devils and fiends. To the Catholic, every Protestant was possessed by a devil. To the Protestant, every Catholic was the homestead of a fiend. All order, all regular succession of causes and effects, were known no more. The natural ceased to exist. The learned and the ignorant were on a level. The priest had been caught in the net spread for the peasant, and Christendom was a vast madhouse, with insane priests for keepers.
VOLTAIRE
WHEN Voltaire was born, the church ruled and owned France. It was a period of almost universal corruption. The priests were mostly libertines. The judges were nearly as cruel as venal. The royal palace was simply a house of assignation. The nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant, and cruel to the last degree. The common people were treated as beasts. It took the church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of things.
The seeds of the revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every noble and by every priest. They germinated in the hearts of the helpless. They were watered by the tears of agony. Blows began to bear interest. There was a faint longing for blood. Workmen, blackened by the sun, bent by labor, looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought about cutting them.
In those days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture. The church was the arsenal of superstition. Miracles, relics, angels and devils were as common as rags. Voltaire laughed at the evidences, attacked the pretended facts, held the Bible up to ridicule, and filled Europe with indignant protests against the cruelty, bigotry, and injustice of the time.
He was a believer in God, and in some ingenious way excused this God for allowing the Catholic Church to exist. He had an idea that, originally, mankind were believers in one God, and practiced all the virtues. Of course this was a mistake. He imagined that the church had corrupted the human race. In this he was right.
It may be that, at one time, the church relatively stood for progress, but when it gained power, it became an obstruction. The system of Voltaire was contradictory. He described a being of infinite goodness, who not only destroyed his children with pestilence and famine, but allowed them to destroy each other. While rejecting the God of the Bible, he accepted another God, who, to say the least, allowed the innocent to be burned for love of him.
Voltaire hated tyranny, and loved liberty. His arguments to prove the existence of a God were just as groundless as those of the reverend fathers of his day to prove the divinity of Christ, or that Mary was the mother of God. The theologians of his time maligned and feared him. He regarded them as a spider does flies. He spread nets for them. They were caught, and he devoured them for the amusement and benefit of the public. He was educated by the Jesuits, and sometimes acted like one.
It is fashionable to say that he was not profound, This is because he was not stupid. In the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was called irreverent. He thought God would not damn even a priest forever: this was regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored to prevent Christians from murdering each other and did what he could to civilize the disciples of Christ. Had he founded a sect, obtained control of some country, and burned a few heretics at slow fires, he would have won the admiration, respect and love of the Christian world. Had he only pretended to believe all the fables of antiquity, had he mumbled Latin prayers, counted beads, crossed himself, devoured the flesh of God, and carried fagots to the feet of philosophy in the name of Christ, he might have been in heaven this moment, enjoying a sight of the damned.
Instead of doing these things, he willfully closed his eyes to the light of the gospel, examined the Bible for himself, advocated intellectual liberty, struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant faith, assisted the weak, cried out against the torture of man, appealed to reason, endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored the indigent, and defended the oppressed.
These were his crimes. Such a man God would not suffer to die in peace. If allowed to meet death with a smile, others might follow his example, until none would be left to light the holy fires of the auto da fe. It would not do for so great, so successful an enemy of the church, to die without leaving some shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer of chattered horror, uttered by lips covered with blood and foam.
He was an old man of eighty-four. He had been surrounded with the comforts of life; he was a man of wealth, of genius. Among the literary men of the world he stood first. God had allowed him to have the appearance of success. His last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery. He stood at the summit of his age.
The priests became anxious. They began to fear that God would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of Voltaire.
Toward the last of May, 1778, it was whispered in Paris that Voltaire was dying. Upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey.
"Two days before his death, his nephew went to seek the curé of Saint Sulpice and the Abbé Gautier and brought them into his uncle's sick chamber, who was informed that they were there. 'Ah, well!' said Voltaire, 'give them my compliments and my thanks.' The Abbé spoke some words to him, exhorting him to patience. The curé of Saint Sulpice then came forward, having announced himself, and asked of Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The sick man pushed one of his hands against the curé's coif, shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, 'Let me die in peace.' The curé seemingly considered his person soiled, and his coif dishonored, by the touch of the philosopher. He made the nurse give him a little brushing, and went out with the Abbé Gautier."
He expired, says Wagniere, on the 30th of May, 1778, at about a quarter past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. Ten minutes before his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his valet de chambre, who was watching by him, pressed it and said: "Adieu, my dear Morand, I am gone." These were his last words.
From this death, so simple and serene, so natural and peaceful; from these words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances, have been drawn and made. From these materials, and from these alone, have been constructed all the shameless lies about The death of this great and wonderful man, compared with whom all of his calumniators, dead and living, were and are but dust and vermin.
Voltaire was the intellectual autocrat of his time. From his throne at the foot of the Alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Europe. He was the pioneer of his century. He was the assassin of superstition. He left the quiver of ridicule without an arrow. Through the shadows of faith and fable, through the darkness of myth and miracle, through the midnight of Christianity, through the blackness of bigotry, past cathedral and dungeon, past rack and stake, past altar and throne, he carried, with chivalric hands, the sacred torch of reason.
DIDEROT. DOUBT IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD TRUTH.
DIDEROT was born in 1713. His parents were in what may be called the humbler walks of life. Like Voltaire he was educated by the Jesuits. He had in him something of the vagabond, and was for several years almost a beggar in Paris. He was endeavoring to live by his pen. In that day and generation, a man without a patron, endeavoring to live by literature, was necessarily almost a beggar. He nearly starved—frequently going for days without food. Afterward, when he had something himself, he was as generous as the air. No man ever was more willing to give, and no man less willing to receive, than Diderot.
He wrote upon all conceivable subjects, that he might have bread. He even wrote sermons, and regretted it all his life. He and D'Alembert were the life and soul of the Encyclopaedia. With infinite enthusiasm he helped to gather the knowledge of the world for the use of each and all. He harvested the fields of thought, separated the grain from the straw and chaff, and endeavored to throw away the seeds and fruit of superstition. His motto was, "Incredulity is the first step towards philosophy."
He had the vices of most Christians—was nearly as immoral as the majority of priests. His vices he shared in common, his virtues were his own. All who knew him united in saying that he had the pity of a woman, the generosity of a prince, the self-denial of an anchorite, the courage of Cæsar, and the enthusiasm of a poet. He attacked with every power of his mind the superstition of his day. He said what he thought. The priests hated him. He was in favor of universal education—the church despised it. He wished to put the knowledge of the whole world within reach of the poorest.
He wished to drive from the gate of the Garden of Eden the cherubim of superstition, so that the child of Adam might return to eat once more the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Every Catholic was his enemy. His poor little desk was ransacked by the police searching for manuscripts in which something might be found that would justify the imprisonment of such a dangerous man. Whoever, in 1750, wished to increase the knowledge of mankind was regarded as the enemy of social order.
The intellectual superstructure of France rests upon the Encyclopaedia. The knowledge given to the people was the impulse, the commencement, of the revolution that left the church without an altar and the king without a throne. Diderot thought for himself, and bravely gave his thoughts to others. For this reason he was regarded as a criminal. He did not expect his reward in another world. He did not do what he did to please some imaginary God. He labored for mankind. He wished to lighten the burdens of those who should live after him. Hear these noble words:
"The more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the future, the greater he will be, and all these philosophers and ministers and truth-telling men who have fallen victims to the stupidity of nations, the atrocities of priests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left for them in death? This: That prejudice would pass, and that posterity would pour out the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. O Posterity! Holy and sacred stay of the unhappy and the oppressed; thou who art just, thou who art incorruptible, thou who findest the good man, who unmaskest the hypocrite, who breakest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy consoling faith never, never abandon me!" Posterity is for the philosopher what the other world is for the devotee.
Diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true Christ was guilty of suicide. Having the power to defend himself he should have used it.
Of course it would not do for the church to allow a man to die in peace who had added to the intellectual wealth of the world. The moment Diderot was dead, Catholic priests began painting and recounting the horrors of his expiring moments. They described him as overcome with remorse, as insane with fear; and these falsehoods have been repeated by the Protestant world, and will probably be repeated by thousands of ministers after we are dead. The truth is, he had passed his three-score years and ten. He had lived for seventy-one years. He had eaten his supper. He had been conversing with his wife. He was reclining in his easy chair. His mind was at perfect rest. He had entered, without knowing it, the twilight of his last day. Above the horizon was the evening star, telling of sleep. The room grew still and the stillness was lulled by the murmur of the street. There were a few moments of perfect peace. The wife said, "He is asleep." She enjoyed his repose, and breathed softly that he might not be disturbed. The moments wore on, and still he slept. Lovingly, softly, at last she touched him. Yes, he was asleep. He had become a part of the eternal silence.
DAVID HUME.
THE worst religion of the world was the Presbyterianism of Scotland as it existed in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Kirk had all the faults of the Church of Rome without a redeeming feature. The Kirk hated music, painting, statuary, and architecture. Anything touched with humanity—with the dimples of joy—was detested and accursed. God was to be feared—not loved.
Life was a long battle with the Devil. Every desire was of Satan. Happiness was a snare, and human love was wicked, weak and vain. The Presbyterian priest of Scotland was as cruel, bigoted and heartless as the familiar of the Inquisition.
One case will tell it all:
In the beginning of this, the nineteenth century, a boy seventeen years of age, Thomas Aikenhead, was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for blasphemy. He had denied the inspiration of the Bible. He had on several occasions, when cold, jocularly wished himself in hell that he might get warm. The poor, frightened boy recanted—begged for mercy; but he was found guilty, hanged, thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold, and his weeping mother vainly begged that his bruised and bleeding body might be given to her.
This one case, multiplied again and again, gives you the condition of Scotland when, on the 26th of April, 1711, David Hume was born.
David Hume was one of the few Scotchmen of his day who were not owned by the church. He had the manliness to examine historical and religious questions for himself, and the courage to give his conclusions to the world. He was singularly capable of governing himself. He was a philosopher, and lived a calm and cheerful life, unstained by an unjust act, free from all excess, and devoted in a reasonable degree to benefiting his fellow-men. After examining the Bible he became convinced that it was not true. For failing to suppress his real opinion, for failing to tell a deliberate falsehood, he brought upon himself the hatred of the church.
Intellectual honesty is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and whether God will forgive this sin or not his church has not, and never will.
Hume took the ground that a miracle could not be used as evidence until the fact that it had happened was established. But how can a miracle be established? Take any miracle recorded in the Bible, and how could it be established now? You may say: Upon the testimony of those who wrote the account. Who were they? No one knows. How could you prove the resurrection of Lazarus? Or of the widow's son? How could you substantiate, today, the ascension of Jesus Christ? In what way could you prove that the river Jordan was divided upon being struck by the coat of a prophet? How is it possible now to establish the fact that the fires of a furnace refused to burn three men? Where are the witnesses? Who, upon the whole earth, has the slightest knowledge upon this subject?
He insisted that at the bottom of all good was the useful; that human happiness was an end worth working and living for; that origin and destiny were alike unknown; that the best religion was to live temperately and to deal justly with our fellow-men; that the dogma of inspiration was absurd, and that an honest man had nothing to fear. Of course the Kirk hated him. He laughed at the creed.
To the lot of Hume fell ease, respect, success, and honor. While many disciples of God were the sport and prey of misfortune, he kept steadily advancing.
Envious Christians bided their time. They waited as patiently as possible for the horrors of death to fall upon the heart and brain of David Hume. They knew that all the furies would be there, and that God would get his revenge.
Adam Smith, author of the "Wealth of Nations," speaking of Hume in his last sickness, says that in the presence of death "his cheerfulness was so great, and his conversation and amusements ran so much in the usual strain, that, notwithstanding all his bad symptoms, many people could not believe he was dying. A few days before his death Hume said: 'I am dying as fast as my enemies—if I have any—could wish, and as easily and tranquilly as my best friends could desire.'"
Col. Edmondstoune shortly afterward wrote Hume a letter, of which the following is an extract:
"My heart is full. I could not see you this morning. I thought it was better for us both. You cannot die—you must live in the memory of your friends and acquaintances; and your works will render you immortal. I cannot conceive that it was possible for any one to dislike you, or hate you. He must be more than savage who could be an enemy to a man with the best head and heart and the most amiable manners."
Adam Smith happened to go into his room while he was reading the above letter, which he immediately showed him. Smith said to Hume that he was sensible of how much he was weakening, and that appearances were in many respects bad; yet, that his cheerfulness was so great and the spirit of life still seemed to be so strong in him, that he could not keep from entertaining some hopes.
Hume answered, "When I lie down in the evening I feel myself weaker than when I arose in the morning; and when I rise in the morning, weaker than when I lay down in the evening. I am sensible, besides, that some of my vital parts are affected so that I must soon die."
"Well," said Mr. Smith, "if it must be so, you have at least the satisfaction of leaving all your friends, and the members of your brother's family in particular, in great prosperity."
He replied that he was so sensible of his situation that when he was reading Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that fitted him. He had no house to finish; he had no daughter to provide for; he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself; "and I could not well," said he, "imagine what excuse I could make to Charon in order to obtain a little delay. I have done everything of consequence which I ever meant to do, and I could, at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave them; and I have, therefore, every reason to die contented."
"Upon further consideration," said he, "I thought I might say to him, 'Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me a little time that I may see how the public receives the alterations.' 'But,' Charon would answer, 'when you have seen the effect of this, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end to such excuses; so, my honest friend, please step into the boat.' 'But,' I might still urge, 'have a little patience, good Charon; I have been endeavoring to open the eyes of the public; if I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition.' And Charon would then lose all temper and decency, and would cry out, 'You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a time? Get into the boat this instant.'"
To the Comtesse de Boufflers, the dying man, with the perfect serenity that springs from an honest and loving life, writes:
"I see death approach gradually without any anxiety or regret.... I salute you with great affection and regard, for the last time."
On the 25th of August, 1776, the philosopher, the historian, the infidel, the honest man, and a benefactor of his race, in the composure born of a noble life, passed quietly and panglessly away.
Dr. Black wrote the following account of his death:
"Monday, 26 August, 1776.
"Dear Sir: Yesterday, about four o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Hume expired. The near approach of his death became evident on the evening between Thursday and Friday, when his disease became exhaustive, and soon weakened him so much that he could no longer rise from his bed. He continued to the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feeling of distress. He never dropped the smallest expression of impatience; but when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it with affection and tenderness.... When he became very weak, it cost him an effort to speak, and he died in such happy composure of mind that nothing could exceed it."
Dr. Cullen writes Dr. Hunter on the 17th of September, 1776, from which the following extracts are made:
"You desire an account of Mr. Hume's last days, and I give it to you with great pleasure.... It was truly an example des grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant; and to me, who have been so often shocked with the horrors of superstition, the reflection on such a death is truly agreeable. For many weeks before his death he was very sensible of his gradual decay; and his answer to inquiries after his health was, several times, that he was going as fast as his enemies could wish, and as easily as his friends could desire. He passed most of the time in his drawing-room, admitting the visits of his friends, and with his usual spirit conversed with them upon literature and politics and whatever else was started. In conversation he seemed to be perfectly at ease; and to the last abounded with that pleasantry and those curious and entertaining anecdotes which ever distinguished him.... His senses and judgment did not fail him to the last hour of his life. He constantly discovered a strong sensibility of the attention and care of his friends; and midst great uneasiness and languor never betrayed any peevishness or impatience." (Here follows the conversation with Charon.) "These are a few particulars which may, perhaps, appear trivial; but to me, no particulars seem trivial which relate to so great a man. It is perhaps from trifles that we can best distinguish the tranquilness and cheerfulness of the philosopher at a time when the most part of mankind are under disquiet, and sometimes even horror. I consider the sacrifice of the cock as a more certain evidence of the tranquillity of Socrates than his discourse on immortality."
The Christians took it for granted that this serene and placid man died filled with remorse for having given his real opinions, and proceeded to describe, with every incident and detail of horror, the terrors of his last moments. Brainless clergymen, incapable of understanding what Hume had written, knowing only in a general way that he had held their creeds in contempt, answered his arguments by maligning his character.
Christians took it for granted that he died in horror and recounted the terrible scenes.
When the facts of his death became generally known to intelligent men, the ministers redoubled their efforts to maintain the old calumnies, and most of them are in this employment even unto this day. Finding it impossible to tell enough falsehoods to hide the truth, a few of the more intelligent among the priests admitted that Hume not only died without showing any particular fear, but was guilty of unbecoming levity. The first charge was that he died like a coward; the next that he did not care enough, and went through the shadowy doors of the dread unknown with a smile upon his lips. The dying smile of David Hume scandalized the believers in a God of love. They felt shocked to see a man dying without fear who denied the miracles of the Bible; who had spent a life investigating the opinions of men; in endeavoring to prove to the world that the right way is the best way; that happiness is a real and substantial good, and that virtue is not a termagant with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes.
Christians hated to admit that a philosopher had died serenely without the aid of superstition—one who had taught that man could not make God happy by making himself miserable, and that a useful life, after all, was the best possible religion. They imagined that death would fill such a man with remorse and terror. He had never persecuted his fellow-men for the honor of God, and must needs die in despair. They were mistaken.
He died as he had lived. Like a peaceful river with green and shaded banks he passed, without a murmur, into that waveless sea where life at last is rest.
BENEDICT SPINOZA.
ONE of the greatest thinkers was Benedict Spinoza, a Jew, born at Amsterdam, in 1632. He studied medicine and afterward theology. He endeavored to understand what he studied. In theology he necessarily failed. Theology is not intended to be understood,—it is only to be believed. It is an act, not of reason, but of faith. Spinoza put to the rabbis so many questions, and so persistently asked for reasons, that he became the most troublesome of students. When the rabbis found it impossible to answer the questions, they concluded to silence the questioner. He was tried, found guilty, and excommunicated from the synagogue.
By the terrible curse of the Jewish religion, he was made an outcast from every Jewish home. His father could not give him shelter. His mother could not give him bread—could not speak to him, without becoming an outcast herself. All the cruelty of Jehovah, all the infamy of the Old Testament, was in this curse. In the darkness of the synagogue the rabbis lighted their torches, and while pronouncing the curse, extinguished them in blood, imploring God that in like manner the soul of Benedict Spinoza might be extinguished.
Spinoza was but twenty-four years old when he found himself without kindred, without friends, surrounded only by enemies. He uttered no complaint.
He earned his bread with willing hands, and cheerfully divided his crust with those still poorer than himself.
He tried to solve the problem of existence. To him, the universe was One. The Infinite embraced the All. The All was God. According to his belief, the universe did not commence to be. It is; from eternity it was; to eternity it will be.
He was right. The universe is all there is, or was, or will be. It is both subject and object, contemplator and contemplated, creator and created, destroyer and destroyed, preserver and preserved, and hath within itself all causes, modes, motions and effects.
In this there is hope. This is a foundation and a star. The Infinite is the All. Without the All, the Infinite cannot be. I am something. Without me, the Infinite cannot exist.
Spinoza was a naturalist—that is to say, a pantheist. He took the ground that the supernatural is, and forever will be, an infinite impossibility. His propositions are luminous as stars, and each of his demonstrations is a Gibraltar, behind which logic sits and smiles at all the sophistries of superstition.
Spinoza has been hated because he has not been answered. He was a real republican. He regarded the people as the true and only source of political power. He put the state above the church, the people above the priest. He believed in the absolute liberty of worship, thought and speech. In every relation of life he was just, true, gentle, patient, modest and loving. He respected the rights of others, and endeavored to enjoy his own, and yet he brought upon himself the hatred of the Jewish and the Christian world. In his day, logic was blasphemy, and to think was the unpardonable sin. The priest hated the philosopher, revelation reviled reason, and faith was the sworn foe of every fact.
Spinoza was a philosopher, a philanthropist. He lived in a world of his own. He avoided men. His life was an intellectual solitude. He was a mental hermit. Only in his own brain he found the liberty he loved. And yet the rabbis and the priests, the ignorant zealot and the cruel bigot, feeling that this quiet, thoughtful, modest man was in some way forging weapons to be used against the church, hated him with all their hearts.
He did not retaliate. He found excuses for their acts. Their ignorance, their malice, their misguided and revengeful zeal excited only pity in his breast. He injured no man. He did not live on alms. He was poor—and yet, with the wealth of his brain, he enriched the world. On Sunday, February 21, 1677, Spinoza, one of the greatest and subtlest of metaphysicians—one of the noblest and purest of human beings,—at the age of forty-four, passed tranquilly away; and notwithstanding the curse of the synagogue under which he had lived and most lovingly labored, death left upon his lips the smile of perfect peace.
OUR INFIDELS.
IN our country there were three infidels—Paine, Franklin and Jefferson. The colonies were filled with superstition, the Puritans with the spirit of persecution. Laws savage, ignorant and malignant had been passed in every colony, for the purpose of destroying intellectual liberty. Mental freedom was absolutely unknown. The Toleration Acts of Maryland tolerated only Christians—not infidels, not thinkers, not investigators. The charity of Roger Williams was not extended to those who denied the Bible, or suspected the divinity of Christ. It was not based upon the rights of man, but upon the rights of believers, who differed in non-essential points.
The moment the colonies began to deny the rights of the king they suspected the power of the priest. In digging down to find an excuse for fighting George the Third, they unwittingly undermined the church. They went through the Revolution together. They found that all denominations fought equally well. They also found that persons without religion had patriotism and courage, and were willing to die that a new nation might be born. As a matter of fact the pulpit was not in hearty sympathy with our fathers. Many priests were imprisoned because they would not pray for the Continental Congress. After victory had enriched our standard, and it became necessary to make a constitution—to establish a government—the infidels—the men like Paine, like Jefferson, and like Franklin, saw that the church must be left out; that a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed could make no contract with a church pretending to derive its powers from an infinite God.
By the efforts of these infidels, the name of God was left out of the Constitution of the United States. They knew that if an infinite being was put in, no room would be left for the people. They knew that if any church was made the mistress of the state, that mistress, like all others, would corrupt, weaken, and destroy. Washington wished a church established by law in Virginia. He was prevented by Thomas Jefferson. It was only a little while ago that people were compelled to attend church by law in the Eastern States, and taxes were raised for the support of churches the same as for the construction of highways and bridges. The great principle enunciated in the Constitution has silently repealed most of these laws. In the presence of this great instrument, the constitutions of the States grew small and mean, and in a few years every law that puts a chain upon the mind, except in Delaware, will be repealed, and for these our children may thank the Infidels of 1776.
The church never has pretended that Jefferson or Franklin died in fear. Franklin wrote no books against the fables of the ancient Jews. He thought it useless to cast the pearls of thought before the swine of ignorance and fear. Jefferson was a statesman. He was the father of a great party. He gave his views in letters and to trusted friends. He was a Virginian, author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of a university, father of a political party, President of the United States, a statesman and philosopher. He was too powerful for the divided churches of his day. Paine was a foreigner, a citizen of the world. He had attacked Washington and the Bible. He had done these things openly, and what he had said could not be answered. His arguments were so good that his character was bad.
THOMAS PAINE
THOMAS PAINE was born in Thetford, England. He came from the common people. At the age of thirty-seven he left England for America. He was the first to perceive the destiny of the New World. He wrote the pamphlet "Common Sense," and in a few months the Continental Congress declared the colonies free and independent States—a new nation was born. Paine having aroused the spirit of independence, gave every energy of his soul to keep the spirit alive. He was with the army. He shared its defeats and its glory. When the situation became desperate, he gave them "The Crisis." It was a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and to victory.
The writings of Paine are gemmed with compact statements that carry conviction to the dullest. Day and night he labored for America, until there was a government of the people and for the people. At the close of the Revolution, no one stood higher than Thomas Paine. Had he been willing to live a hypocrite, he would have been respectable, he at least could have died surrounded by other hypocrites, and at his death there would have been an imposing funeral, with miles of carriages, filled with hypocrites, and above his hypocritical dust there would have been a hypocritical monument covered with lies.
Having done so much for man in America, he went to France. The seeds sown by the great infidels were bearing fruit in Europe. The eighteenth century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of progress. Upon his arrival in France he was elected a member of the French Convention—in fact, he was selected about the same time by the people of no less than four Departments. He was one of the committee to draft a constitution for France. In the Assembly, where nearly all were demanding the execution of the king, he had the courage to vote against death. To vote against the death of the king was to vote against his own life. This was the sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested, imprisoned, and doomed to death. While under sentence of death, while in the gloomy cell of his prison, Thomas Paine wrote to Washington, asking him to say one word to Robespierre in favor of the author of "Common Sense." Washington did not reply. He wrote again. Washington, the President, paid no attention to Thomas Paine, the prisoner. The letter was thrown into the wastebasket of forgetfulness, and Thomas Paine remained condemned to death. Afterward he gave his opinion of Washington at length, and I must say, that I have never found it in my heart to greatly blame him.
Thomas Paine, having done so much for political liberty, turned his attention to the superstitions of his age. He published "The Age of Reason;" and from that day to this, his character has been maligned by almost every priest in Christendom. He has been held up as the terrible example. Every man who has expressed an honest thought, has been warningly referred to Thomas Paine. All his services were forgotten. No kind word fell from any pulpit. His devotion to principle, his zeal for human rights, were no longer remembered. Paine simply took the ground that it is a contradiction to call a thing a revelation that comes to us second-hand. There can be no revelation beyond the first communication. All after that is hearsay. He also showed that the prophecies of the Old Testament had no relation whatever to Jesus Christ, and contended that Jesus Christ was simply a man. In other words, Paine was an enlightened Unitarian. Paine thought the Old Testament too barbarous to have been the work of an infinitely benevolent God. He attacked the doctrine that salvation depends upon belief. He insisted that every man has the right to think.
After the publication of these views every falsehood that malignity could coin and malice pass was given to the world. On his return to America, after the election to the presidency of another infidel, Thomas Jefferson, it was not safe for him to appear in the public streets. He was in danger of being mobbed. Under the very flag he had helped to put in heaven his rights were not respected. Under the Constitution that he had suggested, his life was insecure. He had helped to give liberty to more than three millions of his fellow-citizens, and they were willing to deny it unto him. He was deserted, ostracized, shunned, maligned, and cursed. He enjoyed the seclusion of a leper; but he maintained through it all his integrity. He stood by the convictions of his mind. Never for one moment did he hesitate or waver.
He died almost alone. The moment he died Christians commenced manufacturing horrors for his death-bed. They had his chamber filled with devils rattling chains, and these ancient lies are annually certified to by the respectable Christians of the present day. The truth is, he died as he had lived. Some ministers were impolite enough to visit him against his will. Several of them he ordered from his room. A couple of Catholic priests, in all the meekness of hypocrisy, called that they might enjoy the agonies of a dying friend of man. Thomas Paine, rising in his bed, the few embers of expiring life blown into flame by the breath of indignation, had the goodness to curse them both. His physician, who seems to have been a meddling fool, just as the cold hand of death was touching the patriot's heart, whispered in the dull ear of the dying man: "Do you believe, or do you wish to believe, that Jesus Christ is the son of God?" And the reply was: "I have no wish to believe on that subject."
These were the last remembered words of Thomas Paine. He died as serenely as ever Christian passed away. He died in the full possession of his mind, and on the very brink and edge of death proclaimed the doctrines of his life.
Every Christian, every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty, should feel under obligation to Thomas Paine for the splendid service rendered by him in the darkest days of the American Revolution. In the midnight of Valley Forge, "The Crisis" was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair. Every good man should remember with gratitude the brave words spoken by Thomas Paine in the French Convention against the death of Louis. He said: "We will kill the king, but not the man. We will destroy monarchy, not the monarch."
Thomas Paine was a champion, in both hemispheres, of human liberty; one of the founders and fathers of this Republic; one of the foremost men of his age. He never wrote a word in favor of injustice. He was a despiser of slavery. He abhorred tyranny in every form. He was, in the widest and best sense, a friend of all his race. His head was as clear as his heart was good, and he had the courage to speak his honest thought.
He was the first man to write these words: "The United States of America." He proposed the present Federal Constitution. He furnished every thought that now glitters in the Declaration of Independence.
He believed in one God and no more. He was a believer even in special providence, and he hoped for immortality.
How can the world abhor the man who said:
"I believe in the equality of man, and that religious duties consist in doing justice, in loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy."—
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself."—
"The word of God is the creation which we behold."—
"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."—
"My opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter."—
"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests."—
"I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life."—
"Man has no property in man"—and "The key of heaven is not in the keeping of any sect!"
Had it not been for Thomas Paine I could not deliver this lecture here to-night..
It is still fashionable to calumniate this man—and yet Channing, Theodore Parker, Longfellow, Emerson, and in fact all the liberal Unitarians and Universalists of the world have adopted the opinions of Thomas Paine.
Let us compare these Infidels with the Christians of their time:
Compare Julian with Constantine,—the murderer of his wife,—the murderer of his son,—and who established Christianity with the same sword he had wet with their blood. Compare him with all the Christian emperors—with all the robbers and murderers and thieves—the parricides and fratricides and matricides that ever wore the imperial purple on the banks of the Tiber or the shores of the Bosphorus.
Let us compare Bruno with the Christians who burned him; and we will compare Spinoza, Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Jefferson, Paine—with the men who it is claimed have been the visible representatives of God.
Let it be remembered that the popes have committed every crime of which human nature is capable, and that not one of them was the friend of intellectual liberty—that not one of them ever shed one ray of light.
Let us compare these Infidels with the founders of sectarian churches; you will see how narrow, how bigoted, how cruel were their founders, and how broad, how generous, how noble, were these infidels.
Let us be honest. The great effort of the human mind is to ascertain the order of facts by which we are surrounded—the history of things.
Who has accomplished the most in this direction—the church, or the unbelievers? Upon one side write all that the church has discovered—every phenomenon that has been explained by a creed, every new fact in Nature that has been discovered by a church, and on the other side write the discoveries of Humboldt, and the observations and demonstrations of Darwin!
Who has made Germany famous—her priests, or her scientists?
Goethe.
Kant: That immortal man who said: "Whoever thinks that he can please God in any way except by discharging his obligations to his fellows, is superstitious."
And that greatest and bravest of thinkers, Ernst
Haeckel.
Humboldt.
Italy:—Mazzini. Garibaldi.
In France who are and were the friends of freedom—the Catholic priests, or Renan? the bishops, or Gambetta?—Dupanloup, or Victor Hugo?
Michelet—Taine—Auguste Comte.
England:—Let us compare her priests with John Stuart Mill,—Harriet Martineau, that "free rover on the breezy common of the universe."—George Eliot—with Huxley and Tyndall, with Holyoake and Harrison—and above and over all—with Charles Darwin.
LET us be honest. Did all the priests of Rome increase the mental wealth of man as much as Bruno? Did all the priests of France do as great a work for the civilization of the world as Diderot and Voltaire? Did all the ministers of Scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as David Hume? Have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, from the day of Pentecost to the last election, done as much for human liberty as Thomas Paine?—as much for science as Charles Darwin?
What would the world be if infidels had never been?
The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be.
Why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellow-men should have been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended slavery, practiced polygamy, justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor are supposed to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the angels? Why should we think that the brave thinkers, the investigators, the honest men, must have left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear, while the instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the inventors and users of thumbscrews, of iron boots and racks; the burners and tearers of human flesh; the stealers, the whippers and the enslavers of men; the buyers and beaters of maidens, mothers, and babes; the founders of the Inquisition; the makers of chains; the builders of dungeons; the calumniators of the living; the slanderers of the dead, and even the murderers of Jesus Christ, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice, the apostles of humanity, the soldiers of liberty, the breakers of fetters, the creators of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of God?
THERE are two ways,—the natural and the supernatural.
One way is to live for the world we are in, to develop the brain by study and investigation, to take, by invention, advantage of the forces of nature, to the end that we may have good houses, raiment and food, to the end that the hunger of the mind may be fed through art and science.
The other way is to live for another world that we expect, to sacrifice this life that we have for another that we know not of. The other way is by prayer and ceremony to obtain the assistance, the protection of some phantom above the clouds.
One way is to think—to investigate, to observe, and follow the light of reason. The other way is to believe, to accept, to follow, to deny the authority of your own senses, your own reason, and bow down to those who are impudent enough to declare that they know.
One way is to live for the benefit of your fellow-men—for your wife and children—to make those you love happy and to shield them from the sorrows of life.
The other way is to live for ghosts, goblins, phantoms and gods with the hope that they will reward you in another world.
One way is to enthrone reason and rely on facts, the other to crown credulity and live on faith.
One way is to walk by the light within—by the flame that illumines the brain, verifying all by the senses—by touch and sight and sound.
The other way is to extinguish the sacred light and follow blindly the steps of another.
One way is to be an honest man, giving to others your thought, standing erect, intrepid, careless of phantoms and hells.
The other way is to cringe and crawl, to betray your nobler self, and to deprive others of the liberty that you have not the courage to enjoy.
Do not imagine that I hate the ones who have taken the wrong side and traveled the wrong road.
Our fathers did the best they could. They believed in the Supernatural, and they thought that sacrifices and prayer, fasting and weeping, would induce the Supernatural to give them sunshine, rain and harvest—long life in this world and eternal joy in another. To them, God was an absolute monarch, quick to take offence, sudden in anger, terrible in punishment, jealous, hateful to his enemies, generous to his favorites. They believed also in the existence of an evil God, almost the equal of the other God in strength, and a little superior in cunning. Between these two Gods was the soul of man like a mouse between two paws.
Both of these Gods inspired fear. Our fathers did not quite love God, nor quite hate the Devil, but they were afraid of both. They really wished to enjoy themselves with God in the next world and with the Devil in this. They believed that the course of Nature was affected by their conduct; that floods and storms, diseases, earthquakes and tempests were sent as punishments, and that all good phenomena were rewards.
Everything was under the direction and control of supernatural powers. The air, the darkness, were filled with angels and devils; witches and wizards planned and plotted against the pious—against the true believers. Eclipses were produced by the sins of the people, and the unusual was regarded as the miraculous. In the good old times Christendom was an insane asylum, and insane priests and prelates were the keepers. There was no science. The people did not investigate—did not think. They trembled and believed. Ignorance and superstition ruled the Christian world.
At last a few began to observe, to make records, and to think.
It was found that eclipses came at certain intervals, and that their coming could be foretold. This demonstrated that the actions of men had nothing to do with eclipses. A few began to suspect that earthquakes and storms had natural causes, and happened without the slightest reference to mankind.
Some began to doubt the existence of evil spirits, or the interference of good ones in the affairs of the world. Finding out something about astronomy, the great number of the stars, the certain and continuous motions of the planets, and the fact that many of them were vastly larger than the earth; ascertaining something about the earth, the slow development of forms, the growth and distribution of plants, the formation of islands and continents, the parts played by fire, water and air through countless centuries; the kinship of all life; fixing the earth's place in the constellation of the sun; by experiment and research discovering a few secrets of chemistry; by the invention of printing, and the preservation and dissemination of facts, theories and thoughts, they were enabled to break a few chains of superstition, to free themselves a little from the dominion of the supernatural, and to set their faces toward the light. Slowly the number of investigators and thinkers increased, slowly the real facts were gathered, the sciences began to appear, the old beliefs grew a little absurd, the supernatural retreated and ceased to interfere in the ordinary affairs of men.
Schools were founded, children were taught, books were printed and the thinkers increased. Day by day confidence lessened in the supernatural, and day by day men were more and more impressed with the idea that man must be his own protector, his own providence. From the mists and darkness of savagery and superstition emerged the dawn of the Natural. A sense of freedom took possession of the mind, and the soul began to dream of its power. On every side were invention and discovery, and bolder thought. The church began to regard the friends of science as its foes: Theologians resorted to chain and fagot—to mutilation and torture.
The thinkers were denounced as heretics and Atheists—as the minions of Satan and the defamers of Christ. All the ignorance, prejudice and malice of superstition were aroused and all united for the destruction of investigation and thought. For centuries this conflict was waged. Every outrage was perpetrated, every crime committed by the believers in the supernatural. But, in spite of all, the disciples of the Natural increased, and the power of the church waned. Now the intelligence of the world is on the side of the Natural. Still the conflict goes on—the supernatural constantly losing, and the Natural constantly gaining. In a few years the victory of science over superstition will be complete and universal.
So, there have been for many centuries two philosophies of life; one in favor of the destruction of the passions—the lessening of wants,—and absolute reliance on some higher power; the other, in favor of the reasonable gratification of the passions, the increase of wants, and their supply by industry, ingenuity and invention, and the reliance of man on his own efforts. Diogenes, Epictetus, Socrates to some extent, Buddha and Christ, all taught the first philosophy. All despised riches and luxury, all were the enemies of art and music, the despisers of good clothes and good food and good homes. They were the philosophers of poverty and rags, of huts and hovels, of ignorance and faith. They preached the glories of another world and the miseries of this. They derided the prosperous, the industrious, those who enjoyed life, and reserved heaven for beggars.
This philosophy is losing authority, and now most people are anxious to be happy here in this life. Most people want food and roof and raiment—books and pictures, luxury and leisure. They believe in developing the brain—in making servants and slaves of the forces of Nature.
Now the intelligent men of the world have cast aside the teachings, the philosophy of the ascetics. They no longer believe in the virtue of fasting and self-torture. They believe that happiness is the only good, and that the time to be happy is now—here, in this world. They no longer believe in the rewards and punishments of the supernatural. They believe in consequences, and that the consequences of bad actions are evil, and the consequences of good actions are good.
They believe that man by investigation, by reason, should find out the conditions of happiness, and then live and act in accordance with such conditions. They do not believe that earthquakes, or tempests, or volcanoes, or eclipses are caused by the conduct of men. They no longer believe in the supernatural. They do not regard themselves as the serfs, servants, or favorites of any celestial king. They feel that many evils can be avoided by knowledge, and for that reason they believe in the development of the brain. The schoolhouse is their church and the university their cathedral.
So, there have been for some centuries two theories of government,—one theological, the other secular.
The king received his power directly from God. It was the business of the people to obey. The priests received their creeds from God and it was the duty of the people to believe.
The theological government is growing somewhat unpopular. In England, Parliament has taken the place of God, and in the United States, government derives its powers from the consent of the governed.
Probably Emperor William is the only man in Germany who really believes that God placed him on the throne and will keep him there whether the German people are satisfied or not. Italy has retired the Catholic God from politics, France belongs to and is governed by the French, and even in Russia there are millions who hold the Czar and all his divine pretensions in contempt.
The theological governments are passing away and the secular are slowly taking their places. Man is growing greater and the Gods are becoming vague and indistinct. These "divine" governments rest on the fear and ignorance of the many, the cunning, the impudence and the mendacity of the few. A secular government is born of the intelligence, the honesty and the courage, not only of the few, but of the many.
We have found that man can govern himself without the assistance of priest or pope, of ghost or God. We have found that religion is not self-evident, and that to believe without evidence is not a praiseworthy action. We know that the self-evident is the square and compass of the brain, the polar star in the firmament of mind. And we know that no one denies the self-evident. We also know that there is no particular goodness in believing when the evidence is sufficient, and certainly there is' none in saying; that you believe when the evidence is insufficient.
The believers have not all been good. Some of the worst people in the whole world have been believers. The gentlemen who made Socrates drink hemlock were believers. The Jews who crucified Christ were believers in and worshipers of God. The devil believes in the Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and yet it does not seem to have affected his moral character. According to the Bible, he trembles, but he does not reform. At last we have concluded that we have a right to examine the religion of our fathers.
II.
ALL Christians know that all the gods, except Jehovah, were created by man; that they were, and are, false, foolish and monstrous; that all the heathen temples were built and all their altars erected in vain; that the sacrifices were wasted, that the priests were hypocrites, that their prayers were unanswered and that the poor people were deceived, robbed and enslaved. But after all, is our God superior to the gods of the heathen?
We can ask this question now because we are prosperous, and prosperity gives courage. If we should have a few earthquakes or a pestilence we might fall on our knees, shut our eyes and ask the forgiveness of God for ever having had a thought. We know that famine is the friend of faith and that calamity is the sunshine of superstition. But as we have no pestilence or famine, and as the crust of the earth is reasonably quiet, we can afford to examine into the real character of our God.
It must be admitted that the use of power is an excellent test of character.
Would a good God appeal to prejudice, the armor, fortress, sword and shield of ignorance? to credulity, the ring in the priest-led nose of stupidity? to fear, the capital stock of imposture, the lever of hypocrisy? Would a good God frighten or enlighten his children? Would a good God appeal to reason or ignorance, to justice or selfishness, to liberty or the lash?
To our first parents in the Garden of Eden, our God said nothing about the sacredness of love, nothing about children, nothing about education, about justice or liberty.
After they had violated his command he became ferocious as a wild beast. He cursed the earth and to Eve he said:—"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Thy husband shall rule over thee."
Our God made love the slave of pain, made wives serfs, and brutalized the firesides of the world.
Our God drowned the whole world, with the exception of eight people; made the earth one vast and shoreless sea covered with corpses.
Why did he cover the world with men, women and children knowing that he would destroy them?
Why did he not try to reform them? Why would he create people, knowing that they could not be reformed?
Is it possible that our God was intelligent and good?
After the flood our God selected the Jews and abandoned the rest of his children. He paid no attention to the Hindoos, neglected the Egyptians, ignored the Persians, forgot the Assyrians and failed to remember the Greeks. And yet he was the father of them all. For many centuries he was only a tribal God, protecting the few and despising the many. Our God was ignorant, knew nothing of astronomy or geology. He did not even know the shape of the earth, and thought the stars were only specks.
He knew nothing of disease. He thought that the blood of a bird that had been killed over running water was good medicine. He was revengeful and cruel, and assisted some of his children to butcher and destroy others. He commanded them to murder men, wives and children, and to keep alive the maidens and distribute them among his soldiers.
Our God established slavery—commanded men to buy their fellow-men, to make merchandise of wives and babes. Our God sanctioned polygamy and made wives the property of their husbands. Our God murdered the people for the crimes of kings.
No man of intelligence, no one whose brain has not been poisoned by superstition, paralyzed by fear, can read the Old Testament without being forced to the conclusion that our God was, a wild beast.
If we must have a god, let him be merciful. Let us remember that "the quality of mercy is not strained." Let us remember that when the sword of Justice becomes a staff to support the weak, it bursts into blossom, and that the perfume of that flower is the only incense, the only offering, the only sacrifice that mercy will accept.
III.
SO, there have been two theories about the cause and cure of disease. One is the theological, the other the scientific.
According to the theological idea, diseases were produced by evil spirits, by devils who entered into the bodies of people.
These devils could be cast out by prophets, inspired men and priests.
While Christ was upon earth his principal business was to cast out evil spirits.
For many centuries the priests followed his example, and during the Middle Ages millions of devils were driven from the bodies of men. Diseases were cured with little images of consecrated pewter, with pieces of paper, with crosses worn about the neck—by having plaster of Paris Virgins and clay Christs at the head of the bed, by touching the bones of dead saints, or pieces of the true cross, or one of the nails that was driven through the flesh of Christ, or a garment that had been worn by the Virgin Mary, or by sprinkling the breast with holy water, or saying prayers, or counting beads, or making the stations of the cross, or by going without meat, or wearing haircloth, or in some way torturing the body. All diseases were supposed to be of supernatural origin and all cures were of the same nature. Pestilences were stopped by processions, led by priests carrying the Host.
Nothing was known of natural causes and effects. Everything was miraculous and mysterious. The priests were cunning and the people credulous.
Slowly another theory as to the cause and cure of disease took possession of the mind. A few discarded the idea of devils, and took the ground that diseases were naturally produced, and that many of them could be cured by natural means.
At first the physician was exceedingly ignorant, but he knew more than the priest. Slowly but surely he pushed the priest from the bedside. Some people finally became intelligent enough to trust their bodies to the doctors, and remained ignorant enough to leave the care of their souls with the priests. Among civilized people the theological theory has been cast aside, and the miraculous, the supernatural, no longer has a place in medicine. In Catholic countries the peasants are still cured by images, prayers, holy water and the bones of saints, but when the priests are sick they send for a physician, and now even the Pope, God's agent, gives his sacred body to the care of a doctor.
The scientific has triumphed to a great extent over the theological.
No intelligent person now believes that devils inhabit the bodies of men. No intelligent person now believes that devils are trying to control the actions of men. No intelligent person now believes that devils exist.
And yet, at the present time, in the city of New York, Catholic priests are exhibiting a piece of one of the bones of Saint Anne, the supposed mother of the Virgin Mary. Some of these priests may be credulous imbeciles and some may be pious rogues. If they have any real intelligence they must know that there is no possible way of proving that the piece of bone ever belonged to Saint Anne. And if they have any real intelligence they must know that even the bones of Saint Anne were substantially like the bones of other people, made of substantially the same material, and that the medical and miraculous qualities of all human bones must be substantially the same. And yet these priests are obtaining from their credulous dupes thousands and thousands of dollars for the privilege of seeing this bone and kissing the box that contains the "sacred relic."
Archbishop Corrigan knows that no one knows who the mother of the Virgin Mary was, that no one knows about any of the bones of this unknown mother, knows that the whole thing is a theological fraud, knows that his priests, or priests under his jurisdiction, are obtaining money under false pretences. Cardinal Gibbons knows the same, but neither of these pious gentlemen has one word to say against this shameless crime. They are willing that priests for the benefit of the church should make merchandise of the hopes and fears of ignorant believers; willing that fraud that produces revenue should live and thrive.
This is the honesty of the theologian. If these gentlemen should be taken sick they would not touch the relic. They would send for a physician.
Let me tell you a Japanese story that is exactly in point:
An old monk was in charge of a monastery that had been built above the bones of a saint. These bones had the power to cure diseases and they were so placed that by thrusting the arm through an orifice they could be touched by the hand of the pilgrim. Many people, afflicted in many ways, came and touched these bones. Many thought they had been benefited or cured, and many in gratitude left large sums of money with the monk. One day the old monk addressed his assistant as follows: "My dear son, business has fallen off, and I can easily attend to all who come. You will have to find another place. I will give you the white donkey, a little money, and my blessing."
So the young man mounted upon the beast and went his way. In a few days his money was gone and the white donkey died. An idea took possession of the young man's mind. By the side of the road he buried the donkey, and then to every passer-by held out his hands and said in solemn tones: "I pray thee give me a little money to build a temple above the bones of the sinless one."
Such was his success that he built the temple, and then thousands came to touch the bones of the sinless one. The young man became rich, gave employment to many assistants and lived in the greatest luxury.
One day he made up his mind to visit his old master. Taking with him a large retinue of servants he started for the old home. When he reached the place the old monk was seated by the doorway. With great astonishment he looked at the young man and his retinue. The young man dismounted and made himself known, and the old monk cried: "Where hast thou been? Tell me, I pray thee, the story of thy success."
"Ah," the young man replied, "old age is stupid, but youth has thoughts. Wait until we are alone and I will tell you all."
So that night the young man told his story, told about the death and burial of the donkey, the begging of money to build a temple over the bones of the sinless one, and of the sums of money he had received for the cures the bones had wrought.
When he finished a satisfied smile crept over his pious face as he added: "Old age is stupid, but youth has thoughts."
"Be not so fast," said the old monk, as he placed his trembling hand on the head of his visitor, "Young man, this monastery in which your youth was passed, in which you have seen so many miracles performed, so many diseases cured, was built above the sacred bones of the mother of your little jackass."
IV.
THERE are two ways of accounting for the sacred books and religions of the world.
One is to say that the sacred books were written by inspired men, and that our religion was revealed to us by God.
The other is to say that all books have been written by men, without any aid from supernatural powers, and that all religions have been naturally produced.
We find that other races and peoples have sacred books and prophets, priests and Christs; we find too that their sacred books were written by men who had the prejudices and peculiarities of the race to which they belonged, and that they contain the mistakes and absurdities peculiar to the people who produced them.
Christians are perfectly satisfied that all the so-called sacred books, with the exception of the Old and New Testaments, were written by men, and that the claim of inspiration is perfectly absurd. So they believe that all religions, except Judaism and Christianity, were invented by men. The believers in other religions take the ground that their religion was revealed by God, and that all others, including Judaism and Christianity, were made by men. All are right and all are wrong. When they say that "other" religions were produced by men, they are right; when they say that their religion was revealed by God, they are wrong.
Now we know that all tribes and nations have had some kind of religion; that they have believed in the existence of good and evil beings, spirits or powers, that could be softened by gifts or prayer. Now we know that at the foundation of every religion, of all worship, is the pale and bloodless face of fear. Now we know that all religions and all sacred books have been naturally produced—all born of ignorance, fear and cunning.
Now we know that the gifts, sacrifices and prayers were all in vain; that no god received and that no god heard or answered.
A few years ago prayers decided the issue of battle, and priests, through their influence with God, could give the victory. Now no intelligent man expects any answer to prayer. He knows that nature pursues her course without reference to the wishes of men, that the clouds float, the winds blow, the rain falls and the sun shines without regard to the human race. Yet millions are still praying, still hoping that they can gain the protection of some god, that some being will guard them from accident and disease. Year after year the ministers make the same petitions, pray for the same things, and keep on in spite of the fact that nothing is accomplished.
Whenever good men do some noble thing the clergy give their God the credit, and when evil things are done they hold the men who did the evil responsible, and forget to blame their God.
Praying has become a business, a profession, a trade, A minister is never happier than when praying in public. Most of them are exceedingly familiar with their God. Knowing that he knows everything, they tell him the needs of the nation and the desires of the people, they advise him what to do and when to do it. They appeal to his pride, asking him to do certain things for his own glory. They often pray for the impossible. In the House of Representatives in Washington I once heard a chaplain pray for what he must have known was impossible. Without a change of countenance, without a smile, with a face solemn as a sepulchre, he said: "I pray thee, O God, to give Congress wisdom." It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.
The men of thought now know that all religions and all sacred books have been made by men; that no revelation has come from any being superior to nature; that all the prophecies were either false or made after the event; that no miracle ever was or ever will be performed; that no God wants the worship or the assistance of man; that no-prayer has ever coaxed one drop of rain from the sky, one ray of light from the sun; that no prayer has stayed the flood, or the tides of the sea, or folded the wings of the storm; that no prayer has given water to the cracked and bleeding lips of thirst, or food to the famishing; that no prayer has stopped the pestilence, stilled the earthquake or quieted the volcano; that no prayer has shielded the innocent, succored the oppressed, unlocked the dungeon's door, broke the chains of slaves, rescued the good and noble from the scaffold, or extinguished the fagot's flame.
The intelligent man now knows that we live in a natural world, that gods and devils and the sons of God are all phantoms, that our religion and our Deity are much like the religion and deities of other nations, and that the stone god of a savage answers prayer and protects his worshipers precisely the same, and to just the same extent, as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
V.
THERE are two theories about morals. One theory is that the moral man obeys the commands of a supposed God, without stopping to think whether the commands are right or wrong. He believes that the will of the God is the source and fountain of right. He thinks a thing is wrong because the God prohibits it, not that the God prohibits it because it is wrong. This theory calls not for thought, but for obedience. It does not appeal to reason, but to the fear of punishment, the hope of reward. God is a king whose will is law, and men are serfs and slaves.
Many contend that without a belief in the existence of God morality is impossible and that virtue would perish from the earth.
This absurd theory, with its "Thus saith the Lord" has been claimed to be independent of and superior to reason.
The other theory is that right and wrong exist in the nature of things; that certain actions preserve or increase the happiness of man, and that other actions cause sorrow and misery; that all those actions that cause happiness are moral, and that all others are evil, or indifferent. Right and wrong are not revelations from some supposed god, but have been discovered through the experience and intelligence of man. There is nothing miraculous or supernatural about morality. Neither has morality anything to do with another world, or with an infinite being. It applies to conduct here, and the effect of that conduct on ourselves and others determines its nature.
In this world people are obliged to supply their wants by labor. Industry is a necessity, and those who work are the natural enemies of those who steal.
It required no revelation from God to make larceny unpopular. Human beings naturally object to being injured, maimed, or killed, and so everywhere, and at all times, they have tried to protect themselves.
Men did not require a revelation from God to put in their minds the thought of self-preservation. To defend yourself when attacked is as natural as to eat when you are hungry.
To determine the quality of an action by showing that it is in accordance with, or contrary to the command of some supposed God, is superstition pure and simple. To test all actions by their consequences is scientific and in accord with reason.
According to the supernatural theory, natural consequences are not taken into consideration. Actions are wrong because they have been prohibited and right because they have been commanded. According to the Catholic Church, eating meat on Friday is a sin that deserves eternal punishment. And yet, in the nature of things, the consequences of eating meat on that day must be exactly the same as eating meat on any other. So, all the churches teach that unbelief is a crime, not in the nature of things, but by reason of the will of God.
Of course this is absurd and idiotic. If there be an infinite God he cannot make that wrong which in the nature of things is right. Neither can he make an action good the natural consequences of which are evil. Even an infinite God cannot change a fact. In spite of him the relation between the diameter and circumference of a circle would remain the same.
All the relations of things to things, of forces to forces, of acts to acts, of causes to effects in the domain of what is called matter, and in the realm of what is called mind, are just as certain, just as unchangeable as the relation between the diameter and circumference of a circle.
An infinite God could not make ingratitude a virtue any easier than he could make a square triangle.
So, the foundations of the moral and the immoral are in the nature of things—in the necessary relation between conduct and well-being, and an infinite God cannot change these foundations, and cannot increase or diminish the natural consequences of actions.
In this world there is neither chance nor caprice, neither magic nor miracle. Behind every event, every thought and dream, is the efficient, the natural and necessary cause.
The effort to make the will of a supposed God the foundation of morality, has filled the world with misery and crime, extinguished in millions of minds the light of reason, and in countless ways hindered and delayed the progress of our race.
Intelligent men now know, that if there be an infinite God, man cannot in any way increase or decrease the happiness of such a being. They know that man can only commit crimes against sentient beings who, to some extent at least, are within his power, and that a crime by a finite being against an infinite being is an infinite impossibility.
VI.
FOR many thousands of years man has believed in and sought for the impossible. In chemistry he has searched for a universal solvent, for some way in which to change the baser metals into gold. Even Lord Bacon was a believer in this absurdity. Thousands of men, during many centuries, in thousands of ways, sought to change the nature of lead and iron so that they might be transformed to gold. They had no conception of the real nature of things. They supposed that they had originally been created by a kind of magic, and could by the same kind of magic be changed into something else. They were all believers in the supernatural. So, in mechanics, men sought for the impossible. They were believers in perpetual motion and they tried to make machines that would through a combination of levers furnish the force that propelled them.
Thousands of ingenious men wasted their lives in the vain effort to produce machines that would in some wonderful way create a force. They did not know that force is eternal, that it can neither be created nor destroyed. They did not know that a machine having perpetual motion would necessarily be a universe within itself, or independent of this, and in which the force called friction would be necessarily changed, without loss, into the force that propelled,—the machine itself causing or creating the original force that put it in motion. And yet in spite of all the absurdities involved, for many centuries men, regarded by their fellows as intelligent and learned, tried to discover the great principle of "perpetual motion."
Our ancestors studied the stars because in them they thought it possible to learn the fate of nations, the life and destiny of the individual. Eclipses, wandering comets, the relations of certain stars were the forerunners or causes of prosperity or disaster, of the downfall or upbuilding of kingdoms. Astrology was believed to be a science, and those who studied the stars were consulted by warriors, statesmen and kings. The account of the star that led the wise men of the East to the infant Christ was written by a believer in astrology. It would be hard to overstate the time and talent wasted in the study of this so-called science. The men who believed in astrology thought that they lived in a supernatural world—a world in which causes and effects had no necessary connection with each other—in which all events were the result of magic and necromancy.
Even now, at the close of the nineteenth century, there are hundreds and hundreds of men who make their living by casting the horoscopes of idiots and imbeciles.
The "perpetual motion" of the mechanic, the universal solvent of the chemist, the changing of lead into gold, the foretelling events by the relations of stars were all born of the same ignorance of nature that caused the theologian to imagine an uncaused cause as the cause of all causes and effects.
The theologian insisted that there was something superior to nature, and that that something was the creator and preserver of nature.
Of course there is no more evidence of the existence of that "something" than there is of the philosopher's stone.
The mechanics who now believe in perpetual motion are insane, so are the chemists who seek to change one metal into another, so are the honest astrologers, and in a few more years the same can truthfully be said of the honest theologians.
Many of our ancestors believed in the existence of and sought for the Fountain of Perpetual Youth. They believed that an old man could stoop and drink from this fountain and that while he drank his gray hairs would slowly change, that the wrinkles would disappear, that his dim eyes would brighten and grow clear, his heart throb with manhood's force and rhythm, while in his pallid cheeks would burst into blossom the roses of health.
They were believers in the supernatural, the miraculous, and nothing seemed more probable than the impossible.
VII.
MOST people use names in place of arguments. They are satisfied to be disciples, followers of the illustrious dead. Each church, each party has a list of "great men," and they throw the names of these men at each other when discussing their dogmas and creeds.
Men prove the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ by the admissions of soldiers, statesmen and kings. And in the same way they establish the existence of heaven and hell. Dispute one of their dogmas and you will instantly be told that Isaac Newton or Matthew Hale was on the other side, and you will be asked whether you claim to be superior to Newton or Hale. In our own country the ministers, to establish their absurdities, quote the opinions of Webster and of other successful politicians as though such opinions were demonstrations.
Most Protestants will cheerfully admit that they are inferior in brain and genius to some men who have lived and died in the Catholic faith; that in the matter of preaching funeral sermons they are not equal to Bossuet; that their letters are not as interesting and polished as those written by Pascal; that Torquemada excelled them in the genius of organization, and that for planning a massacre they would not for a moment claim the palm from Catherine de Medici, and yet after these admissions, these same Protestants would insist that the Pope is an unblushing impostor, and the Catholic Church a vampire.
The so-called "great men" of the world have been mistaken in many things. Lord Bacon denied the Copernican system of astronomy and believed to the day of his death that the sun and stars journeyed about this little earth. Matthew Hale was a firm believer in the existence of witches and wizards. John Wesley believed that earthquakes were caused by sin and that they could be prevented by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. John Calvin regarded murder as one of the means to preserve the purity of the gospel. Martin Luther denounced Galileo as a fool because he was opposed to the astronomy of Moses. Webster was in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law and held the book of Job in high esteem. He wanted votes and he knelt to the South. He wanted votes and he flattered the church.
VIII.
VOLUMES might be written on the follies and imbecilities of "great" men.
Only a few years ago the really great men were persecuted, imprisoned or burned. In this way the church was enabled to keep the "great" men on her side.
As a matter of fact it is impossible to tell what the "great" men really thought. We only know what they said. These "great" men had families to support, they had a prejudice against prisons and objected to being burned, and it may be that they thought one way and talked another.
The priests said to these men: "Agree with the creed, talk on our side, or you will be persecuted to the death." Then the priests turned to the people and cried: "Hear what the great men say."
For a few years we have had something like liberty of speech and many men have told their thoughts. Now the theologians are not quite so apt to appeal to names as formerly. The really great are not on their side. The leaders of modern thought are not Christians. Now the unbelievers can repeat names—names that stand for intellectual triumphs. Humboldt, Helmholtz, Haeckel and Huxley, Darwin, Spencer and Tyndall and many others, stand for investigation, discovery, for vast achievements in the world of thought. These men were and are thinkers and they had and have the courage to express their thoughts. They were not and are not puppets of priests, or the trembling worshipers of ghosts.
For many years, most of the presidents of American colleges have been engaged in the pious work of trying to prevent the intellectual advancement of the race. To such an extent have they succeeded that none of their students have been or are great scientists.
For the purpose of bolstering their creed the orthodox do not now repeat the names of the living, their witnesses are in the cemetery. All the "great" Christians are dead.
To-day we want arguments, not names, reasons, not opinions. It is degrading to blindly follow a man, or a church. Nothing is nobler than to be governed by reason. To be vanquished by the truth is to be a victor. The man who follows is a slave. The man who thinks is free.
We must remember that most men have been controlled by their surroundings. Most of the intelligent men in Turkey are followers of Mahomet. They were rocked in the cradle of the Koran, they received their religious opinions as they did their features—from their parents. Their opinion on the subject of religion is of no possible value. The same may be said of the Christians of our country. Their belief is the result, not of thought, of investigation, but of surroundings.
All religions have been the result of ignorance, and the seeds were sown and planted in the long night of savagery.
In the decline of the Roman power, in the times when prosperity died, when commerce almost ceased, when the sceptre of authority fell from weak and nerveless hands, when arts were lost and the achievements of the past forgotten or unknown, then Christians came, and holding in contempt all earthly things, told their fellows of another world—of joy eternal beyond the clouds.
If learning had not been lost, if the people had been educated, if they had known the literature of Greece and Rome, if they had been familiar with the tragedies of �?schylus, Sophocles and Euripides, with the philosophy of Zeno and Epicurus, with the orations of Demosthenes; if they had known the works of art, the miracles of genius, the passions in marble, the dreams in stone; if they had known the history of Rome; if they had understood Lucretius, Cicero and Cæsar; if they had studied the laws, the decisions of the Prætors; if they had known the thoughts of all the mighty dead, there would have been no soil on which the seeds of Christian superstition could have taken root and grown.
But the early Christians hated art, and song, and joy. They slandered and maligned the human race, insisted that the world had been blighted by the curse of God, that this life should be used only in making preparation for the next, that education filled the mind with doubt, and science led the soul from God.
IX.
THERE are two ways. One is to live for God. That has been tried, and the result has always been the same. It was tried in Palestine many years ago and the people who tried it were not protected by their God. They were conquered, overwhelmed and exiled. They lost their country and were scattered over the earth. For many centuries they expected assistance from their God. They believed that they would be gathered together again, that their cities and temples and altars would be rebuilt, that they would again be the favorites of Jehovah, that with his help they would overcome their enemies and rule the world. Century by century the hope has grown weaker and weaker, until now it is regarded by the intelligent as a foolish dream.
Living for God was tried in Switzerland and it ended in slavery and torture. Every avenue that led to improvement, to progress, was closed. Only those in authority were allowed to express their thoughts. No one tried to increase the happiness of people in this world. Innocent pleasure was regarded as sin, laughter was suppressed, all natural joy despised, and love itself denounced as sin.
They amused themselves with fasting and prayer, hearing sermons, talking about endless pain, committing to memory the genealogies in the Old Testament, and now and then burning one of their fellow-men.
Living for God was tried in Scotland. The people became the serfs and slaves of the blessed Kirk. The ministers became petty tyrants. They poisoned the very springs of life. They interfered with every family, invaded the privacy of every home, sowed the seeds of superstition and fear, and filled the darkness with devils. They claimed to be divinely inspired, that they delivered the messages of God, that to deny their authority was blasphemy, and that all who refused to do their bidding would suffer eternal pain. Under their government Scotland was a land of sighing and sorrow, of grief and pain. The people were slaves.
Living for God was tried in New England. A government was formed in accordance with the Old Testament. The laws, for the most part, were petty and absurd, the penalties cruel and bloody to the last degree. Religious liberty was regarded as a crime, as an insult to God. Persons differing in belief from those in power, were persecuted, whipped, maimed and exiled. People supposed to be in league with the devil were imprisoned or killed. A theological government was established, ministers were the agents of God, they dictated the laws and fixed the penalties. Everything was under the supervision of the clergy. They had no pity, no mercy. With all their hearts they hated the natural. They promised happiness in another world, and did all they could to destroy the pleasures of this.
Their greatest consolation, their purest joy was found in their belief that all who failed to obey their words, to wear their yoke, would suffer infinite torture in the eternal dungeons of hell.
Living for God was tried in the Dark Ages. Thousands of scaffolds were wet with blood, countless swords were thrust through human hearts. The flames of fagots consumed the flesh of men, dungeons became the homes of those who thought. In the name of God every cruelty was practiced, every crime committed, and liberty perished from the earth. Everywhere the result has been the same. Living for God has filled the world with blood and flame.
There is another way. Let us live for man, for this world. Let us develop the brain and civilize the heart. Let us ascertain the conditions of happiness and live in accordance with them. Let us do what we can for the destruction of ignorance, poverty and crime. Let us do our best to supply the wants of the body, to satisfy the hunger of the mind, to ascertain the secrets of nature, to the end that we may make the invisible forces the tireless servants of the human race, and fill the world with happy homes.
Let the gods take care of themselves. Let us live for man. Let us remember that those who have sought for the truths of nature have never persecuted their fellow-men. The astronomers and chemists have forged no chains, built no dungeons. The geologists have invented no instrument of torture. The philosophers have not demonstrated the truth of their theories by burning their neighbors. The great infidels, the thinkers, have lived for the good of man.
It is noble to seek for truth, to be intellectually honest, to give to others a true transcript of your mind, a photograph of your thoughts in honest words.
X.
HERE are two ways: The narrow way along which the selfish go in single file, not wide enough for husband and wife to walk side by side while children clasp their hands. The narrow road over the desert of superstition "with here and there a traveler." The narrow grass-grown path, filled with flints and broken glass, bordered by thistles and thorns, where the twice-born limping walk with bleeding feet. If by this path you see a flower, do not pick it. It is a temptation. Beneath its leaves a serpent lies. Keep your eyes on the New Jerusalem. Do not look back for wife or child or friend. Think only of saving your own soul. You will be just as happy in heaven with all you love in hell. Believe, have faith, and you will be rewarded for the goodness of another. Look neither to the right nor left. Keep on, straight on, and you will save your worthless, withered, selfish soul.
This is the narrow road that leads from earth to the Christian's heartless heaven.
There is another way—the broad road.
Give me the wide and ample way, the way broad enough for us all to go together. The broad way where the birds sing, where the sun shines and the streams murmur. The broad way, through the fields where the flowers grow, over the daisied slopes where sunlight, lingering, seems to sleep and dream.
Let us go the broad way with the great world, with science and art, with music and the drama, with all that gladdens, thrills, refines and calms.
Let us go the wide road with husband and wife, with children and friends and with all there is of joy and love between the dawn and dusk of life's strange day.
This world is a great orange tree filled with blossoms, with ripening and ripened fruit, while, underneath the bending boughs, the fallen slowly turn to dust.
Each orange is a life. Let us squeeze it dry, get all the juice there is, so that when death comes we can say; "There is nothing left but withered peel."
Let us travel the broad and natural way. Let us live for man.
To think of what the world has suffered from superstition, from religion, from the worship of beast and stone and god, is almost enough to make one insane. Think of the long, long night of ignorance and fear! Think of the agony, the sufferings of the past, of the days that are dead!
I look. In gloomy caves I see the sacred serpents coiled, waiting for their sacrificial prey. I see their open jaws, their restless tongues, their glittering eyes, their cruel fangs. I see them seize and crush in many horrid folds the helpless children given by fathers and mothers to appease the Serpent-God. I look again. I see temples wrought of stone and gilded with barbaric gold. I see altars red with human blood. I see the solemn priests thrust knives in the white breasts of girls. I look again. I see other temples and other altars, where greedy flames devour the flesh and blood of babes. I see other temples and other priests and other altars dripping with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves.
I look again. I see other temples and other priests and other altars on which are sacrificed the liberties of man. I look. I see the cathedrals of God, the huts of peasants, the robes of priests and kings, the rags of honest men. I look again. The lovers of God are the murderers of men. I see dungeons filled with the noblest and the best. I see exiles, wanderers, outcasts, millions of martyrs, widows and orphans. I see the cunning instruments of torture and hear the shrieks and sobs and moans of millions dead.
I see the dungeon's gloom, I hear the clank of chains. I see the fagot's flames, the scorched and blackened face, the writhing limbs. I hear the jeers and scoffs of pious fiends. I see the victim on the rack, I hear the tendons as they break. I see a world beneath the feet of priests, liberty in chains, every virtue a crime, every crime a virtue, intelligence despised, stupidity sainted, hypocrisy crowned and the white forehead of honor wearing the brand of shame. This was.
I look again, and in the East of hope's fair sky the first pale light shed by the herald star gives promise of another dawn. I look, and from the ashes, blood and tears the heroes leap to bless the future and avenge the past. I see a world at war, and in the storm and chaos of the deadly strife thrones crumble, altars fall, chains break, creeds change.
The highest peaks are touched with holy light. The dawn has blossomed. I look again. I see discoverers sailing across mysterious seas. I see inventors cunningly enslave the forces of the world. I see the houses being built for schools. Teachers, interpreters of nature, slowly take the place of priests. Philosophers arise, thinkers give the world their wealth of brain, and lips grow rich with words of truth. This is.
I look again, but toward the future now. The popes and priests and kings are gone,—the altars and the thrones have mingled with the dust,—the aristocracy of land and cloud have perished from the earth and-air, and all the gods are dead. A new religion sheds its glory on mankind. It is the gospel of this world, the religion of the body, of the heart and brain, the evangel of health and joy. I see a world at peace, where labor reaps its true reward, a world without prisons, without workhouses, without asylums for the insane, a world on which the gibbets shadow does not fall, a world where the poor girl, trying to win bread with the needle, the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the poor," is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide or shame. I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the pallid face of crime, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn. I see a race without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the married harmony of form and use, and as I look life lengthens, fear dies, joy deepens, love intensifies. The world is free. This shall be.
SOMEBODY ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself.
There are many millions of people who believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God—millions who think that this book is staff and guide, counselor and consoler; that it fills the present with peace and the future with hope—millions who believe that it is the fountain of law, justice and mercy, and that to its wise and benign teachings the world is indebted for its liberty, wealth and civilization—millions who imagine that this book is a revelation from the wisdom and love of God to the brain and heart of man—millions who regard this book as a torch that conquers the darkness of death, and pours its radiance on another world—a world without a tear.
They forget its ignorance and savagery, its hatred of liberty, its religious persecution; they remember heaven, but they forget the dungeon of eternal pain.
They forget that it imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart. They forget that it is the enemy of intellectual freedom. Liberty is my religion. Liberty of hand and brain—of thought and labor.
Liberty is a word hated by kings—loathed by popes. It is a word that shatters thrones and altars—that leaves the crowned without subjects, and the outstretched hand of superstition without alms. Liberty is the blossom and fruit of justice—the perfume of mercy. Liberty is the seed and soil, the air and light, the dew and rain of progress, love and joy.
I. THE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE.
A FEW wandering families—poor, wretched, without education, art or power; descendants of those who had been enslaved for four hundred years; ignorant as the inhabitants of Central Africa, had just escaped from their masters to the desert of Sinai.
Their leader was Moses, a man who had been raised in the family of Pharaoh and had been taught the law and mythology of Egypt. For the purpose of controlling his followers he pretended that he was instructed and assisted by Jehovah, the God of these wanderers.
Everything that happened was attributed to the interference of this God. Moses declared that he met this God face to face; that on Sinai's top from the hands of this God he had received the tables of stone on which, by the finger of this God, the Ten Commandments had been written, and that, in addition to this, Jehovah had made known the sacrifices and ceremonies that were pleasing to him and the laws by which the people should be governed.
In this way the Jewish religion and the Mosaic Code were established.
It is now claimed that this religion and these laws were and are revealed and established for all mankind.
At that time these wanderers had no commerce with other nations, they had no written language, they could neither read nor write. They had no means by which they could make this revelation known to other nations, and so it remained buried in the jargon of a few ignorant, impoverished and unknown tribes for more than two thousand years.
Many centuries after Moses, the leader, was dead—many centuries after all his followers had passed away—the Pentateuch was written, the work of many writers, and to give it force and authority it was claimed that Moses was the author.
We now know that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses.
Towns are mentioned that were not in existence when Moses lived.
Money, not coined until centuries after his death, is mentioned.
So, many of the laws were not applicable to wanderers on the desert—laws about agriculture, about the sacrifice of oxen, sheep and doves, about the weaving of cloth, about ornaments of gold and silver, about the cultivation of land, about harvest, about the threshing of grain, about houses and temples, about cities of refuge, and about many other subjects of no possible application to a few starving wanderers over the sands and rocks.
It is now not only admitted by intelligent and honest theologians that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, but they all admit that no one knows who the authors were, or who wrote any one of these books, or a chapter or a line. We know that the books were not written in the same generation; that they were not all written by one person; that they are filled with mistakes and contradictions.
It is also admitted that Joshua did not write the book that bears his name, because it refers to events that did not happen until long after his death.
No one knows, or pretends to know, the author of Judges; all we know is that it was written centuries after all the judges had ceased to exist. No one knows the author of Ruth, nor of First and Second Samuel; all we know is that Samuel did not write the books that bear his name. In the 25th chapter of First Samuel is an account of Samuel's death, and in the 27th chapter is an account of the raising of Samuel by the Witch of Endor.
No one knows the author of First and Second Kings or First and Second Chronicles; all we know is that these books are of no value.
We know that the Psalms were not written by David. In the Psalms the Captivity is spoken of, and that did not happen until about five hundred years after David slept with his fathers.
We know that Solomon did not write the Proverbs or the Song; that Isaiah was not the author of the book that bears his name; that no one knows the author of Job, Ecclesiastes, or Esther, or of any book in the Old Testament, with the exception of Ezra.
We know that God is not mentioned or in any way referred to in the book of Esther. We know, too, that the book is cruel, absurd and impossible.
God is not mentioned in the Song of Solomon, the best book in the Old Testament.
And we know that Ecclesiastes was written by an unbeliever.
We know, too, that the Jews themselves had not decided as to what books were inspired—were authentic—until the second century after Christ.
We know that the idea of inspiration was of slow growth, and that the inspiration was determined by those who had certain ends to accomplish.
II.
IF it is, it should be a book that no man—no number of men—could produce.
It should contain the perfection of philosophy.
It should perfectly accord with every fact in nature.
There should be no mistakes in astronomy, geology, or as to any subject or science.
Its morality should be the highest, the purest.
Its laws and regulations for the control of conduct should be just, wise, perfect, and perfectly adapted to the accomplishment of the ends desired.
It should contain nothing calculated to make man cruel, revengeful, vindictive or infamous.
It should be filled with intelligence, justice, purity, honesty, mercy and the spirit of liberty.
It should be opposed to strife and war, to slavery and lust, to ignorance, credulity and superstition.
It should develop the brain and civilize the heart.
It should satisfy the heart and brain of the best and wisest.
It should be true.
Does the Old Testament satisfy this standard?
Is there anything in the Old Testament—in history, in theory, in law, in government, in morality, in science—above and beyond the ideas, the beliefs, the customs and prejudices of its authors and the people among whom they lived?
Is there one ray of light from any supernatural source?
The ancient Hebrews believed that this earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun, moon and stars were specks in the sky.
With this the Bible agrees.
They thought the earth was flat, with four corners; that the sky, the firmament, was solid—the floor of Jehovah's house.
The Bible teaches the same.
They imagined that the sun journeyed about the earth, and that by stopping the sun the day could be lengthened.
The Bible agrees with this.
They believed that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman; that they had been created but a few years before, and that they, the Hebrews, were their direct descendants.
This the Bible teaches.
If anything is, or can be, certain, the writers of the Bible were mistaken about creation, astronomy, geology; about the causes of phenomena, the origin of evil and the cause of death.
Now, it must be admitted that if an Infinite Being is the author of the Bible, he knew all sciences, all facts, and could not have made a mistake.
If, then, there are mistakes, misconceptions, false theories, ignorant myths and blunders in the Bible, it must have been written by finite beings; that is to say, by ignorant and mistaken men.
Nothing can be clearer than this.
For centuries the church insisted that the Bible was absolutely true; that it contained no mistakes; that the story of creation was true; that its astronomy and geology were in accord with the facts; that the scientists who differed with the Old Testament were infidels and atheists.
Now this has changed. The educated Christians admit that the writers of the Bible were not inspired as to any science. They now say that God, or Jehovah, did not inspire the writers of his book for the purpose of instructing the world about astronomy, geology, or any science. They now admit that the inspired men who wrote the Old Testament knew nothing about any science, and that they wrote about the earth and stars, the sun and moon, in accordance with the general ignorance of the time.
It required many centuries to force the theologians to this admission. Reluctantly, full of malice and hatred, the priests retired from the field, leaving the victory with science.
They took another position:
They declared that the authors, or rather the writers, of the Bible were inspired in spiritual and moral things; that Jehovah wanted to make known to his children his will and his infinite love for his children; that Jehovah, seeing his people wicked, ignorant and depraved, wished to make them merciful and just, wise and spiritual, and that the Bible is inspired in its laws, in the religion it teaches and in its ideas of government.
This is the issue now. Is the Bible any nearer right in its ideas of justice, of mercy, of morality or of religion than in its conception of the sciences?
Is it moral?
It upholds slavery—it sanctions polygamy.
Could a devil have done worse?
Is it merciful?
In war it raised the black flag; it commanded the destruction, the massacre, of all—of the old, infirm, and helpless—of wives and babes.
Were its laws inspired?
Hundreds of offences were punished with death. To pick up sticks on Sunday, to murder your father on Monday, were equal crimes. There is in the literature of the world no bloodier code. The law of revenge—of retaliation—was the law of Jehovah. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a limb for a limb.
This is savagery—not philosophy.
Is it just and reasonable?
The Bible is opposed to religious toleration—to religious liberty. Whoever differed with the majority was stoned to death. Investigation was a crime. Husbands were ordered to denounce and to assist in killing their unbelieving wives.
It is the enemy of Art. "Thou shalt make no graven image." This was the death of Art.
Palestine never produced a painter or a sculptor.
Is the Bible civilized?
It upholds lying, larceny, robbery, murder, the selling of diseased meat to strangers, and even the sacrifice of human beings to Jehovah.
Is it philosophical?
It teaches that the sins of a people can be transferred to an animal—to a goat. It makes maternity an offence for which a sin offering had to be made.
It was wicked to give birth to a boy, and twice as wicked to give birth to a girl.
To make hair-oil like that used by the priests was an offence punishable with death.
The blood of a bird killed over running water was regarded as medicine.
Would a civilized God daub his altars with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves? Would he make all his priests butchers? Would he delight in the smell of burning flesh?
III. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
SOME Christian lawyers—some eminent and stupid judges—have said and still say, that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law.
Nothing could be more absurd. Long before these commandments were given there were codes of laws in India and Egypt—laws against murder, perjury, larceny, adultery and fraud. Such laws are as old as human society; as old as the love of life; as old as industry; as the idea of prosperity; as old as human love.
All of the Ten Commandments that are good were old; all that were new are foolish. If Jehovah had been civilized he would have left out the commandment about keeping the Sabbath, and in its place would have said: "Thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-men." He would have omitted the one about swearing, and said: "The man shall have but one wife, and the woman but one husband." He would have left out the one about graven images, and in its stead would have said: "Thou shalt not wage wars of extermination, and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defence."
If Jehovah, had been civilized, how much grander the Ten Commandments would have been.
All that we call progress—the enfranchisement of man, of labor, the substitution of imprisonment for death, of fine for imprisonment, the destruction of polygamy, the establishing of free speech, of the rights of conscience; in short, all that has tended to the development and civilization of man; all the results of investigation, observation, experience and free thought; all that man has accomplished for the benefit of man since the close of the Dark Ages—has been done in spite of the Old Testament.
Let me further illustrate the morality, the mercy, the philosophy and goodness of the Old Testament:
THE STORY OF ACHAN.
Joshua took the City of Jericho. Before the fall of the city he declared that all the spoil taken should be given to the Lord.
In spite of this order Achan secreted a garment, some silver and gold.
Afterward Joshua tried to take the city of Ai. He failed and many of his soldiers were slain.
Joshua sought for the cause of his defeat and he found that Achan had secreted a garment, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold. To this Achan confessed.
And thereupon Joshua took Achan, his sons and his daughters, his oxen and his sheep—stoned them all to death and burned their bodies.
There is nothing to show that the sons and Daughters had committed any crime. Certainly, the oxen and sheep should not have been stoned to death for the crime of their owner. This was the justice, the mercy, of Jehovah!
After Joshua had committed this crime, with the help of Jehovah he captured the city of Ai.
THE STORY OF ELISHA.
"And he went up thence unto Bethel, and as he was going up by the way there came forth little children out of the city and mocked him, and said unto him, 'Go up, thou baldhead.'
"And he turned back and looked at them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood and tore forty and two children of them."
This was the work of the good God—the merciful Jehovah!
THE STORY OF DANIEL.
King Darius had honored and exalted Daniel, and the native princes were jealous. So they induced the king to sign a decree to the effect that any man who should make a petition to any god or man except to King Darius, for thirty days, should be cast into the den of lions.
Afterward these men found that Daniel, with his face toward Jerusalem, prayed three times a day to Jehovah.
Thereupon Daniel was cast into the den of lions; a stone was placed at the mouth of the den and sealed with the king's seal.
The king passed a bad night. The next morning he went to the den and cried out to Daniel. Daniel answered and told the king that God had sent his angel and shut the mouths of the lions.
Daniel was taken out alive and well, and the king was converted and believed in Daniel's God.
Darius, being then a believer in the true God, sent for the men who had accused Daniel, and for their wives and their children, and cast them all into the lions' den.
"And the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces, or ever they came at the bottom of the pit."
What had the wives and little children done? How had they offended King Darius, the believer in Jehovah? Who protected Daniel? Jehovah! Who failed to protect the innocent wives and children? Jehovah!
THE STORY OF JOSEPH.
Pharaoh had a dream, and this dream was interpreted by Joseph.
According to this interpretation there was to be in Egypt seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine. Joseph advised Pharaoh to buy all the surplus of the seven plentiful years and store it up against the years of famine.
Pharaoh appointed Joseph as his minister or agent, and ordered him to buy the grain of the plentiful years.
Then came the famine. The people came to the king for help. He told them to go to Joseph and do as he said.
Joseph sold corn to the Egyptians until all their money was gone—until he had it all.
When the money was gone the people said: "Give us corn and we will give you our cattle."
Joseph let them have corn until all their cattle, their horses and their flocks had been given to him.
Then the people said: "Give us corn and we will give you our lands."
So Joseph let them have corn until all their lands were gone.
But the famine continued, and so the poor wretches sold themselves, and they became the servants of Pharoah.
Then Joseph gave them seed, and made an agreement with them that they should forever give one-fifth of all they raised to Pharaoh.
Who enabled Joseph to interpret the dream of Pharaoh? Jehovah! Did he know at the time that Joseph would use the information thus given to rob and enslave the people of Egypt? Yes. Who produced the famine? Jehovah!
It is perfectly apparent that the Jews did not think of Jehovah as the God of Egypt—the God of all the world. He was their God, and theirs alone. Other nations had gods, but Jehovah was the greatest of all. He hated other nations and other gods, and abhorred all religions except the worship of himself.
IV. WHAT IS IT ALL WORTH?
WILL some Christian scholar tell us the value of Genesis?
We know that it is not true—that it contradicts itself. There are two accounts of the creation in the first and second chapters. In the first account birds and beasts were created before man.
In the second, man was created before the birds and beasts.
In the first, fowls are made out of the water.
In the second, fowls are made out of the ground.
In the first, Adam and Eve are created together.
In the second, Adam is made; then the beasts and birds, and then Eve is created from one of Adam's ribs.
These stories are far older than the Pentateuch.
Persian: God created the world in six days, a man called Adama, a woman called Evah, and then rested.
The Etruscan, Babylonian, Phoenician, Chaldean and the Egyptian stories are much the same.
The Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese and
Hindus have their Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life.
So the Persians, the Babylonians, the Nubians, the people of Southern India, all had the story of the fall of man and the subtle serpent.
The Chinese say that sin came into the world by the disobedience of woman. And even the Tahitians tell us that man was created from the earth, and the first woman from one of his bones.
All these stories are equally authentic and of equal value to the world, and all the authors were equally inspired.
We know also that the story of the flood is much older than the book of Genesis, and we know besides that it is not true.
We know that this story in Genesis was copied from the Chaldean. There you find all about the rain, the ark, the animals, the dove that was sent out three times, and the mountain on which the ark rested.
So the Hindus, Chinese, Parsees, Persians, Greeks, Mexicans and Scandinavians have substantially the same story.
We also know that the account of the Tower of Babel is an ignorant and childish fable.
What then is left in this inspired book of
Genesis? Is there a word calculated to develop the heart or brain? Is there an elevated thought—any great principle—anything poetic—any word that bursts into blossom?
Is there anything except a dreary and detailed statement of things that never happened?
Is there anything in Exodus calculated to make men generous, loving and noble?
Is it well to teach children that God tortured the innocent cattle of the Egyptians—bruised them to death with hailstones—on account of the sins of Pharoah?
Does it make us merciful to believe that God killed the firstborn of the Egyptians—the firstborn of the poor and suffering people—of the poor girl working at the mill—because of the wickedness of the king?
Can we believe that the gods of Egypt worked miracles? Did they change water into blood, and sticks into serpents?
In Exodus there is not one original thought or line of value.
We know, if we know anything, that this book was written by savages—savages who believed in slavery, polygamy and wars of extermination. We know that the story told is impossible, and that the miracles were never performed. This book admits that there are other gods besides Jehovah. In the 17th chapter is this verse: "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, for, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them."
So, in this blessed book is taught the duty of human sacrifice—the sacrifice of babes.
In the 22d chapter is this command: "Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors: the first-born of thy sons thou shalt give unto me."
Has Exodus been a help or a hindrance to the human race?
Take from Exodus the laws common to all nations, and is there anything of value left?
Is there anything in Leviticus of importance? Is there a chapter worth reading? What interest have we in the clothes of priests, the curtains and candles of the tabernacle, the tongs and shovels of the altar or the hair-oil used by the Levites?
Of what use the cruel code, the frightful punishments, the curses, the falsehoods and the miracles of this ignorant and infamous book?
And what is there in the book of Numbers—with its sacrifices and water of jealousy, with its shew-bread and spoons, its kids and fine flour, its oil and candlesticks, its cucumbers, onions and manna—to assist and instruct mankind? What interest have we in the rebellion of Korah, the water of separation, the ashes of a red heifer, the brazen serpent, the water that followed the people uphill and down for forty years, and the inspired donkey of the prophet Balaam? Have these absurdities and cruelties—these childish, savage superstitions—helped to civilize the world?
Is there anything in Joshua—with its wars, its murders and massacres, its swords dripping with the blood of mothers and babes, its tortures, maimings and mutilations, its fraud and fury, its hatred and revenge—calculated to improve the world?
Does not every chapter shock the heart of a good man? Is it a book to be read by children?
The book of Joshua is as merciless as famine, as ferocious as the heart of a wild beast. It is a history—a justification—a sanctification of nearly every crime.
The book of Judges is about the same, nothing but war and bloodshed; the horrible story of Jael and Sisera; of Gideon and his trumpets and pitchers; of Jephtha and his daughter, whom he murdered to please Jehovah.
Here we find the story of Samson, in which a sun-god is changed to a Hebrew giant.
Read this book of Joshua—read of the slaughter of women, of wives, of mothers and babes—read its impossible miracles, its ruthless crimes, and all done according to the commands of Jehovah, and tell me whether this book is calculated to make us forgiving, generous and loving.
I admit that the history of Ruth is in some respects a beautiful and touching story; that it is naturally told, and that her love for Naomi was deep and pure. But in the matter of courtship we would hardly advise our daughters to follow the example of Ruth. Still, we must remember that Ruth was a widow.
Is there anything worth reading in the first and second books of Samuel? Ought a prophet of God to hew a captured king in pieces? Is the story of the ark, its capture and return of importance to us? Is it possible that it was right, just and merciful to kill fifty thousand men because they had looked into a box? Of what use to us are the wars of Saul and David, the stories of Goliath and the Witch of Endor? Why should Jehovah have killed Uzzah for putting forth his hand to steady the ark, and forgiven David for murdering Uriah and stealing his wife?
According to "Samuel," David took a census of the people. This excited the wrath of Jehovah, and as a punishment he allowed David to choose seven years of famine, a flight of three months from pursuing enemies, or three days of pestilence. David, having confidence in God, chose the three days of pestilence; and, thereupon, God, the compassionate, on account of the sin of David, killed seventy thousand innocent men!
Under the same circumstances, what would a devil have done?
Is there anything in First and Second Kings that suggests the idea of inspiration?
When David is dying he tells his son Solomon to murder Joab—not to let his hoar head go down to the grave in peace. With his last breath he commands his son to bring down the hoar head of Shimei to the grave with blood. Having uttered these merciful words, the good David, the man after God's heart, slept with his fathers.
Was it necessary to inspire the man who wrote the history of the building of the temple, the story of the visit of the Queen of Sheba, or to tell the number of Solomon's wives?
What care we for the withering of Jereboam's hand, the prophecy of Jehu, or the story of Elijah and the ravens?
Can we believe that Elijah brought flames from heaven, or that he went at last to Paradise in a chariot of fire?
Can we believe in the multiplication of the widow's oil by Elisha, that an army was smitten with blindness, or that an axe floated in the water?
Does it civilize us to read about the beheading of the seventy sons of Ahab, the putting out of the eyes of Zedekiah and the murder of his sons? Is there one word in First and Second Kings calculated to make men better?
First and Second Chronicles is but a re-telling of what is told in First and Second Kings. The same old stories—a little left out, a little added, but in no respect made better or worse.
The book of Ezra is of no importance. He tells us that Cyrus, King of Persia, issued a proclamation for building a temple at Jerusalem, and that he declared Jehovah to be the real and only God.
Nothing could be more absurd. Ezra tells us about the return from captivity, the building of the temple, the dedication, a few prayers, and this is all. This book is of no importance, of no use.
Nehemiah is about the same, only it tells of the building of the wall, the complaints of the people about taxes, a list of those who returned from Babylon, a catalogue of those who dwelt at Jerusalem, and the dedication of the walls.
Not a word in Nehemiah worth reading.
Then comes the book of Esther:
In this we are told that King Ahasueras was intoxicated; that he sent for his Queen, Vashti, to come and show herself to him and his guests. Vashti refused to appear.
This maddened the king, and he ordered that from every province the most beautiful girls should be brought before him that he might choose one in place of Vashti.
Among others was brought Esther, a Jewess. She was chosen and became the wife of the king. Then a gentleman by the name of Haman wanted to have all the Jews killed, and the king, not knowing that Esther was of that race, signed a decree that all the Jews should be killed.
Through the efforts of Mordecai and Esther the decree was annulled and the Jews were saved.
Haman prepared a gallows on which to have Mordecai hanged, but the good Esther so managed matters that Haman and his ten sons were hanged on the gallows that Haman had built, and the Jews were allowed to murder more than seventy-five thousand of the king's subjects.
This is the inspired story of Esther.
In the book of Job we find some elevated sentiments, some sublime and foolish thoughts, something of the wonder and sublimity of nature, the joys and sorrows of life; but the story is infamous.
Some of the Psalms are good, many are indifferent, and a few are infamous. In them are mingled the vices and virtues. There are verses that elevate, verses that degrade. There are prayers for forgiveness and revenge. In the literature of the world there is nothing more heartless, more infamous, than the 109th Psalm.
In the Proverbs there is much shrewdness, many pithy and prudent maxims, many wise sayings. The same ideas are expressed in many ways—the wisdom of economy and silence, the dangers of vanity and idleness. Some are trivial, some are foolish, and many are wise. These proverbs are not generous—not altruistic. Sayings to the same effect are found among all nations.
Ecclesiastes is the most thoughtful book in the Bible. It was written by an unbeliever—a philosopher—an agnostic. Take out the interpolations, and it is in accordance with the thought of the nineteenth century. In this book are found the most philosophic and poetic passages in the Bible.
After crossing the desert of death and crime—after reading the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles—it is delightful to reach this grove of palms, called the "Song of Solomon." A drama of love—of human love; a poem without Jehovah—a poem born of the heart and true to the divine instincts of the soul.
"I sleep, but my heart waketh."
Isaiah is the work of several. Its swollen words, its vague imagery, its prophecies and curses, its ravings against kings and nations, its laughter at the wisdom of man, its hatred of joy, have not the slightest tendency to increase the well-being of man.
In this book is recorded the absurdest of all miracles. The shadow on the dial is turned back ten degrees, in order to satisfy Hezekiah that Jehovah will add fifteen years to his life.
In this miracle the world, turning from west to east at the rate of more than a thousand miles an hour, is not only stopped, but made to turn the other way until the shadow on the dial went back ten degrees! Is there in the whole world an intelligent man or woman who believes this impossible falsehood?
Jeremiah contains nothing of importance—no facts of value; nothing but fault-finding, lamentations, croakings, wailings, curses and promises; nothing but famine and prayer, the prosperity of the wicked, the ruin of the Jews, the captivity and return, and at last Jeremiah, the traitor, in the stocks and in prison.
And Lamentations is simply a continuance of the ravings of the same insane pessimist; nothing but dust and sackcloth and ashes, tears and howls, railings and revilings.
And Ezekiel—eating manuscripts, prophesying siege and desolation, with visions of coals of fire, and cherubim, and wheels with eyes, and the type and figure of the boiling pot, and the resurrection of dry bones—is of no use, of no possible value.
With Voltaire, I say that any one who admires Ezekiel should be compelled to dine with him.
Daniel is a disordered dream—a nightmare.
What can be made of this book with its image with a golden head, with breast and arms of silver, with belly and thighs of brass, with legs of iron, and with feet of iron and clay; with its writing on the wall, its den of lions, and its vision of the ram and goat?
Is there anything to be learned from Hosea and his wife? Is there anything of use in Joel, in Amos, in Obadiah? Can we get any good from Jonah and his gourd? Is it possible that God is the real author of Micah and Nahum, of Habakkuk and Zephaniah, of Haggai and Malachi and Zechariah, with his red horses, his four horns, his four carpenters, his flying roll, his mountains of brass and the stone with four eyes?
Is there anything in these "inspired" books that has been of benefit to man?
Have they taught us how to cultivate the earth, to build houses, to weave cloth, to prepare food? Have they taught us to paint pictures, to chisel statues, to build bridges, or ships, or anything of beauty or of use? Did we get our ideas of government, of religious freedom, of the liberty of thought, from the Old Testament? Did we get from any of these books a hint of any science? Is there in the "sacred volume" a word, a line, that has added to the wealth, the intelligence and the happiness of mankind? Is there one of the books of the Old Testament as entertaining as "Robinson Crusoe," "The Travels of Gulliver," or "Peter Wilkins and his Flying Wife"? Did the author of Genesis know as much about nature as Humboldt, or Darwin, or Haeckel? Is what is called the Mosaic Code as wise or as merciful as the code of any civilized nation? Were the writers of Kings and Chronicles as great historians, as great writers, as Gibbon and Draper? Is Jeremiah, or Habakkuk equal to Dickens or Thackeray? Can the authors of Job and the Psalms be compared with Shakespeare? Why should we attribute the best to man and the worst to God?
V. WAS JEHOVAH A GOD OF LOVE?
Did these words come from the heart of love?—
"When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, or show mercy unto them."
"I will heap mischief upon them. I will send mine arrows upon them; they shall be burned with hunger and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction."
"I will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust."
"The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin; the suckling also with the man of gray hairs."
"Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children."
"And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body—the flesh of thy sons and daughters."
"And the heaven that is over thee shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron."
"Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field."
"I will make my arrows drunk with blood."
"I will laugh at their calamity.".
Did these curses, these threats, come from the heart of love or from the mouth of savagery?
Was Jehovah god or devil?
Why should we place Jehovah above all the gods?
Has man in his ignorance and fear ever imagined a greater monster?
Have the barbarians of any land, in any time, worshiped a more heartless god?
Brahma was a thousand times nobler, and so was Osiris and Zeus and Jupiter. So was the supreme god of the Aztecs, to whom they offered only the perfume of flowers. The worst god of the Hindus, with his necklace of skulls and his bracelets of living snakes, was kind and merciful compared with Jehovah.
Compared with Marcus Aurelius, how small Jehovah seems. Compared with Abraham Lincoln, how cruel, how contemptible, is this god.
VI. JEHOVAH'S ADMINISTRATION.
HE created the world, the hosts of heaven, a man and woman—placed them in a garden. Then the serpent deceived them, and they were cast out and made to earn their bread.
Jehovah had been thwarted.
Then he tried again. He went on for about sixteen hundred years trying to civilize the people.
No schools, no churches, no Bible, no tracts—nobody taught to read or write. No Ten Commandments. The people grew worse and worse, until the merciful Jehovah sent the flood and drowned all the people except Noah and his family, eight in all.
Then he started again, and changed their diet. At first Adam and Eve were vegetarians. After the flood Jehovah said: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you"—snakes and buzzards.
Then he failed again, and at the Tower of Babel he dispersed and scattered the people.
Finding that he could not succeed with all the people, he thought he would try a few, so he selected Abraham and his descendants. Again he failed, and his chosen people were captured by the Egyptians and enslaved for four hundred years.
Then he tried again—rescued them from Pharaoh and started for Palestine.
Then he changed their diet, allowing them to eat only the beasts that parted the hoof and chewed the cud. Again he failed. The people hated him, and preferred the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of Jehovah. So he kept them wandering until nearly all who came from Egypt had died. Then he tried again—took them into Palestine and had them governed by judges.
This, too, was a failure—no schools, no Bible. Then he tried kings, and the kings were mostly idolaters.
Then the chosen people were conquered and carried into captivity by the Babylonians.
Another failure.
Then they returned, and Jehovah tried prophets—howlers and wailers—but the people grew worse and worse. No schools, no sciences, no arts, no commerce. Then Jehovah took upon himself flesh, was born of a woman, and lived among the people that he had been trying to civilize for several thousand years. Then these people, following the law that Jehovah had given them in the wilderness, charged this Jehovah-man—this Christ—with blasphemy; tried, convicted and killed him.
Jehovah had failed again.
Then he deserted the Jews and turned his attention to the rest of the world.
And now the Jews, deserted by Jehovah, persecuted by Christians, are the most prosperous people on the earth. Again has Jehovah failed.
What an administration!
VII. THE NEW TESTAMENT.
WHO wrote the New Testament?
Christian scholars admit that they do not know. They admit that, if the four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they must have been written in Hebrew. And yet a Hebrew manuscript of any one of these gospels has never been found. All have been and are in Greek. So, educated theologians admit that the Epistles, James and Jude, were written by persons who had never seen one of the four gospels. In these Epistles—in James and Jude—no reference is made to any of the gospels, nor to any miracle recorded in them.
The first mention that has been found of one of our gospels was made about one hundred and eighty years after the birth of Christ, and the four gospels were first named and quoted from at the beginning of the third century, about one hundred and seventy years after the death of Christ.
We now know that there were many other gospels besides our four, some of which have been lost.
There were the gospels of Paul, of the Egyptians, of the Hebrews, of Perfection, of Judas, of Thaddeus, of the Infancy, of Thomas, of Mary, of Andrew, of Nicodemus, of Marcion and several others.
So there were the Acts of Pilate, of Andrew, of Mary, of Paul and Thecla and of many others; also a book called the Shepherd of Hermas.
At first not one of all the books was considered as inspired. The Old Testament was regarded as di vine; but the books that now constitute the New Testament were regarded as human productions. We now know that we do not know who wrote the four gospels.
The question is, Were the authors of these four gospels inspired?
If they were inspired, then the four gospels must be true. If they are true, they must agree.
The four gospels do not agree.
Matthew, Mark and Luke knew nothing of the atonement, nothing of salvation by faith. They knew only the gospel of good deeds—of charity. They teach that if we forgive others God will forgive us.
With this the gospel of John does not agree.
In that gospel we are taught that we must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; that we must be born again; that we must drink the blood and eat the flesh of Christ. In this gospel we find the doctrine of the atonement and that Christ died for us and suffered in our place.
This gospel is utterly at variance with, the other three. If the other three are true, the gospel of John is false. If the gospel of John was written by an inspired man, the writers of the other three were uninspired. From this there is no possible escape. The four cannot be true.
It is evident that there are many interpolations in the four gospels.
For instance, in the 28th chapter of Matthew is an account to the effect that the soldiers at the tomb of Christ were bribed to say that the disciples of Jesus stole away his body while they, the soldiers, slept.
This is clearly an interpolation. It is a break in the narrative.
The 10th verse should be followed by the 16th. The 10th verse is as follows:
"Then Jesus said unto them, 'Be not afraid; go tell my brethren that they go unto Galilee and there shall they see me.'"
The 16th verse:
"Then the eleven disciples went away unto Galilee into a mountain, where Jesus had appointed them."
The story about the soldiers contained in the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th verses is an interpolation—an afterthought—long after. The 15th verse demonstrates this.
Fifteenth verse: "So they took the money and did as they were taught. And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day."
Certainly this account was not in the original gospel, and certainly the 15th verse was not written by a Jew. No Jew could have written this: "And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day."
Mark, John and Luke never heard that the soldiers had been bribed by the priests; or, if they had, did not think it worth while recording. So the accounts of the Ascension of Jesus Christ in Mark and Luke are interpolations. Matthew says nothing about the Ascension.
Certainly there never was a greater miracle, and yet Matthew, who was present—who saw the Lord rise, ascend and disappear—did not think it worth mentioning.
On the other hand, the last words of Christ, according to Matthew, contradict the Ascension: "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." John, who was present, if Christ really ascended, says not one word on the subject.
As to the Ascension, the gospels do not agree. Mark gives the last conversation that Christ had with his disciples, as follows:
"Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. So, then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God."
Is it possible that this description was written by one who witnessed this miracle?
This miracle is described by Luke as follows: "And it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven."
"Brevity is the soul of wit."
In the Acts we are told that: "When he had spoken, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight."
Neither Luke, nor Matthew, nor John, nor the writer of the Acts, heard one word of the conversation attributed to Christ by Mark. The fact is that the Ascension of Christ was not claimed by his disciples.
At first Christ was a man—nothing more. Mary was his mother, Joseph his father. The genealogy of his father, Joseph, was given to show that he was of the blood of David.
Then the claim was made that he was the son of God, and that his mother was a virgin, and that she remained a virgin until her death.
Then the claim was made that Christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven.
It required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the minds of men.
If Christ rose from the dead, why did he not appear to his enemies? Why did he not call on Caiaphas, the high priest? Why did he not make another triumphal entry into Jerusalem?
If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret, in a corner?
It was a miracle that could have been seen by a vast multitude—a miracle that could not be simulated—one that would have convinced hundreds of thousands.
After the story of the Resurrection, the Ascension became a necessity. They had to dispose of the body.
So there are many other interpolations in the gospels and epistles.
Again I ask: Is the New Testament true? Does anybody now believe that at the birth of Christ there was a celestial greeting; that a star led the Wise Men of the Bast; that Herod slew the babes of Bethlehem of two years old and under?
The gospels are filled with accounts of miracles. Were they ever performed?
Matthew gives the particulars of about twenty-two miracles, Mark of about nineteen, Luke of about eighteen and John of about seven.
According to the gospels, Christ healed diseases, cast out devils, rebuked the sea, cured the blind, fed multitudes with five loaves and two fishes, walked on the sea, cursed a fig tree, turned water into wine and raised the dead.
Matthew is the only one that tells about the Star and the Wise Men—the only one that tells about the murder of babes.
John is the only one who says anything about the resurrection of Lazarus, and Luke is the only one giving an account of the raising from the dead the widow of Nain's son.
How is it possible to substantiate these miracles?
The Jews, among whom they were said to have been performed, did not believe them. The diseased, the palsied, the leprous, the blind who were cured, did not become followers of Christ. Those that were raised from the dead were never heard of again.
Does any intelligent man believe in the existence of devils? The writer of three of the gospels certainly did. John says nothing about Christ having cast out devils, but Matthew, Mark and Luke give many instances.
Does any natural man now believe that Christ cast out devils? If his disciples said he did, they were mistaken. If Christ said he did, he was insane or an impostor.
If the accounts of casting out devils are false, then the writers were ignorant or dishonest. If they wrote through ignorance, then they were not inspired. If they wrote what they knew to be false, they were not inspired. If what they wrote is untrue, whether they knew it or not, they were not inspired.
At that time it was believed that palsy, epilepsy, deafness, insanity and many other diseases were caused by devils; that devils took possession of and lived in the bodies of men and women. Christ believed this, taught this belief to others, and pretended to cure diseases by casting devils out of the sick and insane. We know now, if we know anything, that diseases are not caused by the presence of devils. We know, if we know anything, that devils do not reside in the bodies of men.
If Christ said and did what the writers of the three gospels say he said and did, then Christ was mistaken. If he was mistaken, certainly he was not God. And if he was mistaken, certainly he was not inspired.
Is it a fact that the Devil tried to bribe Christ?
Is it a fact that the Devil carried Christ to the top of the temple and tried to induce him to leap to the ground?
How can these miracles be established?
The principals have written nothing, Christ has written nothing, and the Devil has remained silent.
How can we know that the Devil tried to bribe Christ? Who wrote the account? We do not know. How did the writer get his information? We do not know.
Somebody, some seventeen hundred years ago, said that the Devil tried to bribe God; that the Devil carried God to the top of the temple and tried to induce him to leap to the earth and that God was intellectually too keen for the Devil.
This is all the evidence we have.
Is there anything in the literature of the world more perfectly idiotic?
Intelligent people no longer believe in witches, wizards, spooks and devils, and they are perfectly satisfied that every word in the New Testament about casting out devils is utterly false.
Can we believe that Christ raised the dead?
A widow living in Nain is following the body of her son to the tomb. Christ halts the funeral procession and raises the young man from the dead and gives him back to the arms of his mother.
This young man disappears. He is never heard of again. No one takes the slightest interest in the man who returned from the realm of death. Luke is the only one who tells the story. Maybe Matthew, Mark and John never heard of it, or did not believe it and so failed to record it.
John says that Lazarus was raised from the dead; Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about it.
It was more wonderful than the raising of the widow's son. He had not been laid in the tomb for days. He was only on his way to the grave, but Lazarus was actually dead. He had begun to decay.
Lazarus did not excite the least interest. No one asked him about the other world. No one inquired of him about their dead friends.
When he died the second time no one said: "He is not afraid. He has traveled that road twice and knows just where he is going."
We do not believe in the miracles of Mohammed, and yet they are as well attested as this. We have no confidence in the miracles performed by Joseph Smith, and yet the evidence is far greater, far better.
If a man should go about now pretending to raise the dead, pretending to cast out devils, we would regard him as insane. What, then, can we say of Christ? If we wish to save his reputation we are compelled to say that he never pretended to raise the dead; that he never claimed to have cast out devils.
We must take the ground that these ignorant and impossible things were invented by zealous disciples, who sought to deify their leader.
In those ignorant days these falsehoods added to the fame of Christ. But now they put his character in peril and belittle the authors of the gospels.
Can we now believe that water was changed into wine? John tells of this childish miracle, and says that the other disciples were present, yet Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about it.
'Take the miracle of the man cured by the pool of Bethseda. John says that an angel troubled the waters of the pool of Bethseda, and that whoever got into the pool first after the waters were troubled was healed.
Does anybody now believe that an angel went into the pool and troubled the waters? Does anybody now think that the poor wretch who got in first was healed? Yet the author of the gospel according to John believed and asserted these absurdities. If he was mistaken about that he may have been about all the miracles he records.
John is the only one who tells about this pool of Bethseda. Possibly the other disciples did not believe the story.
How can we account for these pretended miracles?
In the days of the disciples, and for many centuries after, the world was filled with the supernatural. Nearly everything that happened was regarded as miraculous. God was the immediate governor of the world. If the people were good, God sent seed time and harvest; but if they were bad he sent flood and hail, frost and famine. If anything wonderful happened it was exaggerated until it became a miracle.
Of the order of events—of the unbroken and the unbreakable chain of causes and effects—the people had no knowledge and no thought.
A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. No miracle ever was performed. No intelligent, honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will.
If Christ had wrought the miracles attributed to him; if he had cured the palsied and insane; if he had given hearing to the deaf, vision to the blind; if he had cleansed the leper with a word, and with a touch had given life and feeling to the withered limb; if he had given pulse and motion, warmth and thought, to cold and breathless clay; if he had conquered death and rescued from the grave its pallid prey—no word would have been uttered, no hand raised, except in praise and honor. In his presence all heads would have been uncovered—all knees upon the ground.
Is it not strange that at the trial of Christ no one was found to say a word in his favor? No man stood forth and said: "I was a leper, and this man cured me with a touch." No woman said: "I am the widow of Nain and this is my son whom this man raised from the dead."
No man said: "I was blind, and this man gave me sight."
All silent
VIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRIST
MILLIONS assert that the philosophy of Christ is perfect—that he was the wisest that ever littered speech.
Let us see:
Resist not evil. If smitten on one cheek turn the other.
Is there any philosophy, any wisdom in this? Christ takes from goodness, from virtue, from the truth, the right of self-defence. Vice becomes the master of the world, and the good become the victims of the infamous.
No man has the right to protect himself, his property, his wife and children. Government becomes impossible, and the world is at the mercy of criminals. Is there any absurdity beyond this?
Love your enemies.
Is this possible? Did any human being ever love his enemies? Did Christ love his, when he denounced them as whited sepulchers, hypocrites and vipers?
We cannot love those who hate us. Hatred in the hearts of others does not breed love in ours. Not to resist evil is absurd; to love your enemies is impossible.
Take no thought for the morrow.
The idea was that God would take care of us as he did of sparrows and lilies. Is there the least sense in that belief?
Does God take care of anybody?
Can we live without taking thought for the morrow? To plow, to sow, to cultivate, to harvest, is to take thought for the morrow. We plan and work for the future, for our children, for the unborn generations to come. Without this forethought there could be no progress, no civilization. The world would go back to the caves and dens of savagery.
If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.
Why? Because it is better that one of our members should perish than that the whole body should be cast into hell.
Is there any wisdom in putting out your eyes or cutting off your hands? Is it possible to extract from these extravagant sayings the smallest grain of common sense?
Swear not at all; neither by Heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the Earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is his holy city.
Here we find the astronomy and geology of Christ. Heaven is the throne of God, the monarch; the earth is his footstool. A footstool that turns over at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and sweeps through space at the rate of over a thousand miles a minute!
Where did Christ think heaven was? Why was Jerusalem a holy city? Was it because the inhabitants were ignorant, cruel and superstitious?
If any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also.
Is there any philosophy, any good sense, in that commandment? Would it not be just as sensible to say: "If a man obtains a judgment against you for one hundred dollars, give him two hundred."
Only the insane could give or follow this advice.
Think not I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.
If this is true, how much better it would have been had he remained away.
Is it possible that he who said, "Resist not evil," came to bring a sword? That he who said, "Love your enemies," came to destroy the peace of the world?
To set father against son, and daughter against father—what a glorious mission!
He did bring a sword, and the sword was wet for a thousand years with innocent blood. In millions of hearts he sowed the seeds of hatred and revenge. He divided nations and families, put out the light of reason, and petrified the hearts of men.
And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, shall inherit everlasting life.
According to the writer of Matthew, Christ, the compassionate, the merciful, uttered these terrible words. Is it possible that Christ offered the bribe of eternal joy to those who would desert their fathers, their mothers, their wives and children? Are we to win the happiness of heaven by deserting the ones we love? Is a home to be ruined here for the sake of a mansion there?
And yet it is said that Christ is an example for all the world. Did he desert his father and mother? He said, speaking to his mother: "Woman, what have I to do with, thee?"
The Pharisees said unto Christ: "Is it lawful to pay tribute unto Cæsar?"
Christ said: "Show me the tribute money." They brought him a penny. And he saith unto them: "Whose is the image and the superscription?" They said: "Cæsar's." And Christ said: "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's."
Did Christ think that the money belonged to Cæsar because his image and superscription were stamped upon it? Did the penny belong to Cæsar or to the man who had earned it? Had Cæsar the right to demand it because it was adorned with his image?
Does it appear from this conversation that Christ understood the real nature and use of money?
Can we now say that Christ was the greatest of philosophers?
IX. IS CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE?
HE never said a word in favor of education. He never even hinted at the existence of any science. He never uttered a word in favor of industry, economy or of any effort to better our condition in this world. He was the enemy of the successful, of the wealthy. Dives was sent to hell, not because he was bad, but because he was rich. Lazarus went to heaven, not because he was good, but because he was poor.
Christ cared nothing for painting, for sculpture, for music—nothing for any art. He said nothing about the duties of nation to nation, of king to subject; nothing about the rights of man; nothing about intellectual liberty or the freedom of speech. He said nothing about the sacredness of home; not one word for the fireside; not a word in favor of marriage, in honor of maternity.
He never married. He wandered homeless from place to place with a few disciples. None of them seem to have been engaged in any useful business, and they seem to have lived on alms. .
All human ties were held in contempt; this world was sacrificed for the next; all human effort was discouraged. God would support and protect.
At last, in the dusk of death, Christ, finding that he was mistaken, cried out: "My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?"
We have found that man must depend on himself. He must clear the land; he must build the home; he must plow and plant; he must invent; he must work with hand and brain; he must overcome the difficulties and obstructions; he must conquer and enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may do the work of the world.
X. WHY SHOULD WE PLACE CHRIST AT THE TOP AND SUMMIT OF THE HUMAN RACE?
AS he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza's? Was his brain equal to Kepler's or Newton's? Was he grander in death—a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?
If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future.
Before Him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. He knew how his words would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that the hungry flames of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that thousands and thousands of brave men and women would languish in dungeons in darkness, filled with pain. He knew that his church would invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to chain and rack. He saw the horizon of the future lurid with the flames of the auto da fe. He knew what creeds would spring like poisonous fungi from every text. He saw the ignorant sects waging war against each other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building prisons for their fellow-men. He saw thousands of scaffolds dripping with the best and bravest blood. He saw his followers using the instruments of pain. He heard the groans—saw the faces white with agony. He heard the shrieks and sobs and cries of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. He knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be born of the teachings attributed to him.
He saw the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. He saw all wars that would be waged, and-he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these rackings, these burnings, these executions, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross.
He knew that hypocrisy would be robed and crowned—that cruelty and credulity would rule the world; knew that liberty would perish from the earth; knew that popes and kings in his name would enslave the souls and bodies of men; knew that they would persecute and destroy the discoverers, thinkers and inventors; knew that his church would extinguish reason's holy light and leave the world without a star.
He saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes of men, flaying them alive, cutting out their tongues, searching for all the nerves of pain.
He knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold.
And yet he died with voiceless lips.
Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world: "You shall not burn, imprison and torture in my name. You shall not persecute your fellow-men."
Why did he not plainly say: "I am the Son of God," or, "I am God"? Why did he not explain the Trinity? Why did he not tell the mode of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why did he not write a creed? Why did he not break the chains of slaves? Why did he not say that the Old Testament was or was not the inspired word of God? Why did he not write the New Testament himself? Why did he leave his words to ignorance, hypocrisy and chance? Why did he not say something positive, definite and satisfactory about another world? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven into the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he not tell us something of the rights of man, of the liberty of hand and brain?
Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt?
I will tell you why. He was a man, and did not know.
XI. INSPIRATION
NOT before about the third century was it claimed or believed that the books composing the New Testament were inspired.
It will be remembered that there were a great number of books of Gospels, Epistles and Acts, and that from these the "inspired" ones were selected by "uninspired" men.
Between the "Fathers" there were great differences of opinion as to which books were inspired; much discussion and plenty of hatred. Many of the books now deemed spurious were by many of the "Fathers" regarded as divine, and some now regarded as inspired were believed to be spurious. Many of the early Christians and some of the "Fathers" repudiated the Gospel of John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, Jude, James, Peter, and the Revelation of St. John. On the other hand, many of them regarded the Gospel of the Hebrews, of the Egyptians, the Preaching ol Peter, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas, the Revelation of Peter, the Revelation of Paul, the Epistle of Clement, the Gospel of Nicodemus, inspired Books, equal to the very best.
From all these books, and many others, the Christians selected the inspired ones.
The men who did the selecting were ignorant and superstitious. They were firm believers in the miraculous. They thought that diseases had been cured by the aprons and handkerchiefs of the apostles, by the bones of the dead. They believed in the fable of the Phoenix, and that the hyenas changed their sex every year.
Were the men who through many centuries made the selections inspired? Were they—ignorant, credulous, stupid and malicious—as well qualified to judge of "inspiration" as the students of our time? How are we bound by their opinion? Have we not the right to judge for ourselves?
Erasmus, one of the leaders of the Reformation, declared that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul, and he denied the inspiration of Second and Third John, and also of Revelation. Luther was of the same opinion. He declared James to be an epistle of straw, and denied the inspiration of Revelation. Zwinglius rejected the book of Revelation, and even Calvin denied that Paul was the author of Hebrews.
The truth is that the Protestants did not agree as to what books are inspired until 1647, by the Assembly of Westminster.
To prove that a book is inspired you must prove the existence of God. You must also prove that this God thinks, acts, has objects, ends and aims. This Is somewhat difficult.
It is impossible to conceive of an infinite being. Having no conception of an infinite being, it is impossible to tell whether all the facts we know tend to prove or disprove the existence of such a being.
God is a guess. If the existence of God is admitted, how are we to prove that he inspired the writers of the books of the Bible?
How can one man establish the inspiration of another? How can an inspired man prove that he is inspired? How can he know himself that he is inspired? There is no way to prove the fact of inspiration. The only evidence is the word of some man who could by no possibility know anything on the Subject.
What is inspiration? Did God use men as instruments? Did he cause them to write his thoughts? Did he take possession of their minds and destroy their wills?
Were these writers only partly controlled, so that their mistakes, their ignorance and their prejudices were mingled with the wisdom of God?
How are we to separate the mistakes of man from the thoughts of God? Can we do this without being inspired ourselves? If the original writers were inspired, then the translators should have been, and so should be the men who tell us what the Bible means.
How is it possible for a human being to know that he is inspired by an infinite being? But of one thing we may be certain: An inspired book should certainly excel all the books produced by uninspired men. It should, above all, be true, filled with wisdom, blossoming in beauty—perfect.
Ministers wonder how I can be wicked enough to attack the Bible.
I will tell them:
This book, the Bible, has persecuted, even unto death, the wisest and the best. This book stayed and stopped the onward movement of the human race. This book poisoned the fountains of learning and misdirected the energies of man.
This book is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery. This book sowed the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and impoverished, the world. This book is the breastwork of kings and tyrants—the enslaver of women and children. This book has corrupted parliaments and courts. This book has made colleges and, universities the teachers of error and the haters of science. This book has filled Christendom with hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects. This book taught men to kill their fellows for religion's sake. This book founded the Inquisition, invented the instruments of torture, built the dungeons in which the good and loving languished, forged the chains that rusted in their flesh, erected the scaffolds whereon they died. This book piled fagots about the feet of the just. This book drove reason from the minds of millions and filled the asylums with the insane.
This book has caused fathers and mothers to shed the blood of their babes. This book was the auction block on which the slave-mother stood when she was sold from her child. This book filled the sails of the slave-trader and made merchandise of human flesh. This book lighted the fires that, burned "witches" and "wizards." This book filled the darkness with ghouls and ghosts, and the bodies of men and women with devils. This book polluted the souls of men with the infamous dogma of eternal pain. This book made credulity the greatest of virtues, and investigation the greatest of crimes. This book filled nations with hermits, monks and nuns—with the pious and the useless. This book placed the ignorant and unclean saint above the philosopher and philanthropist. This book taught man to despise the joys of this life, that he might be happy in another—to waste this world for the sake of the next.
I attack this book because it is the enemy of human liberty—the greatest obstruction across the highway of human progress.
Let me ask the ministers one question: How can you be wicked enough to defend this book?
XII. THE REAL BIBLE.
OR thousands of years men have been writing the real Bible, and it is being written from day to day, and it will never be finished while man has life. All the facts that we know, all the truly recorded events, all the discoveries and inventions, all the wonderful machines whose wheels and levers seem to think, all the poems, crystals from the brain, flowers from the heart, all the songs of love and joy, of smiles and tears, the great dramas of Imagination's world, the wondrous paintings, miracles of form and color, of light and shade, the marvelous marbles that seem to live and breathe, the secrets told by rock and star, by dust and flower, by rain and snow, by frost and flame, by winding stream and desert sand, by mountain range and billowed sea.
All the wisdom that lengthens and ennobles life—all that avoids or cures disease, or conquers pain—all just and perfect laws and rules that guide and shape our lives, all thoughts that feed the flames of love, the music that transfigures, enraptures and enthralls, the victories of heart and brain, the miracles that hands have wrought, the deft and cunning hands of those who worked for wife and child, the histories of noble deeds, of brave and useful men, of faithful loving wives, of quenchless mother-love, of conflicts for the right, of sufferings for the truth, of all the best that all the men and women of the world have said, and thought and done through all the years.
These treasures of the heart and brain—these are the Sacred Scriptures of the human race.
(1896.)
I. Influence of Birth in determining Religious Belief—Scotch, Irish,
English, and Americans Inherit their Faith—Religions of Nations
not Suddenly Changed—People who Knew—What they were Certain
About—Revivals—Character of Sermons Preached—Effect of Conversion—A
Vermont Farmer for whom Perdition had no Terrors—The Man and his
Dog—Backsliding and Re-birth—Ministers who were Sincere—A Free Will
Baptist on the Rich Man and Lazarus—II. The Orthodox God—The
Two Dispensations—The Infinite Horror—III. Religious Books—The
Commentators—Paley's Watch Argument—Milton, Young, and Pollok—IV.
Studying Astronomy—Geology—Denial and Evasion by the Clergy—V. The
Poems of Robert Burns—Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare—VI.
Volney, Gibbon, and Thomas Paine—Voltaire's Services to Liberty—Pagans
Compared with Patriarchs—VII. Other Gods and Other Religions—Dogmas,
Myths, and Symbols of Christianity Older than our Era—VIII. The Men
of Science, Humboldt, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel—IX. Matter and
Force Indestructible and Uncreatable—The Theory of Design—X. God an
Impossible Being—The Panorama of the Past—XI. Free from Sanctified
Mistakes and Holy Lies.
(1897.)
I. The Martyrdom of Man—How is Truth to be Found—Every Man should be
Mentally Honest—He should be Intellectually Hospitable—Geologists,
Chemists, Mechanics, and Professional Men are Seeking for the Truth—II.
Those who say that Slavery is Better than Liberty—Promises are not
Evidence—Horace Greeley and the Cold Stove—III. "The Science of
Theology" the only Dishonest Science—Moses and Brigham Young—Minds
Poisoned and Paralyzed in Youth—Sunday Schools and Theological
Seminaries—Orthodox Slanderers of Scientists—Religion has nothing
to do with Charity—Hospitals Built in Self-Defence—What Good has the
Church Accomplished?—Of what use are the Orthodox Ministers, and
What are they doing for the Good of Mankind—The Harm they are
Doing—Delusions they Teach—Truths they Should Tell about the
Bible—Conclusions—Our Christs and our Miracles.
(1896.)
I. "There is no Darkness but Ignorance"—False Notions Concerning
All Departments of Life—Changed Ideas about Science, Government and
Morals—II. How can we Reform the World?—Intellectual Light the First
Necessity—Avoid Waste of Wealth in War—III. Another Waste—Vast Amount
of Money Spent on the Church—IV. Plow can we Lessen Crime?—Frightful
Laws for the Punishment of Minor Crimes—A Penitentiary should be a
School—Professional Criminals should not be Allowed to Populate the
Earth—V. Homes for All-Make a Nation of Householders—Marriage
and Divorce-VI. The Labor Question—Employers cannot Govern
Prices—Railroads should Pay Pensions—What has been Accomplished
for the Improvement of the Condition of Labor—VII. Educate the
Children—Useless Knowledge—Liberty cannot be Sacrificed for the Sake
of Anything—False worship of Wealth—VIII. We must Work and Wait.
(1897.)
I. Our fathers Ages Ago—From Savagery to Civilization—For the
Blessings we enjoy, Whom should we Thank?—What Good has the Church
Done?-Did Christ add to the Sum of Useful Knowledge—The Saints—What
have the Councils and Synods Done?—What they Gave us, and What they
did Not—Shall we Thank them for the Hell Here and for the Hell of
the Future?—II. What Does God Do?—The Infinite Juggler and his
Puppets—What the Puppets have Done—Shall we Thank these
Gods?—Shall we Thank Nature?—III. Men who deserve our Thanks—The
Infidels, Philanthropists and Scientists—The Discoverers and
Inventors—Magellan—Copernicus—Bruno—Galileo—Kepler, Herschel,
Newton, and LaPlace—Lyell—What the Worldly have Done—Origin and
Vicissitudes of the Bible—The Septuagint—Investigating the Phenomena
of Nature—IV. We thank the Good Men and Good Women of the Past—The
Poets, Dramatists, and Artists—The Statesmen—Paine, Jefferson,
Ericsson, Lincoln. Grant—Voltaire, Humboldt, Darwin.
(1886.)
Prayer of King Lear—When Honesty wears a Rag and Rascality a Robe-The
Nonsense of "Free Moral Agency "—Doing Right is not Self-denial-Wealth
often a Gilded Hell—The Log House—Insanity of Getting
More—Great Wealth the Mother of Crime—Separation of Rich and
Poor—Emulation—Invention of Machines to Save Labor—Production and
Destitution—The Remedy a Division of the Land—Evils of Tenement
Houses—Ownership and Use—The Great Weapon is the Ballot—Sewing
Women—Strikes and Boycotts of No Avail—Anarchy, Communism, and
Socialism—The Children of the Rich a Punishment for Wealth—Workingmen
Not a Danger—The Criminals a Necessary Product—Society's Right
to Punish—The Efficacy of Kindness—Labor is Honorable—Mental
Independence.
(1895.)
I. The Old Testament—Story of the Creation—Age of the Earth and
of Man—Astronomical Calculations of the Egyptians—The Flood—The
Firmament a Fiction—Israelites who went into Egypt—Battles of the
Jews—Area of Palestine—Gold Collected by David for the Temple—II. The
New Testament—Discrepancies about the Birth of Christ—Herod and
the Wise Men—The Murder of the Babes of Bethlehem—When was Christ
born—Cyrenius and the Census of the World—Genealogy of Christ
according to Matthew and Luke—The Slaying of Zacharias—Appearance of
the Saints at the Crucifixion—The Death of Judas Iscariot—Did
Christ wish to be Convicted?—III. Jehovah—IV. The Trinity—The
Incarnation—Was Christ God?—The Trinity Expounded—"Let us pray"—V.
The Theological Christ—Sayings of a Contradictory Character—Christ a
Devout Jew—An ascetic—His Philosophy—The Ascension—The Best that Can
be Said about Christ—The Part that is beautiful and Glorious—The Other
Side—VI. The Scheme of Redemption—VII. Belief—Eternal Pain—No Hope
in Hell, Pity in Heaven, or Mercy in the Heart of God—VIII. Conclusion.
(1898.)
I. What is Superstition?—Popular Beliefs about the Significance
of Signs, Lucky and Unlucky Numbers, Days, Accidents, Jewels,
etc.—Eclipses, Earthquakes, and Cyclones as Omens—Signs and Wonders
of the Heavens—Efficacy of Bones and Rags of Saints—Diseases and
Devils—II. Witchcraft—Necromancers—What is a Miracle?—The Uniformity
of Nature—III. Belief in the Existence of Good Spirits or Angels—God
and the Devil—When Everything was done by the Supernatural—IV. All
these Beliefs now Rejected by Men of Intelligence—The Devil's Success
Made the Coming of Christ a Necessity—"Thou shalt not Suffer a Witch
to Live"—Some Biblical Angels—Vanished Visions—V. Where are Heaven
and Hell?—Prayers Never Answered—The Doctrine of Design—Why Worship
our Ignorance?—Would God Lead us into Temptation?—President McKinley's
Thanks giving for the Santiago Victory—VI. What Harm Does Superstition
Do?—The Heart Hardens and the Brain Softens—What Superstition has Done
and Taught—Fate of Spain—Of Portugal, Austria, Germany—VII. Inspired
Books—Mysteries added to by the Explanations of Theologians—The
Inspired Bible the Greatest Curse of Christendom—VIII. Modifications
of Jehovah—Changing the Bible—IX. Centuries of Darkness—The Church
Triumphant—When Men began to Think—X. Possibly these Superstitions are
True, but We have no Evidence—We Believe in the Natural—Science is the
Real Redeemer.
(1899.)
I. If the Devil should Die, would God Make Another?—How was the Idea
of a Devil Produced—Other Devils than Ours—Natural Origin of these
Monsters—II. The Atlas of Christianity is The Devil—The Devil of the
Old Testament—The Serpent in Eden—"Personifications" of Evil—Satan
and Job—Satan and David—III. Take the Devil from the Drama
of Christianity and the Plot is Gone—Jesus Tempted by the Evil
One—Demoniac Possession—Mary Magdalene—Satan and Judas—Incubi
and Succubi—The Apostles believed in Miracles and Magic—The Pool of
Bethesda—IV. The Evidence of the Church—The Devil was forced to
Father the Failures of God—Belief of the Fathers of the Church
in Devils—Exorcism at the Baptism of an Infant in the Sixteenth
Century—Belief in Devils made the Universe a Madhouse presided over by
an Insane God—V. Personifications of the Devil—The Orthodox Ostrich
Thrusts his Head into the Sand—If Devils are Personifications so are
all the Other Characters of the Bible—VI. Some Queries about the
Devil, his Place of Residence, his Manner of Living, and his Object in
Life—Interrogatories to the Clergy—VII. The Man of Straw the Master
of the Orthodox Ministers—His recent Accomplishments—VIII. Keep the
Devils out of Children—IX. Conclusion.—Declaration of the Free.
(1860-64.)
The Prosperity of the World depends upon its Workers—Veneration for the
Ancient—Credulity and Faith of the Middle Ages—Penalty for Reading
the Scripture in the Mother Tongue—Unjust, Bloody, and Cruel Laws—The
Reformers too were Persecutors—Bigotry of Luther and Knox—Persecution
of Castalio—Montaigne against Torture in France—"Witchcraft" (chapter
on)—Confessed Wizards—A Case before Sir Matthew Hale—Belief
in Lycanthropy—Animals Tried and Executed—Animals received
as Witnesses—The Corsned or Morsel of Execution—Kepler an
Astrologer—Luther's Encounter with the Devil—Mathematician
Stoefflers, Astronomical Prediction of a Flood—Histories Filled with
Falsehood—Legend about the Daughter of Pharaoh invading Scotland and
giving the Country her name—A Story about Mohammed—A History of the
Britains written by Archdeacons—Ingenuous Remark of Eusebius—Progress
in the Mechanic Arts—England at the beginning of the Eighteenth
Century—Barbarous Punishments—Queen Elizabeth's Order Concerning
Clergymen and Servant Girls—Inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and
Others—Solomon's Deprivations—Language (chapter on)—Belief that the
Hebrew was< the original Tongue—Speculations about the Language
of Paradise—Geography (chapter on)—The Works of Cosmas—Printing
Invented—Church's Opposition to Books—The Inquisition—The
Reformation—"Slavery" (chapter on)—Voltaire's Remark on Slavery as
a Contract—White Slaves in Greece, Rome, England, Scotland, and
France—Free minds make Free Bodies—Causes of the Abolition of White
Slavery in Europe—The French Revolution—The African Slave Trade,
its Beginning and End—Liberty Triumphed (chapter head)—Abolition of
Chattel Slavery—Conclusion.
(1899.)
I. Belief in God and Sacrifice—Did an Infinite God Create the Children
of Men and is he the Governor of the Universe?—II. If this God Exists,
how do we Know he is Good?—Should both the Inferior and the Superior
thank God for their Condition?—III. The Power that Works for
Righteousness—What is this Power?—The Accumulated Experience of the
World is a Power Working for Good?—Love the Commencement of the Higher
Virtues—IV. What has our Religion Done?—Would Christians have been
Worse had they Adopted another Faith?—V. How Can Mankind be Reformed
Without Religion?—VI. The Four Corner-stones of my Theory—VII. Matter
and Force Eternal—Links in the Chain of Evolution—VIII. Reform—The
Gutter as a Nursery—Can we Prevent the Unfit from Filling the World
with their Children?—Science must make Woman the Owner and Mistress
of Herself—Morality Born of Intelligence—IX. Real Religion and Real
Worship.
I.
FOR the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are moulded and fashioned by our surroundings.
Environment is a sculptor—a painter.
If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana.
As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them.
Most people love peace. They do not like to differ with their neighbors. They like company. They are social. They enjoy traveling on the highway with the multitude. They hate to walk alone.
The Scotch are Calvinists because their fathers were. The Irish are Catholics because their fathers were. The English are Episcopalians because their fathers were, and the Americans are divided in a hundred sects because their fathers were. This is the general rule, to which there are many exceptions. Children sometimes are superior to their parents, modify their ideas, change their customs, and arrive at different conclusions. But this is generally so gradual that the departure is scarcely noticed, and those who change usually insist that they are still following the fathers.
It is claimed by Christian historians that the religion of a nation was sometimes suddenly changed, and that millions of Pagans were made into Christians by the command of a king. Philosophers do not agree with these historians. Names have been changed, altars have been overthrown, but opinions, customs and beliefs remained the same. A Pagan, beneath the drawn sword of a Christian, would probably change his religious views, and a Christian, with a scimitar above his head, might suddenly become a Mohammedan, but as a matter of fact both would remain exactly as they were before—except in speech.
Belief is not subject to the will. Men think as they must. Children do not, and cannot, believe exactly as they were taught. They are not exactly like their parents. They differ in temperament, in experience, in capacity, in surroundings. And so there is a continual, though almost imperceptible change. There is development, conscious and unconscious growth, and by comparing long periods of time we find that the old has been almost abandoned, almost lost in the new. Men cannot remain stationary. The mind cannot be securely anchored. If we do not advance, we go backward. If we do not grow, we decay. If we do not develop, we shrink and shrivel.
Like the most of you, I was raised among people who knew—who were certain. They did not reason or investigate. They had no doubts. They knew that they had the truth. In their creed there was no guess—no perhaps. They had a revelation from God. They knew the beginning of things. They knew that God commenced to create one Monday morning, four thousand and four years before Christ. They knew that in the eternity—back of that morning, he had done nothing. They knew that it took him six days to make the earth—all plants, all animals, all life, and all the globes that wheel in space. They knew exactly what he did each day and when he rested. They knew the origin, the cause of evil, of all crime, of all disease and death.
They not only knew the beginning, but they knew the end. They knew that life had one path and one road. They knew that the path, grass-grown and narrow, filled with thorns and nettles, infested with vipers, wet with tears, stained by bleeding feet, led to heaven, and that the road, broad and smooth, bordered with fruits and flowers, filled with laughter and song and all the happiness of human love, led straight to hell. They knew that God was doing his best to make you take the path and that the Devil used every art to keep you in the road.
They knew that there was a perpetual battle waged between the great Powers of good and evil for the possession of human souls. They knew that many centuries ago God had left his throne and had been born a babe into this poor world—that he had suffered death for the sake of man—for the sake of saving a few. They also knew that the human heart was utterly depraved, so that man by nature was in love with wrong and hated God with all his might.
At the same time they knew that God created man in his own image and was perfectly satisfied with his work. They also knew that he had been thwarted by the Devil, who with wiles and lies had deceived the first of human kind. They knew that in consequence of that, God cursed the man and woman; the man with toil, the woman with slavery and pain, and both with death; and that he cursed the earth itself with briers and thorns, brambles and thistles. All these blessed things they knew. They knew too all that God had done to purify and elevate the race. They knew all about the Flood—knew that God, with the exception of eight, drowned all his children—the old and young—the bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe—the young man and the merry maiden—the loving mother and the laughing child—because his mercy endureth forever. They knew too, that he drowned the beasts and birds—everything that walked or crawled or flew—because his loving kindness is over all his works. They knew that God, for the purpose of civilizing his children, had devoured some with earthquakes, destroyed some with storms of fire, killed some with his lightnings, millions with famine, with pestilence, and sacrificed countless thousands upon the fields of war. They knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to love God. They knew that there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
All who doubted or denied would be lost. To live a moral and honest life—to keep your contracts, to take care of wife and child—to make a happy home—to be a good citizen, a patriot, a just and thoughtful man, was simply a respectable way of going to hell.
God did not reward men for being honest, generous and brave, but for the act of faith. Without faith, all the so-called virtues were sins, and the men who practiced these virtues, without faith, deserved to suffer eternal pain.
All of these comforting and reasonable things were taught by the ministers in their pulpits—by teachers in Sunday schools and by parents at home. The children were victims. They were assaulted in the cradle—in their mother's arms. Then, the schoolmaster carried on the war against their natural sense, and all the books they read were filled with the same impossible truths. The poor children were helpless. The atmosphere they breathed was filled with lies—lies that mingled with their blood.
In those days ministers depended on revivals to save souls and reform the world.
In the winter, navigation having closed, business was mostly suspended. There were no railways and the only means of communication were wagons and boats. Generally the roads were so bad that the wagons were laid up with the boats. There were no operas, no theatres, no amusement except parties and balls. The parties were regarded as worldly and the balls as wicked. For real and virtuous enjoyment the good people depended on revivals.
The sermons were mostly about the pains and agonies of hell, the joys and ecstasies of heaven, salvation by faith, and the efficacy of the atonement. The little churches, in which the services were held, were generally small, badly ventilated, and exceedingly warm. The emotional sermons, the sad singing, the hysterical amens, the hope of heaven, the fear of hell, caused many to lose the little sense they had. They became substantially insane. In this condition they flocked to the "mourners bench"—asked for the prayers of the faithful—had strange feelings, prayed and wept and thought they had been "born again." Then they would tell their experience—how wicked they had been—how evil had been their thoughts, their desires, and how good they had suddenly become.
They used to tell the story of an old woman who, in telling her experience, said:—"Before I was converted, before I gave my heart to God, I used to lie and steal, but now, thanks to the grace and blood of Jesus Christ, I have quit 'em both, in a great measure."
Of course all the people were not exactly of one mind. There were some scoffers, and now and then some man had sense enough to laugh at the threats of priests and make a jest of hell. Some would tell of unbelievers who had lived and died in peace.
When I was a boy I heard them tell of an old farmer in Vermont. He was dying. The minister was at his bedside—asked him if he was a Christian —if he was prepared to die. The old man answered that he had made no preparation, that he was not a Christian—that he had never done anything but work. The preacher said that he could give him no hope unless he had faith in Christ, and that if he had no faith his soul would certainly be lost.
The old man was not frightened. He was perfectly calm. In a weak and broken voice he said: "Mr. Preacher, I suppose you noticed my farm. My wife and I came here more than fifty years ago. We were just married. It was a forest then and the land was covered with stones. I cut down the trees, burned the logs, picked up the stones and laid the walls. My wife spun and wove and worked every moment. We raised and educated our children—denied ourselves. During all these years my wife never had a good dress, or a decent bonnet. I never had a good suit of clothes. We lived on the plainest food. Our hands, our bodies are deformed by toil. We never had a vacation. We loved each other and the children. That is the only luxury we ever had. Now I am about to die and you ask me if I am prepared. Mr. Preacher, I have no fear of the future, no terror of any other world. There may be such a place as hell—but if there is, you never can make me believe that it's any worse than old Vermont."
So, they told of a man who compared himself with his dog. "My dog," he said, "just barks and plays—has all he wants to eat. He never works—has no trouble about business. In a little while he dies, and that is all. I work with all my strength. I have no time to play. I have trouble every day. In a little while I will die, and then I go to hell. I wish that I had been a dog."
Well, while the cold weather lasted, while the snows fell, the revival went on, but when the winter was over, when the steamboat's whistle was heard, when business started again, most of the converts "backslid" and fell again into their old ways. But the next winter they were on hand, ready to be "born again." They formed a kind of stock company, playing the same parts every winter and backsliding every spring.
The ministers, who preached at these revivals, were in earnest. They were zealous and sincere. They were not philosophers. To them science was the name of a vague dread—a dangerous enemy. They did not know much, but they believed a great deal. To them hell was a burning reality—they could see the smoke and flames. The Devil was no myth. He was an actual person, a rival of God, an enemy of mankind. They thought that the important business of this life was to save your soul—that all should resist and scorn the pleasures of sense, and keep their eyes steadily fixed on the golden gate of the New Jerusalem. They were unbalanced, emotional, hysterical, bigoted, hateful, loving, and insane. They really believed the Bible to be the actual word of God—a book without mistake or contradiction. They called its cruelties, justice—its absurdities, mysteries—its miracles, facts, and the idiotic passages were regarded as profoundly spiritual. They dwelt on the pangs, the regrets, the infinite agonies of the lost, and showed how easily they could be avoided, and how cheaply heaven could be obtained. They told their hearers to believe, to have faith, to give their hearts to God, their sins to Christ, who would bear their burdens and make their souls as white as snow.
All this the ministers really believed. They were absolutely certain. In their minds the Devil had tried in vain to sow the seeds of doubt.
I heard hundreds of these evangelical sermons—heard hundreds of the most fearful and vivid descriptions of the tortures inflicted in hell, of the horrible state of the lost. I supposed that what I heard was true and yet I did not believe it. I said: "It is," and then I thought: "It cannot be."
These sermons made but faint impressions on my mind. I was not convinced.
I had no desire to be "converted," did not want a "new heart" and had no wish to be "born again."
But I heard one sermon that touched my heart, that left its mark, like a scar, on my brain.
One Sunday I went with my brother to hear a Free Will Baptist preacher. He was a large man, dressed like a farmer, but he was an orator. He could paint a picture with words.
He took for his text the parable of "the rich man and Lazarus." He described Dives, the rich man—his manner of life, the excesses in which he indulged, his extravagance, his riotous nights, his purple and fine linen, his feasts, his wines, and his beautiful women.
Then he described Lazarus, his poverty, his rags and wretchedness, his poor body eaten by disease, the crusts and crumbs he devoured, the dogs that pitied him. He pictured his lonely life, his friendless death.
Then, changing his tone of pity to one of triumph—leaping from tears to the heights of exultation—from defeat to victory—he described the glorious company of angels, who with white and outspread wings carried the soul of the despised pauper to Paradise—to the bosom of Abraham.
Then, changing his voice to one of scorn and loathing, he told of the rich man's death. He was in his palace, on his costly couch, the air heavy with perfume, the room filled with servants and physicians. His gold was worthless then. He could not buy another breath. He died, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment.
Then, assuming a dramatic attitude, putting his right hand to his ear, he whispered, "Hark! I hear the rich man's voice. What does he say? Hark! 'Father Abraham! Father Abraham! I pray thee send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my parched tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.'"
"Oh, my hearers, he has been making that request for more than eighteen hundred years. And millions of ages hence that wail will cross the gulf that lies between the saved and lost and still will be heard the cry: 'Father Abraham! Father Abraham! I pray thee send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my parched tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.'"
For the first time I understood the dogma of eternal pain—appreciated "the glad tidings of great joy." For the first time my imagination grasped the height and depth of the Christian horror. Then I said: "It is a lie, and I hate your religion. If it is true, I hate your God."
From that day I have had no fear, no doubt. For me, on that day, the flames of hell were quenched. From that day I have passionately hated every orthodox creed. That Sermon did some good.
II.
FROM my childhood I had heard read and read the Bible. Morning and evening the sacred volume was opened and prayers were said. The Bible was my first history, the Jews were the first people, and the events narrated by Moses and the other inspired writers, and those predicted by prophets were the all important things. In other books were found the thoughts and dreams of men, but in the Bible were the sacred truths of God.
Yet in spite of my surroundings, of my education, I had no love for God. He was so saving of mercy, so extravagant in murder, so anxious to kill, so ready to assassinate, that I hated him with all my heart. At his command, babes were butchered, women violated, and the white hair of trembling age stained with blood. This God visited the people with pestilence—filled the houses and covered the streets with the dying and the dead—saw babes starving on the empty breasts of pallid mothers, heard the sobs, saw the tears, the sunken cheeks, the sightless eyes, the new made graves, and remained as pitiless as the pestilence.
This God withheld the rain—caused the famine—saw the fierce eyes of hunger—the wasted forms, the white lips, saw mothers eating babes, and remained ferocious as famine.
It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt.
But in the old days the good people justified Jehovah in his treatment of the heathen. The wretches who were murdered were idolaters and therefore unfit to live.
According to the Bible, God had never revealed himself to these people and he knew that without a revelation they could not know that he was the true God. Whose fault was it then that they were heathen?
The Christians said that God had the right to destroy them because he created them. What did he create them for? He knew when he made them that they would be food for the sword. He knew that he would have the pleasure of seeing them murdered.
As a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of Jehovah said that all these horrible things happened under the "old dispensation" of unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that now under the "new dispensation," all had been changed—the sword of justice had been sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old Testament, they said, God is the judge—but in the New, Christ is the merciful. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is infinitely worse than the Old. In the Old there is no threat of eternal pain. Jehovah had no eternal prison—no everlasting fire. His hatred ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when his enemy was dead.
In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal.
The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told his disciples not to resist evil, to love their enemies, and when smitten on one cheek to turn the other, and yet we are told that this same God, with the same loving lips, uttered these heartless, these fiendish words: "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."
These are the words of "eternal love."
No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror.
All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and famine, in fire and flood,—all the pangs and pains of every disease and every death—all this is as nothing compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul.
This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice of God—the mercy of Christ.
This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain.
Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed.
It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge.
Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.
While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.
Nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this belief in eternal pain is growing weaker every day—that thousands of ministers are ashamed of it. It gives me joy to know that Christians are becoming merciful, so merciful that the fires of hell are burning low—flickering, choked with ashes, destined in a few years to die out forever.
For centuries Christendom was a madhouse. Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks and heretics were all insane.
Only a few—four or five in a century were sound in heart and brain. Only a few, in spite of the roar and din, in spite of the savage cries, heard reason's voice. Only a few in the wild rage of ignorance, fear and zeal preserved the perfect calm that wisdom gives.
We have advanced. In a few years the Christians will become—let us hope—humane and sensible enough to deny the dogma that fills the endless years with pain. They ought to know now that this dogma is utterly inconsistent with the wisdom, the justice, the goodness of their God. They ought to know that their belief in hell, gives to the Holy Ghost—the Dove—the beak of a vulture, and fills the mouth of the Lamb of God with the fangs of a viper.
III.
IN my youth I read religious books—books about God, about the atonement—about salvation by faith, and about the other worlds. I became familiar with the commentators—with Adam Clark, who thought that the serpent seduced our mother Eve, and was in fact the father of Cain. He also believed that the animals, while in the ark, had their natures' changed to that degree that they devoured straw together and enjoyed each other's society—thus prefiguring the blessed millennium. I read Scott, who was such a natural theologian that he really thought the story of Phaeton—of the wild steeds dashing across the sky—corroborated the story of Joshua having stopped the sun and moon. So, I read Henry and MacKnight and found that God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race. I read Cruden, who made the great Concordance, and made the miracles as small and probable as he could.
I remember that he explained the miracle of feeding the wandering Jews with quails, by saying that even at this day immense numbers of quails crossed the Red Sea, and that sometimes when tired, they settled on ships that sank beneath their weight. The fact that the explanation was as hard to believe as the miracle made no difference to the devout Cruden.
To while away the time I read Calvin's Institutes, a book calculated to produce, in any natural mind, considerable respect for the Devil.
I read Paley's Evidences and found that the evidence of ingenuity in producing the evil, in contriving the hurtful, was at least equal to the evidence tending to show the use of intelligence in the creation of what we call good.
You know the watch argument was Paley's greatest effort. A man finds a watch and it is so wonderful that he concludes that it must have had a maker. He finds the maker and he is so much more wonderful than the watch that he says he must have had a maker. Then he finds God, the maker of the man, and he is so much more wonderful than the man that he could not have had a maker. This is what the lawyers call a departure in pleading.
According to Paley there can be no design without a designer—but there can be a designer without a design. The wonder of the watch suggested the watchmaker, and the wonder of the watchmaker, suggested the creator, and the wonder of the creator demonstrated that he was not created—but was uncaused and eternal.
We had Edwards on The Will, in which the reverend author shows that necessity has no effect on accountability—and that when God creates a human being, and at the same time determines and decrees exactly what that being shall do and be, the human being is responsible, and God in his justice and mercy has the right to torture the soul of that human being forever. Yet Edwards said that he loved God.
The fact is that if you believe in an infinite God, and also in eternal punishment, then you must admit that Edwards and Calvin were absolutely right. There is no escape from their conclusions if you admit their premises. They were infinitely cruel, their premises infinitely absurd, their God infinitely fiendish, and their logic perfect.
And yet I have kindness and candor enough to say that Calvin and Edwards were both insane.
We had plenty of theological literature. There was Jenkyn on the Atonement, who demonstrated the wisdom of God in devising a way in which the sufferings of innocence could justify the guilty. He tried to show that children could justly be punished for the sins of their ancestors, and that men could, if they had faith, be justly credited with the virtues of others. Nothing could be more devout, orthodox, and idiotic. But all of our theology was not in prose. We had Milton with his celestial militia—with his great and blundering God, his proud and cunning Devil—his wars between immortals, and all the sublime absurdities that religion wrought within the blind man's brain.
The theology taught by Milton was dear to the Puritan heart. It was accepted by New England, and it poisoned the souls and ruined the lives of thousands. The genius of Shakespeare could not make the theology of Milton poetic. In the literature of the world there is nothing, outside of the "sacred books," more perfectly absurd.
We had Young's Night Thoughts, and I supposed that the author was an exceedingly devout and loving follower of the Lord. Yet Young had a great desire to be a bishop, and to accomplish that end he electioneered with the king's mistress. In other words, he was a fine old hypocrite. In the "Night Thoughts" there is scarcely a genuinely honest, natural line. It is pretence from beginning to end. He did not write what he felt, but what he thought he ought to feel.
We had Pollok's Course of Time, with its worm that never dies, its quenchless flames, its endless pangs, its leering devils, and its gloating God. This frightful poem should have been written in a madhouse. In it you find all the cries and groans and shrieks of maniacs, when they tear and rend each other's flesh. It is as heartless, as hideous, as hellish as the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy.
We all know the beautiful hymn commencing with the cheerful line: "Hark from the tombs, a doleful sound." Nothing could have been more appropriate for children. It is well to put a coffin where it can be seen from the cradle. When a mother nurses her child, an open grave should be at her feet. This would tend to make the babe serious, reflective, religious and miserable.
God hates laughter and despises mirth. To feel free, untrammeled, irresponsible, joyous,—to forget care and death—to be flooded with sunshine without a fear of night—to forget the past, to have no thought of the future, no dream of God, or heaven, or hell—to be intoxicated with the present—to be conscious only of the clasp and kiss of the one you love—this is the sin against the Holy Ghost.
But we had Cowper's poems. Cowper was sincere. He was the opposite of Young. He had an observing eye, a gentle heart and a sense of the artistic. He sympathized with all who suffered—with the imprisoned, the enslaved, the outcasts. He loved the beautiful. No wonder that the belief in eternal punishment made this loving soul insane. No wonder that the "tidings of great joy" quenched Hope's great star and left his broken heart in the darkness of despair.
We had many volumes of orthodox sermons, filled with wrath and the terrors of the judgment to come—sermons that had been delivered by savage saints.
We had the Book of Martyrs, showing that Christians had for many centuries imitated the God they worshiped.
W|e had the history of the Waldenses—of the Reformation of the Church. We had Pilgrim's Progress, Baxter's Call and Butler's Analogy.
To use a Western phrase or saying, I found that Bishop Butler dug up more snakes than he killed—suggested more difficulties than he explained—more doubts than he dispelled.
IV.
AMONG such books my youth was passed. All the seeds of Christianity—of superstition, were sown in my mind and cultivated with great diligence and care.
All that time I knew nothing of any science—nothing about the other side—nothing of the objections that had been urged against the blessed Scriptures, or against the perfect Congregational creed. Of course I had heard the ministers speak of blasphemers, of infidel wretches, of scoffers who laughed at holy things. They did not answer their arguments, but they tore their characters into shreds and demonstrated by the fury of assertion that they had done the Devil's work. And yet in spite of all I heard—of all I read, I could not quite believe. My brain and heart said No.
For a time I left the dreams, the insanities, the illusions and delusions, the nightmares of theology. I studied astronomy, just a little—I examined maps of the heavens—learned the names of some of the constellations—of some of the stars—found something of their size and the velocity with which they wheeled in their orbits—obtained a faint conception of astronomical spaces—found that some of the known stars were so far away in the depths of space that their light, traveling at the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles a second, required many years to reach this little world—found that, compared with the great stars, our earth was but a grain of sand—an atom—found that the old belief that all the hosts of heaven had been created for the benefit of man, was infinitely absurd.
I compared what was really known about the stars with the account of creation as told in Genesis. I found that the writer of the inspired book had no knowledge of astronomy—that he was as ignorant as a Choctaw chief—as an Eskimo driver of dogs. Does any one imagine that the author of Genesis knew anything about the sun—its size? that he was acquainted with Sirius, the North Star, with Capella, or that he knew anything of the clusters of stars so far away that their light, now visiting our eyes, has been traveling for two million years?
If he had known these facts would he have said that Jehovah worked nearly six days to make this world, and only a part of the afternoon of the fourth day to make the sun and moon and all the stars?
Yet millions of people insist that the writer of Genesis was inspired by the Creator of all worlds.
Now, intelligent men, who are not frightened, whose brains have not been paralyzed by fear, know that the sacred story of creation was written by an ignorant savage. The story is inconsistent with all known facts, and every star shining in the heavens testifies that its author was an uninspired barbarian.
I admit that this unknown writer was sincere, that he wrote what he believed to be true—that he did the best he could. He did not claim to be inspired—did not pretend that the story had been told to him by Jehovah. He simply stated the "facts" as he understood them.
After I had learned a little about the stars I concluded that this writer, this "inspired" scribe, had been misled by myth and legend, and that he knew no more about creation than the average theologian of my day. In other words, that he knew absolutely nothing.
And here, allow me to say that the ministers who are answering me are turning their guns in the wrong direction. These reverend gentlemen should attack the astronomers. They should malign and vilify Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Herschel and Laplace. These men were the real destroyers of the sacred story. Then, after having disposed of them, they can wage a war against the stars, and against Jehovah himself for having furnished evidence against the truthfulness of his book.
Then I studied geology—not much, just a little—just enough to find in a general way the principal facts that had been discovered, and some of the conclusions that had been reached. I learned something of the action of fire—of water—of the formation of islands and continents—of the sedimentary and igneous rocks—of the coal measures—of the chalk cliffs, something about coral reefs—about the deposits made by rivers, the effect of volcanoes, of glaciers, and of the all surrounding sea—just enough to know that the Laurentian rocks were millions of ages older than the grass beneath my feet—just enough to feel certain that this world had been pursuing its flight about the sun, wheeling in light and shade, for hundreds of millions of years—just enough to know that the "inspired" writer knew nothing of the history of the earth—nothing of the great forces of nature—of wind and wave and fire—forces that have destroyed and built, wrecked and wrought through all the countless years.
And let me tell the ministers again that they should not waste their time in answering me. They should attack the geologists. They should deny the facts that have been discovered. They should launch their curses at the blaspheming seas, and dash their heads against the infidel rocks.
Then I studied biology—not much—just enough to know something of animal forms, enough to know that life existed when the Laurentian rocks were made—just enough to know that implements of stone, implements that had been formed by human hands, had been found mingled with the bones of extinct animals, bones that had been split with these implements, and that these animals had ceased to exist hundreds of thousands of years before the manufacture of Adam and Eve.
Then I felt sure that the "inspired" record was false—that many millions of people had been deceived and that all I had been taught about the origin of worlds and men was utterly untrue. I felt that I knew that the Old Testament was the work of ignorant men—that it was a mingling of truth and mistake, of wisdom and foolishness, of cruelty and kindness, of philosophy and absurdity—that it contained some elevated thoughts, some poetry,—-a good deal of the solemn and commonplace,—some hysterical, some tender, some wicked prayers, some insane predictions, some delusions, and some chaotic dreams.
Of course the theologians fought the facts found by the geologists, the scientists, and sought to sustain the sacred Scriptures. They mistook the bones of the mastodon for those of human beings, and by them proudly proved that "there were giants in those days." They accounted for the fossils by saying that God had made them to try our faith, or that the Devil had imitated the works of the Creator.
They answered the geologists by saying that the "days" in Genesis were long periods of time, and that after all the flood might have been local. They told the astronomers that the sun and moon were not actually, but only apparently, stopped. And that the appearance was produced by the reflection and refraction of light.
They excused the slavery and polygamy, the robbery and murder upheld in the Old Testament by saying that the people were so degraded that Jehovah was compelled to pander to their ignorance and prejudice.
In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth, to preserve the creed.
At first they flatly denied the facts—then they belittled them—then they harmonized them—then they denied that they had denied them. Then they changed the meaning of the "inspired" book to fit the facts.
At first they said that if the facts, as claimed, were true, the Bible was false and Christianity itself a superstition. Afterward they said the facts, as claimed, were true and that they established beyond all doubt the inspiration of the Bible and the divine origin of orthodox religion.
Anything they could not dodge, they swallowed, and anything they could not swallow, they dodged.
I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities, its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New because it vouched for the truth of the Old. I gave it up on account of its miracles, its contradictions, because Christ and his disciples believed in the existence of devils—talked and made bargains with them, expelled them from people and animals.
This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that devils do not exist—that Christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane. These stories about devils demonstrate the human, the ignorant origin of the New Testament. I gave up the New Testament because it rewards credulity, and curses brave and honest men, and because it teaches the infinite horror of eternal pain.
V.
HAVING spent my youth in reading books about religion—about the "new birth"—the disobedience of our first parents, the atonement, salvation by faith, the wickedness of pleasure, the degrading consequences of love, and the impossibility of getting to heaven by being honest and generous, and having become somewhat weary of the frayed and raveled thoughts, you can imagine my surprise, my delight when I read the poems of Robert Burns.
I was familiar with the writings of the devout and insincere, the pious and petrified, the pure and heartless. Here was a natural honest man. I knew the works of those who regarded all nature as depraved, and looked upon love as the legacy and perpetual witness of original sin. Here was a man who plucked joy from the mire, made goddesses of peasant girls, and enthroned the honest man. One whose sympathy, with loving arms, embraced all forms of suffering life, who hated slavery of every kind, who was as natural as heaven's blue, with humor kindly as an autumn day, with wit as sharp as Ithuriel's spear, and scorn that blasted like the simoon's breath. A man who loved this world, this life, the things of every day, and placed above all else the thrilling ecstasies of human love.
I read and read again with rapture, tears and smiles, feeling that a great heart was throbbing in the lines.
The religious, the lugubrious, the artificial, the spiritual poets were forgotten or remained only as the fragments, the half remembered horrors of monstrous and distorted dreams.
I had found at last a natural man, one who despised his country's cruel creed, and was brave and sensible enough to say: "All religions are auld wives' fables, but an honest man has nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come."
One who had the genius to write Holy Willie's Prayer—a poem that crucified Calvinism and through its bloodless heart thrust the spear of common sense—a poem that made every orthodox creed the food of scorn—of inextinguishable laughter.
Burns had his faults, his frailties. He was intensely human. Still, I would rather appear at the "Judgment Seat" drunk, and be able to say that I was the author of "A man's a man for 'a that," than to be perfectly sober and admit that I had lived and died a Scotch Presbyterian.
I read Byron—read his Cain, in which, as in Paradise Lost, the Devil seems to be the better god—read his beautiful, sublime and bitter lines—read his Prisoner of Chillon—his best—a poem that filled my heart with tenderness, with pity, and with an eternal hatred of tyranny.
I read Shelley's Queen Mab—a poem filled with beauty, courage, thought, sympathy, tears and scorn, in which a brave soul tears down the prison walls and floods the cells with light. I read his Skylark—a winged flame—passionate as blood—tender as tears—pure as light.
I read Keats, "whose name was writ in water"—read St. Agnes Eve, a story told with such an artless art that this poor common world is changed to fairy land—the Grecian Urn, that fills the soul with ever eager love, with all the rapture of imagined song—the Nightingale—a melody in which there is the memory of morn—a melody that dies away in dusk and tears, paining the senses with its perfectness.
And then I read Shakespeare, the plays, the sonnets, the poems—read all. I beheld a new heaven and a new earth; Shakespeare, who knew the brain and heart of man—the hopes and fears, the loves and hatreds, the vices and the virtues of the human race; whose imagination read the tear-blurred records, the blood-stained pages of all the past, and saw falling athwart the outspread scroll the light of hope and love; Shakespeare, who sounded every depth—while on the loftiest peak there fell the shadow of his wings.
I compared the Plays with the "inspired" books—Romeo and Juliet with the Song of Solomon, Lear with Job, and the Sonnets with the Psalms, and I found that Jehovah did not understand the art of speech. I compared Shakespeare's women—his perfect women—with the women of the Bible. I found that Jehovah was not a sculptor, not a painter—not an artist—that he lacked the power that changes clay to flesh—the art, the plastic touch, that moulds the perfect form—the breath that gives it free and joyous life—the genius that creates the faultless.
The sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones compared with Shakespeare's glittering gold and gleaming gems.
VI.
UP to this time I had read nothing against our blessed religion except what I had found in Burns, Byron and Shelley. By some accident I read Volney, who shows that all religions are, and have been, established in the same way—that all had their Christs, their apostles, miracles and sacred books, and then asked how it is possible to decide which is the true one. A question that is still waiting for an answer.
I read Gibbon, the greatest of historians, who marshaled his facts as skillfully as Cæsar did his legions, and I learned that Christianity is only a name for Paganism—for the old religion, shorn of its beauty—that some absurdities had been exchanged for others—that some gods had been killed—a vast multitude of devils created, and that hell had been enlarged.
And then I read the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Let me tell you something about this sublime and slandered man. He came to this country just before the Revolution. He brought a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, at that time the greatest American.
In Philadelphia, Paine was employed to write for the Pennsylvania Magazine. We know that he wrote at least five articles. The first was against slavery, the second against duelling, the third on the treatment of prisoners—showing that the object should be to reform, not to punish and degrade—the fourth on the rights of woman, and the fifth in favor of forming societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals.
From this you see that he suggested the great reforms of our century.
The truth is that he labored all his life for the good of his fellow-men, and did as much to found the Great Republic as any man who ever stood beneath our flag.
He gave his thoughts about religion—about the blessed Scriptures, about the superstitions of his time. He was perfectly sincere and what he said was kind and fair.
The Age of Reason filled with hatred the hearts of those who loved their enemies, and the occupant of every orthodox pulpit became, and still is, a passionate maligner of Thomas Paine.
No one has answered—no one will answer, his argument against the dogma of inspiration—his objections to the Bible.
He did not rise above all the superstitions of his day. While he hated Jehovah, he praised the God of Nature, the creator and preserver of all. In this he was wrong, because, as Watson said in his Reply to Paine, the God of Nature is as heartless, as cruel as the God of the Bible.
But Paine was one of the pioneers—one of the Titans, one of the heroes, who gladly gave his life, his every thought and act, to free and civilize mankind.
I read Voltaire—Voltaire, the greatest man of his century, and who did more for liberty of thought and speech than any other being, human or "divine." Voltaire, who tore the mask from hypocrisy and found behind the painted smile the fangs of hate. Voltaire, who attacked the savagery of the law, the cruel decisions of venal courts, and rescued victims from the wheel and rack. Voltaire, who waged war against the tyranny of thrones, the greed and heartlessness of power. Voltaire, who filled the flesh of priests with the barbed and poisoned arrows of his wit and made the pious jugglers, who cursed him in public, laugh at themselves in private. Voltaire, who sided with the oppressed, rescued the unfortunate, championed the obscure and weak, civilized judges, repealed laws and abolished torture in his native land.
In every direction this tireless man fought the absurd, the miraculous, the supernatural, the idiotic, the unjust. He had no reverence for the ancient. He was not awed by pageantry and pomp, by crowned Crime or mitered Pretence. Beneath the crown he saw the criminal, under the miter, the hypocrite.
To the bar of his conscience, his reason, he summoned the barbarism and the barbarians of his time. He pronounced judgment against them all, and that judgment has been affirmed by the intelligent world. Voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.
I read Zeno, the man who said, centuries before our Christ was born, that man could not own his fellow-man.
"No matter whether you claim a slave by purchase or capture, the title is bad. They who claim to own their fellow-men, look down into the pit and forget the justice that should rule the world."
I became acquainted with Epicurus, who taught the religion of usefulness, of temperance, of courage and wisdom, and who said: "Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?"
I read about Socrates, who when on trial for his life, said, among other things, to his judges, these wondrous words: "I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty."
So, I read about Diogenes, the philosopher who hated the superfluous—the enemy of waste and greed, and who one day entered the temple, reverently approached the altar, crushed a louse between the nails of his thumbs, and solemnly said: "The sacrifice of Diogenes to all the gods." This parodied the worship of the world—satirized all creeds, and in one act put the essence of religion.
Diogenes must have know of this "inspired" passage—"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins."
I compared Zeno, Epicurus and Socrates, three heathen wretches who had never heard of the Old Testament or the Ten Commandments, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, three favorites of Jehovah, and I was depraved enough to think that the Pagans were superior to the Patriarchs—and to Jehovah himself.
VII.
MY attention was turned to other religions, to the sacred books, the creeds and ceremonies of other lands—of India, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, of the dead and dying nations.
I concluded that all religions had the same foundation—a belief in the supernatural—a power above nature that man could influence by worship—by sacrifice and prayer.
I found that all religions rested on a mistaken conception of nature—that the religion of a people was the science of that people, that is to say, their explanation of the world—of life and death—of origin and destiny.
I concluded that all religions had substantially the same origin, and that in fact there has never been but one religion in the world. The twigs and leaves may differ, but the trunk is the same.
The poor African that pours out his heart to his deity of stone is on an exact religious level with the robed priest who supplicates his God. The same mistake, the same superstition, bends the knees and shuts the eyes of both. Both ask for supernatural aid, and neither has the slightest thought of the absolute uniformity of nature.
It seems probable to me that the first organized ceremonial religion was the worship of the sun. The sun was the "Sky Father," the "All Seeing," the source of life—the fireside of the world. The sun was regarded as a god who fought the darkness, the power of evil, the enemy of man.
There have been many sun-gods, and they seem to have been the chief deities in the ancient religions. They have been worshiped in many lands—by many nations that have passed to death and dust.
Apollo was a sun-god and he fought and conquered the serpent of night. Baldur was a sun-god. He was in love with the Dawn—a maiden. Chrishna was a sun-god. At his birth the Ganges was thrilled from its source to the sea, and all the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf and bud and flower. Hercules was a sun-god and so was Samson, whose strength was in his hair—that is to say, in his beams. He was shorn of his strength by Delilah, the shadow—the darkness. Osiris, Bacchus, and Mithra, Hermes, Buddha, and Quetzalcoatl, Prometheus, Zoroaster, and Perseus, Cadom, Lao-tsze, Fo-hi, Horus and Rameses, were all sun-gods.
All of these gods had gods for fathers and their mothers were virgins. The births of nearly all were announced by stars, celebrated by celestial music, and voices declared that a blessing had come to the poor world. All of these gods were born in humble places—in caves, under trees, in common inns, and tyrants sought to kill them all when they were babes. All of these sun-gods were born at the winter solstice—on Christmas. Nearly all were worshiped by "wise men." All of them fasted for forty days—all of them taught in parables—all of them wrought miracles—all met with a violent death, and all rose from the dead.
The history of these gods is the exact history of our Christ.
This is not a coincidence—an accident. Christ was a sun-god. Christ was a new name for an old biography—a survival—the last of the sun-gods. Christ was not a man, but a myth—not a life, but a legend.
I found that we had not only borrowed our Christ—but that all our sacraments, symbols and ceremonies were legacies that we received from the buried past. There is nothing original in Christianity.
The cross was a symbol thousands of years before our era. It was a symbol of life, of immortality—of the god Agni, and it was chiseled upon tombs many ages before a line of our Bible was written.
Baptism is far older than Christianity—than Judaism. The Hindus, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans had Holy Water long before a Catholic lived. The eucharist was borrowed from the Pagans. Ceres was the goddess of the fields—Bacchus of the vine. At the harvest festival they made cakes of wheat and said: "This is the flesh of the goddess." They drank wine and cried: "This is the blood of our god."
The Egyptians had a Trinity. They worshiped Osiris, Isis and Horus, thousands of years before the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were known.
The Tree of Life grew in India, in China, and among the Aztecs, long before the Garden of Eden was planted.
Long before our Bible was known, other nations had their sacred books.
The dogmas of the Fall of Man, the Atonement and Salvation by Faith, are far older than our religion.
In our blessed gospel,—in our "divine scheme,"—there is nothing new—nothing original. All old—all borrowed, pieced and patched.
Then I concluded that all religions had been naturally produced, and that all were variations, modifications of one,—then I felt that I knew that all were the work of man.
VIII.
THE theologians had always insisted that their God was the creator of all living things—that the forms, parts, functions, colors and varieties of animals were the expressions of his fancy, taste and wisdom—that he made them all precisely as they are to-day—that he invented fins and legs and wings—that he furnished them with the weapons of attack, the shields of defence—that he formed them with reference to food and climate, taking into consideration all facts affecting life.
They insisted that man was a special creation, not related in any way to the animals below him. They also asserted that all the forms of vegetation, from mosses to forests, were just the same to-day as the moment they were made.
Men of genius, who were for the most part free from religious prejudice, were examining these things—were looking for facts. They were examining the fossils of animals and plants—studying the forms of animals—their bones and muscles—the effect of climate and food—the strange modifications through which they had passed.
Humboldt had published his lectures—filled with great thoughts—with splendid generalizations—with suggestions that stimulated the spirit of investigation, and with conclusions that satisfied the mind. He demonstrated the uniformity of Nature—the kinship of all that lives and grows—that breathes and thinks.
Darwin, with his Origin of Species, his theories about Natural Selection, the Survival of the Fittest, and the influence of environment, shed a flood of light upon the great problems of plant and animal life.
These things had been guessed, prophesied, asserted, hinted by many others, but Darwin, with infinite patience, with perfect care and candor, found the facts, fulfilled the prophecies, and demonstrated the truth of the guesses, hints and assertions. He was, in my judgment, the keenest observer, the best judge of the meaning and value of a fact, the greatest Naturalist the world has produced.
The theological view began to look small and mean.
Spencer gave his theory of evolution and sustained it by countless facts. He stood at a great height, and with the eyes of a philosopher, a profound thinker, surveyed the world. He has influenced the thought of the wisest.
Theology looked more absurd than ever.
Huxley entered the lists for Darwin. No man ever had a sharper sword—a better shield. He challenged the world. The great theologians and the small scientists—those who had more courage than sense, accepted the challenge. Their poor bodies were carried away by their friends.
Huxley had intelligence, industry, genius, and the courage to express his thought. He was absolutely loyal to what he thought was truth. Without prejudice and without fear, he followed the footsteps of life from the lowest to the highest forms.
Theology looked smaller still.
Haeckel began at the simplest cell, went from change to change—from form to form—followed the line of development, the path of life, until he reached the human race. It was all natural. There had been no interference from without.
I read the works of these great men—of many others—and became convinced that they were right, and that all the theologians—all the believers in "special creation" were absolutely wrong.
The Garden of Eden faded away, Adam and Eve fell back to dust, the snake crawled into the grass, and Jehovah became a miserable myth.
IX.
I TOOK another step. What is matter—substance? Can it be destroyed—annihilated? Is it possible to conceive of the destruction of the smallest atom of substance? It can be ground to powder—changed from a solid to a liquid—from a liquid to a gas—but it all remains. Nothing is lost—nothing destroyed.
Let an infinite God, if there be one, attack a grain of sand—attack it with infinite power. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot surrender. It defies all force. Substance cannot be destroyed.
Then I took another step.
If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have been created.
The indestructible must be uncreateable.
And then I asked myself: What is force?
We cannot conceive of the creation of force, or of its destruction. Force may be changed from one form to another—from motion to heat—but it cannot be destroyed—annihilated.
If force cannot be destroyed it could not have been created. It is eternal.
Another thing—matter cannot exist apart from force. Force cannot exist apart from matter. Matter could not have existed before force. Force could not have existed before matter. Matter and force can only be conceived of together. This has been shown by several scientists, but most clearly, most forcibly by Büchner.
Thought is a form of force, consequently it could not have caused or created matter. Intelligence is a form of force and could not have existed without or apart from matter. Without substance there could have been no mind, no will, no force in any form, and there could have been no substance without force.
Matter and force were not created. They have existed from eternity. They cannot be destroyed.
There was, there is, no creator. Then came the question: Is there a God? Is there a being of infinite intelligence, power and goodness, who governs the world?
There can be goodness without much intelligence—but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.
In nature I see, or seem to see, good and evil—intelligence and ignorance—goodness and cruelty—care and carelessness—economy and waste. I see means that do not accomplish the ends—designs that seem to fail.
To me it seems infinitely cruel for life to feed on life—to create animals that devour others.
The teeth and beaks, the claws and fangs, that tear and rend, fill me with horror. What can be more frightful than a world at-war? Every leaf a battle-field—every flower a Golgotha—in every drop of water pursuit, capture and death. Under every piece of bark, life lying in wait for life. On every blade of grass, something that kills,—something that suffers. Everywhere the strong living on the weak—the superior on the inferior. Everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on the strong—the inferior on the superior—the highest food for the lowest—man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. Murder universal. Everywhere pain, disease and death—death that does not wait for bent forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child—death that fills the world with grief and tears.
How can the orthodox Christian explain these things?
I know that life is good. I remember the sunshine and rain. Then I think of the earthquake and flood. I do not forget health and harvest, home and love—but what of pestilence and famine? I cannot harmonize all these contradictions—these blessings and agonies—with the existence of an infinitely good, wise and powerful God.
The theologian says that what we call evil is for our benefit—that we are placed in this world of sin and sorrow to develop character. If this is true I ask why the infant dies? Millions and millions draw a few breaths and fade away in the arms of their mothers. They are not allowed to develop character.
The theologian says that serpents were given fangs to protect themselves from their enemies. Why did the God who made them, make enemies? Why is it that many species of serpents have no fangs?
The theologian says that God armored the hippopotamus, covered his body, except the under part, with scales and plates, that other animals could not pierce with tooth or tusk. But the same God made the rhinoceros and supplied him with a horn on his nose, with which he disembowels the hippopotamus.
The same God made the eagle, the vulture, the hawk, and their helpless prey.
On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design.
If God created man—if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic?
Should the inferior man thank God? Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God? Should the slave thank God?
The theologian says that God governs the wind, the rain, the lightning. How then can we account for the cyclone, the flood, the drought, the glittering bolt that kills?
Suppose we had a man in this country who could control the wind, the rain and lightning, and suppose we elected him to govern these things, and suppose that he allowed whole States to dry and wither, and at the same time wasted the rain in the sea. Suppose that he allowed the winds to destroy cities and to crush to shapelessness thousands of men and women, and allowed the lightnings to strike the life out of mothers and babes. What would we say? What would we think of such a savage?
And yet, according to the theologians, this is exactly the course pursued by God.
What do we think of a man, who will not, when he has the power, protect his friends? Yet the Christian's God allowed his enemies to torture and burn his friends, his worshipers.
Who has ingenuity enough to explain this?
What good man, having the power to prevent it, would allow the innocent to be imprisoned, chained in dungeons, and sigh against the dripping walls their weary lives away?
If God governs the world, why is innocence not a perfect shield? Why does injustice triumph?
Who can answer these questions?
In answer, the intelligent, honest man must say: I do not know.
X.
THIS God must be, if he exists, a person—a conscious being. Who can imagine an infinite personality? This God must have force, and we cannot conceive of force apart from matter. This God must be material. He must have the means by which he changes force to what we call thought. When he thinks he uses force, force that must be replaced. Yet we are told that he is infinitely wise. If he is, he does not think. Thought is a ladder—a process by which we reach a conclusion. He who knows all conclusions cannot think. He cannot hope or fear. When knowledge is perfect there can be no passion, no emotion. If God is infinite he does not want. He has all. He who does not want does not act. The infinite must dwell in eternal calm.
It is as impossible to conceive of such a being as to imagine a square triangle, or to think of a circle without a diameter.
Yet we are told that it is our duty to love this God. Can we love the unknown, the inconceivable? Can it be our duty to love anybody? It is our duty to act justly, honestly, but it cannot be our duty to love. We cannot be under obligation to admire a painting—to be charmed with a poem—or thrilled with music. Admiration cannot be controlled. Taste and love are not the servants of the will. Love is, and must be free. It rises from the heart like perfume from a flower.
For thousands of ages men and women have been trying to love the gods—trying to soften their hearts—trying to get their aid.
I see them all. The panorama passes before me. I see them with outstretched hands—with reverently closed eyes—worshiping the sun. I see them bowing, in their fear and need, to meteoric stones—imploring serpents, beasts and sacred trees—praying to idols wrought of wood and stone. I see them building altars to the unseen powers, staining them with blood of child and beast. I see the countless priests and hear their solemn chants. I see the dying victims, the smoking altars, the swinging censers, and the rising clouds. I see the half-god men—the mournful Christs, in many lands. I see the common things of life change to miracles as they speed from mouth to mouth. I see the insane prophets reading the secret book of fate by signs and dreams. I see them all—the Assyrians chanting the praises of Asshur and Ishtar—the Hindus worshiping Brahma, Vishnu and Draupadi, the whitearmed—the Chaldeans sacrificing to Bel and Hea—the Egyptians bowing to Ptah and Ra, Osiris and Isis—the Medes placating the storm, worshiping the fire—the Babylonians supplicating Bel and Morodach—I see them all by the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Ganges and the Nile. I see the Greeks building temples for Zeus, Neptune and Venus. I see the Romans kneeling to a hundred gods. I see others spurning idols and pouring out their hopes and fears to a vague image in the mind. I see the multitudes, with open mouths, receive as truths the myths and fables of the vanished years. I see them give their toil, their wealth to robe the priests, to build the vaulted roofs, the spacious aisles, the glittering domes. I see them clad in rags, huddled in dens and huts, devouring crusts and scraps, that they may give the more to ghosts and gods. I see them make their cruel creeds and fill the world with hatred, war, and death. I see them with their faces in the dust in the dark days of plague and sudden death, when cheeks are wan and lips are white for lack of bread. I hear their prayers, their sighs, their sobs. I see them kiss the unconscious lips as their hot tears fall on the pallid faces of the dead. I see the nations as they fade and fail. I see them captured and enslaved. I see their altars mingle with the common earth, their temples crumble slowly back to dust. I see their gods grow old and weak, infirm and faint. I see them fall from vague and misty thrones, helpless and dead. The worshipers receive no help. Injustice triumphs. Toilers are paid with the lash,—babes are sold,—the innocent stand on scaffolds, and the heroic perish in flames. I see the earthquakes devour, the volcanoes overwhelm, the cyclones wreck, the floods destroy, and the lightnings kill.
The nations perished. The gods died. The toil and wealth were lost. The temples were built in vain, and all the prayers died unanswered in the heedless air.
Then I asked myself the question: Is there a supernatural power—an arbitrary mind—an enthroned God—a supreme will that sways the tides and currents of the world—to which all causes bow?
I do not deny. I do not know—but I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supreme—that from the infinite chain no link can be lost or broken—that there is no supernatural power that can answer prayer—no power that worship can persuade or change—no power that cares for man.
I believe that with infinite arms Nature embraces the all—that there is no interference—no chance—that behind every event are the necessary and countless causes, and that beyond every event will be and must be the necessary and countless effects.
Man must protect himself. He cannot depend upon the supernatural—upon an imaginary father in the skies. He must protect himself by finding the facts in Nature, by developing his brain, to the end that he may overcome the obstructions and take advantage of the forces of Nature.
Is there a God?
I do not know.
Is man immortal?
I do not know.
One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.
We wait and hope.
XI.
WHEN I became convinced that the Universe is natural—that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world—not even in infinite space. I was free—free to think, to express my thoughts—free to live to my own ideal—free to live for myself and those I loved—free to use all my faculties, all my senses—free to spread imagination's wings—free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope—free to judge and determine for myself—free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past—free from popes and priests—free from all the "called" and "set apart"—free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies—free from the fear of eternal pain—free from the winged monsters of the night—free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought—no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings—no chains for my limbs—no lashes for my back—no fires for my flesh—no master's frown or threat—no following another's steps—no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain—for the freedom of labor and thought—to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains—to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs—to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn—to those by fire consumed—to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.
Let us be true to ourselves—true to the facts we know, and let us, above all things, preserve the veracity of our souls.
If there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow-men. We cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend.
We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men. We can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine—with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy.
I.
THROUGH millions of ages, by countless efforts to satisfy his wants, to gratify his passions, his appetites, man slowly developed his brain, changed two of his feet into hands and forced into the darkness of his brain a few gleams and glimmerings of reason. He was hindered by ignorance, by fear, by mistakes, and he advanced only as he found the truth—the absolute facts. Through countless years he has groped and crawled and struggled and climbed and stumbled toward the light. He has been hindered and delayed and deceived by augurs and prophets—by popes and priests. He has been betrayed by saints, misled by apostles and Christs, frightened by devils and ghosts—enslaved by chiefs and kings—robbed by altars and thrones. In the name of education his mind has been filled with mistakes, with miracles, and lies, with the impossible, the absurd and infamous. In the name of religion he has been taught humility and arrogance, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge.
But the world is changing. We are tired of barbarian bibles and savage creeds.
Nothing is greater, nothing is of more importance, than to find amid the errors and darkness of this life, a shining truth.
Truth is the intellectual wealth of the world.
The noblest of occupations is to search for truth.
Truth is the foundation, the superstructure, and the glittering dome of progress.
Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civilizes, ennobles, and purifies. The grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know the truth.
Truth gives man the greatest power for good. Truth is sword and shield. It is the sacred light of the soul.
The man who finds a truth lights a torch.
How is Truth to be Found?
By investigation, experiment and reason.
Every human being should be allowed to investigate to the extent of his desire—his ability. The literature of the world should be open to him—nothing prohibited, sealed or hidden. No subject can be too sacred to be understood. Each person should be allowed to reach his own conclusions and to speak his honest thought.
He who threatens the investigator with punishment here, or hereafter, is an enemy of the human race. And he who tries to bribe the investigator with the promise of eternal joy is a traitor to his fellow-men.
There is no real investigation without freedom—freedom from the fear of gods and men.
So, all investigation—all experiment—should be pursued in the light of reason.
Every man should be true to himself—true to the inward light. Each man, in the laboratory of his own mind, and for himself alone, should test the so-called facts—the theories of all the world. Truth, in accordance with his reason, should be his guide and master.
To love the truth, thus perceived, is mental virtue—intellectual purity. This is true manhood. This is freedom.
To throw away your reason at the command of churches, popes, parties, kings or gods, is to be a serf, a slave.
It is not simply the right, but it is the duty of every man to think—to investigate for himself—and every man who tries to prevent this by force or fear, is doing all he can to degrade and enslave his fellow-men.
Every Man Should be Mentally Honest.
He should preserve as his most precious jewel the perfect veracity of his soul.
He should examine all questions presented to his mind, without prejudice,—unbiased by hatred or love—by desire or fear. His object and his only object should be to find the truth. He knows, if he listens to reason, that truth is not dangerous and that error is. He should weigh the evidence, the arguments, in honest scales—scales that passion or interest cannot change. He should care nothing for authority—nothing for names, customs or creeds—nothing for anything that his reason does not say is true.
Of his world he should be the sovereign, and his soul should wear the purple. From his dominions should be banished the hosts of force and fear.
He Should be Intellectually Hospitable.
Prejudice, egotism, hatred, contempt, disdain, are the enemies of truth and progress.
The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf—a philosopher or servant,—but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world.
Nothing but falsehood needs the assistance of fame and place, of robes and mitres, of tiaras and crowns.
The wise, the really honest and intelligent, are not swayed or governed by numbers—by majorities.
They accept what they really believe to be true. They care nothing for the opinions of ancestors, nothing for creeds, assertions and theories, unless they satisfy the reason.
In all directions they seek for truth, and when found, accept it with joy—accept it in spite of preconceived opinions—in spite of prejudice and hatred.
This is the course pursued by wise and honest men, and no other course is possible for them.
In every department of human endeavor men are seeking for the truth—for the facts. The statesman reads the history of the world, gathers the statistics of all nations to the end that his country may avoid the mistakes of the past. The geologist penetrates the rocks in search of facts—climbs mountains, visits the extinct craters, traverses islands and continents that he may know something of the history of the world. He wants the truth.
The chemist, with crucible and retort, with countless experiments, is trying to find the qualities of substances—to ravel what nature has woven.
The great mechanics dwell in the realm of the real. They seek by natural means to conquer and use the forces of nature. They want the truth—the actual facts.
The physicians, the surgeons, rely on observation, experiment and reason. They become acquainted with the human body—with muscle, blood and nerve—with the wonders of the brain. They want nothing but the truth.
And so it is with the students of every science. On every hand they look for facts, and it is of the utmost importance that they give to the world the facts they find.
Their courage should equal their intelligence. No matter what the dead have said, or the living believe, they should tell what they know. They should have intellectual courage.
If it be good for man to find the truth—good for him to be intellectually honest and hospitable, then it is good for others to know the truths thus found.
Every man should have the courage to give his honest thought. This makes the finder and publisher of truth a public benefactor.
Those who prevent, or try to prevent, the expression of honest thought, are the foes of civilization—the enemies of truth. Nothing can exceed the egotism and impudence of the man who claims the right to express his thought and denies the same right to others.
It will not do to say that certain ideas are sacred, and that man has not the right to investigate and test these ideas for himself.
Who knows that they are sacred? Can anything be sacred to us that we do not know to be true?
For many centuries free speech has been an insult to God. Nothing has been more blasphemous than the expression of honest thought. For many ages the lips of the wise were sealed. The torches that truth had lighted, that courage carried and held aloft, were extinguished with blood.
Truth has always been in favor of free speech—has always asked to be investigated—has always longed to be known and understood. Freedom, discussion, honesty, investigation and courage are the friends and allies of truth. Truth loves the light and the open field. It appeals to the senses—to the judgment, the reason, to all the higher and nobler faculties and powers of the mind. It seeks to calm the passions, to destroy prejudice and to increase the volume and intensity of reason's flame.
It does not ask man to cringe or crawl. It does not desire the worship of the ignorant or the prayers and praises of the frightened. It says to every human being, "Think for yourself. Enjoy the freedom of a god, and have the goodness and the courage to express your honest thought."
Why should we pursue the truth? and why should we investigate and reason? and why should we be mentally honest and hospitable? and why should we express our honest thoughts? To this there is but one answer: for the benefit of mankind.
The brain must be developed. The world must think. Speech must be free. The world must learn that credulity is not a virtue and that no question is settled until reason is fully satisfied.
By these means man will overcome many of the obstructions of nature. He will cure or avoid many diseases. He will lessen pain. He will lengthen, ennoble and enrich life. In every direction he will increase his power. He will satisfy his wants, gratify his tastes. He will put roof and raiment, food and fuel, home and happiness within the reach of all.
He will drive want and crime from the world. He will destroy the serpents of fear, the monsters of superstition. He will become intelligent and free, honest and serene.
The monarch of the skies will be dethroned—the flames of hell will be extinguished. Pious beggars will become honest and useful men. Hypocrisy will collect no tolls from fear, lies will not be regarded as sacred, this life will not be sacrificed for another, human beings will love each other instead of gods, men will do right, not for the sake of reward in some other world, but for the sake of happiness here. Man will find that Nature is the only revelation, and that he, by his own efforts, must learn to read the stories told by star and cloud, by rock and soil, by sea and stream, by rain and fire, by plant and flower, by life in all its curious forms, and all the things and forces of the world.
When he reads these stories, these records, he will know that man must rely on himself,—that the supernatural does not exist, and that man must be the providence of man.
It is impossible to conceive of an argument against the freedom of thought—against maintaining your self-respect and preserving the spotless and stainless veracity of the soul.
II.
ALL that I have said seems to be true—almost self-evident,—and you may ask who it is that says slavery is better than liberty. Let me tell you.
All the popes and priests, all the orthodox churches and clergymen, say that they have a revelation from God.
The Protestants say that it is the duty of every person to read, to understand, and to believe this revelation—that a man should use his reason; but if he honestly concludes that the Bible is not a revelation from God, and dies with that conclusion in his mind, he will be tormented forever. They say:—"Read," and then add: "Believe, or be damned."
"No matter how unreasonable the Bible may appear to you, you must believe. No matter how impossible the miracles may seem, you must believe. No matter how cruel the laws, your heart must approve them all!"
This is what the church calls the liberty of thought. We read the Bible under the scowl and threat of God. We read by the glare of hell. On one side is the devil, with the instruments of torture in his hands. On the other, God, ready to launch the infinite curse. And the church says to the readers: "You are free to decide. God is good, and he gives you the liberty to choose."
The popes and the priests say to the poor people: "You need not read the Bible. You cannot understand it. That is the reason it is called a revelation. We will read it for you, and you must believe what we say. We carry the key of hell. Contradict us and you will become eternal convicts in the prison of God."
This is the freedom of the Catholic Church.
And all these priests and clergymen insist that the Bible is superior to human reason—that it is the duty of man to accept it—to believe it, whether he really thinks it is true or not, and without the slightest regard to evidence or reason.
It is his duty to cast out from the temple of his soul the goddess Reason, and bow before the coiled serpent of Fear.
This is what the church calls virtue.
Under these conditions what can thought be worth? The brain, swept by the sirocco of God's curse, becomes a desert.
But this is not all. To compel man to desert the standard of Reason, the church does not entirely rely on the threat of eternal pain to be endured in another world, but holds out the reward of everlasting joy.
To those who believe, it promises the endless ecstasies of heaven. If it cannot frighten, it will bribe. It relies on fear and hope.
A religion, to command the respect of intelligent men, should rest on a foundation of established facts. It should appeal, not to passion, not to hope and fear, but to the judgment. It should ask that all the faculties of the mind, all the senses, should assemble and take counsel together, and that its claims be passed upon and tested without prejudice, without fear, in the calm of perfect candor.
But the church cries: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Without this belief there is no salvation. Salvation is the reward for belief.
Belief is, and forever must be, the result of evidence. A promised reward is not evidence. It sheds no intellectual light. It establishes no fact, answers no objection, and dissipates no doubt.
Is it honest to offer a reward for belief?
The man who gives money to a judge or juror for a decision or verdict is guilty of a crime. Why? Because he induces the judge, the juror, to decide, not according to the law, to the facts, the right, but according to the bribe.
The bribe is not evidence.
So, the promise of Christ to reward those who will believe is a bribe. It is an attempt to make a promise take the place of evidence. He who says that he believes, and does this for the sake of the reward, corrupts his soul.
Suppose I should say that at the center of the earth there is a diamond one hundred miles in diameter, and that I would give ten thousand dollars to any man who would believe my statement. Could such a promise be regarded as evidence?
Intelligent people would ask not for rewards, but reasons. Only hypocrites would ask for the money.
Yet, according to the New Testament, Christ offered a reward to those who would believe, and this promised reward was to take the place of evidence. When Christ made this promise he forgot, ignored, or held in contempt the rectitude of a brave, free and natural soul.
The declaration that salvation is the reward for belief is inconsistent with mental freedom, and could have been made by no man who thought that evidence sustained the slightest relation to belief.
Every sermon in which men have been told that they could save their souls by believing, has been an injury. Such sermons dull the moral sense and subvert the true conception of virtue and duty.
The true man, when asked to believe, asks for evidence. The true man, who asks another to believe, offers evidence.
But this is not all.
In spite of the threat of eternal pain—of the promise of everlasting joy, unbelievers increased, and the churches took another step.
The churches said to the unbelievers, the heretics: "Although our God will punish you forever in another world—in his prison—the doors of which open only to receive, we, unless you believe, will torment you now."
And then the members of these churches, led by priests, popes, and clergymen, sought out their unbelieving neighbors—chained them in dungeons, stretched them on racks, crushed their bones, cut out their tongues, extinguished their eyes, flayed them alive and consumed their poor bodies in flames.
All this was done because these Christian savages believed in the dogma of eternal pain. Because they believed that heaven was the reward for belief. So believing, they were the enemies of free thought and speech—they cared nothing for conscience, nothing for the veracity of a soul,—nothing for the manhood of a man. In all ages most priests have been heartless and relentless. They have calumniated and tortured. In defeat they have crawled and whined. In victory they have killed. The flower of pity never blossomed in their hearts and in their brain. Justice never held aloft the scales. Now they are not as cruel. They have lost their power, but they are still trying to accomplish the impossible. They fill their pockets with "fool's gold" and think they are rich. They stuff their minds with mistakes and think they are wise. They console themselves with legends and myths, have faith in fiction and forgery—give their hearts to ghosts and phantoms and seek the aid of the non-existent.
They put a monster—a master—a tyrant in the sky, and seek to enslave their fellow-men. They teach the cringing virtues of serfs. They abhor the courage of manly men. They hate the man who thinks. They long for revenge.
They warm their hands at the imaginary fires of hell.
I show them that hell does not exist and they denounce me for destroying their consolation.
Horace Greeley, as the story goes, one cold day went into a country store, took a seat by the stove, unbuttoned his coat and spread out his hands.
In a few minutes, a little boy who clerked in the store said: "Mr. Greeley, there aint no fire in that stove."
"You d——d little rascal," said Greeley, "What did you tell me for, I was getting real warm."
III. "THE SCIENCE OF THEOLOGY."
ALL the sciences—except Theology—are eager for facts—hungry for the truth. On the brow of a finder of a fact the laurel is placed.
In a theological seminary, if a professor finds a fact inconsistent with the creed, he must keep it secret or deny it, or lose his place. Mental veracity is a crime, cowardice and hypocrisy are virtues.
A fact, inconsistent with the creed, is denounced as a lie, and the man who declares or announces the fact is a blasphemer. Every professor breathes the air of insincerity. Every one is mentally dishonest. Every one is a pious fraud. Theology is the only dishonest science—the only one that is based on belief—on credulity,—the only one that abhors investigation, that despises thought and denounces reason.
All the great theologians in the Catholic Church have denounced reason as the light furnished by the enemy of mankind—as the road that leads to perdition. All the great Protestant theologians, from Luther to the orthodox clergy of our time, have been the enemies of reason. All orthodox churches of all ages have been the enemies of science. They attacked the astronomers as though they were criminals—the geologists as though they were assassins. They regarded physicians as the enemies of God—as men who were trying to defeat the decrees of Providence. The biologists, the anthropologists, the archaeologists, the readers of ancient inscriptions, the delvers in buried cities, were all hated by the theologians. They were afraid that these men might find something inconsistent with the Bible.
The theologians attacked those who studied other religions. They insisted that Christianity was not a growth—not an evolution—but a revelation. They denied that it was in any way connected with any natural religion.
The facts now show beyond all doubt that all religions came from substantially the same source—but there is not an orthodox Christian theologian who will admit the facts. He must defend his creed—his revelation. He cannot afford to be honest. He was not educated in an honest school. He was not taught to be honest. He was taught to believe and to defend his belief, not only against argument but against facts.
There is not a theologian in the whole world who can produce the slightest, the least particle of evidence tending to show that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
Where is the evidence that the book of Ruth was written by an inspired man? Where is the evidence that God is the author of the Song of Solomon? Where is the evidence that any human being has been inspired? Where is the evidence that Christ was and is God? Where is the evidence that the places called heaven and hell exist? Where is the evidence that a miracle was ever wrought?
There is none.
Theology is entirely independent of evidence.
Where is the evidence that angels and ghosts—that devils and gods exist? Have these beings been seen or touched? Does one of our senses certify to their existence?
The theologians depend on assertions. They have no evidence. They claim that their inspired book is superior to reason and independent of evidence.
They talk about probability—analogy—inferences—but they present no evidence. They say that they know that Christ lived, in the same way that they know that Cæsar lived. They might add that they know Moses talked with Jehovah on Sinai the same way they know that Brigham Young talked with God in Utah. The evidence in both cases is the same,—none in either.
How do they prove that Christ rose from the dead? They find the account in a book. Who wrote the book? They do not know. What evidence is this? None, unless all things found in books are true.
It is impossible to establish one miracle except by another—and that would have to be established by another still, and so on without end. Human testimony is not sufficient to establish a miracle. Each human being, to be really convinced, must witness the miracle for himself.
They say that Christianity was established, proven to be true, by miracles wrought nearly two thousand years ago. Not one of these miracles can be established except by impudent and ignorant assertion—except by poisoning and deforming the minds of the ignorant and the young. To succeed, the theologians invade the cradle, the nursery. In the brain of innocence they plant the seeds of superstition. They pollute the minds and imaginations of children. They frighten the happy with threats of pain—they soothe the wretched with gilded lies.
This perpetual insincerity stamps itself on the face—affects every feature. We all know the theological countenance,—cold, unsympathetic, cruel, lighted with a pious smirk,—no line of laughter—no dimpled mirth—no touch of humor—nothing human.
This face is a rebuke, a reprimand to natural joy. It says to the happy: "Beware of the dog"—"Prepare for death." This face, like the fabled Gorgon, turns cheerfulness to stone. It is a protest against pleasure—a warning and a threat.
You see every soul is a sculptor that fashions the features, and in this way reveals itself.
Every thought leaves its impress.
The student of this science of theology must be taught in youth,—in his mother's arms. These lies must be sown and planted in his brain the first of all. He must be taught to believe, to accept without question. He must be told that it is wicked to doubt, that it is sinful to inquire—that Faith is a virtue and unbelief a crime.
In this way his mind is poisoned, paralyzed. On all other subjects he has liberty—and in all other directions he is urged to study and think. From his mother's arms he goes to the Sunday school. His poor little mind is filled with miracles and wonders. He is told about a God who made the world and who rewards and punishes. He is told that this God is the author of the Bible—that Christ is his son. He is told about original sin and the atonement, and he believes what he hears. No reasons are given—no facts—no evidence is presented—nothing but assertion. If he asks questions, he is silenced by more solemn assertions and warned against the devices of the evil one. Every Sunday school is a kind of inquisition where they torture and deform the minds of children—where they force their souls into Catholic or Protestant moulds—and do all they can to destroy the originality, the individuality, and the veracity of the soul. In the theological seminary the destruction is complete.
When the minister leaves the seminary, he is not seeking the truth. He has it. He has a revelation from God, and he has a creed in exact accordance with that revelation. His business is to stand by that revelation and to defend that creed. Arguments against the revelation and the creed he will not read, he will not hear. All facts that are against his religion he will deny. It is impossible for him to be candid. The tremendous "verities" of eternal joy, of everlasting pain are in his creed, and they result from believing the false and denying the true.
Investigation is an infinite danger, unbelief is an infinite offence and deserves and will receive infinite punishment. In the shadow of this tremendous "fact" his courage dies, his manhood is lost, and in his fear he cries out that he believes, whether he does or not.
He says and teaches that credulity is safe and thought dangerous. Yet he pretends to be a teacher—a leader, one selected by God to educate his fellow-men.
These orthodox ministers have been the slanderers of the really great men of our century. They denounced Lyell, the great geologist, for giving facts to the world. They hated and belittled Humboldt, one of the greatest and most intellectual of the race. They ridiculed and derided Darwin, the greatest naturalist, the keenest observer, the best judge of the value of a fact, the most wonderful discoverer of truth that the world has produced.
In every orthodox pulpit stood a traducer of the greatest of scientists—of one who filled the world with intellectual light.
The church has been the enemy of every science, of every real thinker, and for many centuries has used her power to prevent intellectual progress.
Ministers ought to be free. They should be the heralds of the ever coming day, but they are the bats, the owls that inhabit ruins, that hate the light. They denounce honest men who express their thoughts, as blasphemers, and do what they can to close their mouths. For their Bible they ask the protection of law. They wish to be shielded from laughter by the Legislature. They ask that the arguments of their opponents be answered by the courts. This is the result of a due admixture of cowardice, hypocrisy and malice.
What valuable fact has been proclaimed from an orthodox pulpit? What ecclesiastical council has added to the intellectual wealth of the world?
Many centuries ago the church gave to Christendom a code of laws, stupid, unphilosophic and brutal to the last degree.
The church insists that it has made man merciful and just. Did it do this by torturing heretics—by extinguishing their eyes—by flaying them alive? Did it accomplish this result through the Inquisition—by the use of the thumb-screw, the rack and the fagot? Of what science has the church been the friend and champion? What orthodox church has opened its doors to a persecuted truth? Of what use has Christianity been to man?
They tell us that the church has been and is the friend of education. I deny it. The church founded colleges not to educate men, but to make proselytes, converts, defenders. This was in accordance with the instinct of self-preservation. No orthodox church ever was, or ever will be in favor of real education. A Catholic is in favor of enough education to make a Catholic out of a savage, and the Protestant is in favor of enough education to make a Protestant out of a Catholic, but both are opposed to the education that makes free and manly men.
So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
So, they tell us that the church has built hospitals. This is not true. Men have not built hospitals because they were Christians, but because they were men. They have not built them for charity—but in self-defence.
If a man comes to your door with the smallpox, you cannot let him in, you cannot kill him. As a necessity, you provide a place for him. And you do this to protect yourself. With this Christianity has had nothing to do.
The church cannot give, because it does not produce. It is claimed that the church has made men and women forgiving. I admit that the church has preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven an enemy—never. Against the great and brave thinkers it has coined and circulated countless lies. Never has the church told, or tried to tell, the truth about an honest foe.
The church teaches the existence of the supernatural. It believes in the divine sleight-of-hand—in the "presto" and "open sesame" of the Infinite; in some invisible Being who produces effects without causes and causes without effects; whose caprice governs the world and who can be persuaded by prayer, softened by ceremony, and who will, as a reward for faith, save men from the natural consequences of their actions.
The church denies the eternal, inexorable sequence of events.
What Good has the Church Accomplished?
It claims to have preached peace because its founder said, "I came not to bring peace but a sword."
It claims to have preserved the family because its founder offered a hundred-fold here and life everlasting to those who would desert wife and children.
So, it claims to have taught the brotherhood of man and that the gospel is for all the world, because Christ said to the woman of Samaria that he came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and declared that it was not meet to take the bread of the children and cast it unto dogs.
In the name of Christ, who threatened eternal revenge, it has preached forgiveness.
Of what Use are the Orthodox Ministers?
They are the enemies of pleasure. They denounce dancing as one of the deadly sins. They are shocked at the wickedness of the waltz—the pollution of the polka. They are the enemies of the theatre. They slander actors and actresses. They hate them because they are rivals. They are trying to preserve the sacredness of the Sabbath. It fills them with malice to see the people happy on that day. They preach against excursions and picnics—against those who seek the woods and the sea, the shadows and the waves. They are filled with holy wrath against bicycles and bloomers. They are opposed to divorces. They insist that for the glory of God, husbands and wives who loathe each other should be compelled to live together. They abhor all works of fiction, and love the Bible. They declare that the literary master-pieces of the world are unfit to be read. They think that the people should be satisfied with sermons and poems about death and hell. They hate art—abhor the marbles of the Greeks, and all representations of the human form. They want nothing painted or sculptured but hands, faces and clothes. Most of the priests are prudes, and publicly denounce what they secretly admire and enjoy. In the presence of the nude they cover their faces with their holy hands, but keep their fingers apart. They pretend to believe in moral suasion, and want everything regulated by law. If they had the power, they would prohibit everything that men and women really enjoy. They want libraries, museums and art galleries closed on the Sabbath. They would abolish the Sunday paper—stop the running of cars and all public conveyances on the holy day, and compel all the people to enjoy sermons, prayers and psalms.
These dear ministers, when they have poor congregations, thunder against trusts, syndicates, and corporations—against wealth, fashion and luxury. They tell about Dives and Lazarus, paint rich men in hell and beggars in heaven. If their congregations are rich they turn their guns in the other direction.
They have no confidence in education—in the development of the brain. They appeal to hopes and fears. They ask no one to think—to investigate. They insist that all shall believe. Credulity is the greatest of virtues, and doubt the deadliest of sins.
These men are the enemies of science—of intellectual progress. They ridicule and calumniate the great thinkers. They deny everything that conflicts with the "sacred Scriptures." They still believe in the astronomy of Joshua and the geology of Moses. They believe in the miracles of the past, and deny the demonstrations of the present. They are the foes of facts—the enemies of knowledge. A desire to be happy here, they regard as wicked and worldly—but a desire to be happy in another world, as virtuous and spiritual.
Every orthodox church is founded on mistake and falsehood. Every good orthodox minister asserts what he does not know, and denies what he does know.
What are the Orthodox Clergy Doing for the Good of Mankind?
Absolutely nothing.
What harm are they doing?
On every hand they sow the seeds of superstition. They paralyze the minds, and pollute the imaginations of children. They fill their hearts with fear. By their teachings, thousands become insane. With them, hypocrisy is respectable and candor infamous.
They enslave the minds of men. Under their teachings men waste and misdirect their energies, abandon the ends that can be accomplished, dedicate their lives to the impossible, worship the unknown, pray to the inconceivable, and become the trembling slaves of a monstrous myth born of ignorance and fashioned by the trembling hands of fear.
Superstition is the serpent that crawls and hisses in every Eden and fastens its poisonous fangs in the hearts of men.
It is the deadliest foe of the human race.
Superstition is a beggar—a robber, a tyrant.
Science is a benefactor.
Superstition sheds blood.
Science sheds light.
The dear preachers must give up the account of creation—the Garden of Eden, the mud-man, the rib-woman, and the walking, talking, snake. They must throw away the apple, the fall of man, the expulsion, and the gate guarded by angels armed with swords. They must give up the flood and the tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues. They must give up Abraham and the wrestling match between Jacob and the Lord. So, the story of Joseph, the enslavement of the Hebrews by the Egyptians, the story of Moses in the bullrushes, the burning bush, the turning of sticks into serpents, of water into blood, the miraculous creation of frogs, the killing of cattle with hail and changing dust into lice, all must be given up. The sojourn of forty years in the desert, the opening of the Red Sea, the clothes and shoes that refused to wear out, the manna, the quails and the serpents, the water that ran up hill, the talking of Jehovah with Moses face to face, the giving of the Ten Commandments, the opening of the earth to swallow the enemies of Moses—all must be thrown away.
These good preachers must admit that blowing horns could not throw down the walls of a city, that it was horrible for Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter, that the day was not lengthened and the moon stopped for the sake of Joshua, that the dead Samuel was not raised by a witch, that a man was not carried to heaven in a chariot of fire, that the river Jordan was not divided by the stroke of a cloak, that the bears did not destroy children for laughing at a prophet, that a wandering soothsayer did not collect lightnings from heaven to destroy the lives of innocent men, that he did not cause rain and make iron float, that ravens did not keep a hotel where preachers got board and lodging free, that the shadow on a dial was not turned back ten degrees to show that a king was going to recover from a boil, that Ezekiel was not told by God how to prepare a dinner, that Jonah did not take cabin passage in a fish—and that all the miracles in the old Testament are not allegories, or poems, but just old-fashioned lies. And the dear preachers will be compelled to admit that there never was a miraculous babe without a natural father, that Christ, if he lived, was a man and nothing more. That he did not cast devils out of folks—that he did not cure blindness with spittle and clay, nor turn water into wine, nor make fishes and loaves of bread out of nothing—that he did not know where to catch fishes with money in their mouths—that he did not take a walk on the water—that he did not at will become invisible—that he did not pass through closed doors—that he did not raise the dead—that angels never rolled stones from a sepulchre—that Christ did not rise from the dead and did not ascend to heaven.
All these mistakes and illusions and delusions—all these miracles and myths must fade from the minds of intelligent men.
My dear preachers, I beg you to tell the truth. Tell your congregations that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch. Tell them that nobody knows who wrote the five books. Tell them that Deuteronomy was not written until about six hundred years before Christ. Tell them that nobody knows who wrote Joshua, or Judges, or Ruth, Samuel, Kings, or Chronicles, Job, or the Psalms, or the Song of Solomon. Be honest, tell the truth. Tell them that nobody knows who wrote Esther—that Ecclesiastes was written long after Christ—that many of the prophecies were written after the events pretended to be foretold had happened. Tell them that Ezekiel and Daniel were insane. Tell them that nobody knows who wrote the gospels, and tell them that no line about Christ written by a contemporary has been found. Tell them it is all guess—and may be, and perhaps. Be honest. Tell the truth, develop your brains, use all your senses and hold high the torch of Reason.
In a few years the pulpits will be filled with teachers instead of preachers—with thoughtful, brave, and honest men. The congregations will be civilized—intellectually honest and hospitable.
Now, most of the ministers insist that the old falsehoods shall be treated with reverence—that ancient lies with long white beards—wrinkled and bald-headed frauds—round-shouldered and toothless miracles, and palsied mistakes on crutches, shall be called allegories, parables, oriental imagery, inspired poems. In their presence the ungodly should remove their hats. They should respect the mould and moss of antiquity. They should remember that these lies, these frauds, the miracles and mistakes, have for thousands of years ruled, enslaved, and corrupted the human race.
These ministers ought to know that their creeds are based on imagined facts and demonstrated by assertion.
They ought to know that they have no evidence,—nothing but promises and threats. They ought to know that it is impossible to conceive of force existing without and before matter—that it is equally impossible to conceive of matter without force—that it is impossible to conceive of the creation or destruction of matter or force,—that it is impossible to conceive of infinite intelligence dwelling from eternity in infinite space, and that it is impossible to conceive of the creator, or creation, of substance.
The God of the Christian is an enthroned guess—a perhaps—an inference.
No man, and no body of men, can answer the questions of the Whence and Whither. The mystery of existence cannot be explained by the intellect of man.
Back of life, of existence, we cannot go—beyond death we cannot see. All duties, all obligations, all knowledge, all experience, are for this life, for this world.
We know that men and women and children exist. We know that happiness, for the most part, depends on conduct.
We are satisfied that all the gods are phantoms and that the supernatural does not exist.
We know the difference between hope and knowledge, we hope for happiness here and we dream of joy hereafter, but we do not know. We cannot assert, we can only hope. We can have our dream. In the wide night our star can shine and shed its radiance on the graves of those we love. We can bend above our pallid dead and say that beyond this life there are no sighs—no tears—no breaking hearts.
LET us be honest. Let us preserve the veracity of our souls. Let education commence in the cradle—in the lap of the loving mother. This is the first school. The teacher, the mother, should be absolutely honest.
The nursery should not be an asylum for lies.
Parents should be modest enough to be truthful—honest enough to admit their ignorance. Nothing should be taught as true that cannot be demonstrated.
Every child should be taught to doubt, to inquire, to demand reasons. Every soul should defend itself—should be on its guard against falsehood, deceit, and mistake, and should beware of all kinds of confidence men, including those in the pulpit.
Children should be taught to express their doubts—to demand reasons. The object of education should be to develop the brain, to quicken the senses. Every school should be a mental gymnasium. The child should be equipped for the battle of life. Credulity, implicit obedience, are the virtues of slaves and the enslavers of the free. All should be taught that there is nothing too sacred to be investigated—too holy to be understood.
Each mind has the right to lift all curtains, withdraw all veils, scale all walls, explore all recesses, all heights, all depths for itself, in spite of church or priest, or creed or book.
The great volume of Nature should be open to all. None but the intelligent and honest can really read this book. Prejudice clouds and darkens every page. Hypocrisy reads and misquotes, and credulity accepts the quotation. Superstition cannot read a line or spell the shortest word. And yet this volume holds all knowledge, all truth, and is the only source of thought. Mental liberty means the right of all to read this book. Here the Pope and Peasant are equal. Each must read for himself—and each ought honestly and fearlessly to give to his fellow-men what he learns.
There is no authority in churches or priests—no authority in numbers or majorities. The only authority is Nature—the facts we know. Facts are the masters, the enemies of the ignorant, the servants and friends of the intelligent.
Ignorance is the mother of mystery and misery, of superstition and sorrow, of waste and want.
Intelligence is the only light. It enables us to keep the highway, to avoid the obstructions, and to take advantage of the forces of nature. It is the only lever capable of raising mankind. To develop the brain is to civilize the world. Intelligence reaves the heavens of winged and frightful monsters—drives ghosts and leering fiends from the darkness, and floods with light the dungeons of fear.
All should be taught that there is no evidence of the existence of the supernatural—that the man who bows before an idol of wood or stone is just as foolish as the one who prays to an imagined God,—that all worship has for its foundation the same mistake—the same ignorance, the same fear—that it is just as foolish to believe in a personal god as in a personal devil—just as foolish to believe in great ghosts as little ones.
So, all should be taught that the forces, the facts in Nature, cannot be controlled or changed by prayer or praise, by supplication, ceremony, or sacrifice; that there is no magic, no miracle; that force can be overcome only by force, and that the whole world is natural.
All should be taught that man must protect himself—that there is no power superior to Nature that cares for man—that Nature has neither pity nor hatred—that her forces act without the slightest regard for man—that she produces without intention and destroys without regret.
All should be taught that usefulness is the bud and flower and fruit of real religion. The popes and cardinals, the bishops, priests and parsons are all useless. They produce nothing. They live on the labor of others. They are parasites that feed on the frightened. They are vampires that suck the blood of honest toil. Every church is an organized beggar. Every one lives on alms—on alms collected by force and fear. Every orthodox church promises heaven and threatens hell, and these promises and threats are made for the sake of alms, for revenue. Every church cries: "Believe and give."
A new era is dawning on the world. We are beginning to believe in the religion of usefulness.
The men who felled the forests, cultivated the earth, spanned the rivers with bridges of steel, built the railways and canals, the great ships, invented the locomotives and engines, supplying the countless wants of man; the men who invented the telegraphs and cables, and freighted the electric spark with thought and love; the men who invented the looms and spindles that clothe the world, the inventors of printing and the great presses that fill the earth with poetry, fiction and fact, that save and keep all knowledge for the children yet to be; the inventors of all the wonderful machines that deftly mould from wood and steel the things we use; the men who have explored the heavens and traced the orbits of the stars—who have read the story of the world in mountain range and billowed sea; the men who have lengthened life and conquered pain; the great philosophers and naturalists who have filled the world with light; the great poets whose thoughts have charmed the souls, the great painters and sculptors who have made the canvas speak, the marble live; the great orators who have swayed the world, the composers who have given their souls to sound, the captains of industry, the producers, the soldiers who have battled for the right, the vast host of useful men—these are our Christs, our apostles and our saints. The triumphs of science are our miracles. The books filled with the facts of Nature are our sacred scriptures, and the force that is in every atom and in every star—in everything that lives and grows and thinks, that hopes and suffers, is the only possible god.
The absolute we cannot know—beyond the horizon of the Natural we cannot go. All our duties are within our reach—all our obligations must be discharged here, in this world. Let us love and labor. Let us wait and work. Let us cultivate courage and cheerfulness—open our hearts to the good—our minds to the true. Let us live free lives. Let us hope that the future will bring peace and joy to all the children of men, and above all, let us preserve the veracity of our souls.
* This address was delivered before the Militant Church at
the Columbia Theatre, Chicago, Ills., April 12, 1896.
I.
"THERE is no darkness but ignorance." Every human being is a necessary product of conditions, and every one is born with defects for which he cannot be held responsible. Nature seems to care nothing for the individual, nothing for the species.
Life pursuing life and in its turn pursued by death, presses to the snow line of the possible, and every form of life, of instinct, thought and action is fixed and determined by conditions, by countless antecedent and co-existing facts. The present is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past, and the mother of all the future.
Every human being longs to be happy, to satisfy the wants of the body with food, with roof and raiment, and to feed the hunger of the mind, according to his capacity, with love, wisdom, philosophy, art and song.
The wants of the savage are few; but with civilization the wants of the body increase, the intellectual horizon widens and the brain demands more and more.
The savage feels, but scarcely thinks. The passion of the savage is uninfluenced by his thought, while the thought of the philosopher is uninfluenced by passion. Children have wants and passions before they are capable of reasoning. So, in the infancy of the race, wants and passions dominate.
The savage was controlled by appearances, by impressions; he was mentally weak, mentally indolent, and his mind pursued the path of least resistance. Things were to him as they appeared to be. He was a natural believer in the supernatural, and, finding himself beset by dangers and evils, he sought in many ways the aid of unseen powers. His children followed his example, and for many ages, in many lands, millions and millions of human beings, many of them the kindest and the best, asked for supernatural help. Countless altars and temples have been built, and the supernatural has been worshiped with sacrifice and song, with self-denial, ceremony, thankfulness and prayer.
During all these ages, the brain of man was being slowly and painfully developed. Gradually mind came to the assistance of muscle, and thought became the friend of labor. Man has advanced just in the proportion that he has mingled thought with his work, just in the proportion that he has succeeded in getting his head and hands into partnership. All this was the result of experience.
Nature, generous and heartless, extravagant and miserly as she is, is our mother and our only teacher, and she is also the deceiver of men. Above her we cannot rise, below her we cannot fall. In her we find the seed and soil of all that is good, of all that is evil. Nature originates, nourishes, preserves and destroys.
Good deeds bear fruit, and in the fruit are seeds that in their turn bear fruit and seeds. Great thoughts are never lost, and words of kindness do not perish from the earth.
Every brain is a field where nature sows the seeds of thought, and the crop depends upon the soil.
Every flower that gives its fragrance to the wandering air leaves its influence on the soul of man. The wheel and swoop of the winged creatures of the air suggest the flowing lines of subtle art. The roar and murmur of the restless sea, the cataract's solemn chant, the thunder's voice, the happy babble of the brook, the whispering leaves, the thrilling notes of mating birds, the sighing winds, taught man to pour his heart in song and gave a voice to grief and hope, to love and death.
In all that is, in mountain range and billowed plain, in winding stream and desert sand, in cloud and star, in snow and rain, in calm and storm, in night and day, in woods and vales, in all the colors of divided light, in all there is of growth and life, decay and death, in all that flies and floats and swims, in all that moves, in all the forms and qualities of things, man found the seeds and symbols of his thoughts; and all that man has wrought becomes a part of nature's self, forming the lives of those to be. The marbles of the Greeks, like strains of music, suggest the perfect, and teach the melody of life. The great poems, paintings, inventions, theories and philosophies, enlarge and mould the mind of man. All that is is natural. All is naturally produced. Beyond the horizon of the natural man cannot go.
Yet, for many ages, man in all directions has relied upon, and sincerely believed in, the existence of the supernatural. He did not believe in the uniformity of nature; he had no conception of cause and effect, of the indestructibility of force.
In medicine he believed in charms, magic, amulets, and incantations. It never occurred to the savage that diseases were natural.
In chemistry he sought for the elixir of life, for the philosopher's stone, and for some way of changing the baser metals into gold.
In mechanics he searched for perpetual motion, believing that he, by some curious combinations of levers, could produce, could create a force.
In government, he found the source of authority in the will of the supernatural.
For many centuries his only conception of morality was the idea of obedience, not to facts as they exist in nature, but to the supposed command of some being superior to nature. During all these years religion consisted in the praise and worship of the invisible and infinite, of some vast and incomprehensible power, that is to say, of the supernatural.
By experience, by experiment, possibly by accident, man found that some diseases could be cured by natural means; that he could be relieved in many instances of pain by certain kinds of leaves or bark.
This was the beginning. Gradually his confidence increased in the direction of the natural, and began to decrease in charms and amulets, The war was waged for many centuries, but the natural gained the victory. Now we know that all diseases are naturally produced, and that all remedies, all curatives, act in accordance with the facts in nature. Now we know that charms, magic, amulets and incantations are just as useless in the practice of medicine as they would be in solving a problem in mathematics. We now know that there are no supernatural remedies.
In chemistry the war was long and bitter; but we now no longer seek for the elixir of life, and no one is trying to find the philosopher's stone. We are satisfied that there is nothing supernatural in all the realm of chemistry. We know that substances are always true to their natures; we know that just so many atoms of one substance will unite with just so many of another. The miraculous has departed from chemistry; in that science there is no magic, no caprice and no possible use for the supernatural. We are satisfied that there can be no change, that we can absolutely rely on the uniformity of nature; that the attraction of gravitation will always remain the same; and we feel that we know this as certainly as we know that the relation between the diameter and circumference of a circle can never change.
We now know that in mechanics the natural is supreme. We know that man can by no possibility create a force; that by no possibility can he destroy a force. No mechanic dreams of depending upon or asking for any supernatural aid. He knows that he works in accordance with certain facts that no power can change.
So we in the United States believe that the authority to govern, the authority to make and execute laws, comes from the consent of the governed and not from any supernatural source. We do not believe that the king occupied his throne because of the will of the supernatural. Neither do we believe that others are subjects or serfs or slaves by reason of any supernatural will.
So, our ideas of morality have changed, and millions now believe that whatever produces happiness and well-being is in the highest sense moral. Unreasoning obedience is not the foundation or the essence of morality. That is the result of mental slavery. To act in accordance with obligation perceived is to be free and noble. To simply obey is to practice what might be called a slave virtue; but real morality is the flower and fruit of liberty and wisdom.
There are very many who have reached the conclusion that the supernatural has nothing to do with real religion. Religion does not consist in believing without evidence or against evidence. It does not consist in worshiping the unknown or in trying to do something for the Infinite. Ceremonies, prayers and inspired books, miracles, special providence, and divine interference all belong to the supernatural and form no part of real religion.
Every science rests on the natural, on demonstrated facts. So, morality and religion must find their foundations in the necessary nature of things.
II. HOW CAN WE REFORM THE WORLD?
IGNORANCE being darkness, what we need is intellectual light. The most important things to teach, as the basis of all progress, are that the universe is natural; that man must be the providence of man; that, by the development of the brain, we can avoid some of the dangers, some of the evils, overcome some of the obstructions, and take advantage of some of the facts and forces of nature; that, by invention and industry, we can supply, to a reasonable degree, the wants of the body, and by thought, study and effort, we can in part satisfy the hunger of the mind.
Man should cease to expect any aid from any supernatural source. By this time he should be satisfied that worship has not created wealth, and that prosperity is not the child of prayer. He should know that the supernatural has not succored the oppressed, clothed the naked, fed the hungry, shielded the innocent, stayed the pestilence, or freed the slave.
Being satisfied that the supernatural does not exist, man should turn his entire attention to the affairs of this world, to the facts in nature.
And, first of all, he should avoid waste—waste of energy, waste of wealth. Every good man, every good woman, should try to do away with war, to stop the appeal to savage force. Man in a savage state relies upon his strength, and decides for himself what is right and what is wrong. Civilized men do not settle their differences by a resort to arms. They submit the quarrel to arbitrators and courts. This is the great difference between the savage and the civilized. Nations, however, sustain the relations of savages to each other. There is no way of settling their disputes. Each nation decides for itself, and each nation endeavors to carry its decision into effect. This produces war. Thousands of men at this moment are trying to invent more deadly weapons to destroy their fellow-men. For eighteen hundred years peace has been preached, and yet the civilized nations are the most warlike of the world. There are in Europe to-day between eleven and twelve millions of soldiers, ready to take the field, and the frontiers of every civilized nation are protected by breastwork and fort. The sea is covered with steel clad ships, filled with missiles of death.
The civilized world has impoverished itself, and the debt of Christendom, mostly for war, is now nearly thirty thousand million dollars. The interest on this vast sum has to be paid; it has to be paid by labor, much of it by the poor, by those who are compelled to deny themselves almost the necessities of life. This debt is growing year by year. There must come a change, or Christendom will become bankrupt.
The interest on this debt amounts at least to nine hundred million dollars a year; and the cost of supporting armies and navies, of repairing ships, of manufacturing new engines of death, probably amounts, including the interest on the debt, to at least six million dollars a day. Allowing ten hours for a day, that is for a working day, the waste of war is at least six hundred thousand dollars an hour, that is to say, ten thousand dollars a minute.
Think of all this being paid for the purpose of killing and preparing to kill our fellow-men. Think of the good that could be done with this vast sum of money; the schools that could be built, the wants that could be supplied. Think of the homes it would build, the children it would clothe.
If we wish to do away with war, we must provide for the settlement of national differences by an international court. This court should be in perpetual session; its members should be selected by the various governments to be affected by its decisions, and, at the command and disposal of this court, the rest of Christendom being disarmed, there should be a military force sufficient to carry its judgments into effect. There should be no other excuse, no other business for an army or a navy in the civilized world.
No man has imagination enough to paint the agonies, the horrors and cruelties of war. Think of sending shot and shell crashing through the bodies of men! Think of the widows and orphans! Think of the maimed, the mutilated, the mangled!
III. ANOTHER WASTE.
LET us be perfectly candid with each other. We are seeking the truth, trying to find what ought to be done to increase the well-being of man. I must give you my honest thought. You have the right to demand it, and I must maintain the integrity of my soul.
There is another direction in which the wealth and energies of man are wasted. From the beginning of history until now man has been seeking the aid of the supernatural. For many centuries the wealth of the world was used to propitiate the unseen powers. In our own country, the property dedicated to this purpose is worth at least one thousand million dollars. The interest on this sum is fifty million dollars a year, and the cost of employing persons, whose business it is to seek the aid of the supernatural and to maintain the property, is certainly as much more. So that the cost in our country is about two million dollars a week, and, counting ten hours as a working day, this amounts to about five hundred dollars a minute.
For this vast amount of money the returns are remarkably small. The good accomplished does not appear to be great. There is no great diminution in crime. The decrease of immorality and poverty is hardly perceptible. In spite, however, of the apparent failure here, a vast sum of money is expended every year to carry our ideas of the supernatural to other races. Our churches, for the most part, are closed during the week, being used only a part of one day in seven. No one wishes to destroy churches or church organizations. The only desire is that they shall accomplish substantial good for the world. In many of our small towns—towns of three or four thousand people—will be found four or five churches, sometimes more. These churches are founded upon immaterial differences; a difference as to the mode of baptism; a difference as to who shall be entitled to partake of the Lord's supper; a difference of ceremony; of government; a difference about fore-ordination; a difference about fate and free will. And it must be admitted that all the arguments on all sides of these differences have been presented countless millions of times. Upon these subjects nothing new is produced or anticipated, and yet the discussion is maintained by the repetition of the old arguments.
Now, it seems to me that it would be far better for the people of a town, having a population of four or five thousand, to have one church, and the edifice should be of use, not only on Sunday, but on every day of the week. In this building should be the library of the town. It should be the clubhouse of the people, where they could find the principal newspapers and periodicals of the world. Its auditorium should be like a theatre. Plays should be presented by home talent; an orchestra formed, music cultivated. The people should meet there at any time they desire. The women could carry their knitting and sewing; and connected with it should be rooms for the playing of games, billiards, cards, and chess. Everything should be made as agreeable as possible. The citizens should take pride in this building. They should adorn its niches with statues and its walls with pictures. It should be the intellectual centre. They could employ a gentleman of ability, possibly of genius, to address them on Sundays, on subjects that would be of real interest, of real importance. They could say to this minister:
"We are engaged in business during the week; while we are working at our trades and professions, we want you to study, and on Sunday tell us what you have found out."
Let such a minister take for a series of sermons the history, the philosophy, the art and the genius of the Greeks. Let him tell of the wondrous metaphysics, myths and religions of India and Egypt. Let him make his congregation conversant with the philosophies of the world, with the great thinkers, the great poets, the great artists, the great actors, the great orators, the great inventors, the captains of industry, the soldiers of progress. Let them have a Sunday school in which the children shall be made acquainted with the facts of nature; with botany, entomology, something of geology and astronomy.
Let them be made familiar with the greatest of poems, the finest paragraphs of literature, with stories of the heroic, the self-denying and generous.
Now, it seems to me that such a congregation in a few years would become the most intelligent people in the United States.
The truth is that people are tired of the old theories. They have lost confidence in the miraculous, in the supernatural, and they have ceased to take interest in "facts" that they do not quite believe.
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
There is no light but intelligence,
As often as we can exchange a mistake for a fact, a falsehood for a truth, we advance. We add to the intellectual wealth of the world, and in this way, and in this way alone, can be laid the foundation for the future prosperity and civilization of the race.
I blame no one; I call in question the motives of no person; I admit that the world has acted as it must.
But hope for the future depends upon the intelligence of the present. Man must husband his resources. He must not waste his energies in endeavoring to accomplish the impossible.
He must take advantage of the forces of nature. He must depend on education, on what he can ascertain by the use of his senses, by observation, by experiment and reason. He must break the chains of prejudice and custom. He must be free to express his thoughts on all questions. He must find the conditions of happiness and become wise enough to live in accordance with them.
IV. HOW CAN WE LESSEN CRIME?
IN spite of all that has been done for the reformation of the world, in spite of all the inventions, in spite of all the forces of nature that are now the tireless slaves of man, in spite of all improvements in agriculture, in mechanics, in every department of human labor, the world is still cursed with poverty and with crime.
The prisons are full, the courts are crowded, the officers of the law are busy, and there seems to be no material decrease in crime.
For many thousands of years man has endeavored to reform his fellow-men by imprisonment, torture, mutilation and death, and yet the history of the world shows that there has been and is no reforming power in punishment. It is impossible to make the penalty great enough, horrible enough to lessen crime.
Only a few years ago, in civilized countries, larceny and many offences even below larceny, were punished by death; and yet the number of thieves and criminals of all grades increased. Traitors were hanged and quartered or drawn into fragments by horses; and yet treason flourished.
Most of these frightful laws have been repealed, and the repeal certainly did not increase crime. In our own country we rely upon the gallows, the penitentiary and the jail. When a murder is committed, the man is hanged, shocked to death by electricity, or lynched, and in a few minutes a new murderer is ready to suffer a like fate. Men steal; they are sent to the penitentiary for a certain number of years, treated like wild beasts, frequently tortured. At the end of the term they are discharged, having only enough money to return to the place from which they were sent. They are thrown upon the world without means—without friends—they are convicts. They are shunned, suspected and despised. If they obtain a place, they are discharged as soon as it is found that they were in prison. They do the best they can to retain the respect of their fellow-men by denying their imprisonment and their identity. In a little while, unable to gain a living by honest means, they resort to crime, they again appear in court, and again are taken within the dungeon walls. No reformation, no chance to reform, nothing to give them bread while making new friends.
All this is infamous. Men should not be sent to the pentitentiary as a punishment, because we must remember that men do as they must. Nature does not frequently produce the perfect. In the human race there is a large percentage of failures. Under certain conditions, with certain appetites and passions and with a certain quality, quantity and shape of brain, men will become thieves, forgers and counterfeiters. The question is whether reformation is possible, whether a change can be produced in the person by producing a change in the conditions. The criminal is dangerous and society has the right to protect itself. The criminal should be confined, and, if possible, should be reformed. A pentitentiary should be a school; the convicts should be educated. So, prisoners should work, and they should be paid a reasonable sum for their labor. The best men should have charge of prisons. They should be philanthropists and philosophers; they should know something of human nature. The prisoner, having been taught, we will say, for five years—taught the underlying principles of conduct, of the naturalness and harmony of virtue, of the discord of crime; having been convinced that society has no hatred, that nobody wishes to punish, to degrade, or to rob him; and being at the time of his discharge paid a reasonable price for his labor; being allowed by law to change his name, so that his identity will not be preserved, he could go out of the prison a friend of the government. He would have the feeling that he had been made a better man; that he had been treated with justice, with mercy, and the money he carried with him would be a breastwork behind which he could defy temptation, a breastwork that would support and take care of him until he could find some means by which to support himself. And this man, instead of making crime a business, would become a good, honorable and useful-citizen.
As it is now, there is but little reform. The same faces appear again and again at the bar; the same men hear again and again the verdict of guilty and the sentence of the court, and the same men return again and again to the prison cell. Murderers, those belonging to the dangerous classes, those who are so formed by nature that they rush to the crimes of desperation, should be imprisoned for life; or they should be put upon some island, some place where they can be guarded, where it may be that by proper effort they could support themselves; the men on one island, the women on another. And to these islands should be sent professional criminals, those who have deliberately adopted a life of crime for the purpose of supporting themselves, the women upon one island, the men upon another. Such people should not populate the earth.
Neither the diseases nor the deformities of the mind or body should be perpetuated. Life at the fountain should not be polluted.
V. HOMES FOR ALL.
THE home is the unit of the nation. The more homes the broader the foundation of the nation and the more secure.
Everything that is possible should be done to keep this from being a nation of tenants. The men who cultivate the earth should own it. Something has already been done in our country in that direction, and probably in every State there is a homestead exemption. This exemption has thus far done no harm to the creditor class. When we imprisoned people for debt, debts were as insecure, to say the least, as now. By the homestead laws, a home of a certain value or of a certain extent, is exempt from forced levy or sale; and these laws have done great good. Undoubtedly they have trebled the homes of the nation.
I wish to go a step further. I want, if possible, to get the people out of the tenements, out of the gutters of degradation, to homes where there can be privacy, where these people can feel that they are in partnership with nature; that they have an interest in good government. With the means we now have of transportation, there is no necessity for poor people being huddled in festering masses in the vile, filthy and loathsome parts of cities, where poverty breeds rags, and the rags breed diseases. I would exempt a homestead of a reasonable value, say of the value of two or three thousand dollars, not only from sale under execution, but from sale for taxes of every description. These homes should be absolutely exempt; they should belong to the family, so that every mother should feel that the roof above her head was hers; that her house was her castle, and that in its possession she could not be disturbed, even by the nation. Under certain conditions I would allow the sale of this homestead, and exempt the proceeds of the sale for a certain time, during which they might be invested in another home; and all this could be done to make a nation of householders, a nation of land-owners, a nation of home-builders.
I would invoke the same power to preserve these homes, and to acquire these homes, that I would invoke for acquiring lands for building railways. Every State should fix the amount of land that could be owned by an individual, not liable to be taken from him for the purpose of giving a home to another, and when any man owned more acres than the law allowed, and another should ask to purchase them, and he should refuse, I would have the law so that the person wishing to purchase could file his petition in court. The court would appoint commissioners, or a jury would be called, to determine the value of the land the petitioner wished for a home, and, upon the amount being paid, found by such commission, or jury, the land should vest absolutely in the petitioner.
This right of eminent domain should be used not only for the benefit of the person wishing a home, but for the benefit of all the people. Nothing is more important to America than that the babes of America should be born around the firesides of homes.
There is another question in which I take great interest, and it ought, in my judgment, to be answered by the intelligence and kindness of our century.
We all know that for many, many ages, men have been slaves, and we all know that during all these years, women have, to some extent been the slaves of slaves. It is of the utmost importance to the human race that women, that mothers, should be free. Without doubt, the contract of marriage is the most important and the most sacred that human beings can make. Marriage is the most important of all institutions. Of course, the ceremony of marriage is not the real marriage. It is only evidence of the mutual flames that burn within. There can be no real marriage without mutual love. So I believe in the ceremony of marriage, that it should be public; that records should be kept. Besides, the ceremony says to all the world that those who marry are in love with each other.
Then arises the question of divorce. Millions of people imagine that the married are joined together by some supernatural power, and that they should remain together, or at least married, during life. If all who have been married were joined together by the supernatural, we must admit that the supernatural is not infinitely wise.
After all, marriage is a contract, and the parties to the contract are bound to keep its provisions; and neither should be released from such a contract unless, in some way, the interests of society are involved. I would have the law so that any husband could obtain a divorce when the wife had persistently and flagrantly violated the contract; such divorce to be granted on equitable terms. I would give the wife a divorce if she requested it, if she wanted it.
And I would do this, not only for her sake, but for the sake of the community, of the nation. All children should be children of love. All that are born should be sincerely welcomed. The children of mothers who dislike, or hate, or loathe the fathers, will fill the world with insanity and crime. No woman should by law, or by public opinion, be forced to live with a man whom she abhors. There is no danger of demoralizing the world through divorce. Neither is there any danger of destroying in the human heart that divine thing called love. As long as the human race exists, men and women will love each other, and just so long there will be true and perfect marriage. Slavery is not the soil or rain of virtue.
I make a difference between granting divorce to a man and to a woman, and for this reason: A woman dowers her husband with her youth and beauty. He should not be allowed to desert her because she has grown wrinkled and old. Her capital is gone; her prospects in life lessened; while, on the contrary, he may be far better able to succeed than when he married her. As a rule, the man can take care of himself, and as a rule, the woman needs help. So, I would not allow him to cast her off unless she had flagrantly violated the contract. But, for the sake of the community, and especially for the sake of the babes, I would give her a divorce for the asking.
There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women—of free mothers.
The tenderest word in our language is maternity. In this word is the divine mingling of ecstasy and agony—of love and self-sacrifice. This word is holy!
VI. THE LABOR QUESTION.
HERE has been for many years ceaseless discussion upon what is called the labor question; the conflict between the workingman and the capitalist. Many ways have been devised, some experiments have been tried for the purpose of solving this question. Profit-sharing would not work, because it is impossible to share profits with those who are incapable of sharing losses. Communities have been formed, the object being to pay the expenses and share the profits among all the persons belonging to the society. For the most part these have failed.
Others have advocated arbitration. And, while it may be that the employers could be bound by the decision of the arbitrators, there has been no way discovered by which the employees could be held by such decision. In other words, the question has not been solved.
For my own part, I see no final and satisfactory solution except through the civilization of employers and employed. The question is so complicated, the ramifications are so countless, that a solution by law, or by force, seems at least improbable. Employers are supposed to pay according to their profits. They may or may not. Profits may be destroyed by competition. The employer is at the mercy of other employers, and as much so as his employees are at his mercy. The employers cannot govern prices; they cannot fix demand; they cannot control supply; and at present, in the world of trade, the laws of supply and demand, except when interfered with by conspiracy, are in absolute control.
Will the time arrive, and can it arrive, except by developing the brain, except by the aid of intellectual light, when the purchaser will wish to give what a thing is worth, when the employer will be satisfied with a reasonable profit, when the employer will be anxious to give the real value for raw material; when he will be really anxious to pay the laborer the full value of his labor? Will the employer ever become civilized enough to know that the law of supply and demand should not absolutely apply in the labor market of the world? Will he ever become civilized enough not to take advantage of the necessities of the poor, of the hunger and rags and want of poverty? Will he ever become civilized enough to say: "I will pay the man who labors for me enough to give him a reasonable support, enough for him to assist in taking care of wife and children, enough for him to do this, and lay aside something to feed and clothe him when old age comes; to lay aside something, enough to give him house and hearth during the December of his life, so that he can warm his worn and shriveled hands at the fire of home"?
Of course, capital can do nothing without the assistance of labor. All there is of value in the world is the product of labor. The laboring man pays all the expenses. No matter whether taxes are laid on luxuries or on the necessaries of life, labor pays every cent.
So we must remember that, day by day, labor is becoming intelligent. So, I believe the employer is gradually becoming civilized, gradually becoming kinder; and many men who have made large fortunes from the labor of their fellows have given of their millions to what they regarded as objects of charity, or for the interests of education. This is a kind of penance, because the men that have made this money from the brain and muscle of their fellow-men have ever felt that it was not quite their own. Many of these employers have sought to balance their accounts by leaving something for universities, for the establishment of libraries, drinking fountains, or to build monuments to departed greatness. It would have been, I think, far better had they used this money to better the condition of the men who really earned it.
So, I think that when we become civilized, great corporations will make provision for men who have given their lives to their service. I think the great railroads should pay pensions to their worn out employees. They should take care of them in old age. They should not maim and wear out their servants and then discharge them, and allow them to be supported in poorhouses. These great companies should take care of the men they maim; they should look out for the ones whose lives they have used and whose labor has been the foundation of their prosperity. Upon this question, public sentiment should be aroused to such a degree that these corporations would be ashamed to use a human life and then throw away the broken old man as they would cast aside a rotten tie.
It may be that the mechanics, the workingmen, will finally become intelligent enough to really unite, to act in absolute concert. Could this be accomplished, then a reasonable rate of compensation could be fixed and enforced. Now such efforts are local, and the result up to this time has been failure. But, if all could unite, they could obtain what is reasonable, what is just, and they would have the sympathy of a very large majority of their fellow-men, provided they were reasonable.
But, before they can act in this way, they must become really intelligent, intelligent enough to know what is reasonable and honest enough to ask for no more.
So much has already been accomplished for the workingman that I have hope, and great hope, of the future. The hours of labor have been shortened, and materially shortened, in many countries. There was a time when men worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day. Now, generally, a day's work is not longer than ten hours, and the tendency is to still further decrease the hours.
By comparing long periods of time, we more clearly perceive the advance that has been made. In 1860, the average amount earned by the laboring men, workmen, mechanics, per year, was about two hundred and eighty-five dollars. It is now about five hundred dollars, and a dollar to-day will purchase more of the necessaries of life, more food, clothing and fuel, than it would in 1860. These facts are full of hope for the future.
All our sympathies should be with the men who work, who toil; for the women who labor for themselves and children; because we know that labor is the foundation of all, and that those who labor are the Caryatides that support the structure and glittering dome of civilization and progress.
VII. EDUCATE THE CHILDREN.
EVERY child should be taught to be self-supporting, and every one should be taught to avoid being a burden on others, as they would shun death.
Every child should be taught that the useful are the honorable, and that they who live on the labor of others are the enemies of society. Every child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent labor is the highest form of prayer.
Children should be taught to think, to investigate, to rely upon the light of reason, of observation and experience; should be taught to use all their senses; and they should be taught only that which in some sense is really useful. They should be taught the use of tools, to use their hands, to embody their thoughts in the construction of things. Their lives should not be wasted in the acquisition of the useless, or of the almost useless. Years should not be devoted to the acquisition of dead languages, or to the study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed account of things that never occurred. It is useless to fill the mind with dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of kings. They should be taught the philosophy of history, the growth of nations, of philosophies, theories, and, above all, of the sciences.
So, they should be taught the importance, not only of financial, but of mental honesty; to be absolutely sincere; to utter their real thoughts, and to give their actual opinions; and, if parents want honest children, they should be honest themselves. It may be that hypocrites transmit their failing to their offspring. Men and women who pretend to agree with the majority, who think one way and talk another, can hardly expect their children to be absolutely sincere.
Nothing should be taught in any school that the teacher does not know. Beliefs, superstitions, theories, should not be treated like demonstrated facts. The child should be taught to investigate, not to believe. Too much doubt is better than too much credulity. So, children should be taught that it is their duty to think for themselves, to understand, and, if possible, to know.
Real education is the hope of the future. The development of the brain, the civilization of the heart, will drive want and crime from the world. The schoolhouse is the real cathedral, and science the only possible savior of the human race. Education, real education, is the friend of honesty, of morality, of temperance.
We cannot rely upon legislative enactments to make people wise and good; neither can we expect to make human beings manly and womanly by keeping them out of temptation. Temptations are as thick as the leaves of the forest, and no one can be out of the reach of temptation unless he is dead. The great thing is to make people intelligent enough and strong enough, not to keep away from temptation, but to resist it. All the forces of civilization are in favor of morality and temperance. Little can be accomplished by law, because law, for the most part, about such things, is a destruction of personal liberty. Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything else. Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life. The world had better go back to barbarism, to the dens, the caves and lairs of savagery; better lose all art, all inventions, than to lose liberty. Liberty is the breath of progress; it is the seed and soil, the heat and rain of love and joy.
So, all should be taught that the highest ambition is to be happy, and to add to the well-being of others; that place and power are not necessary to success; that the desire to acquire great wealth is a kind of insanity. They should be taught that it is a waste of energy, a waste of thought, a waste of life, to acquire what you do not need and what you do not really use for the benefit of yourself or others.
Neither mendicants nor millionaires are the happiest of mankind. The man at the bottom of the ladder hopes to rise; the man at the top fears to fall. The one asks; the other refuses; and, by frequent refusal, the heart becomes hard enough and the hand greedy enough to clutch and hold.
Few men have intelligence enough, real greatness enough, to own a great fortune. As a rule, the fortune owns them. Their fortune is their master, for whom they work and toil like slaves. The man who has a good business and who can make a reasonable living and lay aside something for the future, who can educate his children and can leave enough to keep the wolf of want from the door of those he loves, ought to be the happiest of men.
Now, society bows and kneels at the feet of wealth. Wealth gives power. Wealth commands flattery and adulation. And so, millions of men give all their energies, as well as their very souls, for the acquisition of gold. And this will continue as long as society is ignorant enough and hypocritical enough to hold in high esteem the man of wealth without the slightest regard to the character of the man.
In judging of the rich, two things should be considered: How did they get it, and what are they doing with it? Was it honestly acquired? Is it being used for the benefit of mankind? When people become really intelligent, when the brain is really developed, no human being will give his life to the acquisition of what he does not need or what he cannot intelligently use.
The time will come when the truly intelligent man cannot be happy, cannot be satisfied, when millions of his fellow-men are hungry and naked. The time will come when in every heart will be the perfume of pity's sacred flower. The time will come when the world will be anxious to ascertain the truth, to find out the conditions of happiness, and to live in accordance with such conditions; and the time will come when in the brain of every human being will be the climate of intellectual hospitality.
Man will be civilized when the passions are dominated by the intellect, when reason occupies the throne, and when the hot blood of passion no longer rises in successful revolt.
To civilize the world, to hasten the coming of the Golden Dawn of the Perfect Day, we must educate the children, we must commence at the cradle, at the lap of the loving mother.
VIII. WE MUST WORK AND WAIT.
THE reforms that I have mentioned cannot be accomplished in a day, possibly not for many centuries; and in the meantime there is much crime, much poverty, much want, and consequently something must be done now.
Let each human being, within the limits of the possible be self-supporting; let every one take intelligent thought for the morrow; and if a human being supports himself and acquires a surplus, let him use a part of that surplus for the unfortunate; and let each one to the extent of his ability help his fellow-men. Let him do what he can in the circle of his own acquaintance to rescue the fallen, to help those who are trying to help themselves, to give work to the idle. Let him distribute kind words, words of wisdom, of cheerfulness and hope. In other words, let every human being do all the good he can, and let him bind up the wounds of his fellow-creatures, and at the same time put forth every effort, to hasten the coming of a better day.
This, in my judgment, is real religion. To do all the good you can is to be a saint in the highest and in the noblest sense. To do all the good you can; this is to be really and truly spiritual. To relieve suffering, to put the star of hope in the midnight of despair, this is true holiness. This is the religion of science. The old creeds are too narrow, they are not for the world in which we live. The old dogmas lack breadth and tenderness; they are too cruel, too merciless, too savage. We are growing grander and nobler.
The firmament inlaid with suns is the dome of the real cathedral. The interpreters of nature are the true and only priests. In the great creed are all the truths that lips have uttered, and in the real litany will be found all the ecstasies and aspirations of the soul, all dreams of joy, all hopes for nobler, fuller life. The real church, the real edifice, is adorned and glorified with all that Art has done. In the real choir is all the thrilling music of the world, and in the star-lit aisles have been, and are, the grandest souls of every land and clime.
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
Let us flood the world with intellectual light.
MANY ages ago our fathers were living in dens and caves. Their bodies, their low foreheads, were covered with hair. They were eating berries, roots, bark and vermin. They were fond of snakes and raw fish. They discovered fire and, probably by accident, learned how to cause it by friction. They found how to warm themselves—to fight the frost and storm. They fashioned clubs and rude weapons of stone with which they killed the larger beasts and now and then each other. Slowly, painfully, almost imperceptibly they advanced. They crawled and stumbled, staggered and struggled toward the light. To them the world was unknown. On every hand was the mysterious, the sinister, the hurtful. The forests were filled with monsters, and the darkness was crowded with ghosts, devils, and fiendish gods.
These poor wretches were the slaves of fear, the sport of dreams.
Now and then, one rose a little above his fellows—used his senses—the little reason that he had—found something new—some better way. Then the people killed him and afterward knelt with reverence at his grave. Then another thinker gave his thought—was murdered—another tomb became sacred—another step was taken in advance. And so through countless years of ignorance and cruelty—of thought and crime—of murder and worship, of heroism, suffering, and self-denial, the race has reached the heights where now we stand.
Looking back over the long and devious roads that lie between the barbarism of the past and the civilization of to-day, thinking of the centuries that rolled like waves between these distant shores, we can form some idea of what our fathers suffered—of the mistakes they made—some idea of their ignorance, their stupidity—and some idea of their sense, their goodness, their heroism.
It is a long road from the savage to the scientist—from a den to a mansion—from leaves to clothes—from a flickering rush to the arc-light—from a hammer of stone to the modern mill—a long distance from the pipe of Pan to the violin—to the orchestra—from a floating log to the steamship—from a sickle to a reaper—from a flail to a threshing machine—-from a crooked stick to a plow—from a spinning wheel to a spinning jenny—from a hand loom to a Jacquard—a Jacquard that weaves fair forms and wondrous flowers beyond Arachne's utmost dream—from a few hieroglyphics on the skins of beasts—on bricks of clay—to a printing press, to a library—a long distance from the messenger, traveling on foot, to the electric spark—from knives and tools of stone to those of steel—a long distance from sand to telescopes—from echo to the phonograph, the phonograph that buries in indented lines and dots the sounds of living speech, and then gives back to life the very words and voices of the dead—a long way from the trumpet to the telephone, the telephone that transports speech as swift as thought and drops the words, perfect as minted coins, in listening ears—a long way from a fallen tree to the suspension bridge—from the dried sinews of beasts to the cables of steel—from the oar to the propeller—from the sling to the rifle—from the catapult to the cannon—a long distance from revenge to law—from the club to the Legislature—from slavery to freedom—from appearance to fact—from fear to reason.
And yet the distance has been traveled by the human race. Countless obstructions have been overcome—numberless enemies have been conquered—thousands and thousands of victories have been won for the right, and millions have lived, labored and died for their fellow-men.
For the blessings we enjoy—for the happiness that is ours, we ought to be grateful. Our hearts should blossom with thankfulness.
Whom, what, should we thank?
Let us be honest—generous.
Should we thank the church?
Christianity has controlled Christendom for at least fifteen hundred years.
During these centuries what have the orthodox churches accomplished, for the good of man?
In this life man needs raiment and roof, food and fuel. He must be protected from heat and cold, from snow and storm. He must take thought for the morrow. In the summer of youth he must prepare for the winter of age. He must know something of the causes of disease—of the conditions of health. If possible he must conquer pain, increase happiness and lengthen life. He must supply the wants of the body—and feed the hunger of the mind.
What good has the church done?
Has it taught men to cultivate the earth? to build homes? to weave cloth to cure or prevent disease? to build ships, to navigate the seas? to conquer pain, or to lengthen life?
Did Christ or any of his apostles add to the sum of useful knowledge? Did they say one word in favor of any science, of any art? Did they teach their fellow-men how to make a living, how to overcome the obstructions of nature, how to prevent sickness—how to protect themselves from pain, from famine, from misery and rags?
Did they explain any of the phenomena of nature? any of the facts that affect the life of man? Did they say anything in favor of investigation—of study—of thought? Did they teach the gospel of self-reliance, of industry—of honest effort? Can any farmer, mechanic, or scientist find in the New Testament one useful fact? Is there anything in the sacred book that can help the geologist, the astronomer, the biologist, the physician, the inventor—the manufacturer of any useful thing?
What has the church done?
From the very first it taught the vanity—the worthlessness of all earthly things. It taught the wickedness of wealth, the blessedness of poverty. It taught that the business of this life was to prepare for death. It insisted that a certain belief was necessary to insure salvation, and that all who failed to believe, or doubted in the least would suffer eternal pain. According to the church the natural desires, ambitions and passions of man were all wicked and depraved.
To love God, to practice self-denial, to overcome desire, to despise wealth, to hate prosperity, to desert wife and children, to live on roots and berries, to repeat prayers, to wear rags, to live in filth, and drive love from the heart—these, for centuries, were the highest and most perfect virtues, and those who practiced them were saints.
The saints did not assist their fellow-men. Their fellow-men assisted them. They did not labor for others. They were beggars—parasites—vermin. They were insane. They followed the teachings of Christ. They took no thought for the morrow. They mutilated their bodies—scarred their flesh and destroyed their minds for the sake of happiness in another world. During the journey of life they kept their eyes on the grave. They gathered no flowers by the way—they walked in the dust of the road—avoided the green fields. Their moans made all the music they wished to hear. The babble of brooks, the songs of birds, the laughter of children, were nothing to them. Pleasure was the child of sin, and the happy needed a change of heart. They were sinless and miserable—but they had faith—they were pious and wretched—but they were limping towards heaven.
What has the church done?
It has denounced pride and luxury—all things that adorn and enrich life—all the pleasures of sense—the ecstasies of love—the happiness of the hearth—the clasp and kiss of wife and child.
And the church has done this because it regarded this life as a period of probation—a time to prepare—to become spiritual—to overcome the natural—to fix the affections on the invisible—to become passionless—to subdue the flesh—to congeal the blood—to fold the wings of fancy—to become dead to the world—so that when you appeared before God you would be the exact opposite of what he made you.
What has the church done?
It pretended to have a revelation from God. It knew the road to eternal joy, the way to death. It preached salvation by faith, and declared that only orthodox believers could become angels, and all doubters would be damned. It knew this, and so knowing it became the enemy of discussion, of investigation, of thought. Why investigate, why discuss, why think when you know? It sought to enslave the world. It appealed to force. It unsheathed the sword, lighted the fagot, forged the chain, built the dungeon, erected the scaffold, invented and used the instruments of torture. It branded, maimed and mutilated—it imprisoned and tortured—it blinded and burned, hanged and crucified, and utterly destroyed millions and millions of human beings. It touched every nerve of the body—produced every pain that can be felt, every agony that can be endured.
And it did all this to preserve what it called the truth—to destroy heresy and doubt, and to save, if possible, the souls of a few. It was honest. It was necessary to prevent the development of the brain—to arrest all progress—and to do this the church used all its power. If men were allowed to think and express their thoughts they would fill their minds and the minds of others with doubts. If they were allowed to think they would investigate, and then they might contradict the creed, dispute the words of priests and defy the church. The priests cried to the people: "It is for us to talk. It is for you to hear. Our duty is to preach and yours is to believe."
What has the church done?
There have been thousands of councils and synods—thousands and thousands of occasions when the clergy have met and discussed and quarreled—when pope and cardinals, bishops and priests have added to or explained their creeds—and denied the rights of others. What useful truth did they discover? What fact did they find? Did they add to the intellectual wealth of the world? Did they increase the sum of knowledge?
I admit that they looked over a number of Jewish books and picked out the ones that Jehovah wrote.
Did they find the medicinal virtue that dwells in any weed or flower?
I know that they decided that the Holy Ghost was not created—not begotten—but that he proceeded.
Did they teach us the mysteries of the metals and how to purify the ores in furnace flames?
They shouted: "Great is the mystery of Godliness."
Did they show us how to improve our condition in this world?
They informed us that Christ had two natures and two wills.
Did they give us even a hint as to any useful thing?
They gave us predestination, foreordination and just enough "free will" to go to hell.
Did they discover or show us how to produce anything for food?
Did they produce anything to satisfy the hunger of man?
Instead of this they discovered that a peasant girl who lived in Palestine, was the mother of God. This they proved by a book, and to make the book evidence they called it inspired.
Did they tell us anything about chemistry—how to combine and separate substances—how to subtract the hurtful—how to produce the useful?
They told us that bread, by making certain motions and mumbling certain prayers, could be changed into the flesh of God, and that in the same way wine could be changed to his blood. And this, notwithstanding the fact that God never had any flesh or blood, but has always been a spirit without body, parts or passions.
What has the church done?
It gave us the history of the world—of the stars, and the beginning of all things. It taught the geology of Moses—the astronomy of Joshua and Elijah. It taught the fall of man and the atonement—proved that a Jewish peasant was God—established the existence of hell, purgatory and heaven.
It pretended to have a revelation from God—the Scriptures, in which could be found all knowledge—everything that man could need in the journey of life. Nothing outside of the inspired book—except legends and prayers—could be of any value. Books that contradicted the Bible were hurtful, those that agreed with it—useless. Nothing was of importance except faith, credulity—belief. The church said: "Let philosophy alone, count your beads. Ask no questions, fall upon your knees. Shut your eyes, and save your souls."
What has the church done?
For centuries it kept the earth flat, for centuries it made all the hosts of heaven travel around this world—for centuries it clung to "sacred" knowledge, and fought facts with the ferocity of a fiend. For centuries it hated the useful. It was the deadly enemy of medicine. Disease was produced by devils and could be cured only by priests, decaying bones, and holy water. Doctors were the rivals of priests. They diverted the revenues.
The church opposed the study of anatomy—was against the dissection of the dead. Man had no right to cure disease—God would do that through his priests.
Man had no right to prevent disease—diseases were sent by God as judgments.
The church opposed inoculation—vaccination, and the use of chloroform and ether. It was declared to be a sin, a crime for a woman to lessen the pangs of motherhood. The church declared that woman must bear the curse of the merciful Jehovah.
What has the church done?
It taught that the insane were inhabited by devils. Insanity was not a disease. It was produced by demons. It could be cured by prayers—gifts, amulets and charms. All these had to be paid for. This enriched the church. These ideas were honestly entertained by Protestants as well as Catholics—by Luther, Calvin, Knox and Wesley.
What has the church done?
It taught the awful doctrine of witchcraft. It filled the darkness with demons—the air with devils, and the world with grief and shame. It charged men, women and children with being in league with Satan to injure their fellows. Old women were convicted for causing storms at sea—for preventing rain and for bringing frost. Girls were convicted for having changed themselves into wolves, snakes and toads. These witches were burned for causing diseases—for selling their souls and for souring beer. All these things were done with the aid of the Devil who sought to persecute the faithful, the lambs of God. Satan sought in many ways to scandalize the church. He sometimes assumed the appearance of a priest and committed crimes.
On one occasion he personated a bishop—a bishop renowned for his sanctity—allowed himself to be discovered and dragged from the room of a beautiful widow. So perfectly did he counterfeit the features and form of the bishop, that many who were well acquainted with the prelate, were actually deceived, and the widow herself thought her lover was the bishop. All this was done by the Devil to bring reproach upon holy men.
Hundreds of like instances could be given, as the war waged between demons and priests was long and bitter.
These popes and priests—these clergymen, were not hypocrites. They believed in the New Testament—in the teachings of Christ, and they knew that the principal business of the Savior was casting out devils.
What has the church done?
It made the wife a slave—the property of the husband, and it placed the husband as much above the wife as Christ was above the husband. It taught that a nun is purer, nobler than a mother. It induced millions of pure and conscientious girls to renounce the joys of life—to take the veil woven of night and death, to wear the habiliments of the dead—made them believe that they were the brides of Christ.
For my part, I would as soon be a widow as the bride of a man who had been dead for eighteen hundred years.
The poor deluded girls imagined that they, in some mysterious way, were in spiritual wedlock united with God. All worldly desires were driven from their hearts. They filled their lives with fastings—with prayers—with self-accusings. They forgot fathers and mothers and gave their love to the invisible. They were the victims, the convicts of superstition—prisoners in the penitentiaries of God. Conscientious, good, sincere—insane.
These loving women gave their hearts to a phantom, their lives to a dream.
A few years ago, at a revival, a fine buxom girl was "converted," "born again." In her excitement she cried, "I'm married to Christ—I'm married to Christ." In her delirium she threw her arms around the neck of an old man and again cried, "I'm married to Christ." The old man, who happened to be a kind of skeptic, gently removed her hands, saying at the same time: "I don't know much about your husband, but I have great respect for your father-in-law."
Priests, theologians, have taken advantage of women—of their gentleness—their love of approbation. They have lived upon their hopes and fears. Like vampires, they have sucked their blood. They have made them responsible for the sins of the world. They have taught them the slave virtues—meekness, humility—implicit obedience. They have fed their minds with mistakes, mysteries and absurdities. They have endeavored to weaken and shrivel their brains, until, to them, there would be no possible connection between evidence and belief—between fact and faith.
What has the church done?
It was the enemy of commerce—of business. It denounced the taking of interest for money. Without taking interest for money, progress is impossible. The steamships, the great factories, the railroads have all been built with borrowed money, money on which interest was promised and for the most part paid.
The church was opposed to fire insurance—to life insurance. It denounced insurance in any form as gambling, as immoral. To insure your life was to declare that you had no confidence in God—that you relied on a corporation instead of divine providence. It was declared that God would provide for your widow and your fatherless children.
To insure your life was to insult heaven.
What has the church done?
The church regarded epidemics as the messengers of the good God. The "Black Death" was sent by the eternal Father, whose mercy spared some and whose justice murdered the rest. To stop the scourge, they tried to soften the heart of God by kneelings and prostrations—by processions and prayers—by burning incense and by making vows. They did not try to remove the cause. The cause was God. They did not ask for pure water, but for holy water. Faith and filth lived or rather died together. Religion and rags, piety and pollution kept company. Sanctity kept its odor.
What has the church done?
It was the enemy of art and literature. It destroyed the marbles of Greece and Rome. Beauty was Pagan. It destroyed so far as it could the best literature of the world. It feared thought—but it preserved the Scriptures, the ravings of insane saints, the falsehoods of the Fathers, the bulls of popes, the accounts of miracles performed by shrines, by dried blood and faded hair, by pieces of bones and wood, by rusty nails and thorns, by handkerchiefs and rags, by water and beads and by a finger of the Holy Ghost.
This was the literature of the church.
I admit that the priests were honest—as honest as ignorant. More could not be said.
What has the church done?
Christianity claims, with great pride, that it established asylums for the insane. Yes, it did. But the insane were treated as criminals. They were regarded as the homes—as the tenement-houses of devils. They were persecuted and tormented. They were chained and flogged, starved and killed. The asylums were prisons, dungeons, the insane were victims and the keepers were ignorant, conscientious, pious fiends. They were not trying to help men, they were fighting devils—destroying demons. They were not actuated by love—but by hate and fear.
What has the church done?
It founded schools where facts were denied, where science was denounced and philosophy despised. Schools, where priests were made—where they were taught to hate reason and to look upon doubts as the suggestions of the Devil. Schools where the heart was hardened and the brain shriveled. Schools in which lies were sacred and truths profane. Schools for the more general diffusion of ignorance—schools to prevent thought—to suppress knowledge. Schools for the purpose of enslaving the world. Schools in which teachers knew less than pupils.
What has the church done?
It has used its influence with God to get rain and sunshine—to stop flood and storm—to kill insects, rats, snakes and wild beasts—to stay pestilence and famine—to delay frost and snow—to lengthen the lives of kings and queens—to protect presidents—to give legislators wisdom—to increase collections and subscriptions. In marriages it has made God the party of the third part. It has sprinkled water on babes when they were named. It has put oil on the dying and repeated prayers for the dead. It has tried to protect the people from the malice of the Devil—from ghosts and spooks, from witches and wizards and all the leering fiends that seek to poison the souls of men. It has endeavored to protect the sheep of God from the wolves of science—from the wild beasts of doubt and investigation. It has tried to wean the lambs of the Lord from the delights, the pleasures, the joys, of life. According to the philosophy of the church, the virtuous weep and suffer, the vicious laugh and thrive, the good carry a cross, and the wicked fly. But in the next life this will be reversed. Then the good will be happy, and the bad will be damned.
The church filled the world with faith and crime.
It polluted the fountains of joy. It gave us an ignorant, jealous, revengeful and cruel God—sometimes merciful—sometimes ferocious. Now just, now infamous—sometimes wise—generally foolish. It gave us a Devil, cunning, malicious, almost the equal of God, not quite as strong—but quicker—not as profound—but sharper.
It gave us angels with wings—cherubim and seraphim and a heaven with harps and hallelujahs—with streets of gold and gates of pearl.
It gave us fiends and imps with wings like bats. It gave us ghosts and goblins, spooks and sprites, and little devils that swarmed in the bodies of men, and it gave us hell where the souls of men will roast in eternal flames. Shall we thank the church? Shall we thank the orthodox churches?
Shall we thank them for the hell they made here? Shall we thank them for the hell of the future?
II.
WE must remember that the church was founded and has been protected by God, that all the popes, and cardinals, all the bishops, priests and monks, all the ministers and exhorters were selected and set apart—all sanctified and enlightened by the infinite God—that the Holy Scriptures were inspired by the same Being, and that all the orthodox creeds were really made by him.
We know what these men—filled with the Holy Ghost—have done. We know the part they have played. We know the souls they have saved and the bodies they have destroyed. We know the consolation they have given and the pain they have inflicted—the lies they have defended—the truths they have denied. We know that they convinced millions that celibacy is the greatest of all virtues—that women are perpetual temptations, the enemies of true holiness—that monks and priests are nobler than fathers, that nuns are purer than mothers. We know that they taught the blessed absurdity of the Trinity—that God once worked at the trade of a carpenter in Palestine. We know that they divided knowledge into sacred and profane—taught that Revelation was sacred—that Reason was blasphemous—that faith was holy and facts false. That the sin of Adam and Eve brought disease and pain, vice and death into the world. We know that they have taught the dogma of special providence—that all events are ordered and regulated by God—that he crowns and uncrowns kings—preserves and destroys—guards and kills—that it is the duty of man to submit to the divine will, and that no matter how much evil there may be—no matter how much suffering—how much pain and death, man should pour out-his heart in thankfulness that it is no worse.
Let me be understood. I do not say and I do not think that the church was dishonest, that the clergy were insincere. I admit that all religions, all creeds, all priests, have been naturally produced. I admit, and cheerfully admit, that the believers in the supernatural have done some good—not because they believed in gods and devils—but in spite of it.
I know that thousands and thousands of clergymen are honest, self-denying and humane—that they are doing what they believe to be their duty—doing what they can to induce men and women to live pure and noble lives. This is not the result of their creeds—it is because they are human.
What I say is that every honest teacher of the supernatural has been and is an unconscious enemy of the human race.
What is the philosophy of the church—of those who believe in the supernatural?
Back of all that is—back of all events—Christians put an infinite Juggler who with a wish creates, preserves, destroys. The world is his stage and mankind his puppets. He fills them with wants and desires, with appetites and ambitions—with hopes and fears—with love and hate. He touches the springs. He pulls the strings—baits the hooks, sets the traps and digs the pits.
The play is a continuous performance.
He watches these puppets as they struggle and fail. Sees them outwit each other and themselves—leads them to every crime, watches the births and deaths—hears lullabies at cradles and the fall of clods on coffins. He has no pity. He enjoys the tragedies—the desperation—the despair—the suicides. He smiles at the murders, the assassinations,—the seductions, the desertions—the abandoned babes of shame. He sees the weak enslaved—mothers robbed of babes—the innocent in dungeons—on scaffolds. He sees crime crowned and hypocrisy robed.
He withholds the rain and his puppets starve. He opens the earth and they are devoured. He sends the flood and they are drowned. He empties the volcano and they perish in fire. He sends the cyclone and they are torn and mangled. With quick lightnings they are dashed to death. He fills the air and water with the invisible enemies of life—the messengers of pain, and watches the puppets as they breathe and drink. He creates cancers to feed upon their flesh—their quivering nerves—serpents, to fill their veins with venom,—beasts to crunch their bones—to lap their blood.
Some of the poor puppets he makes insane—makes them struggle in the darkness with imagined monsters with glaring eyes and dripping jaws, and some are made without the flame of thought, to drool and drivel through the darkened days. He sees all the agony, the injustice, the rags of poverty, the withered hands of want—the motherless babes—the deformed—the maimed—the leprous, knows the tears that flow—hears the sobs and moans—sees the gleam of swords, hears the roar of the guns—sees the fields reddened with blood—the white faces of the dead. But he mocks when their fear cometh, and at their calamity he fills the heavens with laughter. And the poor puppets who are left alive, fall on their knees and thank the Juggler with all their hearts.
But after all, the gods have not supported the children of men, men have supported the gods. They have built the temples. They have sacrificed their babes, their lambs, their cattle. They have drenched the altars with blood. They have given their silver, their gold, their gems. They have fed and clothed their priests—but the gods have given nothing in return. Hidden in the shadows they have answered no prayer—heard no cry—given no sign—extended no hand—uttered no word. Unseen and unheard they have sat on their thrones, deaf and dumb—paralyzed and blind. In vain the steeples rise—in vain the prayers ascend.
And think what man has done to please the gods. He has renounced his reason—extinguished the torch of his brain, he has believed without evidence and against evidence. He has slandered and maligned himself. He has fasted and starved. He has mutilated his body—scarred his flesh—given his blood to vermin. He has persecuted, imprisoned and destroyed his fellows. He has deserted wife and child. He has lived alone in the desert. He has swung-censers and burned incense, counted beads and sprinkled himself with holy water—shut his eyes, clasped his hands—fallen upon his knees and groveled in the dust—but the gods have been silent—silent as stones.
Have these cringings and crawlings—these cruelties and absurdities—this faith and foolishness pleased the gods?
We do not know.
Has any disaster been averted—any blessing obtained? We do not know.
Shall we thank these gods?
Shall we thank the church's God?
Who and what is he?
They say that he is the creator and preserver of all that has been—of all that is—of all that will be—that he is the father of angels and devils, the architect of heaven and hell—that he made the earth—a man and woman—that he made the serpent who tempted them, made his own rival—gave victory to his enemy—that he repented of what he had done—that he sent a flood and destroyed all of the children of men with the exception of eight persons—that he tried to civilize the survivors and their children—tried to do this with earthquakes and fiery serpents —with pestilence and famine. But he failed. He intended to fail. Then he was born into the world, preached for three years, and allowed some savages to kill him. Then he rose from the dead and went back to heaven.
He knew that he would fail, knew that he would be killed. In fact he arranged everything himself and brought everything to pass just as he had predestined it an eternity before the world was. All who believe these things will be saved and they who doubt or deny will be lost.
Has this God good sense?
Not always. He creates his own enemies and plots against himself. Nothing lives, except in accordance with his will, and yet the devils do not die.
What is the matter with this God? Well, sometimes he is foolish—sometimes he is cruel and sometimes he is insane.
Does this God exist? Is there any intelligence back of Nature? Is there any being anywhere among the stars who pities the suffering children of men?
We do not know.
Shall we thank Nature?
Does Nature care for us more than for leaves, or grass, or flies?
Does Nature know that we exist? We do not know.
But we do know that Nature is going to murder us all.
Why should we thank Nature? If we thank God or Nature for the sunshine and rain, for health and happiness, whom shall we curse for famine and pestilence, for earthquake and cyclone—for disease and death?
III.
IF we cannot thank the orthodox churches—if we cannot thank the unknown, the incomprehensible, the supernatural—if we cannot thank Nature—if we can not kneel to a Guess, or prostrate ourselves before a Perhaps—whom shall we thank?
Let us see what the worldly have done—what has been accomplished by those not "called," not "set apart," not "inspired," not filled with the Holy Ghost—by those who were neglected by all the Gods.
Passing over the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, their poets, philosophers and metaphysicians—we will come to modern times.
In the 10th century after Christ the Saracens—governors of a vast empire—"established colleges in Mongolia, Tartary, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Morocco, Fez and in Spain." The region owned by the Saracens was greater than the Roman Empire. They had not only colleges—but observatories. The sciences were taught. They introduced the ten numerals—taught algebra and trigonometry—understood cubic equations—knew the art of surveying—they made catalogues and maps of the stars—gave the great stars the names they still bear—they ascertained the size of the earth—determined the obliquity of the ecliptic and fixed the length of the year. They calculated eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets and occultations of stars. They constructed astronomical instruments. They made clocks of various kinds and were the inventors of the pendulum. They originated chemistry—discovered sulphuric and nitric acid and alcohol.
"They were the first to publish pharmacopoeias and dispensatories.
"In mechanics they determined the laws of falling bodies. They understood the mechanical powers, and the attraction of gravitation.
"They taught hydrostatics and determined the specific gravities of bodies.
"In optics they discovered that a ray of light did not proceed from the eye to an object—but from the object to the eye."
"They were manufacturers of cotton, leather, paper and steel.
"They gave us the game of chess.
"They produced romances and novels and essays on many subjects.
"In their schools they taught the modern doctrines of evolution and development." They anticipated Darwin and Spencer.
These people were not Christians. They were the followers, for the most part, of an impostor—of a pretended prophet of a false God. And yet while the true Christians, the men selected by the true God and filled with the Holy Ghost were tearing out the tongues of heretics, these wretches were irreverently tracing the orbits of the stars. While the true believers were flaying philosophers and extinguishing the eyes of thinkers, these godless followers of Mohammed were founding colleges, collecting manuscripts, investigating the facts of nature and giving their attention to science. Afterward the followers of Mohammed became the enemies of science and hated facts as intensely and honestly as Christians. Whoever has a revelation from God will defend it with all his strength—will abhor reason and deny facts.
But it is well to know that we are indebted to the Moors—to the followers of Mohammed—for having laid the foundations of modern science. It is well to know that we are not indebted to the church, to Christianity, for any useful fact.
It is well to know that the seeds of thought were sown in our minds by the Greeks and Romans, and that our literature came from those seeds. The great literature of our language is Pagan in its thought—Pagan in its beauty—Pagan in its perfection. It is well to know that when Mohammedans were the friends of science, Christians were its enemies. How consoling it is to think that the friends of science—the men who educated their fellows—are now in hell, and that the men who persecuted and killed philosophers are now in heaven! Such is the justice of God.
The Christians of the Middle Ages, the men who were filled with the Holy Ghost, knew all about the worlds beyond the grave, but nothing about the world in which they lived. They thought the earth was flat—a little dishing if anything—that it was about five thousand years old, and that the stars were little sparkles made to beautify the night.
The fact is that Christianity was in existence for fifteen hundred years before there was an astronomer in Christendom. No follower of Christ knew the shape of the earth.
The earth was demonstrated to be a globe, not by a pope or cardinal—not by a collection of clergymen—not by the "called" or the "set apart," but by a sailor. Magellan left Seville, Spain, August 10th, 1519, sailed west and kept sailing west, and the ship reached Seville, the port it left, on Sept. 7th, 1522.
The world had been circumnavigated. The earth was known to be round. There had been a dispute between the Scriptures and a sailor. The fact took the sailor's side.
In 1543 Copernicus published his book, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies."
He had some idea of the vastness of the stars—of the astronomical spaces—of the insignificance of this world.
Toward the close of the sixteenth century, Bruno, one of the greatest men this world has produced, gave his thoughts to his fellow-men. He taught the plurality of worlds. He was a Pantheist, an Atheist, an honest man. He called the Catholic Church the "Triumphant Beast." He was imprisoned for many years, tried, convicted, and on the 16th day of February, 1600, burned in Rome by men filled with the Holy Ghost, burned on the spot where now his monument rises. Bruno, the noblest, the greatest of all the martyrs. The only one who suffered death for what he believed to be the truth. The only martyr who had no heaven to gain, no hell to shun, no God to please. He was nobler than inspired men, grander than prophets, greater and purer than apostles. Above all the theologians of the world, above the makers of creeds, above the founders of religions rose this serene, unselfish and intrepid man.
Yet Christians, followers of Christ, murdered this incomparable man. These Christians were true to their creed. They believed that faith would be rewarded with eternal joy, and doubt punished with eternal pain. They were logical. They were pious and pitiless—devout and devilish—meek and malicious—religious and revengeful—Christ-like and cruel—loving with their mouths and hating with their hearts. And yet, honest victims of ignorance and fear.
What have the wordly done?
In 1608, Lippersheim, a Hollander, so arranged lenses that objects were exaggerated.
He invented the telescope.
He gave countless worlds to our eyes, and made us citizens of the Universe.
In 1610, on the night of January 7th, Galileo demonstrated the truth of the Copernican system, and in 1632, published his work on "The System of the World."
What did the church do?
Galileo was arrested, imprisoned, forced to fall upon his knees, put his hand on the Bible, and recant. For ten years he was kept in prison—for ten years until released by the pity of death. Then the church—men filled with the Holy Ghost—denied his body burial in consecrated ground. It was feared that his dust might corrupt the bodies of those who had persecuted him.
In 1609, Kepler published his book "Motions of the Planet Mars." He, too, knew of the attraction of gravitation and that it acted in proportion to mass and distance. Kepler announced his Three Laws. He found and mathematically expressed the relation of distance, mass, and motion. Nothing greater has been accomplished by the human mind.
Astronomy became a science and Christianity a superstition.
Then came Newton, Herscheland Laplace. The astronomy of Joshua and Elijah faded from the minds of intelligent men, and Jehovah became an ignorant tribal god.
Men began to see that the operations of Nature were not subject to interference. That eclipses were not caused by the wrath of God—that comets had nothing to do with the destruction of empires or the death of kings, that the stars wheeled in their orbits without regard to the actions of men. In the sacred East the dawn appeared.
What have the wordly done?
A few years ago a few men became wicked enough to use their senses. They began to look and listen. They began to really see and then they began to reason. They forgot heaven and hell long enough to take some interest in this world. They began to examine soils and rocks. They noticed what had been done by rivers and seas. They found out something about the crust of the earth. They found that most of the rocks had been deposited and stratified in the water—rocks 70,000 feet in thickness. They found that the coal was once vegetable matter. They made the best calculations they could of the time required to make the coal, and concluded that it must have taken at least six or seven millions of years. They examined the chalk cliffs, found that they were composed of the microscopic shells of minute organisms, that is to say, the dust of these shells. This dust settled over areas as large as Europe and in some places the chalk is a mile in depth. This must have required many millions of years.
Lyell, the highest authority on the subject, says that it must have required, to cause the changes that we know, at least two hundred million years. Think of these vast deposits caused by the slow falling of infinitesimal atoms of impalpable dust through the silent depths of ancient seas! Think of the microscopical forms of life, constructing their minute houses of lime, giving life to others, leaving their mansions beneath the waves, and so through countless generations building the foundations of continents and islands.
Go back of all life that we now know—back of all the flying lizards, the armored monsters, the hissing serpents, the winged and fanged horrors—back to the Laurentian rocks—to the eozoon, the first of living things that we have found—back of all mountains, seas and rivers—back to the first incrustation of the molten world—back of wave of fire and robe of flame—back to the time when all the substance of the earth blazed in the glowing sun with all the stars that wheel about the central fire.
Think of the days and nights that lie between!—think of the centuries, the withered leaves of time, that strew the desert of the past!
Nature does not hurry. Time cannot be wasted—cannot be lost. The future remains eternal and all the past is as though it had not been—as though it were to be. The infinite knows neither loss nor gain.
We know something of the history of the world—something of the human race; and we know that man has lived and struggled through want and war, through pestilence and famine, through ignorance and crime, through fear and hope, on the old earth for millions and millions of years.
At last we know that infallible popes, and countless priests and clergymen, who had been "called," filled with the Holy Ghost, and presidents of colleges, kings, emperors and executives of nations had mistaken the blundering guesses of ignorant savages for the wisdom of an infinite God.
At last we know that the story of creation, of the beginning of things, as told in the "sacred book," is not only untrue, but utterly absurd and idiotic. Now we know that the inspired writers did not know and that the God who inspired them did not know.
We are no longer misled by myths and legends. We rely upon facts. The world is our witness and the stars testify for us.
What have the worldly done?
They have investigated the religions of the world—have read the sacred books, the prophecies, the commandments, the rules of conduct. They have studied the symbols, the ceremonies, the prayers and sacrifices. And they have shown that all religions are substantially the same—produced by the same causes—that all rest on a misconception of the facts in nature—that all are founded on ignorance and fear, on mistake and mystery.
They have found that Christianity is like the rest—that it was not a revelation, but a natural growth—that its gods and devils, its heavens and hells, were borrowed—that its ceremonies and sacraments were souvenirs of other religions—that no part of it came from heaven, but that it was all made by savage man. They found that Jehovah was a tribal god and that his ancestors had lived on the banks of the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Ganges and the Nile, and these ancestors were traced back to still more savage forms.
They found that all the sacred books were filled with inspired mistake and sacred absurdity.
But, say the Christians, we have the only inspired book. We have the Old Testament and the New. Where did you get the Old Testament? From the Jews?—Yes.
Let me tell you about it.
After the Jews returned from Babylon, about 400 years before Christ, Ezra commenced making the Bible. You will find an account of this in the Bible.
We know that Genesis was written after the Captivity—because it was from the Babylonians that the Jews got the story of the creation—of Adam and Eve, of the Garden—of the serpent, and the tree of life—of the flood—and from them they learned about the Sabbath.
You find nothing about that holy day in Judges, Joshua, Samuel, Kings or Chronicles—nothing in Job, the Psalms, in Esther, Solomon's Song or Ecclesiastes. Only in books written by Ezra after the return from Babylon.
When Ezra finished the inspired book, he placed it in the temple. It was written on the skins of beasts, and, so far as we know, there was but one.
What became of this Bible?
Jerusalem was taken by Titus about 70 years after Christ. The temple was destroyed and, at the request of Josephus, the Holy Bible was sent to Vespasian the Emperor, at Rome.
And this Holy Bible has never been seen or heard of since. So much for that.
Then there was a copy, or rather a translation, called the Septuagint.
How was that made?
It is said that Ptolemy Soter and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus obtained a translation of the Jewish Bible. This translation was made by seventy persons.
At that time the Jewish Bible did not contain Daniel, Ecclesiastes, but few of the Psalms and only a part of Isaiah.
What became of this translation known as the Septuagint?
It was burned in the Bruchium Library forty-seven years before Christ.
Then there was another so-called copy of part of the Bible, known as the Samaritan Roll of the Pentateuch.
But this is not considered of any value.
Have we a true copy of the Bible that was in the temple at Jerusalem—the one sent to Vespasian?
Nobody knows.
Have we a true copy of the Septuagint?
Nobody knows.
What is the oldest manuscript of the Bible we have in Hebrew?
The oldest manuscript we have in Hebrew was written in the 10th century after Christ. The oldest pretended copy we have of the Septuagint written in Greek was made in the 5th century after Christ.
If the Bible was divinely inspired, if it was the actual word of God, we have no authenticated copy. The original has been lost and we are left in the darkness of Nature.
It is impossible for us to show that our Bible is correct. We have no standard. Many of the books in our Bible contradict each other. Many chapters appear to be incomplete and parts of different books are written in the same words, showing that both could not have been original. The 19th and 20th chapters of 2nd Kings and the 37th and 38th chapters of Isaiah are exactly the same. So is the 36th chapter of Isaiah from the 2nd verse the same as the 18th chapter of 2nd Kings from the 2nd verse.
So, it is perfectly apparent that there could have been no possible propriety in inspiring the writers of Kings and the writers of Chronicles. The books are substantially the same, differing in a few mistakes—in a few falsehoods. The same is true of Leviticus and Numbers. The books do not agree either in facts or philosophy. They differ as the men differed who wrote them.
What have the worldly done?
They have investigated the phenomena of nature. They have invented ways to use the forces of the world, the weight of falling water—of moving air. They have changed water to steam, invented engines—the tireless giants that work for man. They have made lightning a messenger and slave. They invented movable type, taught us the art of printing and made it possible to save and transmit the intellectual wealth of the world. They connected continents with cables, cities and towns with the telegraph—brought the world into one family—made intelligence independent of distance. They taught us how to build homes, to obtain food, to weave cloth. They covered the seas with iron ships and the land with roads and steeds of steel. They gave us the tools of all the trades—the implements of labor. They chiseled statues, painted pictures and "witched the world" with form and color. They have found the cause of and the cure for many maladies that afflict the flesh and minds of men. They have given us the instruments of music and the great composers and performers have changed the common air to tones and harmonies that intoxicate, exalt and purify the soul.
They have rescued us from the prisons of fear, and snatched our souls from the fangs and claws of superstition's loathsome, crawling, flying beasts. They have given us the liberty to think and the courage to express our thoughts. They have changed the frightened, the enslaved, the kneeling, the prostrate into men and women—clothed them in their right minds and made them truly free. They have uncrowned the phantoms, wrested the scepters from the ghosts and given this world to the children of men. They have driven from the heart the fiends of fear and extinguished the flames of hell.
They have read a few leaves of the great volume—deciphered some of the records written on stone by the tireless hands of time in the dim past. They have told us something of what has been done by wind and wave, by fire and frost, by life and death, the ceaseless workers, the pauseless forces of the world.
They have enlarged the horizon of the known, changed the glittering specks that shine above us to wheeling worlds, and filled all space with countless suns.
They have found the qualities of substances, the nature of things—how to analyze, separate and combine, and have enabled us to use the good and avoid the hurtful.
They have given us mathematics in the higher forms, by means of which we measure the astronomical spaces, the distances to stars, the velocity at which the heavenly bodies move, their density and weight, and by which the mariner navigates the waste and trackless seas. They have given us all we have of knowledge, of literature and art. They have made life worth living. They have filled the world with conveniences, comforts and luxuries.
All this has been done by the worldly—by those, who were not "called" or "set apart" or filled with the Holy Ghost or had the slightest claim to "apostolic succession." The men who accomplished these things were not "inspired." They had no revelation—no supernatural aid. They were not clad in sacred vestments, and tiaras were not upon their brows. They were not even ordained. They used their senses, observed and recorded facts. They had confidence in reason. They were patient searchers for the truth. They turned their attention to the affairs of this world. They were not saints. They were sensible men. They worked for themselves, for wife and child and for the benefit of all.
To these men we are indebted for all we are, for all we know, for all we have. They were the creators of civilization—the founders of free states—the saviors of liberty—the destroyers of superstition and the great captains in the army of progress.
IV.
WHOM shall we thank? Standing here at the close of the 19th century—amid the trophies of thought—the triumphs of genius—here under the flag of the Great Republic—knowing something of the history of man—here on this day that has been set apart for thanksgiving, I most reverently thank the good men, the good women of the past, I thank the kind fathers, the loving mothers of the savage days. I thank the father who spoke the first gentle word, the mother who first smiled upon her babe. I thank the first true friend. I thank the savages who hunted and fished that they and their babes might live. I thank those who cultivated the ground and changed the forests into farms—those who built rude homes and watched the faces of their happy children in the glow of fireside flames—those who domesticated horses, cattle and sheep—those who invented wheels and looms and taught us to spin and weave—those who by cultivation changed wild grasses into wheat and corn, changed bitter things to fruit, and worthless weeds to flowers, that sowed within our souls the seeds of art. I thank the poets of the dawn—the tellers of legends—the makers of myths—the singers of joy and grief, of hope and love. I thank the artists who chiseled forms in stone and wrought with light and shade the face of man. I thank the philosophers, the thinkers, who taught us how to use our minds in the great search for truth. I thank the astronomers who explored the heavens, told us the secrets of the stars, the glories of the constellations—the geologists who found the story of the world in fossil forms, in memoranda kept in ancient rocks, in lines written by waves, by frost and fire—the anatomists who sought in muscle, nerve and bone for all the mysteries of life—the chemists who unraveled Nature's work that they might learn her art—the physicians who have laid the hand of science on the brow of pain, the hand whose magic touch restores—the surgeons who have defeated Nature's self and forced her to preserve the lives of those she labored to destroy.
I thank the discoverers of chloroform and ether, the two angels who give to their beloved sleep, and wrap the throbbing brain in the soft robes of dreams. I thank the great inventors—those who gave us movable type and the press, by means of which great thoughts and all discovered facts are made immortal—the inventors of engines, of the great ships, of the railways, the cables and telegraphs. I thank the great mechanics, the workers in iron and steel, in wood and stone. I thank the inventors and makers of the numberless things of use and luxury.
I thank the industrious men, the loving mothers, the useful women. They are the benefactors of our race.
The inventor of pins did a thousand times more good than all the popes and cardinals, the bishops and priests—than all the clergymen and parsons, exhorters and theologians that ever lived.
The inventor of matches did more for the comfort and convenience of mankind than all the founders of religions and the makers of all creeds—than all malicious monks and selfish saints.
I thank the honest men and women who have expressed their sincere thoughts, who have been true to themselves and have preserved the veracity of their souls.
I thank the thinkers of Greece and Rome, Zeno and Epicurus, Cicero and Lucretius. I thank Bruno, the bravest, and Spinoza, the subtlest of men.
I thank Voltaire, whose thought lighted a flame in the brain of man, unlocked the doors of superstition's cells and gave liberty to many millions of his fellow-men. Voltaire—a name that sheds light. Voltaire—a star that superstition's darkness cannot quench.
I thank the great poets—the dramatists. I thank Homer and Aeschylus, and I thank Shakespeare above them all. I thank Burns for the heart-throbs he changed into songs, for his lyrics of flame. I thank Shelley for his Skylark, Keats for his Grecian Urn and Byron for his Prisoner of Chillon. I thank the great novelists. I thank the great sculptors. I thank the unknown man who moulded and chiseled the Venus de Milo. I thank the great painters. I thank Rembrandt and Corot. I thank all who have adorned, enriched and ennobled life—all who have created the great, the noble, the heroic and artistic ideals.
I thank the statesmen who have preserved the rights of man. I thank Paine whose genius sowed the seeds of independence in the hearts of '76. I thank Jefferson whose mighty words for liberty have made the circuit of the globe. I thank the founders, the defenders, the saviors of the Republic. I thank Ericsson, the greatest mechanic of his century, for the monitor. I thank Lincoln for the Proclamation. I thank Grant for his victories and the vast host that fought for the right,—for the freedom of man. I thank them all—the living and the dead.
I thank the great scientists—those who have reached the foundation, the bed-rock—who have built upon facts—the great scientists, in whose presence theologians look silly and feel malicious.
The scientists never persecuted, never imprisoned their fellow-men. They forged no chains, built no dungeons, erected no scaffolds—tore no flesh with red hot pincers—dislocated no joints on racks—crushed no bones in iron boots—extinguished no eyes—tore out no tongues and lighted no fagots. They did not pretend to be inspired—did not claim to be prophets or saints or to have been born again. They were only intelligent and honest men. They did not appeal to force or fear. They did not regard men as slaves to be ruled by torture, by lash and chain, nor as children to be cheated with illusions, rocked in the cradle of an idiot creed and soothed by a lullaby of lies.
They did not wound—they healed. They did not kill—they lengthened life. They did not enslave—they broke the chains and made men free. They sowed the seeds of knowledge, and many millions have reaped, are reaping, and will reap the harvest of joy.
I thank Humboldt and Helmholtz and Haeckel and Büchner. I thank Lamarck and Darwin—Darwin who revolutionized the thought of the intellectual world. I thank Huxley and Spencer. I thank the scientists one and all.
I thank the heroes, the destroyers of prejudice and fear—the dethroners of savage gods—the extinguishers of hate's eternal fire—the heroes, the breakers of chains—the founders of free states—the makers of just laws—the heroes who fought and fell on countless fields—the heroes whose dungeons became shrines—the heroes whose blood made scaffolds sacred—the heroes, the apostles of reason, the disciples of truth, the soldiers of freedom—the heroes who held high the holy torch and filled the world with light.
With all my heart I thank them all.
* Delivered before the Congress of the American Secular
Union, at Chickering Hall, New York, Nov. 14, 1885.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the greatest tragedy that has ever been written by man—in the fourth scene of the third act—is the best prayer that I have ever read; and when I say "the greatest tragedy," everybody familiar with Shakespeare will know that I refer to "King Lear." After he has been on the heath, touched with insanity, coming suddenly to the place of shelter, he says:
"I'll pray, and then I'll sleep."
And this prayer is my text:
"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your unhoused heads, your unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?
Oh, I have ta'en
Too little care of this.
Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just."
That is one of the noblest prayers that ever fell from human lips. If nobody has too much, everybody will have enough!
I propose to say a few words upon subjects that are near to us all, and in which every human being ought to be interested—and if he is not, it may be that his wife will be, it may be that his orphans will be; and I would like to see this world, at last, so that a man could die and not feel that he left his wife and children a prey to the greed, the avarice, or the cruelties of mankind. There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong, when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. I cannot do much, but I can at least sympathize with those who suffer. There is one thing that we should remember at the start, and if I can only teach you that, to-night—unless you know it already—I shall consider the few words I may have to say a wonderful success.
I want you to remember that everybody is as he must be. I want you to get out of your minds the old nonsense of "free moral agency;" and then you will have charity for the whole human race. When you know that they are not responsible for their dispositions, any more than for their height; not responsible for their acts, any more than for their dreams; when you finally understand the philosophy that everything exists as the result of an efficient cause, and that the lightest fancy that ever fluttered its painted wings in the horizon of hope was as necessarily produced as the planet that in its orbit wheels about the sun—when you understand this, I believe you will have charity for all mankind—including even yourself.
Wealth is not a crime; poverty is not a virtue—although the virtuous have generally been poor. There is only one good, and that is human happiness; and he only is a wise man who makes himself and others happy.
I have heard all my life about self-denial. There never was anything more idiotic than that. No man who does right practices self-denial. To do right is the bud and blossom and fruit of wisdom. To do right should always be dictated by the highest possible selfishness and the most perfect generosity. No man practices self-denial unless he does wrong. To inflict an injury upon yourself is an act of self-denial. He who denies justice to another denies it to himself. To plant seeds that will forever bear the fruit of joy, is not an act of self-denial. So this idea of doing good to others only for their sake is absurd. You want to do it, not simply for their sake, but for your own; because a perfectly civilized man can never be perfectly happy while there is one unhappy being in this universe.
Let us take another step. The barbaric world was to be rewarded in some other world for acting sensibly in this. They were promised rewards in another world, if they would only have self-denial enough to be virtuous in this. If they would forego the pleasures of larceny and murder; if they would forego the thrill and bliss of meanness here, they would be rewarded hereafter for that self-denial. I have exactly the opposite idea. Do right, not to deny yourself, but because you love yourself and because you love others. Be generous, because it is better for you. Be just, because any other course is the suicide of the soul. Whoever does wrong plagues himself, and when he reaps that harvest, he will find that he was not practicing self-denial when he did right.
If you want to be happy yourself, if you are truly civilized, you want others to be happy. Every man ought, to the extent of his ability, to increase the happiness of mankind, for the reason that that will increase his own. No one can be really prosperous unless those with whom he lives share the sunshine and the joy.
The first thing a man wants to know and be sure of is when he has got enough. Most people imagine that the rich are in heaven, but, as a rule, it is only a gilded hell. There is not a man in the city of New York with genius enough, with brains enough, to own five millions of dollars. Why? The money will own him. He becomes the key to a safe. That money will get him up at daylight; that money will separate him from his friends; that money will fill his heart with fear; that money will rob his days of sunshine and his nights of pleasant dreams. He cannot own it. He becomes the property of that money. And he goes right on making more. What for? He does not know. It becomes a kind of insanity. No one is happier in a palace than in a cabin. I love to see a log house. It is associated in my mind always with pure, unalloyed happiness. It is the only house in the world that looks as though it had no mortgage on it. It looks as if you could spend there long, tranquil autumn days; the air filled with serenity; no trouble, no thoughts about notes, about interest—nothing of the kind; just breathing free air, watching the hollyhocks, listening to the birds and to the music of the spring that comes like a poem from the earth.
It is an insanity to get more than you want. Imagine a man in this city, an intelligent man, say with two or three millions of coats, eight or ten millions of hats, vast warehouses full of shoes, billions of neckties, and imagine that man getting up at four o'clock in the morning, in the rain and snow and sleet, working like a dog all day to get another necktie! Is not that exactly what the man of twenty or thirty millions, or of five millions, does to-day? Wearing his life out that somebody may say, "How rich he is!" What can he do with the surplus? Nothing. Can he eat it? No. Make friends? No. Purchase flattery and lies? Yes. Make all his poor relations hate him? Yes. And then, what worry! Annoyed, nervous, tormented, until his poor little brain becomes inflamed, and you see in the morning paper, "Died of apoplexy." This man finally began to worry for fear he would not have enough neckties to last him through.
So we ought to teach our children that great wealth is a curse. Great wealth is the mother of crime. On the other hand are the abject poor. And let me ask, to-night: Is the world forever to remain as it was when Lear made his prayer? Is it ever to remain as it is now? I hope not. Are there always to be millions whose lips are white with famine? Is the withered palm to be always extended, imploring from the stony heart of respectable charity, alms? Must every man who sits down to a decent dinner always think of the starving? Must every one sitting by the fireside think of some poor mother, with a child strained to her breast, shivering in the storm? I hope not. Are the rich always to be divided from the poor,—not only in fact, but in feeling? And that division is growing more and more every day The gulf between Lazarus and Dives widens year by year, only their positions are changed—Lazarus is in hell, and he thinks Dives is in the bosom of Abraham.
And there is one thing that helps to widen this gulf. In nearly every city of the United States you will find the fashionable part, and the poor part. The poor know nothing of the fashionable part, except the outside splendor; and as they go by the palaces, that poison plant called envy, springs and grows in their poor hearts. The rich know nothing of the poor, except the squalor and rags and wretchedness, and what they read in the police records, and they say, "Thank God, we are not like those people!" Their hearts are filled with scorn and contempt, and the hearts of the others with envy and hatred. There must be some way devised for the rich and poor to get acquainted. The poor do not know how many well-dressed people sympathize with them, and the rich do not know how many noble hearts beat beneath the rags. If we can ever get the loving poor acquainted with the sympathizing rich, this question will be nearly solved.
In a hundred other ways they are divided. If anything should bring mankind together it ought to be a common belief. In Catholic countries, that does have a softening influence upon the rich and upon the poor. They believe the same. So in Mohammedan countries they can kneel in the same mosque, and pray to the same God. But how is it with us? The church is not free. There is no welcome in the velvet for the velveteen. Poverty does not feel at home there, and the consequence is, the rich and poor are kept apart, even by their religion. I am not saying anything against religion. I am not on that question; but I would think more of any religion, provided that even for one day in the week, or for one hour in the year, it allowed wealth to clasp the hand of poverty and to have, for one moment even, the thrill of genuine friendship.
In the olden times, in barbaric life, it was a simple' thing to get a living. A little hunting, a little fishing, pulling a little fruit, and digging for roots—all simple; and they were nearly all on an equality, and comparatively there were fewer failures. Living has at last become complex. All the avenues are filled with men struggling for the accomplishment of the same thing:
"For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue: if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;—
Or, like a gallant horse, fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear."
The struggle is so hard. And just exactly as we have risen in the scale of being, the per cent, of failures has increased. It is so that all men are not capable of getting a living. They have not cunning enough, intellect enough, muscle enough—they are not strong enough. They are too generous, or they are too negligent; and then some people seem to have what is called "bad luck"—that is to say, when anything falls, they are under it; when anything bad happens, it happens to them.
And now there is another trouble. Just as life becomes complex and as everyone is trying to accomplish certain objects, all the ingenuity of the brain is at work to get there by a shorter way, and, in consequence, this has become an age of invention. Myriads of machines have been invented—every one of them to save labor. If these machines helped the laborer, what a blessing they would be!
But the laborer does not own the machine; the machine owns him. That is the trouble. In the olden time, when I was a boy, even, you know how it was in the little towns. There was a shoemaker—two of them—a tailor or two, a blacksmith, a wheelwright. I remember just how the shops used to look. I used to go to the blacksmith shop at night, get up on the forge, and hear them talk about turning horse-shoes. Many a night have I seen the sparks fly and heard the stories that were told. There was a great deal of human nature in those days! Everybody was known. If times got hard, the poor little shoemakers made a living mending, half-soling, straightening up the heels. The same with the blacksmith; the same with the tailor. They could get credit—they did not have to pay till the next January, and if they could not pay then, they took another year, and they were happy enough. Now one man is not a shoemaker. There is a great building—several hundred thousand dollars' worth of machinery, three or four thousand people—not a single mechanic in the whole building. One sews on straps, another greases the machines, cuts out soles, waxes threads. And what is the result? When the machines stop, three thousand men are out of employment. Credit goes. Then come want and famine, and if they happen to have a little child die, it would take them years to save enough of their earnings to pay the expense of putting away that little sacred piece of flesh. And yet, by this machinery we can produce enough to flood the world. By the inventions in agricultural machinery the United States can feed all the mouths upon the earth. There is not a thing that man uses that can not instantly be over-produced to such an extent as to become almost worthless; and yet, with all this production, with all this power to create, there are millions and millions in abject want. Granaries bursting, and famine looking into the doors of the poor! Millions of everything, and yet millions wanting everything and having substantially nothing!
Now, there is something wrong there. We have got into that contest between machines-and men, and if extravagance does not keep pace with ingenuity, it is going to be the most terrible question that man has ever settled. I tell you, to-night, that these things are worth thinking about. Nothing that touches the future of our race, nothing that touches the happiness of ourselves or our children, should be beneath our notice. We should think of these things—must think of them—and we should endeavor to see that justice is finally done between man and man.
My sympathies are with the poor. My sympathies are with the workingmen of the United States. Understand me distinctly. I am not an Anarchist. Anarchy is the reaction from tyranny. I am not a Socialist. I am not a Communist. I am an Individualist. I do not believe in tyranny of government, but I do believe in justice as between man and man.
What is the remedy? Or, what can we think of—for do not imagine that I think I know. It is an immense, an almost infinite, question, and all we can do is to guess. You have heard a great deal lately upon the land subject. Let me say a word or two upon that. In the first place I do not want to take, and I would not take, an inch of land from any human being that belonged to him. If we ever take it, we must pay for it—condemn it and take it—do not rob anybody. Whenever any man advocates justice, and robbery as the means, I suspect him.
No man should be allowed to own any land that he does not use. Everybody knows that—I do not care whether he has thousands or millions. I have owned a great deal of land, but I know just as well as I know I am living that I should not be allowed to have it unless I use it. And why? Don't you know that if people could bottle the air, they would? Don't you know that there would be an American Air-bottling Association? And don't you know that they would allow thousands and millions to die for want of breath, if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just telling how it is. Now, the land belongs to the children of Nature. Nature invites into this world every babe that is born. And what would you think of me, for instance, to-night, if I had invited you here—nobody had charged you anything, but you had been invited—and when you got here you had found one man pretending to occupy a hundred seats, another fifty, and another seventy-five, and thereupon you were compelled to stand up—what would you think of the invitation? It seems to me that every child of Nature is entitled to his share of the land, and that he should not be compelled to beg the privilege to work the soil, of a babe that happened to be born before him. And why do I say this? Because it is not to our interest to have a few landlords and millions of tenants.
The tenement house is the enemy of modesty, the enemy of virtue, the enemy of patriotism.
Home is where the virtues grow. I would like to see the law so that every home, to a small amount, should be free not only from sale for debts, but should be absolutely free from taxation, so that every man could have a home. Then we will have a nation of patriots.
Now, suppose that every man were to have all the land he is able to buy. The Vanderbilts could buy to-day all the land that is in farms in the State of Ohio—every foot of it. Would it be for the best interest of that State to have a few landlords and four or five millions of serfs? So, I am in favor of a law finally to be carried out—not by robbery, but by compensation, under the right, as the lawyers call it, of eminent domain—so that no person would be allowed to own more land than he uses. I am not blaming these rich men for being rich. I pity the most of them. I had rather be poor, with a little sympathy in my heart, than to be rich as all the mines of earth and not have that little flower of pity in my breast. I do not see how a man can have hundreds of millions and pass every day people that have not enough to eat. I do not understand it. I might be just the same way myself. There is something in money that dries up the sources of affection, and the probability is, it is this: the moment a man gets money, so many men are trying to get it away from him that in a little while he regards the whole human race as his enemy, and he generally thinks that they could be rich, too, if they would only attend to business as he has. Understand, I am not blaming these people. There is a good deal of human nature in us all. You remember the story of the man who made a speech at a Socialist meeting, and closed it by saying, "Thank God, I am no monopolist," but as he sank to his seat said, "But I wish to the Lord I was!" We must remember that these rich men are naturally produced. Do not blame them. Blame the system!
Certain privileges have been granted to the few by the Government, ostensibly for the benefit of the many; and whenever that grant is not for the good of the many, it should be taken from the few—not by force, not by robbery, but by estimating fairly the value of that property, and paying to them its value; because everything should be done according to law and order.
What remedy, then, is there? First, the great weapon in this country is the ballot. Each voter is a sovereign. There the poorest is the equal of the richest. His vote will count just as many as though the hand that cast it controlled millions. The poor are in the majority in this country. If there is any law that oppresses them, it is their fault. They have followed the fife and drum of some party. They have been misled by others. No man should go an inch with a party—no matter if that party is half the world and has in it the greatest intellects of the earth—unless that party is going his way. No honest man should ever turn round to join anything. If it overtakes him, good. If he has to hurry up a little to get to it, good. But do not go with anything that is not going your way; no matter whether they call it Republican, or Democrat, or Progressive Democracy—do not go with it unless it goes your way.
The ballot is the power. The law should settle many of these questions between capital and labor. But I expect the greatest good to come from civilization, from the growth of a sense of justice; for I tell you to-night, a civilized man will never want anything for less than it is worth—a civilized man, when he sells a thing, will never want more than it is worth—a really and truly civilized man, would rather be cheated than to cheat. And yet, in the United States, good as we are, nearly everybody wants to get everything for a little less than it is worth, and the man that sells it to him wants to get a little more than it is worth? and this breeds rascality on both sides. That ought to be done away with. There is one step toward it that we will take: we will finally say that human flesh, human labor, shall not depend entirely on "supply and demand." That is infinitely cruel. Every man should give to another according to his ability to give—and enough that he may make his living and lay something by for the winter of old age.
Go to England. Civilized country they call it. It is not. It never was. I am afraid it never will be. Go to London, the greatest city of this world, where there is the most wealth—the greatest glittering piles of gold. And yet, one out of every six in that city dies in a hospital, a workhouse or a prison. Is that the best that we are ever to know? Is that the last word that civilization has to say? Look at the women in this town sewing for a living, making cloaks for less than forty-five cents, that sell for $45! Right here—here, amid all the palaces, amid the thousands of millions of property—here! Is that all that civilization can do? Must a poor woman support herself, or her child, or her children, by that kind of labor, and with such pay—and do we call ourselves civilized?
Did you ever read that wonderful poem about the sewing woman? Let me tell you the last verse:
"Winds that have sainted her, tell ye the story
Of the young life by the needle that bled,
Making a bridge over death's soundless waters
Out of a swaying, and soul-cutting thread—
Over it going, all the world knowing
That thousands have trod it, foot-bleeding, before:
God protect all of us! God pity all of us,
Should she look back from the opposite shore!"
I cannot call this civilization. There must be something nearer a fairer division in this world.
You can never get it by strikes. Never. The first strike that is a great success will be the last, because the people who believe in law and order will put the strikers down. The strike is no remedy. Boycotting is no remedy. Brute force is no remedy. These questions have to be settled by reason, by candor, by intelligence, by kindness; and nothing is permanently settled in this world that has not for its corner-stone justice, and is not protected by the profound conviction of the human mind.
This is no country for Anarchy, no country for Communism, no country for the Socialist. Why? Because the political power is equally divided. What other reason? Speech is free. What other? The press is untrammeled. And that is all that the right should ever ask—a free press, free speech, and the protection of person. That is enough. That is all I ask. In a country like Russia, where every mouth is a bastile and every tongue a convict, there may be some excuse. Where the noblest and the best are driven to Siberia, there may be a reason for the Nihilist. In a country where no man is allowed to petition for redress, there is a reason, but not here. This—say what you will against it—this is the best Government ever founded by the human race! Say what you will of parties, say what you will of dishonesty, the holiest flag that ever kissed the air is ours!
Only a few years ago morally we were a low people—before we abolished slavery—but now, when there is no chain except that of custom, when every man has an opportunity, this is the grandest Government of the earth. There is hardly a man in the United States to-day, of any importance, whose voice anybody cares to hear, who was not nursed at the loving breast of poverty. Look at the children of the rich. My God, what a punishment for being rich! So, whatever happens, let every man say that this Government, and this form of government, shall stand.
"But," say some, "these workingmen are dangerous." I deny it. We are all in their power. They run all the cars. Our lives are in their hands almost every day. They are working in all our homes. They do the labor of this world. We are all at their mercy, and yet they do not commit more crimes, according to number, than the rich. Remember that. I am not afraid of them. Neither am I afraid of the monopolists, because, under our institutions, when they become hurtful to the general good, the people will stand it just to a certain point, and then comes the end—not in anger, not in hate, but from a love of liberty and justice.
Now, we have in this country another class. We call them "criminals." Let me take another step:
"'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after."
Recollect what I said in the first place—that every man is as he must be. Every crime is a necessary product. The seeds were all sown, the land thoroughly plowed, the crop well attended to, and carefully harvested. Every crime is born of necessity. If you want less crime, you must change the conditions. Poverty makes crime. Want, rags, crusts, failure, misfortune—all these awake the wild beast in man, and finally he takes, and takes contrary to law, and becomes a criminal. And what do you do with him? You punish him. Why not punish a man for having the consumption? The time will come when you will see that that is just as logical. What do you do with the criminal? You send him to the penitentiary. Is he made better? Worse. The first thing you do is to try to trample out his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. You mark him. You put him in stripes. At night you put him in darkness. His feeling for revenge grows. You make a wild beast of him, and he comes out of that place branded in body and soul, and then you won't let him reform if he wants to. You put on airs above him, because he has been in the penitentiary. The next time you look with scorn upon a convict, let me beg of you to do one thing. Maybe you are not as bad as I am, but do one thing: think of all the crimes you have wanted to commit; think of all the crimes you would have committed if you had had the opportunity; think of all the temptations to which you would have yielded had nobody been looking; and then put your hand on your heart and say whether you can justly look with contempt even upon a convict.
None but the noblest should inflict punishment, even on the basest.
Society has no right to punish any man in revenge—no right to punish any man except for two objects—one, the prevention of crime; the other, the reformation of the criminal. How can you reform him? Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows. Let it be understood by these men that there is no revenge; let it be understood, too, that they can reform. Only a little while ago I read of a case of a young man who had been in a penitentiary and came out. He kept it a secret, and went to work for a farmer. He got in love with the daughter, and wanted to marry her. He had nobility enough to tell the truth—he told the father that he had been in the penitentiary. The father said, "You cannot have my daughter, because it would stain her life." The young man said, "Yes, it would stain her life, therefore I will not marry her." He went out. In a few moments afterward they heard the report of a pistol, and he was dead. He left just a little note saying: "I am through. There is no need of my living longer, when I stain with my life the one I love." And yet we call our society civilized. There is a mistake.
I want that question thought of. I want all my fellow-citizens to think of it. I want you to do what you can to do away with all cruelty. There are, of course, some cases that have to be treated with what might be called almost cruelty; but if there is the smallest seed of good in any human heart, let kindness fall upon it until it grows, and in that way I know, and so do you, that the world will get better and better day by day.
Let us, above all things, get acquainted with each other. Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable. Let us say to our children: It is your business to see that you never become a burden on others. Your first duty is to take care of yourselves, and if there is a surplus, with that surplus help your fellow-man. You owe it to yourself above all things not to be a burden upon others. Teach your son that it is his duty not only, but his highest joy, to become a home-builder, a home-owner. Teach your children that the fireside is the happiest place in this world. Teach them that whoever is an idler, whoever lives upon the labor of others, whether he is a pirate or a king, is a dishonorable person. Teach them that no civilized man wants anything for nothing, or for less than it is worth; that he wants to go through this world paying his way as he goes, and if he gets a little ahead, an extra joy, it should be divided with another, if that other is doing something for himself. Help others help themselves.
And let us teach that great wealth is not great happiness; that money will not purchase love; it never did and never can purchase respect; it never did and never can purchase the highest happiness. I believe with Robert Burns:
"If happiness have not her seat
And center in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest."
We must teach this, and let our fellow-citizens know that we give them every right that we claim for ourselves. We must discuss these questions and have charity—and we will have it whenever we have the philosophy that all men are as they must be, and that intelligence and kindness are the only levers capable of raising mankind.
Then there is another thing. Let each one be true to himself. No matter what his class, no matter what his circumstances, let him tell his thought. Don't let his class bribe him. Don't let him talk like a banker because he is a banker. Don't let him talk like the rest of the merchants because he is a merchant. Let him be true to the human race instead of to his little business—be true to the ideal in his heart and brain, instead of to his little present and apparent selfishness—let him have a larger and more intelligent selfishness—a generous philosophy, that includes not only others but himself.
So far as I am concerned, I have made up my mind that no organization, secular or religious, shall be my master. I have made up my mind that no necessity of bread, or roof, or raiment shall ever put a padlock on my lips. I have made up my mind that no hope of preferment, no honor, no wealth, shall ever make me for one moment swerve from what I really believe, no matter whether it is to my immediate interest, as one would think, or not. And while I live, I am going to do what little I can to help my fellow-men who have not been as fortunate as I have been. I shall talk on their side, I shall vote on their side, and do what little I can to convince men that happiness does not lie in the direction of great wealth, but in the direction of achievement for the good of themselves and for the good of their fellow-men. I shall do what little I can to hasten the day when this earth shall be covered with homes, and when by countless firesides shall sit the happy and the loving families of the world.
I. THE OLD TESTAMENT.
ONE of the foundation stones of our faith is the Old Testament. If that book is not true, if its authors were unaided men, if it contains blunders and falsehoods, then that stone crumbles to dust.
The geologists demonstrated that the author of Genesis was mistaken as to the age of the world, and that the story of the universe having been created in six days, about six thousand years ago could not be true.
The theologians then took the ground that the "days" spoken of in Genesis were periods of time, epochs, six "long whiles," and that the work of creation might have been commenced millions of years ago.
The change of days into epochs was considered by the believers of the Bible as a great triumph over the hosts of infidelity. The fact that Jehovah had ordered the Jews to keep the Sabbath, giving as a reason that he had made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, did not interfere with the acceptance of the "epoch" theory.
But there is still another question. How long has man been upon the earth?
According to the Bible, Adam was certainly the first man, and in his case the epoch theory cannot change the account. The Bible gives the age at which Adam died, and gives the generations to the flood—then to Abraham and so on, and shows that from the creation of Adam to the birth of Christ it was about four thousand and four years.
According to the sacred Scriptures man has been on this earth five thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine years and no more.
Is this true?
Geologists have divided a few years of the worlds history into periods, reaching from the azoic rocks to the soil of our time. With most of these periods they associate certain forms of life, so that it is known that the lowest forms of life belonged with the earliest periods, and the higher with the more recent. It is also known that certain forms of life existed in Europe many ages ago, and that many thousands of years ago these forms disappeared.
For instance, it is well established that at one time there lived in Europe, and in the British Islands some of the most gigantic mammals, the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the Irish elk, elephants and other forms that have in those countries become extinct. Geologists say that many thousands of years have passed since these animals ceased to inhabit those countries.
It was during the Drift Period that these forms of life existed in Europe and England, and that must have been hundreds of thousands of years ago.
In caves, once inhabited by men, have been found implements of flint and the bones of these extinct animals. With the flint tools man had split the bones of these beasts that he might secure the marrow for food.
Many such caves and hundreds of such tools, and of such bones have been found. And we now know that in the Drift Period man was the companion of these extinct monsters.
It is therefore certain that many, many thousands of years before Adam lived, men, women and children inhabited the earth.
It is certain that the account in the Bible of the creation of the first man is a mistake. It is certain that the inspired writers knew nothing about the origin of man.
Let me give you another fact:
The Egyptians were astronomers. A few years ago representations of the stars were found on the walls of an old temple, and it was discovered by calculating backward that the stars did occupy the exact positions as represented about seven hundred and fifty years before Christ. Afterward another representation of the stars was found, and by calculating in the same way, it was found that the stars did occupy the exact positions represented about three thousand eight hundred years before Christ.
According to the Bible the first man was created four thousand and four years before Christ If this is true then Egypt was founded, its language formed, its arts cultivated, its astronomical discoveries made and recorded about two hundred years after the creation of the first man.
In other words, Adam was two or three hundred years old when the Egyptian astronomers made these representations.
Nothing can be more absurd.
Again I say that the writers of the Bible were mistaken.
How do I know?
According to that same Bible there was a flood some fifteen or sixteen hundred years after Adam was created that destroyed the entire human race with the exception of eight persons, and according to the Bible the Egyptians descended from one of the sons of Noah. How then did the Egyptians represent the stars in the position they occupied twelve hundred years before the flood?
No one pretends that Egypt existed as a nation before the flood. Yet the astronomical representations found, must have been made more than a thousand years before the world was drowned.
There is another mistake in the Bible.
According to that book the sun was made after the earth was created.
Is this true?
Did the earth exist before the sun?
The men of science are believers in the exact opposite. They believe that the earth is a child of the sun—that the earth, as well as the other planets belonging to our constellation, came from the sun.
The writers of the Bible were mistaken.
There is another point:
According to the Bible, Jehovah made the world in six days, and the work done each day is described. What did Jehovah do on the second day?
This is the record:
"And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so, and God called the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
The writer of this believed in a solid firmament—the floor of Jehovah's house. He believed that the waters had been divided, and that the rain came from above the firmament. He did not understand the fact of evaporation—did not know that the rain came from the water on the earth.
Now we know that there is no firmament, and we know that the waters are not divided by a firmament. Consequently we know that, according to the Bible, Jehovah did nothing on the second day. He must have rested on Tuesday. This being so, we ought to have two Sundays a week.
Can we rely on the historical parts of the Bible?
Seventy souls went down into Egypt, and in two hundred and fifteen years increased to three millions. They could not have doubled more than four times a century. Say nine times in two hundred and fifteen years.
This makes thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty, (35,840.) instead of three millions.
Can we believe the accounts of the battles?
Take one instance:
Jereboam had an army of eight hundred thousand men, Abijah of four hundred thousand. They fought. The Lord was on Abijah's side, and he killed five hundred thousand of Jereboam's men.
All these soldiers were Jews—all lived in Palestine, a poor miserable little country about one-quarter as large as the State of New York. Yet one million two hundred thousand soldiers were put in the field. This required a population in the country of ten or twelve millions. Of course this is absurd. Palestine in its palmiest days could not have supported two millions of people.
The soil is poor.
If the Bible is inspired, is it true?
We are told by this inspired book of the gold and silver collected by King David for the temple—the temple afterward completed by the virtuous Solomon.
According to the blessed Bible, David collected about two thousand million dollars in silver, and five thousand million dollars in gold, making a total of seven thousand million dollars.
Is this true?
There is in the bank of France at the present time (1895) nearly six hundred million dollars, and so far as we know, it is the greatest amount that was ever gathered together. All the gold now known, coined and in bullion, does not amount to much more than the sum collected by David.
Seven thousand millions. Where did David get this gold? The Jews had no commerce. They owned no ships. They had no great factories, they produced nothing for other countries. There were no gold or silver mines in Palestine. Where then was this gold, this silver found? I will tell you: In the imagination of a writer who had more patriotism than intelligence, and who wrote, not for the sake of truth, but for the glory of the Jews.
Is it possible that David collected nearly eight thousand tons of gold—that he by economy got together about sixty thousand tons of silver, making a total of gold and silver of sixty-eight thousand tons?
The average freight car carries about fifteen tons—David's gold and silver would load about four thousand five hundred and thirty-three cars, making a train about thirty-two miles in length. And all this for the temple at Jerusalem, a building ninety feet long and forty-five feet high and thirty wide, to which was attached a porch thirty feet wide, ninety feet long and one hundred and eighty feet high.
Probably the architect was inspired.
Is there a sensible man in the world who believes that David collected seven thousand million dollars worth of gold or silver?
There is hardly five thousand million dollars of gold now used as money in the whole world. Think of the millions taken from the mines of California, Australia and Africa during the present century and yet the total scarcely exceeds the amount collected by King David more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ. Evidently the inspired historian made a mistake.
It required a little imagination and a few ciphers to change seven million dollars or seven hundred thousand dollars into seven thousand million dollars. Drop four ciphers and the story becomes fairly reasonable.
The Old Testament must be thrown aside. It is no longer a foundation. It has crumbled.
II. THE NEW TESTAMENT
BUT we have the New Testament, the sequel of the Old, in which Christians find the fulfillment of prophecies made by inspired Jews.
The New Testament vouches for the truth, the inspiration, of the Old, and if the old is false, the New cannot be true.
In the New Testament we find all that we know about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
It is claimed that the writers were divinely inspired, and that all they wrote is true.
Let us see if these writers agree.
Certainly there should be no difference about the birth of Christ. From the Christian's point of view, nothing could have been of greater importance than that event.
Matthew says: "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.
"Saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him."
Matthew does not tell us who these wise men were, from what country they came, to what race they belonged. He did not even know their names.
We are also informed that when Herod heard these things he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him; that he gathered the chief priests and asked of them where Christ should be born and they told him that he was to be born in Bethlehem.
Then Herod called the wise men and asked them when the star appeared, and told them to go to Bethlehem and report to him.
When they left Herod, the star again appeared and went before them until it stood over the place where the child was.
When they came to the child they worshiped him,—gave him gifts, and being warned by God in a dream, they went back to their own country without calling on Herod.
Then the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to take Mary and the child into Egypt for fear of Herod.
So Joseph took Mary and the child to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.
Then Herod, finding that he was mocked by the wise men, "sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof from two years old and under."
After the death of Herod an angel again appeared in a dream to Joseph and told him to take mother and child and go back to Palestine.
So he went back and dwelt in Nazareth.
Is this story true? Must we believe in the star and the wise men? Who were these wise men? From what country did they come? What interest had they in the birth of the King of the Jews? What became of them and their star?
Of course I know that the Holy Catholic Church has in her keeping the three skulls that belonged to these wise men, but I do not know where the church obtained these relics, nor exactly how their genuineness has been established.
Must we believe that Herod murdered the babes of Bethlehem?
Is it not wonderful that the enemies of Herod did not charge him with this horror? Is it not marvelous that Mark and Luke and John forgot to mention this most heartless of massacres?
Luke also gives an account of the birth of Christ. He says that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed; that this was when Cyrenius was governor of Syria; that in accordance with this decree, Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to be taxed; that at that place Christ was born and laid in a manger. He also says that shepherds, in the neighborhood, were told of the birth by an angel, with whom was a multitude of the heavenly host; that these shepherds visited Mary and the child, and told others what they had seen and heard.
He tells us that after eight days the child was named, Jesus; that forty days after his birth he was taken by Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem, and that after they had performed all things according to the law they returned to Nazareth. Luke also says that the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and that his parents went every year to Jerusalem.
Do the accounts in Matthew and Luke agree? Can both accounts be true?
Luke never heard of the star, and Matthew knew nothing of the heavenly host. Luke never heard of the wise men, nor Matthew of the shepherds. Luke knew nothing of the hatred of Herod, the murder of the babes or the flight into Egypt. According to Matthew, Joseph, warned by an angel, took Mary and the child and fled into Egypt. According to Luke they all went to Jerusalem, and from there back to Nazareth.
Both of these accounts cannot be true. Will some Christian scholar tell us which to believe?
When was Christ born?
Luke says that it took place when Cyrenius was governor. Here is another mistake. Cyrenius was not appointed governor until after the death of Herod, and the taxing could not have taken place until ten years after the alleged birth of Christ.
According to Luke, Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, and for the purpose of getting them to Bethlehem, so that the child could be born in the right place, the taxing under Cyrenius was used, but the writer, being "inspired" made a mistake of about ten years as to the time of the taxing and of the birth.
Matthew says nothing about the date of the birth, except that he was born when Herod was king. It is now known that Herod had been dead ten years before the taxing under Cyrenius. So, if Luke tells the truth, Joseph, being warned by an angel, fled from the hatred of Herod ten years after Herod was dead. If Matthew and Luke are both right Christ was taken to Egypt ten years before he was born, and Herod killed the babes ten years after he was dead.
Will some Christian scholar have the goodness to harmonize these "inspired" accounts?
There is another thing.
Matthew and Luke both try to show that Christ was of the blood of David, that he was a descendant of that virtuous king.
As both of these writers were inspired and as both received their information from God, they ought to agree.
According to Matthew there was between David and Jesus twenty-seven generations, and he gives all the names.
According to Luke there were between David and Jesus forty-two generations, and he gives all the names.
In these genealogies—both inspired—there is a difference between David and Jesus, a difference of some fourteen or fifteen generations.
Besides, the names of all the ancestors are different, with two exceptions.
Matthew says that Joseph's father was Jacob. Luke says that Heli was Joseph's father.
Both of these genealogies cannot be true, and the probability is that both are false.
There is not in all the pulpits ingenuity enough to harmonize these ignorant and stupid contradictions.
There are many curious mistakes in the words attributed to Christ.
We are told in Matthew, chapter xxiii, verse 35, that Christ said:
"That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar."
It is certain that these words were not spoken by Christ. He could not by any possibility have known that the blood of Zacharias had been shed. As a matter of fact, Zacharias was killed by the Jews, during the seige of Jerusalem by Titus, and this seige took place seventy-one years after the birth of Christ, thirty-eight years after he was dead.
There is still another mistake.
Zacharias was not the son of Barachias—no such
Zacharias was killed. The Zacharias that was slain was the son of Baruch.
But we must not expect the "inspired" to be accurate.
Matthew says that at the time of the crucifixion—"the graves were opened and that many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many."
According to this the graves were opened at the time of the crucifixion, but the dead did not arise and come out until after the resurrection of Christ.
They were polite enough to sit in their open graves and wait for Christ to rise first.
To whom did these saints appear? What became of them? Did they slip back into their graves and commit suicide?
Is it not wonderful that Mark, Luke and John never heard of these saints?
What kind of saints were they? Certainly they were not Christian saints.
So, the inspired writers do not agree in regard to Judas.
Certainly the inspired writers ought to have known what happened to Judas, the betrayer. Matthew being duly "inspired" says that when Judas saw that Jesus had been condemned, he repented and took back the money to the chief priests and elders, saying that he had sinned in betraying the innocent blood. They said to him: "What is that to us? See thou to that." Then Judas threw down the pieces of silver and went and hanged himself.
The chief priests then took the pieces of silver and bought the potter's field to bury strangers in, and it is called the field of blood.
We are told in Acts of the apostles that Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said: "Now this man, (Judas) purchased a field with the reward of iniquity—and falling headlong he burst asunder and all his bowels gushed out—that field is called the field of blood."
Matthew says Judas repented and gave back the money.
Peter says that he bought a field with the money.
Matthew says that Judas hanged himself. Peter says that he fell down and burst asunder. Which of these accounts is true?
Besides, it is hard to see why Christians hate, loathe and despise Judas. According to their scheme of salvation, it was absolutely necessary that Christ should be killed—necessary that he should be betrayed, and had it not been for Judas, all the world, including Christ's mother, and the part of Christ that was human, would have gone to hell.
Yet, according to the New Testament, Christ did not know that one of his disciples was to betray him.
Jesus, when on his way to Jerusalem, for the last time, said, speaking to the twelve disciples, Judas being present, that they, the disciples should thereafter sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Yet, more than a year before this journey, John says that Christ said, speaking to the twelve disciples: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil." And John adds: "He spake of Judas Iscariot, for it was he that should betray him."
Why did Christ a year afterward, tell Judas that he should sit on a throne and judge one of the tribes of Israel?
There is still another trouble.
Paul says that Jesus after his resurrection appeared to the twelve disciples. According to Paul, Jesus appeared to Judas with the rest.
Certainly Paul had not heard the story of the betrayal.
Why did Christ select Judas as one of his disciples, knowing that he would betray him? Did he desire to be betrayed? Was it his intention to be put to death?
Why did he fail to defend himself before Pilate?
According to the accounts, Pilate wanted to save him. Did Christ wish to be convicted?
The Christians are compelled to say that Christ intended to be sacrificed—that he selected Judas with that end in view, and that he refused to defend himself because he desired to be crucified. All this is in accordance with the horrible idea that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
III. JEHOVAH.
GOD the Father.
The Jehovah of the Old Testament is the God of the Christians.
He it was who created the Universe, who made all substance, all force, all life, from nothing. He it is who has governed and still governs the world. He has established and destroyed empires and kingdoms, despotisms and republics. He has enslaved and liberated the sons of men. He has caused the sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and his rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
This shows his goodness.
He has caused his volcanoes to devour the good and the bad, his cyclones to wreck and rend the generous and the cruel, his floods to drown the loving and the hateful, his lightning to kill the virtuous and the vicious, his famines to starve the innocent and criminal and his plagues to destroy the wise and good, the ignorant and wicked. He has allowed his enemies to imprison, to torture and to kill his friends. He has permitted blasphemers to flay his worshipers alive, to dislocate their joints upon racks, and to burn them at the stake. He has allowed men to enslave their brothers and to sell babes from the breasts of mothers.
This shows his impartiality.
The pious negro who commenced his prayer: "O thou great and unscrupulous God," was nearer right than he knew.
Ministers ask: Is it possible for God to forgive man?
And when I think of what has been suffered—of the centuries of agony and tears, I ask: Is it possible for man to forgive God?
How do Christians prove the existence of their God? Is it possible to think of an infinite being? Does the word God correspond with any image in the mind? Does the word God stand for what we know or for what we do not know?
Is not this unthinkable God a guess, an inference?
Can we think of a being without form, without body, without parts, without passions? Why should we speak of a being without body as of the masculine gender?
Why should the Bible speak of this God as a man?—of his walking in the garden in the cool of the evening—of his talking, hearing and smelling? If he has no passions why is he spoken of as jealous, revengeful, angry, pleased and loving?
In the Bible God is spoken of as a person in the form of man, journeying from place to place, as having a home and occupying a throne. These ideas have been abandoned, and now the Christian's God is the infinite, the incomprehensible, the formless, bodiless and passionless.
Of the existence of such a being there can be, in the nature of things, no evidence.
Confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown thick with stars, with all there is of life, the wise man, being asked the origin and destiny of all, replies: "I do not know. These questions are beyond the powers of my mind." The wise man is thoughtful and modest. He clings to facts. Beyond his intellectual horizon he does not pretend to see. He does not mistake hope for evidence or desire for demonstration. He is honest. He neither deceives himself nor others.
The theologian arrives at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and he calls this God. The scientist arrives at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and calls it the Unknown.
The theologian insists that his inconceivable governs the world, that it, or he, or they, can be influenced by prayers and ceremonies, that it, or he, or they, punishes and rewards, that it, or he, or they, has priests and temples.
The scientist insist that the Unknown is not changed so far as he knows by prayers of people or priests. He admits that he does not know whether the Unknown is good or bad—whether he, or it, wants or whether he, or it, is worthy of worship. He does not say that the Unknown is God, that it created substance and force, life and thought. He simply says that of the Unknown he knows nothing.
Why should Christians insist that a God of infinite wisdom, goodness and power governs the world?
Why did he allow millions of his children to be enslaved? Why did he allow millions of mothers to be robbed of their babes? Why has he allowed injustice to triumph? Why has he permitted the innocent to be imprisoned and the good to be burned? Why has he withheld his rain and starved millions of the children of men? Why has he allowed the volcanoes to destroy, the earthquakes to devour, and the tempest to wreck and rend?
IV. THE TRINITY
THE New Testament informs us that Christ was the son of Joseph and the son of God, and that Mary was his mother.
How is it established that Christ was the son of God?
It is said that Joseph was told so in a dream by an angel.
But Joseph wrote nothing on that subject—said nothing so far as we know. Mary wrote nothing, said nothing. The angel that appeared to Joseph or that informed Joseph said nothing to anybody else. Neither has the Holy Ghost, the supposed father, ever said or written one word. We have received no information from the parties who could have known anything on the subject. We get all our facts from those who could not have known.
How is it possible to prove that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ?
Who knows that such a being as the Holy Ghost ever existed?
How was it possible for Mary to know anything about the Holy Ghost?
How could Joseph know that he had been visited by an angel in a dream?
Could he know that the visitor was an angel? It all occurred in a dream and poor Joseph was asleep. What is the testimony of one who was asleep worth?
All the evidence we have is that somebody who wrote part of the New Testament says that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ, and that somebody who wrote another part of the New Testament says that Joseph was the father of Christ.
Matthew and Luke give the genealogy and both show that Christ was the son of Joseph.
The "Incarnation" has to be believed without evidence. There is no way in which it can be established. It is beyond the reach and realm of reason. It defies observation and is independent of experience.
It is claimed not only that Christ was the Son of God, but that he was, and is, God.
Was he God before he was born? Was the body of Mary the dwelling place of God?
What evidence have we that Christ was God?
Somebody has said that Christ claimed that God was his father and that he and his father were one. We do not know who this somebody was and do not know from whom he received his information.
Somebody who was "inspired" has said that Christ was of the blood of David through his father Joseph.
This is all the evidence we have.
Can we believe that God, the creator of the Universe, learned the trade of a carpenter in Palestine, that he gathered a few disciples about him, and after teaching for about three years, suffered himself to be crucified by a few ignorant and pious Jews?
Christ, according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the Father being the first and the Holy Ghost the third. Each of these three persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten—just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and Son, but was equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is to say, before he existed, but he is of the same age of the other two.
So, it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son God and the Holy Ghost God, and that these three Gods make one God.
According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.
How is it possible to prove the existence of the Trinity?
Is it possible for a human being, who has been born but once, to comprehend, or to imagine the existence of three beings, each of whom is equal to the three?
Think of one of these beings as the father of one, and think of that one as half human and all God, and think of the third as having proceeded from the other two, and then think of all three as one. Think that after the father begot the son, the father was still alone, and after the Holy Ghost proceeded from the father and the son, the father was still alone—because there never was and never will be but one God.
At this point, absurdity having reached its limit, nothing more can be said except: "Let us pray."
V. THE THEOLOGICAL CHRIST
IN the New Testament we find the teachings and sayings of Christ. If we say that the book is inspired, then we must admit that Christ really said all the things attributed to him by the various writers. If the book is inspired we must accept it all. We have no right to reject the contradictory and absurd and accept the reasonable and good. We must take it all just as it is.
My own observation has led me to believe that men are generally consistent in their theories and inconsistent in their lives.
So, I think that Christ in his utterances was true to his theory, to his philosophy.
If I find in the Testament sayings of a contradictory character, I conclude that some of those sayings were never uttered by him. The sayings that are, in my judgment, in accordance with what I believe to have been his philosophy, I accept, and the others I throw away.
There are some of his sayings which show him to have been a devout Jew, others that he wished to destroy Judaism, others showing that he held all people except the Jews in contempt and that he wished to save no others, others showing that he wished to convert the world, still others showing that he was forgiving, self-denying and loving, others that he was revengeful and malicious, others, that he was an ascetic, holding all human ties in utter contempt.
The following passages show that Christ was a devout Jew.
"Swear not, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem for it is his holy city."
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." "For after all these things, (clothing, food and drink) do the Gentiles seek."
So, when he cured a leper, he said: "Go thy way, show thyself unto the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded."
Jesus sent his disciples forth saying: "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
A woman came out of Canaan and cried to Jesus: "Have mercy on me, my daughter is sorely vexed with a devil"—but he would not answer. Then the disciples asked him to send her away, and he said: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Then the woman worshiped him and said: "Lord help me." But he answered and said: "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it unto dogs." Yet for her faith he cured her child.
So, when the young man asked him what he must do to be saved, he said: "Keep the commandments."
Christ said: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do."
"And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail."
Christ went into the temple and cast out them that sold and bought there, and said: "It is written, my house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves."
"We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews."
Certainly all these passages were written by persons who regarded Christ as the Messiah.
Many of the sayings attributed to Christ show that he was an ascetic, that he cared nothing for kindred, nothing for father and mother, nothing for brothers or sisters, and nothing for the pleasures of life.
Christ said to a man: "Follow me." The man said: "Suffer me first to go and bury my father." Christ answered: "Let the dead bury their dead." Another said: "I will follow thee, but first let me go bid them farewell which are at home."
Jesus said: "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. If thine right eye offend thee pluck it out. If thy right hand offend thee cut it off."
One said unto him: "Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee." And he answered: "Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?" Then he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said: "Behold my mother and my brethren."
"And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands for my name's sake shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit everlasting life."
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
Christ it seems had a philosophy.
He believed that God was a loving father, that he would take care of his children, that they need do nothing except to rely implicitly on God.
"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy."
"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."
"Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.... For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."
"Ask and it shall be given you. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. If ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you. The very hairs of your head are all numbered."
Christ seemed to rely absolutely on the protection of God until the darkness of death gathered about him, and then he cried: "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"
While there are many passages in the New Testament showing Christ to have been forgiving and tender, there are many others, showing that he was exactly the opposite.
What must have been the spirit of one who said: "I am come to send fire on the earth? Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, nay, but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father, the mother against the daughter and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."
"If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me."
This passage built dungeons and lighted fagots.
"Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
"I came not to bring peace but a sword."
All these sayings could not have been uttered by the same person. They are inconsistent with each other. Love does not speak the words of hatred. The real philanthropist does not despise all nations but his own. The teacher of universal forgiveness cannot believe in eternal torture.
From the interpolations, legends, accretions, mistakes and falsehoods in the New Testament is it possible to free the actual man? Clad in mist and myth, hidden by the draperies of gods, deformed, indistinct as faces in clouds, is it possible to find and recognize the features, the natural face of the actual Christ?
For many centuries our fathers closed their eyes to the contradictions and inconsistencies of the Testament and in spite of their reason harmonized the interpolations and mistakes.
This is no longer possible. The contradictions are too many, too glaring. There are contradictions of fact not only, but of philosophy, of theory.
The accounts of the trial, the crucifixion, and ascension of Christ do not agree. They are full of mistakes and contradictions.
According to one account Christ ascended the day of, or the day after his resurrection. According to another he remained forty days after rising from the dead. According to one account, he was seen after his resurrection only by a few women and his disciples. According to another he was seen by the women, by his disciples on several occasions and by hundreds of others.
According to Matthew, Luke and Mark, Christ remained for the most part in the country, seldom going to Jerusalem. According to John he remained mostly in Jerusalem, going occasionally into the country, and then generally to avoid his enemies.
According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Christ taught that if you would forgive others God would forgive you. According to John, Christ said that the only way to get to heaven was to believe on him and be born again.
These contradictions are gross and palpable and demonstrate that the New Testament is not inspired, and that many of its statements must be false.
If we wish to save the character of Christ, many of the passages must be thrown away.
We must discard the miracles or admit that he was insane or an impostor. We must discard the passages that breathe the spirit of hatred and revenge, or admit that he was malevolent.
If Matthew was mistaken about the genealogy of Christ, about the wise men, the star, the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the babes by Herod,—then he may have been mistaken in many passages that he put in the mouth of Christ.
The same may be said in regard to Mark, Luke and John.
The church must admit that the writers of the New Testament were uninspired men—that they made many mistakes, that they accepted impossible legends as historical facts, that they were ignorant and superstitious, that they put malevolent, stupid, insane and unworthy words in the mouth of Christ, described him as the worker of impossible miracles and in many ways stained and belittled his character.
The best that can be said about Christ is that nearly nineteen centuries ago he was born in the land of Palestine in a country without wealth, without commerce, in the midst of a people who knew nothing of the greater world—a people enslaved, crushed by the mighty power of Rome. That this babe, this child of poverty and want grew to manhood without education, knowing nothing of art, or science, and at about the age of thirty began wandering about the hills and hamlets of his native land, discussing with priests, talking with the poor and sorrowful, writing nothing, but leaving his words in the memory or forgetfulness of those to whom he spoke.
That he attacked the religion of his time because it was cruel. That this excited the hatred of those in power, and that Christ was arrested, tried and crucified.
For many centuries this great Peasant of Palestine has been worshiped as God.
Millions and millions have given their lives to his service. The wealth of the world was lavished on his shrines. His name carried consolation to the diseased and dying. His name dispelled the darkness of death, and filled the dungeon with light. His name gave courage to the martyr, and in the midst of fire, with shriveling lips the sufferer uttered it again, and again. The outcasts, the deserted, the fallen, felt that Christ was their friend, felt that he knew their sorrows and pitied their sufferings.
The poor mother, holding her dead babe in her arms, lovingly whispered his name. His gospel has been carried by millions to all parts of the globe, and his story has been told by the self-denying and faithful to countless thousands of the sons of men. In his name have been preached charity,—forgiveness and love.
He it was, who according to the faith, brought immortality to light, and many millions have entered the valley of the shadow with their hands in his.
All this is true, and if it were all, how beautiful, how touching, how glorious it would be. But it is not all. There is another side.
In his name millions and millions of men and women have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. In his name millions and millions have been enslaved. In his name the thinkers, the investigators, have been branded as criminals, and his followers have shed the blood of the wisest and best. In his name the progress of many nations was stayed for a thousand years. In his gospel was found the dogma of eternal pain, and his words added an infinite horror to death. His gospel filled the world with hatred and revenge; made intellectual honesty a crime; made happiness here the road to hell, denounced love as base and bestial, canonized credulity, crowned bigotry and destroyed the liberty of man.
It would have been far better had the New Testament never been written—far better had the theological Christ never lived. Had the writers of the Testament been regarded as uninspired, had Christ been thought of only as a man, had the good been accepted and the absurd, the impossible, and the revengeful thrown away, mankind would have escaped the wars, the tortures, the scaffolds, the dungeons, the agony and tears, the crimes and sorrows of a thousand years.
VI. THE "SCHEME"
WE have also the scheme of redemption.
According to this "scheme," by the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, human nature became evil, corrupt and depraved. It became impossible for human beings to keep, in all things, the law of God. In spite of this, God allowed the people to live and multiply for some fifteen hundred years, and then on account of their wickedness drowned them all with the exception of eight persons.
The nature of these eight persons was evil, corrupt and depraved, and in the nature of things their children would be cursed with the same nature. Yet God gave them another trial, knowing exactly what the result would be. A few of these wretches he selected and made them objects of his love and care, the rest of the world he gave to indifference and neglect. To civilize the people he had chosen, he assisted them in conquering and killing their neighbors, and gave them the assistance of priests and inspired prophets. For their preservation and punishment he wrought countless miracles, gave them many laws and a great deal of advice. He taught them to sacrifice oxen, sheep, and doves, to the end that their sins might be forgiven. The idea was inculcated that there was a certain relation between the sin and the sacrifice,—the greater the sin, the greater the sacrifice. He also taught the savagery that without the shedding of blood there was no remission of sin.
In spite of all his efforts, the people grew gradually worse. They would not, they could not keep his laws.
A sacrifice had to be made for the sins of the people. The sins were too great to be washed out by the blood of animals or men. It became necessary for. God himself to be sacrificed. All mankind were under the curse of the law. Either all the world must be lost or God must die.
In only one way could the guilty be justified, and that was by the death, the sacrifice of the innocent. And the innocent being sacrificed must be great enough to atone for the world; There was but one such being—God.
Thereupon God took upon himself flesh, was born into the world—was known as Christ—was murdered, sacrificed by the Jews, and became an atonement for the sins of the human race.
This is the scheme of Redemption,—the atonement.
It is impossible to conceive of anything more utterly absurd.
A man steals, and then sacrifices a dove, or gives a lamb to a priest. His crime remains the same. He need not kill something. Let him give back the thing stolen, and in future live an honest life.
A man slanders his neighbor and then kills an ox. What has that to do with the slander. Let him take back his slander, make all the reparation that he can, and let the ox alone.
There is no sense in sacrifice, never was and never will be.
Make restitution, reparation, undo the wrong and you need shed no blood.
A good law, one springing from the nature of things, cannot demand, and cannot accept, and cannot be satisfied with the punishment, or the agony of the innocent. A god could not accept his own sufferings in justification of the guilty.—This is a complete subversion of all ideas of justice and morality. A god could not make a law for man, then suffer in the place of the man who had violated it, and say that the law had been carried out, and the penalty duly enforced. A man has committed murder, has been tried, convicted and condemned to death. Another man goes to the governor and says that he is willing to die in place of the murderer. The governor says: "All right, I accept your offer, a murder has been committed, somebody must be hung and your death will satisfy the law."
But that is not the law. The law says, not that somebody shall be hanged, but that the murderer shall suffer death.
Even if the governor should die in the place of the criminal, it would be no better. There would be two murders instead of one, two innocent men killed, one by the first murderer and one by the State, and the real murderer free.
This, Christians call, "satisfying the law."
VII. BELIEF.
WE are told that all who believe in this scheme of redemption and have faith in the redeemer will be rewarded with eternal joy. Some think that men can be saved by faith without works, and some think that faith and works are both essential, but all agree that without faith there is no salvation. If you repent and believe on Jesus Christ, then his goodness will be imputed to you and the penalty of the law, so far as you are concerned, will be satisfied by the sufferings of Christ.
You may repent and reform, you may make restitution, you may practice all the virtues, but without this belief in Christ, the gates of heaven will be shut against you forever.
Where is this heaven? The Christians do not know.
Does the Christian go there at death, or must he wait for the general resurrection?
They do not know.
The Testament teaches that the bodies of the dead are to be raised? Where are their souls in the meantime? They do not know.
Can the dead be raised? The atoms composing their bodies enter into new combinations, into new forms, into wheat and corn, into the flesh of animals and into the bodies of other men. Where one man dies, and some of his atoms pass into the body of another man and he dies, to whom will these atoms belong in the day of resurrection?
If Christianity were only stupid and unscientific, if its God was ignorant and kind, if it promised eternal joy to believers and if the believers practiced the forgiveness they teach, for one I should let the faith alone.
But there is another side to Christianity. It is not only stupid, but malicious. It is not only unscientific, but it is heartless. Its god is not only ignorant, but infinitely cruel. It not only promises the faithful an eternal reward, but declares that nearly all of the children of men, imprisoned in the dungeons of God will suffer eternal pain. This is the savagery of Christianity. This is why I hate its unthinkable God, its impossible Christ, its inspired lies, and its selfish, heartless heaven.
Christians believe in infinite torture, in eternal pain.
Eternal Pain!
All the meanness of which the heart of man is capable is in that one word—Hell.
That word is a den, a cave, in which crawl the slimy reptiles of revenge.
That word certifies to the savagery of primitive man.
That word is the depth, the dungeon, the abyss, from which civilized man has emerged.
That word is the disgrace, the shame, the infamy, of our revealed religion.
That word fills all the future with the shrieks of the damned.
That word brutalizes the New Testament, changes the Sermon on the Mount to hypocrisy and cant, and pollutes and hardens the very heart of Christ.
That word adds an infinite horror to death, and makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin.
That word is the assassin of joy, the mocking murderer of hope. That word extinguishes the light of life and wraps the world in gloom. That word drives reason from his throne, and gives the crown to madness.
That word drove pity from the hearts of men, stained countless swords with blood, lighted fagots, forged chains, built dungeons, erected scaffolds, and filled the world with poverty and pain.
That word is a coiled serpent in the mother's breast, that lifts its fanged head and hisses in her ear:—"Your child will be the fuel of eternal fire."
That word blots from the firmament the star of hope and leaves the heavens black.
That word makes the Christian's God an eternal torturer, an everlasting inquisitor—an infinite wild beast.
This is the Christian prophecy of the eternal future:
No hope in hell.
No pity in heaven.
No mercy in the heart of God.
VIII. CONCLUSION
THE Old Testament is absurd, ignorant and cruel,—the New Testament is a mingling of the false and true—it is good and bad.
The Jehovah of the Jews is an impossible monster. The Trinity absurd and idiotic, Christ is a myth or a man.
The fall of man is contradicted by every fact concerning human history that we know. The scheme of redemption—through the atonement—is immoral and senseless. Hell was imagined by revenge, and the orthodox heaven is the selfish dream of heartless serfs and slaves. The foundations of the faith have crumbled and faded away. They were miracles, mistakes, and myths, ignorant and untrue, absurd, impossible, immoral, unnatural, cruel, childish, savage. Beneath the gaze of the scientist they vanished, confronted by facts they disappeared. The orthodox religion of our day has no foundation in truth. Beneath the superstructure can be found no fact.
Some may ask, "Are you trying to take our religion away?"
I answer, No—superstition is not religion. Belief without evidence is not religion. Faith without facts is not religion.
To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits—to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and child and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then to be resigned this is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and heart.
But, says the prejudiced priest, the malicious minister, "You take away a future life."
I am not trying to destroy another world, but I am endeavoring to prevent the theologians from destroying this.
If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and that fact does not depend on bibles, or Christs, or priests or creeds.
The hope of another life was in the heart, long before the "sacred books" were written, and will remain there long after all the "sacred books" are known to be the work of savage and superstitious men. Hope is the consolation of the world.
The wanderers hope for home.—Hope builds the house and plants the flowers and fills the air with song.
The sick and suffering hope for health.—Hope gives them health and paints the roses in their cheeks.
The lonely, the forsaken, hope for love.—Hope brings the lover to their arms. They feel the kisses on their eager lips.
The poor in tenements and huts, in spite of rags and hunger hope for wealth.—Hope fills their thin and trembling hands with gold.
The dying hopes that death is but another birth, and Love leans above the pallid face and whispers, "We shall meet again."
Hope is the consolation of the world.
Let us hope, if there be a God that he is wise and good.
Let us hope that if there be another life it will bring peace and joy to all the children of men.
And let us hope that this poor earth on which we live, may be a perfect world—a world without a crime—without a tear.
I. WHAT IS SUPERSTITION?
To believe in spite of evidence or without evidence. To account for one mystery by another.
To believe that the world is governed by chance or caprice.
To disregard the true relation between cause and effect.
To put thought, intention and design back of nature.
To believe that mind created and controls matter. To believe in force apart from substance, or in substance apart from force.
To believe in miracles, spells and charms, in dreams and prophecies.
To believe in the supernatural.
The foundation of superstition is ignorance, the superstructure is faith and the dome is a vain hope.
Superstition is the child of ignorance and the mother of misery.
In nearly every brain is found some cloud of superstition.
A woman drops a cloth with which she is washing dishes, and she exclaims: "That means company."
Most people will admit that there is no possible connection between dropping the cloth and the coming of visitors. The falling cloth could not have put the visit desire in the minds of people not present, and how could the cloth produce the desire to visit the particular person who dropped it? There is no possible connection between the dropping of the cloth and the anticipated effects.
A man catches a glimpse of the new moon over his left shoulder, and he says: "This is bad luck."
To see the moon over the right or left shoulder, or not to see it, could not by any possibility affect the moon, neither could it change the effect or influence of the moon on any earthly thing. Certainly the left-shoulder glance could in no way affect the nature of things. All the facts in nature would remain the same as though the glance had been over the right shoulder. We see no connection between the left-shoulder glance and any possible evil effects upon the one who saw the moon in this way.
A girl counts the leaves of a flower, and she says: "One, he comes; two, he tarries; three, he courts; four, he marries; five, he goes away."
Of course the flower did not grow, and the number of its leaves was not determined with reference to the courtship or marriage of this girl, neither could there have been any intelligence that guided her hand when she selected that particular flower. So, count' ing the seeds in an apple cannot in any way determine whether the future of an individual is to be happy or miserable.
Thousands of persons believe in lucky and unlucky days, numbers, signs and jewels.
Many people regard Friday as an unlucky day—as a bad day to commence a journey, to marry, to make any investment. The only reason given is that Friday is an unlucky day.
Starting across the sea on Friday could have no possible effect upon the winds, or waves, or tides, any more than starting on any other day, and the only possible reason for thinking Friday unlucky is the assertion that it is so.
So it is thought by many that it is dangerous for thirteen people to dine together. Now, if thirteen is a dangerous number, twenty-six ought to be twice as dangerous, and fifty-two four times as terrible.
It is said that one of the thirteen will die in a year. Now, there is no possible relation between the number and the digestion of each, between the number and the individual diseases. If fourteen dine together there is greater probability, if we take into account only the number, of a death within the year, than there would be if only thirteen were at the table.
Overturning the salt is very unlucky, but spilling the vinegar makes no difference.
Why salt should be revengeful and vinegar forgiving has never been told.
If the first person who enters a theatre is crosseyed, the audience will be small and the "run" a failure.
How the peculiarity of the eyes of the first one who enters, changes the intention of a community, or how the intentions of a community cause the cross-eyed man to go early, has never been satisfactorily explained. Between this so-called cause and the so-called effect there is, so far as we can see, no possible relation.
To wear an opal is bad luck, but rubies bring health. How these stones affect the future, how they destroy causes and defeat effects, no one pretends to know.
So, there are thousands of lucky and unlucky tilings, warnings, omens and prophecies, but all sensible, sane and reasoning human beings know that every one is an absurd and idiotic superstition.
Let us take another step:
For many centuries it was believed that eclipses of the sun and moon were prophetic of pestilence or famine, and that comets foretold the death of kings, or the destruction of nations, the coming of war or plague. All strange appearances in the heavens—the Northern Lights, circles about the moon, sun dogs, falling stars—filled our intelligent ancestors with terror. They fell upon their knees—did their best with sacrifice and prayer to avoid the threatened disaster. Their faces were ashen with fear as they closed their eyes and cried to the heavens for help. The clergy, who were as familiar with God then as the orthodox preachers are now, knew exactly the meaning of eclipses and sun dogs and Northern Lights; knew that God's patience was nearly exhausted; that he was then whetting the sword of his wrath, and that the people could save themselves only by obeying the priests, by counting their beads and doubling their subscriptions.
Earthquakes and cyclones filled the coffers of the church. In the midst of disasters the miser, with trembling hands, opened his purse. In the gloom of eclipses thieves and robbers divided their booty with God, and poor, honest, ignorant girls, remembering that they had forgotten to say a prayer, gave their little earnings to soften the heart of God.
Now we know that all these signs and wonders in the heavens have nothing to do with the fate of kings, nations or individuals; that they had no more reference to human beings than to colonies of ants, hives of bees or the eggs of insects. We now know that the signs and eclipses, the comets, and the falling stars, would have been just the same if not a human being had been upon the earth. We know now that eclipses come at certain times and that their coming can be exactly foretold.
A little while ago the belief was general that there were certain healing virtues in inanimate things, in the bones of holy men and women, in the rags that had been tom from the foul clothing of still fouler saints, in hairs from martyrs, in bits of wood and rusty nails from the true cross, in the teeth and finger nails of pious men, and in a thousand other sacred things.
The diseased were cured by kissing a box in which was kept some bone, or rag, or bit of wood, some holy hairs, provided the kiss was preceded or followed by a gift—a something for the church.
In some mysterious way the virtue in the bone, or rag, or piece of wood, crept or flowed from the box, took possession of the sick who had the necessary faith, and in the name of God drove out the devils who were the real disease.
This belief in the efficacy of bones or rags and holy hair was born of another belief—the belief that all diseases were produced by evil spirits. The insane were supposed to be possessed by devils. Epilepsy and hysteria were produced by the imps of Satan. In short, every human affliction was the work of the malicious emissaries of the god of hell. This belief was almost universal, and even in our time the sacred bones are believed in by millions of people.
But to-day no intelligent man believes in the existence of devils—no intelligent man believes that evil spirits cause disease—consequently, no intelligent person believes that holy bones or rags, sacred hairs or pieces of wood, can drive disease out, or in any way bring back to the pallid cheek the rose of health.
Intelligent people now know that the bone of a saint has in it no greater virtue than the bone of any animal. That a rag from a wandering beggar is just as good as one from a saint, and that the hair of a horse will cure disease just as quickly and surely as the hair of a martyr. We now know that all the sacred relics are religious rubbish; that those who use them are for the most part dishonest, and that those who rely on them are almost idiotic.
This belief in amulets and charms, in ghosts and devils, is superstition, pure and simple.
Our ancestors did not regard these relics as medicine, having a curative power, but the idea was that evil spirits stood in dread of holy things—that they fled from the bone of a saint, that they feared a piece of the true cross, and that when holy water was sprinkled on a man they immediately left the premises. So, these devils hated and dreaded the sound of holy bells, the light of sacred tapers, and, above all, the ever-blessed cross.
In those days the priests were fishers for money, and they used these relics for bait.
II.
Let us take another step:
This belief in the Devil and evil spirits laid the foundation for another belief: Witchcraft.
It was believed that the devil had certain things to give in exchange for a soul. The old man, bowed and broken, could get back his youth—the rounded form, the brown hair, the leaping heart of life's morning—if he would sign and seal away his soul. So, it was thought that the malicious could by charm and spell obtain revenge, that the poor could be enriched, and that the ambitious could rise to place and power. All the good things of this life were at the disposal of the Devil. For those who resisted the temptations of the Evil One, rewards were waiting in another world, but the Devil rewarded here in this life. No one has imagination enough to paint the agonies that were endured by reason of this belief in witchcraft. Think of the families destroyed, of the fathers and mothers cast in prison, tortured and burned, of the firesides darkened, of the children murdered, of the old, the poor and helpless that were stretched on racks mangled and flayed!
Think of the days when superstition and fear were in every house, in every mind, when accusation was conviction, when assertion of innocence was regarded as a confession of guilt, and when Christendom was insane!
Now we know that all of these horrors were the result of superstition. Now we know that ignorance was the mother of all the agonies endured. Now we know that witches never lived, that human beings never bargained with any devil, and that our pious savage ancestors were mistaken.
Let us take another step:
Our fathers believed in miracles, in signs and wonders, eclipses and comets, in the virtues of bones, and in the powers attributed to evil spirits. All these belonged to the miraculous. The world was supposed to be full of magic; the spirits were sleight-of-hand performers—necromancers. There were no natural causes behind events. A devil wished, and it happened. One who had sold his soul to Satan made a few motions, uttered some strange words, and the event was present. Natural causes were not believed in. Delusion and illusion, the monstrous and miraculous, ruled the world. The foundation was gone—reason had abdicated. Credulity gave tongues and wings to lies, while the dumb and limping facts were left behind—were disregarded and remained untold.
WHAT IS A MIRACLE?
An act performed by a master of nature without reference to the facts in nature. This is the only honest definition of a miracle.
If a man could make a perfect circle, the diameter of which was exactly one-half the circumference, that would be a miracle in geometry. If a man could make twice four, nine, that would be a miracle in mathematics. If a man could make a stone, falling in the air, pass through a space of ten feet the first second, twenty-five feet the second second, and five feet the third second, that would be a miracle in physics. If a man could put together hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen and produce pure gold, that would be a miracle in chemistry. If a minister were to prove his creed, that would be a theological miracle. If Congress by law would make fifty cents worth of silver worth a dollar, that would be a financial miracle. To make a square triangle would be a most wonderful miracle. To cause a mirror to reflect the faces of persons who stand behind it, instead of those who stand in front, would be a miracle. To make echo answer a question would be a miracle. In other words, to do anything contrary to or without regard to the facts in nature is to perform a miracle.
Now we are convinced of what is called the "uniformity of nature." We believe that all things act and are acted upon in accordance with their nature; that under like conditions the results will always be substantially the same; that like ever has and ever will produce like. We now believe that events have natural parents and that none die childless.
Miracles are not simply impossible, but they are unthinkable by any man capable of thinking.
Now an intelligent man cannot believe that a miracle ever was, or ever will be, performed.
Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.
III.
Let us take another step:
While our ancestors filled the darkness with evil spirits, enemies of mankind, they also believed in the existence of good spirits. These good spirits sustained the same relation to God that the evil ones did to the Devil. These good spirits protected the faithful from the temptations and snares of the Evil One. They took care of those who carried amulets and charms, of those who repeated prayers and counted beads, of those who fasted and performed ceremonies. These good spirits would turn aside the sword and arrow from the breast of the faithful. They made poison harmless, they protected the credulous, and in a thousand ways defended and rescued the true believer. They drove doubts from the minds of the pious, sowed the seeds of credulity and faith, saved saints from the wiles of women, painted the glories of heaven for those who fasted and prayed, made it possible for the really good to dispense with the pleasures of sense and to hate the Devil.
These angels watched over infants who had been baptized, over persons who had made holy vows, over priests and nuns and wandering beggars who believed.
These spirits were of various kinds: Some had once been men or women, some had never lived in this world, and some had been angels from the commencement. Nobody pretended to know exactly what they were, or exactly how they looked, or in what way they went from place to place, or how they affected or controlled the minds of men.
It was believed that the king of all these evil spirits was the Devil, and that the king of all the good spirits was God. It was also believed that God was in fact the king of all, and that the Devil himself was one of the children of this God. This God and this Devil were at war, each trying to secure the souls of men. God offered the rewards of eternal joy and threatened eternal pain. The Devil baited his traps with present pleasure, with the gratification of the senses, with the ecstasies of love, and laughed at the joys of heaven and the pangs of hell. With malicious hand he sowed the seeds of doubt—induced men to investigate, to reason, to call for evidence, to rely upon themselves; planted in their hearts the love of liberty, assisted them to break their chains, to escape from their prisons and besought them to think. In this way he corrupted the children of men.
Our fathers believed that they could by prayer, by sacrifice, by fasting, by performing certain ceremonies, gain the assistance of this God and of these good spirits. They were not quite logical. They did not believe that the Devil was the author of all evil. They thought that flood and famine, plague and cyclone, earthquake and war, were sometimes sent by God as punishment for unbelief. They fell upon their knees and with white lips, prayed the good God to stay his hand. They humbled themselves, confessed their sins, and filled the heavens with their vows and cries. With priests and prayers they tried to stay the plague. They kissed the relics, fell at shrines, besought the Virgin and the saints, but the prayers all died in the heartless air, and the plague swept on to its natural end. Our poor fathers knew nothing of any science. Back of all events they put spirits, good or bad, angels or demons, gods or devils. To them nothing had what we call a natural cause. Everything was the work of spirits. All was done by the supernatural, and everything was done by evil spirits that they could do to ruin, punish, mislead and damn the children of men. This world was a field of battle, and here the hosts of heaven and hell waged war.
IV.
Now no man in whose brain the torch of reason bums, no man who investigates, who really thinks, who is capable of weighing evidence, believes in signs, in lucky or unlucky days, in lucky or unlucky numbers. He knows that Fridays and Thursdays are alike; that thirteen is no more deadly than twelve. He knows that opals affect the wearer the same as rubies, diamonds or common glass. He knows that the matrimonial chances of a maiden are not increased or decreased by the number of leaves of a flower or seeds in an apple. He knows that a glance at the moon over the left shoulder is as healthful and lucky as one over the right. He does not care whether the first comer to a theatre is crosseyed or hump-backed, bow-legged, or as well-proportioned as Apollo. He knows that a strange cat could be denied asylum without bringing any misfortune to the family. He knows that an owl does not hoot in the full of the moon because a distinguished man is about to die. He knows that comets and eclipses would come if all the folks were dead. He is not frightened by sun dogs, or the Morning of the North when the glittering lances pierce the shield of night.
He knows that all these things occur without the slightest reference to the human race. He feels certain that floods would destroy and cyclones rend and earthquakes devour; that the stars would shine; that day and night would still pursue each other around the world; that flowers would give their perfume to the air, and light would paint the seven-hued arch upon the dusky bosom of the cloud if every human being was unconscious dust.
A man of thought and sense does not believe in the existence of the Devil. He feels certain that imps, goblins, demons and evil spirits exist only in the imagination of the ignorant and frightened. He knows how these malevolent myths were made. He knows the part they have played in all religions. He knows that for many centuries a belief in these devils, these evil spirits, was substantially universal. He knows that the priest believed as firmly as the peasant. In those days the best educated and the most ignorant were equal dupes. Kings and courtiers, ladies and clowns, soldiers and artists, slaves and convicts, believed as firmly in the Devil as they did in God.
Back of this belief there is no evidence, and there never has been. This belief did not rest on any fact. It was supported by mistakes, exaggerations and lies. The mistakes were natural, the exaggerations were mostly unconscious and the lies were generally honest. Back of these mistakes, these exaggerations, these lies, was the love of the marvelous. Wonder listened with greedy ears, with wide eyes, and ignorance with open mouth.
The man of sense knows the history of this belief, and he knows, also, that for many centuries its truth was established by the Holy Bible. He knows that the Old Testament is filled with allusions to the Devil, to evil spirits, and that the New Testament is the same. He knows that Christ himself was a believer in the Devil, in evil spirits, and that his principal business was casting out devils from the bodies of men and women. He knows that Christ himself, according to the New Testament, was not only tempted by the Devil, but was carried by his Satanic Highness to the top of the temple. If the New Testament is the inspired word of God, then I admit that these devils, these imps, do actually exist and that they do take possession of human beings.
To deny the existence of these evil spirits, to deny the existence of the Devil, is to deny the truth of the New Testament. To deny the existence of these imps of darkness is to contradict the words of Jesus Christ. If these devils do not exist, if they do not cause disease, if they do not tempt and mislead their victims, then Christ was an ignorant, superstitious man, insane, an impostor, or the New Testament is not a true record of what he said and what he pretended to do. If we give up the belief in devils, we must give up the inspiration of the Old and New Testament. We must give up the divinity of Christ. To deny the existence of evil spirits is to utterly destroy the foundation of Christianity. There is no half-way ground. Compromise is impossible. If all the accounts in the New Testament of casting out devils are false, what part of the Blessed Book is true?
As a matter of fact, the success of the Devil in the Garden of Eden made the coming of Christ a necessity, laid the foundation for the atonement, crucified the Savior and gave us the Trinity.
If the Devil does not exist, the Christian creeds all crumble, and the superstructure known as "Christianity," built by the fathers, by popes, by priests and theologians—built with mistakes and falsehoods, with miracles and wonders, with blood and flame, with lies and legends borrowed from the savage world, becomes a shapeless ruin.
If we give up the belief in devils and evil spirits, we are compelled to say that a witch never lived. No sensible human being now believes in witchcraft. We know that it was a delusion. We now know that thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children were tortured and burned for having been found guilty of an impossible crime, and we also know, if our minds have not been deformed by faith, that all the books in which the existence of witches is taught were written by ignorant and superstitious men. We also know that the Old Testament asserted the existence of witches. According to that Holy Book, Jehovah was a believer in witchcraft, and said to his chosen people: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
This one commandment—this simple line—demonstrates that Jehovah was not only not God, but that he was a poor, ignorant, superstitious savage. This one line proves beyond all possible doubt that the Old Testament was written by men, by barbarians.
John Wesley was right when he said that to give up a belief in witchcraft was to give up the Bible.
Give up the Devil, and what can you do with the Book of Job? How will you account for the lying spirits that Jehovah sent to mislead Ahab?
Ministers who admit that witchcraft is a superstition will read the story of the Witch of Endor—will read it in a solemn, reverential voice—with a theological voice—and will have the impudence to say that they believe it.
It would be delightful to know that angels hover in the air; that they guard the innocent, protect the good; that they bend over the cradles and give health and happy dreams to pallid babes; that they fill dungeons with the light of their presence and give hope to the imprisoned; that they follow the fallen, the erring, the outcasts, the friendless, and win them back to virtue, love and joy. But we have no more evidence of the existence of good spirits than of bad. The angels that visited Abraham and the mother of Samson are as unreal as the ghosts and goblins of the Middle Ages. The angel that stopped the donkey of Balaam, the one who walked in the furnace flames with Meshech, Shadrack and Abed-nego, the one who slew the Assyrians and the one who in a dream removed the suspicions of Joseph, were all created by the imagination of the credulous, by the lovers of the marvelous, and they have been handed down from dotage to infancy, from ignorance to ignorance, through all the years. Except in Catholic countries, no winged citizen of the celestial realm has visited the world for hundreds of years. Only those who are blind to facts can see these beautiful creatures, and only those who reach conclusions without the assistance of evidence can believe in their existence. It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: "Whoever saw angels with sandals?" Angelo answered with another question: "Whoever saw an angel barefooted?"
The existence of angels has never been established. Of course, we know that millions and millions have believed in seraphim and cherubim; have believed that the angel Gabriel contended with the Devil for the body of Moses; that angels shut the mouths of the lions for the protection of Daniel; that angels ministered unto Christ, and that countless angels will accompany the Savior when he comes to take possession of the world. And we know that all these millions believe through blind, unreasoning faith, holding all evidence and all facts in theological contempt.
But the angels come no more. They bring no balm to any wounded heart. Long ago they folded their pinions and faded from the earth and air. These winged guardians no longer protect the innocent; no longer cheer the suffering; no longer whisper words of comfort to the helpless. They have become dreams—vanished visions.
V.
In the dear old religious days the earth was flat—a little dishing, if anything—and just above it was Jehovah's house, and just below it was where the Devil lived. God and his angels inhabited the third story, the Devil and his imps the basement, and the human race the second floor.
Then they knew where heaven was. They could almost hear the harps and hallelujahs. They knew where hell was, and they could almost hear the groans and smell the sulphurous fumes. They regarded the volcanoes as chimneys. They were perfectly acquainted with the celestial, the terrestrial and the infernal. They were quite familiar with the New Jerusalem, with its golden streets and gates of pearl. Then the translation of Enoch seemed reasonable enough, and no one doubted that before the flood the sons of God came down and made love to the daughters of men. The theologians thought that the builders of Babel would have succeeded if God had not come down and caused them to forget the meaning of words.
In those blessed days the priests knew all about heaven and hell. They knew that God governed the world by hope and fear, by promise and threat, by reward and punishment. The reward was to be eternal and so was the punishment. It was not God's plan to develop the human brain, so that man would perceive and comprehend the right and avoid the wrong. He taught ignorance nothing but obedience, and for obedience he offered eternal joy. He loved the submissive—the kneelers and crawlers. He hated the doubters, the investigators, the thinkers, the philosophers. For them he created the eternal prison where he could feed forever the hunger of his hate. He loved the credulous—those who believed without evidence—and for them he prepared a home in the realm of fadeless light. He delighted in the company of the questionless.
But where is this heaven, and where is this hell? We now know that heaven is not just above the clouds and that hell is not just below the earth. The telescope has done away with the ancient heaven, and the revolving world has quenched the flames of the ancient hell. These theological countries, these imagined worlds, have disappeared. No one knows, and no one pretends to know, where heaven is; and no one knows, and no one pretends to know, the locality of hell. Now the theologians say that hell and heaven are not places, but states of mind—conditions.
The belief in gods and devils has been substantially universal. Back of the good, man placed a god; back of the evil, a devil; back of health, sunshine and harvest was a good deity; back of disease, misfortune and death he placed a malicious fiend.
Is there any evidence that gods and devils exist? The evidence of the existence of a god and of a devil is substantially the same. Both of these deities are inferences; each one is a perhaps. They have not been seen—they are invisible—and they have not ventured within the horizon of the senses. The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian—like a doctor of divinity.
Now no intelligent man believes in the existence of a devil—no longer fears the leering fiend. Most people who think have given up a personal God, a creative deity. They now talk about the "Unknown," the "Infinite Energy," but they put Jehovah with Jupiter. They regard them both as broken dolls from the nursery of the past.
The men or women who ask for evidence—who desire to know the truth—care nothing for signs; nothing for what are called wonders; nothing for lucky or unlucky jewels, days or numbers; nothing for charms or amulets; nothing for comets or eclipses, and have no belief in good or evil spirits, in gods or devils. They place no reliance on general or special providence—on any power that rescues, protects and saves the good or punishes the vile and vicious. They do not believe that in the whole history of mankind a prayer has been answered. They think that all the sacrifices have been wasted, and that all the incense has ascended in vain. They do not believe that the world was created and prepared for man any more than it was created and prepared for insects. They do not think it probable that whales were invented to supply the Eskimo with blubber, or that flames were created to attract and destroy moths. On every hand there seems to be evidence of design—design for the accomplishment of good, design for the accomplishment of evil. On every side are the benevolent and malicious—something toiling to preserve, something laboring to destroy. Everything surrounded by friends and enemies—by the love that protects, by the hate that kills. Design is as apparent in decay, as in growth; in failure, as in success; in grief, as in joy. Nature with one hand building, with one hand tearing down, armed with sword and shield—slaying and protecting, and protecting but to slay. All life journeying toward death, and all death hastening back to life. Everywhere waste and economy, care and negligence.
We watch the flow and ebb of life and death—the great drama that forever holds the stage, where players act their parts and disappear; the great drama in which all must act—ignorant and learned, idiotic and insane—without rehearsal and without the slightest knowledge of a part, or of any plot or purpose in the play. The scene shifts; some actors disappear and others come, and again the scene shifts; mystery everywhere. We try to explain, and the explanation of one fact contradicts another. Behind each veil removed, another. All things equal in wonder. One drop of water as wonderful as all the seas; one grain of sand as all the world; one moth with painted wings as all the things that live; one egg from which warmth, in darkness, woos to life an organized and breathing form—a form with sinews, bones and nerves, with blood and brain, with instincts, passions, thoughts and wants—as all the stars that wheel in space.
The smallest seed that, wrapped in soil, has dreams of April rains and days of June, withholds its secret from the wisest men. The wisdom of the world cannot explain one blade of grass, the faintest motion of the smallest leaf. And yet theologians, popes, priests, parsons, who speechless stand before the wonder of the smallest thing that is, know all about the origin of worlds, know when the beginning was, when the end will be, know all about the God who with a wish created all, know what his plan and purpose was, the means he uses and the end he seeks. To them all mysteries have been revealed, except the mystery of things that touch the senses of a living man.
But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, "We do not know."
After all, why should we worship our ignorance, why should we kneel to the Unknown, why should we prostrate ourselves before a guess?
If God exists, how do we know that he is good, that he cares for us? The Christians say that their God has existed from eternity; that he forever has been, and forever will be, infinite, wise and good. Could this God have avoided being God? Could he have avoided being good? Was he wise and good without his wish or will?
Being from eternity, he was not produced. He was back of all cause. What he is, he was, and will be, unchanged, unchangeable. He had nothing to do with the making or developing of his character.
Nothing to do with the development of his mind. What he was, he is. He has made no progress. What he is, he will be, there can be no change. Why then, I ask, should we praise him? He could not have been different from what he was and is. Why should we pray to him? He cannot change.
And yet Christians implore their God not to do wrong.
The meanest thing charged against the Devil is that he leads the children of men into temptation, and yet, in the Lord's Prayer, God is insultingly asked not to imitate the king of fiends.
"Lead us not into temptation."
Why should God demand praise? He is as lie was. He has never learned anything; has never practiced any self-denial; was never tempted, never touched by fear or hope, and never had a want. Why should he demand our praise?
Does anyone know that this God exists; that he ever heard or answered any prayer? Is it known that he governs the world; that he interferes in the affairs of men; that he protects the good or punishes the wicked? Can evidence of this be found in the history of mankind? If God governs the world, why should we credit him for the good and not charge him with the evil? To justify this God we must say that good is good and that evil is also good. If all is done by this God we should make no distinction between his actions—between the actions of the infinitely wise, powerful and good. If we thank him for sunshine and harvest we should also thank him for plague and famine. If we thank him for liberty, the slave should raise his chained hands in worship and thank God that he toils unpaid with the lash upon his naked back. If we thank him for victory we should thank him for defeat.
Only a few days ago our President, by proclamation, thanked God for giving us the victory at Santiago. He did not thank him for sending the yellow fever. To be consistent the President should have thanked him equally for both.
The truth is that good and evil spirits—gods and devils—are beyond the realm of experience; beyond the horizon of our senses; beyond the limits of our thoughts; beyond imagination's utmost flight.
Man should think; he should use all his senses; he should examine; he should reason. The man who cannot think is less than man; the man who will not think is traitor to himself; the man who fears to think is superstition's slave.
VI.
What harm does superstition do? What harm in believing in fables, in legends?
To believe in signs and wonders, in amulets, charms and miracles, in gods and devils, in heavens and hells, makes the brain an insane ward, the world a madhouse, takes all certainty from the mind, makes experience a snare, destroys the kinship of effect and cause—the unity of nature—and makes man a trembling serf and slave. With this belief a knowledge of nature sheds no light upon the path to be pursued. Nature becomes a puppet of the unseen powers. The fairy, called the supernatural, touches with her wand a fact, it disappears. Causes are barren of effects, and effects are independent of all natural causes. Caprice is king. The foundation is gone. The great dome rests on air. There is no constancy in qualities, relations or results. Reason abdicates and superstition wears her crown.
The heart hardens and the brain softens.
The energies of man are wasted in a vain effort to secure the protection of the supernatural. Credulity, ceremony, worship, sacrifice and prayer take the place of honest work, of investigation, of intellectual effort, of observation, of experience. Progress becomes impossible.
Superstition is, always lias been, and forever will be, the enemy of liberty.
Superstition created all the gods and angels, all the devils and ghosts, all the witches, demons and goblins, gave us all the augurs, soothsayers and prophets, filled the heavens with signs and wonders, broke the chain of cause and effect, and wrote the history of man in miracles and lies. Superstition made all the popes, cardinals, bishops and priests, all the monks and nuns, the begging friars and the filthy saints, all the preachers and exhorters, all the "called" and "set apart." Superstition made men fall upon their knees before beasts and stones, caused them to worship snakes and trees and insane phantoms of the air, beguiled them of their gold and toil, and made them shed their children's blood and give their babes to flames. Superstition built the cathedrals and temples, all the altars, mosques and churches, filled the world with amulets and charms, with images and idols, with sacred bones and holy hairs, with martyrs' blood and rags, with bits, of wood that frighten devils from the breasts of men. Superstition invented and used the instruments of torture, flayed men and women alive, loaded millions, with chains and destroyed hundreds of thousands with fire. Superstition mistook insanity for inspiration and the ravings of maniacs for prophesy, for the wisdom of God. Superstition imprisoned the virtuous, tortured the thoughtful, killed the heroic, put chains on the body, manacles on the brain, and utterly destroyed the liberty of speech. Superstition gave us all the prayers and ceremonies; taught all the kneelings, genuflections and prostrations; taught men to hate themselves, to despise pleasure, to scar their flesh, to grovel in the dust, to desert their wives and children, to shun their fellow-men, and to spend their lives in useless pain and prayer. Superstition taught that human love is degrading, low and vile; taught that monks are purer than fathers, that nuns are holier than mothers, that faith is superior to fact, that credulity leads to heaven, that doubt is the road to hell, that belief is better than knowledge, and that to ask for evidence is to insult God. Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom. It sacrifices the known to the unknown, the present to the future, this actual world to the shadowy next. It has given us a selfish heaven, and a hell of infinite revenge; it has filled the world with hatred, war and crime, with the malice of meekness and the arrogance of humility. Superstition is the only enemy of science in all the world.
Nations, races, have been destroyed by this monster. For nearly two thousand years the infallible agent of God has lived in Italy. That country has been covered with nunneries, monasteries, cathedrals and temples—filled with all varieties of priests and holy men. For centuries Italy was enriched with the gold of the faithful. All roads led to Rome, and these roads were filled with pilgrims bearing gifts, and yet Italy, in spite of all the prayers, steadily pursued the downward path, died and was buried, and would at this moment be in her grave had it not been for Cavour, Mazzini and Garibaldi. For her poverty, her misery, she is indebted to the holy Catholic Church, to the infallible agents of God. For the life she has she is indebted to the enemies of superstition. A few years ago Italy was great enough to build a monument to Giordano Bruno—Bruno, the victim of the "Triumphant Beast;"—Bruno, the sublimest of her sons.
Spain was at one time owner of half the earth, and held within her greedy hands the gold and silver of the world. At that time all nations were in the darkness of superstition. At that time the world was governed by priests. Spain clung to her creed. Some nations began to think, but Spain continued to believe. In some countries, priests lost power, but not in Spain. The power behind her throne was the cowled monk. In some countries men began to interest themselves in science, but not in Spain. Spain told her beads and continued to pray to the Virgin. Spain was busy-saving her soul. In her zeal she destroyed herself. She relied on the supernatural; not on knowledge, but superstition. Her prayers were never answered. The saints were dead. They could not help, and the Blessed Virgin did not hear. Some countries were in the dawn of a new day, but Spain gladly remained in the night. With fire and sword she exterminated the men who thought. Her greatest festival was the Auto da Fe. Other nations grew great while Spain grew small. Day by day her power waned, but her faith increased. One by one her colonies were lost, but she kept her creed. She gave her gold to superstition, her brain to priests, but she faithfully counted her beads. Only a few days ago, relying on her God and his priests, on charms and amulets, on holy water and pieces of the true cross, she waged war against the great Republic. Bishops blessed her armies and sprinkled holy water on her ships, and yet her armies were defeated and captured, lier ships battered, beached and burned, and in her helplessness she sued for peace. But she has her creed; her superstition is not lost. Poor Spain, wrecked by faith, the victim of religion!
Portugal, slowly dying, growing poorer every day, still clings to the faith. Her prayers are never answered, but she makes them still. Austria is nearly gone, a victim of superstition. Germany is traveling toward the night. God placed her Kaiser on the throne. The people must obey. Philosophers and scientists fall upon, their knees and become the puppets of the divinely crowned.
VII.
The believers in the supernatural, in a power superior to nature, in God, have what they call "inspired books." These books contain the absolute truth. They must be believed. He who denies them will be punished with eternal pain. These books are not addressed to human reason. They are above reason. They care nothing for what a man calls "facts." Facts that do not agree with these books are mistakes. These books are independent of human experience, of human reason.
Our inspired books constitute what we call the "Bible." The man who reads this inspired book, looking for contradictions, mistakes and interpolations, imperils the salvation of his soul. While he reads he has no right to think, no right to reason. To believe is his only duty.
Millions of men have wasted their lives in the study of this book—in trying to harmonize contradictions and to explain the obscure and seemingly absurd. In doing this they have justified nearly every crime and every cruelty. In its follies they have found the profoundest wisdom. Hundreds of creeds have been constructed from its inspired passages.
Probably no two of its readers have agreed as to its meaning. Thousands have studied Hebrew and Greek that they might read the Old and New Testament in the languages in which they were written. The more they studied, the more they differed. By the same book they proved that nearly everybody is to be lost, and that all are to be saved; that slavery is a divine institution, and that all men should be free; that polygamy is right, and that no man should have more than one wife; that the powers that be are ordained of God, and that the people have a right to overturn and destroy the powers that be; that all the actions of men were predestined—preordained from eternity, and yet that man is free; that all the heathen will be lost; that all the heathen will be saved; that all men who live according to the light of nature will be damned for their pains; that you must be baptized by sprinkling; that you must be baptized by immersion; that there is no salvation without baptism; that baptism is useless; that you must believe in the Trinity; that it is sufficient to believe in God; that you must believe that a Hebrew peasant was God; that at the same time he was half man, that he was of the blood of David through his supposed father Joseph, who was not his father, and that it is not necessary to believe that Christ was God; that you must believe that the Holy Ghost proceeded; that it makes no difference whether you do or not; that you must keep the Sabbath holy; that Christ taught nothing of the kind; that Christ established a church; that he established no church; that the dead are to be raised; that there is to be no resurrection; that Christ is coming again; that he has made his last visit; that Christ went to hell and preached to the spirits in prison; that he did nothing of the kind; that all the Jews are going to perdition; that they are all going to heaven; that all the miracles described in the Bible were performed; that some of them were not, because they are foolish, childish and idiotic; that all the Bible is inspired; that some of the books are not inspired; that there is to be a general judgment, when the sheep and goats are to be divided; that there never will be any general judgment; that the sacramental bread and wine are changed into the flesh and blood of God and the Trinity; that they are not changed; that God has no flesh or blood; that there is a place called "purgatory;" that there is no such place; that unbaptized infants will be lost; that they will be saved; that we must believe the Apostles' Creed; that the apostles made no creed; that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ; that Joseph was his father; that the Holy Ghost had the form of a dove; that there is no Holy Ghost; that heretics should be killed; that you must not resist evil; that you should murder unbelievers; that you must love your enemies; that you should take no thought for the morrow, but should be diligent in business; that you should lend to all who ask, and that One who does not provide for his own household is worse than an infidel.
In defence of all these creeds, all these contradictions, thousands of volumes have been written, millions of sermons have been preached, countless swords reddened with blood, and thousands and thousands of nights made lurid with the faggot's flames.
Hundreds and hundreds of commentators have obscured and darkened the meaning of the plainest texts, spiritualized dates, names, numbers and even genealogies. They have degraded the poetic, changed parables to history, and imagery to stupid and impossible facts. They have wrestled with rhapsody and prophecy, with visions and dreams, with illusions and delusions, with myths and miracles, with the blunders of ignorance, the ravings of insanity and the ecstasy of hysterics. Millions of priests and preachers have added to the mysteries of the inspired book by explanation, by showing the wisdom of foolishness, the foolishness of wisdom, the mercy of cruelty and the probability of the impossible.
The theologians made the Bible a master and the people its slaves. With this book they destroyed intellectual veracity, the natural manliness of man. With this book they banished pity from the heart, subverted all ideas of justice and fairness, imprisoned the soul in the dungeon of fear and made honest doubt a crime.
Think of what the world has suffered from fear. Think of the millions who were driven to insanity. Think of the fearful nights—nights filled with phantoms, with flying, crawling monsters, with hissing serpents that slowly uncoiled, with vague and formless horrors, with burning and malicious eyes.
Think of the fear of death, of infinite wrath, of everlasting revenge in the prisons of fire, of an eternity, of thirst, of endless regret, of the sobs and sighs, the shrieks and groans of eternal pain!
Think of the hearts hardened, of the hearts broken, of the cruelties inflicted, of the agonies endured, of the lives darkened.
The inspired Bible has been and is the greatest curse of Christendom, and will so remain as long as it is held to be inspired.
VIII.
Our God was made by men, sculptured by savages who did the best they could. They made our God somewhat like themselves, and gave to him their passions, their ideas of right and wrong.
As man advanced he slowly changed his God—took a little ferocity from his heart, and put the light of kindness in his eyes. As man progressed he obtained a wider view, extended the intellectual horizon, and again he changed his God, making him as nearly perfect as he could, and yet this God was patterned after those who made him. As man became civilized, as he became merciful, he began to love justice, and as his mind expanded his ideal became purer, nobler, and so his God became more merciful, more loving.
In our day Jehovah has been outgrown. He is no longer the perfect. Now theologians talk, not about Jehovah, but about a God of love, call him the Eternal Father and the perpetual friend and providence of man. But, while they talk about this God of love, cyclones wreck and rend, the earthquake devours, the flood destroys, the red bolt leaping from the cloud still crashes the life out of men, and plague and fever still are tireless reapers in the harvest fields of death.
They tell us now that all is good; that evil is but blessing in disguise, that pain makes strong and virtuous men—makes character—while pleasure enfeebles and degrades. If this be so, the souls in hell should grow to greatness, while those in heaven should shrink and shrivel.
But we know that good is good. We know that good is not evil, and that evil is not good. We know that light is not darkness, and that darkness is not light. But we do not feel that good and evil were planned and caused by a supernatural God. We regard them both as necessities. We neither thank nor curse. We know that some evil can be avoided and that the good can be increased. We know that this can be done by increasing knowledge, by developing the brain.
As Christians have changed their God, so they have accordingly changed their Bible. The impossible and absurd, the cruel and the infamous, have been mostly thrown aside, and thousands are now engaged in trying to save the inspired word. Of course, the orthodox still cling to every word, and still insist that every line is true. They are literalists.
To them the Bible means exactly what it says.
They want no explanation. They care nothing for commentators. Contradictions cannot disturb their faith. They deny that any contradictions exist. They loyally stand by the sacred text, and they give it the narrowest possible interpretation. They are like the janitor of an apartment house who refused to rent a flat to a gentleman because he said he had children. "But," said the gentleman, "my children are both married and live in Iowa." "That makes no difference," said the janitor, "I am not allowed to rent a flat to any man who has children."
All the orthodox churches are obstructions on the highway of progress. Every orthodox creed is a chain, a dungeon. Every believer in the "inspired book" is a slave who drives reason from her throne, and in her stead crowns fear.
Reason is the light, the sun, of the brain. It is the compass of the mind, the ever-constant Northern Star, the mountain peak that lifts itself above all clouds.
IX.
There were centuries of darkness when religion had control of Christendom. Superstition was almost universal. Not one in twenty thousand could read or write. During these centuries the people lived with their back to the sunrise, and pursued their way toward the dens of ignorance and faith. There was no progress, no invention, no discovery. On every hand cruelty and worship, persecution and prayer. The priests were the enemies of thought, of investigation. They were the shepherds, and the people were their sheep and it was their business to guard the flock from the wolves of thought and doubt. This world was of no importance compared with the next. This life was to be spent in preparing for the life to come. The gold and labor of men were wasted in building cathedrals and in supporting the pious and the useless. During these Dark Ages of Christianity, as I said before, nothing was invented, nothing was discovered, calculated to increase the well-being of men. The energies of Christendom were wasted in the vain effort to obtain assistance from the supernatural.
For centuries the business of Christians was to wrest from the followers of Mohammed the empty sepulcher of Christ. Upon the altar of this folly millions of lives were sacrificed, and yet the soldiers of the impostor were victorious, and the wretches who carried the banner of Christ were scattered like leaves before the storm.
There was, I believe, one invention during these ages. It is said that, in the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk, invented gunpowder, but this invention was without a fellow. Yet we cannot give Christianity the credit, because Bacon was an infidel, and was great enough to say that in all things reason must be the standard. He was persecuted and imprisoned, as most sensible men were in those blessed days. The church was triumphant. The sceptre and mitre were in her hands, and yet her success was the result of force and fraud, and it carried within itself the seeds of its defeat. The church attempted the impossible. It endeavored to make the world of one belief; to force all minds to a common form, and utterly destroy the individuality of man. To accomplish this it employed every art and artifice that cunning could suggest It inflicted every cruelty by every means that malice could invent.
But, in spite of all, a few men began to think.
They became interested in the affairs of this world—in the great panorama of nature. They began to seek for causes, for the explanations of phenomena. They were not satisfied with the assertions of the church. These thinkers withdrew their gaze from the skies and looked at their own surroundings. They were unspiritual enough to desire comfort here. They became sensible and secular, worldly and wise.
What was the result? They began to invent, to discover, to find the relation between facts, the conditions of happiness and the means that would increase the well-being of their fellow-men.
Movable types were invented, paper was borrowed from the Moors, books appeared, and it became possible to save the intellectual wealth so that each generation could hand it to the next. History began to take the place of legend and rumor. The telescope was invented. The orbits of the stars were traced, and men became citizens of the universe. The steam engine was constructed, and now steam, the great slave, does the work of hundreds of millions of men. The Black Art, the impossible, was abandoned, and chemistry, the useful, took its place. Astrology became astronomy. Kepler discovered the three great laws, one of the greatest triumphs of human genius, and our constellation became a poem, a symphony. Newton gave us the mathematical expression of the attraction of gravitation. Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. He gave us the fact, and Draper gave us the reason. Steamships conquered the seas and railways covered the land. Houses and streets were lighted with gas. Through the invention of matches fire became the companion of man. The art of photography became known; the sun became an artist. Telegraphs and cables were invented. The lightning became a carrier of thought, and the nations became neighbors. Anaesthetics were discovered and pain was lost in sleep. Surgery became a science. The telephone was invented—the telephone that carries and deposits in listening ears the waves of words. The phonograph, that catches and retains in marks and dots and gives again the echoes of our speech.
Then came electric light that fills the night with day, and all the wonderful machines that use the subtle force—the same force that leaps from the summer cloud to ravage and destroy.
The Spectrum Analysis that tells us of the substance of the sun; the Röntgen rays that change the opaque to the transparent. The great thinkers demonstrated the indestructibility of force and matter—demonstrated that the indestructible could not have been created. The geologist, in rocks and deposits and mountains and continents, read a little of the story of the world—of its changes, of the glacial epoch—the story of vegetable and animal life.
The biologists, through the fossil forms of life, established the antiquity of man and demonstrated the worthlessness of Holy Writ. Then came evolution, the survival of the fittest and natural selection. Thousands of mysteries were explained and science wrested the sceptre from superstition. The cell theory was advanced, and embryology was studied; the microscope discovered germs of disease and taught us how to stay the plague. These great theories and discoveries, together with countless inventions, are the children of intellectual liberty.
X.
After all we know but little. In the darkness of life there are a few gleams of light. Possibly the dropping of a dishcloth prophesies the coming of company, but we have no evidence. Possibly it is dangerous for thirteen to dine together, but we have no evidence. Possibly a maiden's matrimonial chances are determined by the number of seeds in an apple, or by the number of leaves on a flower, but we have no evidence. Possibly certain stones give good luck to the wearer, while the wearing of others brings loss and death. Possibly a glimpse of the new moon over the left shoulder brings misfortune. Possibly there are curative virtues in old bones, in sacred rags and holy hairs, in images and bits of wood, in rusty nails and dried blood, but the trouble is we have no evidence. Possibly comets, eclipses and shooting stars foretell the death of kings, the destruction of nations or the coming of plague. Possibly devils take possession of the bodies and minds of men. Possibly witches, with the Devil's help, control the winds, breed storms on sea and land, fill summer's lap with frosts and snow, and work with charm and spell against the public weal, but of this we have no evidence. It may be that all the miracles described in the Old and New Testament were performed; that the pallid flesh of the dead felt once more the thrill of life; that the corpse arose and felt upon his smiling lips the kiss of wife and child. Possibly water was turned into wine, loaves and fishes increased, and possibly devils were expelled from men and women; possibly fishes were found with money in their mouths; possibly clay and spittle brought back the light to sightless eyes, and possibly words cured disease and made the leper clean, but of this we have no evidence.
Possibly iron floated, rivers divided, waters burst from dry bones, birds carried food to prophets and angels flourished drawn swords, but of this we have no evidence.
Possibly Jehovah employed lying spirits to deceive a king, and all the wonders of the savage world may have happened, but the trouble is there is no proof.
So there may be a Devil, almost infinite in cunning and power, and he may have a countless number of imps whose only business is to sow the seeds of evil and to vex, mislead, capture and imprison in eternal flames the souls of men. All this, so far as we know, is possible. All we know is that we have no evidence except the assertions of ignorant priests.
Possibly there is a place called "hell," where all the devils live—a hell whose flames are waiting for, all the men who think and have the courage to express their thoughts, for all who fail to credit priests and sacred books, for all who walk the path that reason lights, for all the good and brave who lack credulity and faith—but of this, I am happy to say, there is no proof.
And so there may be a place called "heaven," the home of God, where angels float and fly and play on harps and hear with joy the groans and shrieks of the lost in hell, but of this there is no evidence.
It all rests on dreams and visions of the insane.
There may be a power superior to nature, a power that governs and directs all things, but the existence of this power has not been established.
In the presence of the mysteries of life and thought, of force and substance, of growth and decay, of birth and death, of joy and pain, of the sufferings of the good, the triumphs of wrong, the intelligent honest man is compelled to say: "I do not know."
But we do know how gods and devils, heavens and hells, have been made. We know the history of inspired books—the origin of religions. We know how the seeds of superstition were planted and what made them grow. We know that all superstitions, all creeds, all follies and mistakes, all crimes and cruelties, all virtues, vices, hopes and fears, all discoveries and inventions, have been naturally produced. By the light of reason we divide the useful from the hurtful, the false from the true.
We know the past—the paths that man has traveled—his mistakes, his triumphs. We know a few facts, a few fragments, and the imagination, the artist of the mind, with these facts, these fragments, rebuilds the past, and on the canvas of the future deftly paints the things to be.
We believe in the natural, in the unbroken and unbreakable succession of causes and effects. We deny the existence of the supernatural. We do not believe in any God who can be pleased with incense, with kneeling, with bell-ringing, psalm-singing, bead-counting, fasting or prayer—in any God who can be flattered by words of faith or fear.
We believe in the natural. We have no fear of devils, ghosts or hells. We believe that Mahatmas, astral bodies, materializations of spirits, crystal gazing, seeing the future, telepathy, mind reading and Christian Science are only cunning frauds, the genuineness of which is established by the testimony of incompetent, honest witnesses. We believe that Cunning plates fraud with the gold of honesty, and veneers vice with virtue.
We know that millions are seeking the impossible—trying to secure the aid of the supernatural—to solve the problem of life—to guess the riddle of destiny, and to pluck from the future its secret. We know that all their efforts are in vain.
We believe in the natural. We believe in home and fireside—in wife and child and friend—in the realities of this world. We have faith in facts—in knowledge—in the development of the brain. We throw away superstition and welcome science. We banish the phantoms, the mistakes and lies and cling to the truth. We do not enthrone the unknown and crown our ignorance. We do not stand with our backs to the sun and mistake our shadow for God.
We do not create a master and thankfully wear his chains. We do not enslave ourselves. We want no leaders—no followers. Our desire is that every human being shall be true to himself, to his ideal, unbribed by promises, careless of threats. We want no tyrant on the earth or in the air.
We know that superstition has given us delusions and illusions, dreams and visions, ceremonies and cruelties, faith and fanaticism, beggars and bigots, persecutions and prayers, theology and torture, piety and poverty, saints and slaves, miracles and mummeries, disease and death.
We know that science has given us all we have of value. Science is the only civilizer. It has freed the slave, clothed the naked, fed the hungry, lengthened life, given us homes and hearths, pictures and books, ships and railways, telegraphs and cables, engines that tirelessly turn the countless wheels, and it has destroyed the monsters, the phantoms, the winged horrors that filled the savage brain.
Science is the real redeemer. It will put honesty above hypocrisy; mental veracity above all belief. It will teach the religion of usefulness. It will destroy bigotry in all its forms. It will put thoughtful doubt above thoughtless faith. It will give us philosophers, thinkers and savants, instead of priests, theologians and saints. It will abolish poverty and crime, and greater, grander, nobler than all else, it will make the whole world free.
IF THE DEVIL SHOULD DIE WOULD GOD MAKE ANOTHER?
A little while ago I delivered a lecture on "Superstition," in which, among other things, I said that the Christian world could not deny the existence of the Devil; that the Devil was really the keystone of the arch, and that to take him away was to destroy the entire system.
A great many clergymen answered or criticised this statement. Some of these ministers avowed their belief in the existence of his Satanic Majesty, while others actually denied his existence; but some, without stating their own position, said that others believed, not in the existence of a personal devil, but in the personification of evil, and that all references to the Devil in the Scriptures could be explained on the hypothesis that the Devil thus alluded to was simply a personification of evil.
When I read these answers I thought of this line from Heine: "Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ."
Now, the questions are, first, whether the Devil does really exist; second, whether the sacred Scriptures teach the existence of the Devil and of unclean spirits, and third, whether this belief in devils is a necessary part of what is known as "orthodox Christianity."
Now, where did the idea that a Devil exists come from? How was it produced?
Fear is an artist—a sculptor—a painter. All tribes and nations, having suffered, having been the sport and prey of natural phenomena, having been struck by lightning, poisoned by weeds, overwhelmed by volcanoes, destroyed by earthquakes, believed in the existence of a Devil, who was the king—the ruler—of innumerable smaller devils, and all these devils have been from time immemorial regarded as the enemies of men.
Along the banks of the Ganges wandered the Asuras, the most powerful of evil spirits. Their business was to war against the Devas—that is to say, the gods—and at the same time against human beings. There, too, were the ogres, the Jakshas and many others who killed and devoured human beings.
The Persians turned this around, and with them the Asuras were good and the Devas bad. Ormuzd was the good—the god—Ahriman the evil—the devil —and between the god and the devil was waged a perpetual war. Some of the Persians thought that the evil would finally triumph, but others insisted that the good would be the victor.
In Egypt the devil was Set—or, as usually called, Typhon—and the good god was Osiris. Set and his legions fought against Osiris and against the human race.
Among the Greeks, the Titans were the enemies of the gods. Ate was the spirit that tempted, and such was her power that at one time she tempted and misled the god of gods, even Zeus himself.
These ideas about gods and devils often changed, because in the days of Socrates a demon was not a devil, but a guardian angel.
We obtain our Devil from the Jews, and they got him from Babylon. The Jews cultivated the science of Demonology, and at one time it was believed that there were nine kinds of demons: Beelzebub, prince of the false gods of the other nations; the Pythian Apollo, prince of liars; Belial, prince of mischief-makers; Asmodeus, prince of revengeful devils; Satan, prince of witches and magicians; Meresin, prince of aerial devils, who caused thunderstorms and plagues; Abaddon, who caused wars, tumults and combustions; Diabolus, who drives to despair, and Mammon, prince of the tempters.
It was believed that demons and sorcerers frequently came together and held what were called "Sabbats;" that is to say, orgies. It was also known that sorcerers and witches had marks on their bodies that had been imprinted by the Devil.
Of course these devils were all made by the people, and in these devils we find the prejudices of their makers. The Europeans always represent their devils as black, while the Africans believed that theirs were white.
So, it was believed that people by the aid of the Devil could assume any shape that they wished. Witches and wizards were changed into wolves, dogs, cats and serpents. This change to animal form was exceedingly common.
Within two years, between 1598 and 1600, in one district of France, the district of Jura, more than six hundred men and women were tried and convicted before one judge of having changed themselves into wolves, and all were put to death.
This is only one instance. There are thousands.
There is no time to give the history of this belief in devils. It has been universal. The consequences have been terrible beyond the imagination. Millions and millions of men, women and children, of fathers and mothers, have been sacrificed upon the altar of this ignorant and idiotic belief.
Of course, the Christians of to-day do not believe that the devils of the Hindus, Egyptians, Persians or Babylonians existed. They think that those nations created their own devils, precisely the same as they did their own gods. But the Christians of to-day admit that for many centuries Christians did believe in the existence of countless devils; that the Fathers of the church believed as sincerely in the Devil and his demons as in God and his angels; that they were just as sure about hell as heaven.
I admit that people did the best they could to account for what they saw, for what they experienced. I admit that the devils as well as the gods were naturally produced—the effect of nature upon the human brain. The cause of phenomena filled our ancestors not only with wonder, but with terror. The miraculous, the supernatural, was not only believed in, but was always expected.
A man walking in the woods at night—just a glimmering of the moon—everything uncertain and shadowy—sees a monstrous form. One arm is raised. His blood grows cold, his hair lifts. In the gloom he sees the eyes of an ogre—eyes that flame with malice. He feels that the something is approaching. He turns, and with a cry of horror takes to his heels. He is afraid to look back. Spent, out of breath, shaking with fear, he reaches his hut and falls at the door. When he regains consciousness, he tells his story and, of course, the children believe. When they become men and women they tell father's story of having seen the Devil to their children, and so the children and grandchildren not only believe, but think they know, that their father—their grandfather—actually saw a devil.
An old woman sitting by the fire at night—a storm raging without—hears the mournful sough of the wind. To her it becomes a voice. Her imagination is touched, and the voice seems to utter words. Out of these words she constructs a message or a warning from the unseen world. If the words are good, she has heard an angel; if they are threatening and malicious, she has heard a devil. She tells this to her children and they believe. They say that mother's religion is good enough for them. A girl suffering from hysteria falls into a trance—has visions of the infernal world. The priest sprinkles holy water on her pallid face, saying: "She hath a devil." A man utters a terrible cry; falls to the ground; foam and blood issue from his mouth; his limbs are convulsed. The spectators say: "This is the Devil's work."
Through all the ages people have mistaken dreams and visions of fear for realities. To them the insane were inspired; epileptics were possessed by devils; apoplexy was the work of an unclean spirit. For many centuries people believed that they had actually seen the malicious phantoms of the night, and so thorough was this belief—so vivid—that they made pictures of them. They knew how they looked. They drew and chiseled their hoofs, their horns—all their malicious deformities.
Now, I admit that all these monsters were naturally produced. The people believed that hell was their native land; that the Devil was a king, and that lie and his imps waged war against the children of men. Curiously enough some of these devils were made out of degraded gods, and, naturally enough, many devils were made out of the gods of other nations. So that frequently the gods of one people were the devils of another.
In nature there are opposing forces. Some of the forces work for what man calls good; some for what he calls evil. Back of these forces our ancestors put will, intelligence and design. They could not believe that the good and evil came from the same being. So back of the good they put God; back of the evil, the Devil.
II. THE ATLAS OF CHRISTIANITY IS THE DEVIL.
The religion known as "Christianity" was invented by God himself to repair in part the wreck and ruin that had resulted from the Devil's work.
Take the Devil from the scheme of salvation—from the atonement—from the dogma of eternal pain—and the foundation is gone.
The Devil is the keystone of the arch.
He inflicted the wounds that Christ came to heal. He corrupted the human race.
The question now is: Does the Old Testament teach the existence of the Devil?
If the Old Testament teaches anything, it does teach the existence of the Devil, of Satan, of the Serpent, of the enemy of God and man, the deceiver of men and women.
Those who believe the Scriptures are compelled to say that this Devil was created by God, and that God knew when he created him just what he would do—the exact measure of his success; knew that he would be a successful rival; knew that he would deceive and corrupt the children of men; knew that, by reason of this Devil, countless millions of human beings would suffer eternal torment in the prison of pain. And this God also knew when he created the Devil, that he, God, would be compelled to leave his throne, to be bom a babe in Palestine, and to suffer a cruel death. All this he knew when he created the Devil. Why did he create him?
It is no answer to say that this Devil was once an angel of light and fell from his high estate because he was free. God knew what he would do with his freedom when he made him and gave him liberty of action, and as a matter of fact must have made him with the intention that he should rebel; that he should fall; that he should become a devil; that he should tempt and corrupt the father and mother of the human race; that he should make hell a necessity, and that, in consequence of his creation, countless millions of the children of men would suffer eternal pain. Why did he create him?
Admit that God is infinitely wise. Has he ingenuity enough to frame an excuse for the creation of the Devil?
Does the Old Testament teach the existence of a real, living Devil?
The first account of this being is found in Genesis, and in that account he is called the "Serpent." He is declared to have been more subtle than any beast of the field. According to the account, this Serpent had a conversation with Eve, the first woman. We are not told in what language they conversed, or how they understood each other, as this was the first time they had met. Where did Eve get her language? Where did the Serpent get his? Of course, such questions are impudent, but at the same time they are natural.
The result of this conversation was that Eve ate the forbidden fruit and induced Adam to do the same. This is what is called the "Fall," and for this they were expelled from the Garden of Eden.
On account of this, God cursed the earth with weeds and thorns and brambles, cursed man with toil, made woman a slave, and cursed maternity with pain and sorrow.
How men—good men—can worship this God; how women—good women—can love this Jehovah, is beyond my imagination.
In addition to the other curses the Serpent was cursed—condemned to crawl on his belly and to eat dust. We do not know by what means, before that time, he moved from place to place—whether he walked or flew; neither do we know on what food he lived; all we know is that after that time he crawled and lived on dust. Jehovah told him that this he should do all the days of his life. It would seem from this that the Serpent was not at that time immortal—that there was somewhere in the future a milepost at which the life of this Serpent stopped. Whether he is living yet or not, I am not certain.
It will not do to say that this is allegory, or a poem, because this proves too much. If the Serpent did not in fact exist, how do we know that Adam and Eve existed? Is all that is said about God allegory, and poetic, or mythical? Is the whole account, after all, an ignorant dream?
Neither will it do to say that the Devil—the Serpent—was a personification of evil. Do personifications of evil talk? Can a personification of evil crawl on its belly? Can a personification of evil eat dust? If we say that the Devil was a personification of evil, are we not at the same time compelled to say that Jehovah was a personification of good; that the Garden of Eden was the personification of a place, and that the whole story is a personification of something that did not happen? Maybe that Adam and Eve were not driven out of the Garden; they may have suffered only the personification of exile. And maybe the cherubim placed at the gate of Eden, with flaming swords, were only personifications of policemen.
There is no escape. If the Old Testament is true, the Devil does exist, and it is impossible to explain him away without at the same time explaining God away.
So there are many references to devils, and spirits of divination and of evil which I have not the time to call attention to; but, in the Book of Job, Satan, the Devil has a conversation with God. It is this Devil that brings the sorrows and losses on the upright man. It is this Devil that raises the storm that wrecks the homes of Job's children. It is this Devil that kills the children of Job. Take this Devil from that book, and all meaning, plot and purpose fade away.
Is it possible to say that the Devil in Job was only a personification of evil?
In Chronicles we are told that Satan provoked David to number Israel. For this act of David, caused by the Devil, God did not smite the Devil, did not punish David, but he killed 70,000 poor innocent Jews who had done nothing but stand up and be counted.
Was this Devil who tempted David a personification of evil, or was Jehovah a personification of the devilish?
In Zachariah we are told that Joshua stood before the angel of the Lord, and that Satan stood at his right hand to resist him, and that the Lord rebuked Satan.
If words convey any meaning, the Old Testament teaches the existence of the Devil.
All the passages about witches and those having familiar spirits were born of a belief in the Devil.
When a man who loved Jehovah wanted revenge on his enemy he fell on his holy knees, and from a heart full of religion he cried: "Let Satan stand at his right hand."
III. TAKE THE DEVIL FROM THE DRAMA OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE PLOT IS GONE.
The next question is: Does the New Testament teach the existence of the Devil?
As a matter of fact, the New Testament is far more explicit than the Old. The Jews, believing that Jehovah was God, had very little business for a devil. Jehovah was wicked enough and malicious enough to take the Devil's place.
The first reference in the New Testament to the Devil is in the fourth chapter of Matthew. We are told that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.
It seems that he was not led by the Devil into the wilderness, but by the Spirit; that the Spirit and the Devil were acting together in a kind of pious conspiracy.
In the wilderness Jesus fasted forty days, and then the Devil asked him to turn stones into bread. The Devil also took him to Jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and tried to induce him to leap to the earth. The Devil also took him to the top of a mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and offered them all to him in exchange for his worship. Jesus refused. The Devil went away and angels came and ministered to Christ.
Now, the question is: Did the author of this account believe in the existence of the Devil, or did he regard this Devil as a personification of evil, and did he intend that his account should be understood as an allegory, or as a poem, or as a myth.
Was Jesus tempted? If he was tempted, who tempted him? Did anybody offer him the kingdoms of the world?
Did the writer of the account try to convey to the reader the thought that Christ was tempted by the Devil?
If Christ was not tempted by the Devil, then the temptation was bom in his own heart. If that be true, can it be said that he was divine? If these adders, these vipers, were coiled in his bosom, was he the son of God? Was he pure?
In the same chapter we are told that Christ healed "those which were possessed of devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy." From this it is evident that a distinction was made between those possessed with devils and those whose minds were affected and those who were afflicted with diseases.
In the eighth chapter we are told that people brought unto Christ many that were possessed with devils, and that he cast out the spirits with his word. Now, can we say that these people were possessed with personifications of evil, and that these personifications of evil were cast out? Are these personifications entities? Have they form and shape? Do they occupy space?
Then comes the story of the two men possessed with devils who came from the tombs, and were exceeding fierce. It is said that when they saw Jesus they cried out: "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?"
If these were simply personifications of evil, how did they know that Jesus was the Son of God, and how can a personification of evil be tormented?
We are told that at the same time, a good way off, many swine were feeding, and that the devils besought Christ, saying: "If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine." And he said unto them: "Go."
Is it possible that personifications of evil would desire to enter the bodies of swine, and is it possible that it was necessary for them to have the consent of Christ before they could enter the swine? The question naturally arises: How did they enter into the body of the man? Did they do that without Christ's consent, and is it a fact that Christ protects swine and neglects human beings? Can personifications have desires?
In the ninth chapter of Matthew there was a dumb man brought to Jesus, possessed with a devil. Jesus cast out the devil and the dumb man spake.
Did a personification of evil prevent the dumb man from talking? Did it in some way paralyze his organs of speech? Could it have done this had it only been a personification of evil?
In the tenth chapter Jesus gives his twelve disciples power to cast out unclean spirits. What were unclean spirits supposed to be? Did they really exist? Were they shadows, impersonations, allegories?
When Jesus sent his disciples forth on the great mission to convert the world, among other things he told them to heal the sick, to raise the dead and to cast out devils. Here a distinction is made between the sick and those who were possessed by evil spirits.
Now, what did Christ mean by devils?
In the twelfth chapter we are told of a very remarkable case. There was brought unto Jesus one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb, and Jesus healed him. The blind and dumb both spake and saw. Thereupon the Pharisees said: "This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of devils."
Jesus answered by saying: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. If Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself."
Why did not Christ tell the Pharisees that he did not cast out devils—only personifications of evil; and that with these personifications Beelzebub had nothing to do?
Another question: Did the Pharisees believe in the existence of devils, or had they the personification idea?
At the same time Christ said: "If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you."
If he meant anything by these words he certainly intended to convey the idea that what he did demonstrated the superiority of God over the Devil.
Did Christ believe in the existence of the Devil?
In the fifteenth chapter is the account of the woman of Canaan who cried unto Jesus, saying: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. My daughter is sorely vexed with a devil." On account of her faith Christ made the daughter whole.
In the sixteenth chapter a man brought his son to Jesus. The boy was a lunatic, sore vexed, oftentimes falling in the fire and water. The disciples had tried to cure him and had failed. Jesus rebuked the devil, and the devil departed out of him and the boy was cured. Was the devil in this case a personification of evil?
The disciples then asked Jesus why they could not cast that devil out. Jesus told them that it was because of their unbelief, and then added: "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." From this it would seem that some personifications were easier to expel than others.
The first chapter of Mark throws a little light on the story of the temptation of Christ. Matthew tells us that Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. In Mark we are told who this Spirit was:
"And straightway coming up out of the water he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him.
"And there came a voice from heaven, saying: 'Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'
"And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness."
Why the Holy Ghost should hand Christ over to the tender mercies of the Devil is not explained. And it is all the more wonderful when we remember that the Holy Ghost was the third person in the Trinity and Christ the second, and that this Holy Ghost was, in fact, God, and that Christ also was, in fact, God, so that God led God into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.
We are told that Christ was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan, and was with the wild beasts, and that the angels ministered unto him.
Were these angels real angels, or were they personifications of good, of comfort?
So we see that the same Spirit that came out of heaven, the same Spirit that said "This is my beloved son," drove Christ into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan.
Was this Devil a real being? Was this Spirit who claimed to be the father of Christ a real being, or was he a personification? Are the heavens a real place? Are they a personification? Did the wild beasts live and did the angels minister unto Christ? In other words, is the story true, or is it poetry, or metaphor, or mistake, or falsehood?
It might be asked: Why did God wish to be tempted by the Devil? Was God ambitious to obtain a victory over Satan? Was Satan foolish enough to think that he could mislead God, and is it possible that the Devil offered to give the world as a bribe to its creator and owner, knowing at the same time that Christ was the creator and owner, and also knowing that he (Christ) knew that he (the Devil) knew that he (Christ) was the creator and owner?
Is not the whole story absurdly idiotic? The Devil knew that Christ was God, and knew that Christ knew that the tempter was the Devil.
It may be asked how I know that the Devil knew that Christ was God. My answer is found in the same chapter. There is an account of what a devil said to Christ:
"Let us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee. Thou art the holy one of God." Certainly, if the little devils knew this, the Devil himself must have had like information. Jesus rebuked this devil and said to him: "Hold thy peace, and come out of him." And when the unclean spirit had torn him and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.
So we are told that Jesus cast out many devils, and suffered not the devils to speak because they knew him. So it is said in the third chapter that "unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him and cried, saying, 'Thou art the son of God.'"
In the fifth chapter is an account of casting out the devils that went into the swine, and we are told that "all the devils besought him saying, 'Send us into the swine.' And Jesus gave them leave."
Again I ask: Was it necessary for the devils to get the permission of Christ before they could enter swine? Again I ask: By whose permission did they enter into the man?
Could personifications of evil enter a herd of swine, or could personifications of evil make a bargain with Christ?
In the sixth chapter we are told that the disciples "cast out many devils and anointed with oil many that were sick." Here again the distinction is made between those possessed by devils and those afflicted by disease. It will not do to say that the devils were diseases or personifications.
In the seventh chapter a Greek woman whose daughter was possessed by a devil besought Christ to cast this devil out. At last Christ said: "The devil is gone out of thy daughter."
In the ninth chapter one of the multitude said unto Christ: "I have brought unto thee my son which hath a dumb spirit. I spoke unto thy disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not."
So they brought this boy before Christ, and when the boy saw him, the spirit tare him, and he fell on the ground and "wallowed, foaming."
Christ asked the father: "How long is it ago since this came unto him?" And he answered: "Of a child, and ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him."
Then Christ said: "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him."
"And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him; and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, 'He is dead.'"
Then the disciples asked Jesus why they could not cast them out, and Jesus said: "This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting."
Is there any doubt about the belief of the man who wrote this account? Is there any allegory, or poetry, or myth in this story? The devil, in this case, was not an ordinary, every-day devil. He was dumb and deaf; it was no use to order him out, because he could not hear. The only way was to pray and fast.
Is there such a thing as a dumb and deaf devil? If so, the devils must be organized. They must have ears and organs of speech, and they must be dumb because there is something the matter with the apparatus of speaking, and they must be deaf because something is the matter with their ears. It would seem from this that they are not simply spiritual beings, but organized on a physical basis. Now, we know that the ears do not hear. It is the brain that hears. So these devils must have brains; that is to say, they must have been what we call "organized beings."
Now, it is hardly possible that personifications of evil are dumb or deaf. That is to say, that they have physical imperfections.
In the same chapter John tells Christ that he saw one casting out devils in Christ's name who did not follow with them, and Jesus said: "Forbid him not."
By this he seemed to admit that some one, not a follower of his, was casting out devils in his name, and he was willing that he should go on, because, as he said: "For there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me." In the fourth chapter of Luke the story of the temptation of Christ by the Devil is again told with a few additions. All the writers, having been inspired, did not remember exactly the same things.
Luke tells us that the Devil said unto Christ, having shown him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time: "All this power will I give thee and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou wilt worship me, all shall be thine."
We are also told that when the Devil had ended all the temptation he departed from him for a season. The date of his return is not given.
In the same chapter we are told that a man in the synagogue had a "spirit of an unclean devil." This devil recognized Jesus and admitted that he was the Holy One of God.
As a matter of fact, the apostles seemed to have relied upon the evidence of devils to substantiate the divinity of their Lord.
Jesus said to this devil: "Hold thy peace and come out of him." And the devil, after throwing the man down, came out.
In the forty-first verse of the same chapter it is said: "And devils also came out of many, crying out and saying, 'Thou art Christ, the Son of God.'"
It is also said that Christ rebuked them and suffered them not to speak, for they knew that he was Christ.
Now, it will not do to say that these devils were diseases, because diseases could not talk, and diseases would not recognize Christ as the Son of God. After all, epilepsy is not a theologian. I admit that lunacy comes nearer.
In the eighth chapter is told again the story of the devils and the swine. In this account, Jesus asked the devil his name, and the devil replied "Legion." In the ninth chapter is told the story of the devil that the disciples could not cast out, but was cast out by Christ, and in the thirteenth chapter it is said that the Pharisees came to Jesus, telling him to go away, because Herod would kill him, and Jesus said unto these Pharisees; "Go ye, and tell that fox, behold, I cast out devils."
What did he mean by this? Did he mean that he cured diseases? No. Because in the same sentence he says, "And I do cures to-day," making a distinction between devils and diseases.
In the twenty-second chapter an account of the betrayal of Christ by Judas is given in these words:
"Then entered Satan into Judas Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve."
"And he went his way and communed with the chief priests and captains how he might betray him unto them.
"And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money."
According to Christ the little devils knew that he was the Son of God. Certainly, then, Satan, king of all the fiends, knew that Christ was divine. And he not only knew that, but he knew all about the scheme of salvation. He knew that Christ wished to make an atonement of blood by the sacrifice of himself.
According to Christian theologians, the Devil has always done his utmost to gain possession of the souls of men. At the time he entered into Judas, persuading him to betray Christ, he knew that if Christ was betrayed he would be crucified, and that he would make an atonement for all believers, and that, as a result, he, the Devil, would lose all the souls that Christ gained.
What interest had the Devil in defeating himself? If he could have prevented the betrayal, then Christ would not have been crucified. No atonement would have been made, and the whole world would have gone to hell. The success of the Devil would have been complete. But, according to this story, the Devil outwitted himself.
How thankful we should be to his Satanic Majesty. He opened for us the gates of Paradise and made it possible for us to obtain eternal life. Without Satan, without Judas, not a single human being could have become an angel of light. All would have been wingless devils in the prison of flame. In Jerusalem, to the extent of his power, Satan repaired the wreck and ruin he had wrought in the Garden of Eden.
Certainly the writers of the New Testament believed in the existence of the Devil.
In the eighth chapter it is said that out of Mary Magdalene were cast seven devils. To me Mary Magdalene is the most beautiful character in the New Testament. She is the one true disciple. In the darkness of the crucifixion she lingered near. She was the first at the sepulcher. Defeat, disaster, disgrace, could not conquer her love. And yet, according to the account, when she met the risen Christ, he said: "Touch me not." This was the reward of her infinite devotion.
In the Gospel of John we are told that John the Baptist said that he saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and that it abode upon Christ. But in the Gospel of John nothing is said about the Spirit driving Christ into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. Possibly John never heard of that, or forgot it, or did not believe it. But in the thirteenth chapter I find this:
"And supper being ended, the Devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him."...
In John there are no accounts of the casting out of devils by Christ or his apostles. On that subject there is no word. Possibly John had his doubts.
In the fifth chapter of Acts we are told that the people brought the sick and those which were vexed with unclean spirits to the apostles, and the apostles healed them. Here again there is made a clear distinction between the sick and those possessed by devils. And in the eighth chapter we are told that "unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of them."
In the thirteen chapter Paul calls Elymas the child of the Devil, and in the sixteenth chapter an account is given of "a damsel possessed with a spirit of divination, who brought her masters much gain by soothsaying."
Paul and Silas, it would seem, cast out this spirit, and by reason of that suffered great persecution.
In the nineteenth chapter certain vagabond Jews pronounced over those who had evil spirits the name of Jesus, and the evil spirits answered: "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?"
"And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them so that they fled naked and wounded."
Paul, writing to the Corinthians, in the eighth chapter says; "I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?"
In the eleventh chapter he says that long hair is the glory of woman, but that she ought to keep her head covered because of the angels.
In those intellectual days people believed in what were called the Incubi and the Succubi. The Incubi were male angels and the Succubi were female angels, and according to the belief of that time nothing so attracted the Incubi as the beautiful hair of women, and for this reason Paul said that women should keep their heads covered. Paul calls the Devil the "prince of the power of the air."
So in Jude we are told "that Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, 'The Lord rebuke thee.'" Was this devil with whom Michael contended a personification of evil, or a poem, or a myth?
In First Peter we are told to be sober, vigilant, "because your adversary, the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
Are people devoured by personifications or myths? Has an allegory an appetite, or is a poem a cannibal?
So in Ephesians we are warned not to give place to the Devil, and in the same book we are told: "Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil."
And in Hebrews it is said that "him that had the power of death—that is, the Devil;" showing that the Devil has the power of death.
And in James it is said that if we resist the Devil he will flee from us; and in First John we are told that he that committeth sin is of the Devil, for the reason that the Devil sinneth from the beginning; and we are also told that "for this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he may destroy the works of the Devil."
No Devil—no Christ.
In Revelation, the insanest of all books, I find the following: "And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels.
"And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
"Therefore, rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea; for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."
From this it would appear that the Devil once lived in heaven, raised a rebellion, was defeated and cast out, and the inspired writer congratulates the angels that they are rid of him and commiserates us that we have him.
In the twentieth chapter of Revelation is the following:
"And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
"And he laid Hold on the dragon—that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan—and bound him a thousand years.
"And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and after he must be loosed a little season."
It is hard to understand how one could be confined in a pit without a bottom, and how a chain of iron could hold one in eternal fire, or what use there would be to lock a bottomless pit; but these are questions probably suggested by the Devil.
We are further told that "when the thousand years are expired Satan shall be loosed out of his prison."
"And the Devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever."
In the light of the passages that I have read we can clearly see what the writers of the New Testament believed. About this there can be no honest difference. If the gospels teach the existence of God—of Christ—they teach the existence of the Devil. If the Devil does not exist—if little devils do not enter the bodies of men—the New Testament may be inspired, but it is not true.
The early Christians proved that Christ was divine because he cast out devils. The evidence they offered was more absurd than the statement they sought to prove. They were like the old man who said that he saw a grindstone floating down the river. Some one said that a grindstone would not float. "Ah," said the old man, "but the one I saw had an iron crank in it."
Of course, I do not blame the authors of the gospels. They lived in' a superstitious age, at a time when Rumor was the historian, when Gossip corrected the "proof," and when everything was believed except the facts.
The apostles, like their fellows, believed in miracles and magic. Credulity was regarded as a virtue.
The Rev. Mr. Parkhurst denounces the apostles as worthless cravens. Certainly I do not agree with him. I think that they were good men. I do not believe that any one of them ever tried to reform Jerusalem on the Parkhurst plan. I admit that they honestly believed in devils—that they were credulous and superstitious.
There is one story in the New Testament that illustrates my meaning.
In the fifth chapter of John is the following:
"Now, there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep market, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue 'Bethesda,' having five porches.
"In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk—of blind, halt, withered—waiting for the moving of the water.
"For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
"And a certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
"When Jesus saw him he and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him: 'Wilt thou be made whole??'
"The impotent man answered him: 'Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool; but while I am coming another steppeth down before me.'
"Jesus saith unto him: 'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.'
"And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked."
Does any sensible human being now believe this story? Was the water of Bethesda troubled by an angel? Where did the angel come from? Where do angels live? Did the angel put medicine in the water—just enough to cure one? Did he put in different medicines for different diseases, or did he have a medicine, like those that are patented now, that cured all diseases just the same?
Was the water troubled by an angel? Possibly, what apostles and theologians call an angel a scientist knows as carbonic acid gas.
John does not say that the people thought the water was troubled by an angel, but he states it as a fact. And he tells us, also, as a fact, that the first invalid that got in the water after it had been troubled was cured of what disease he had.
What is the evidence of John worth?
Again I say that if the Devil does not exist the gospels are not inspired. If devils do not exist Christ was either honestly mistaken, insane or an impostor.
If devils do not exist the fall of man is a mistake and the atonement an absurdity. If devils do not exist hell becomes only a dream of revenge.
Beneath the structure called "Christianity" are four corner-stones—the Father, Son, Holy Ghost and Devil.
IV. THE EVIDENCE OF THE CHURCH.
The Devil, was Forced to Father the Failures of God.
All the fathers of the church believed in devils. All the saints won their crowns by overcoming devils. All the popes and cardinals, bishops and priests, believed in devils. Most of their time was occupied in fighting devils. The whole Catholic world, from the lowest layman to the highest priest, believed in devils. They proved the existence of devils by the New Testament. They knew that these devils were citizens of hell. They knew that Satan was their king. They knew that hell was made for the Devil and his angels.
The founders of all the Protestant churches—the makers of all the orthodox creeds—all the leading Protestant theologians, from Luther to the president of Princeton College—were, and are, firm believers in the Devil. All the great commentators believed in the Devil as firmly as they did in God.
Under the "Scheme of Salvation" the Devil was a necessity. Somebody had to be responsible for the thorns and thistles, for the cruelties and crimes. Somebody had to father the mistakes of God. The Devil was the scapegoat of Jehovah.
For hundreds of years, good, honest, zealous Christians contended against the Devil. They fought him day and night, and the thought that they had beaten him gave to their dying lips the smile of victory.
For centuries the church taught that the natural man was totally depraved; that he was by nature a child of the Devil, and that new-born babes were tenanted by unclean spirits.
As late as the middle of the sixteenth century, every infant that was baptized was, by that ceremony, freed from a devil. When the holy water was applied the priest said: "I command thee, thou unclean spirit, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that thou come out and depart from this infant, whom our Lord Jesus Christ has vouchsafed to call to his holy baptism, to be made a member of his body, and of his holy congregation."
At that time the fathers—the theologians, the commentators—agreed that unbaptized children, including those that were born dead, went to hell.
And these same fathers—theologians and commentators—said: "God is love."
These babes were pure as Pity's tears, innocent as their mother's loving smiles, and yet the makers of our creeds believed and taught that leering, unclean fiends inhabited their dimpled flesh. O, the unsearchable riches of Christianity!
For many centuries the church filled the world with devils—with malicious spirits that caused storm and tempest, disease, accident and death—that filled the night with visions of despair; with prophecies that drove the dreamers mad. These devils assumed a thousand forms—countless disguises in their efforts to capture souls and destroy the church. They deceived sometimes the wisest and the best; made priests forget their vows. They melted virtue's snow in passion's fire, and in cunning ways entrapped and smirched the innocent and good. These devils gave witches and wizards their supernatural powers, and told them the secrets of the future.
Millions of men and women were destroyed because they had sold themselves to the Devil.
At that time Christians really believed the New Testament. They knew it was the inspired word of God, and so believing, so knowing—as they thought—they became insane.
No man has genius enough to describe the agonies that have been inflicted on innocent men and women because of this absurd belief. How it darkened the mind, hardened the heart, and poisoned life! It made the Universe a madhouse presided over by an insane God.
Think! Why would a merciful God allow his children to be the victims of devils? Why would a decent God allow his worshipers to believe in devils, and by reason of that belief to persecute, torture and burn their fellow-men?
Christians did not ask these questions. They believed the Bible; they had confidence in the words of Christ.
V. PERSONIFICATIONS OF EVIL.
The Orthodox Ostrich Thrusts His Head into the Sand.
Many of the clergy are now ashamed to say that they believe in devils. The belief has become ignorant and vulgar. They are ashamed of the lake of fire and brimstone. It is too savage.
At the same time they do not wish to give up the inspiration of the Bible. They give new meanings to the inspired words. Now they say that devils were only personifications of evil. If the devils were only personifications of evil, what were the angels? Was the angel who told Joseph who the father of Christ was, a personification? Was the Holy Ghost only the personification of a father? Was the angel who told Joseph that Herod was dead a personification of news?
Were the angels who rolled away the stone and sat clothed in shining garments in the empty sepulcher of Christ a couple of personifications? Were all the angels described in the Old Testament imaginary shadows—bodiless personifications? If the angels of the Bible are real angels, the devils are real devils.
Let us be honest with ourselves and each other and give to the Bible its natural, obvious meaning. Let us admit that the writers believed what they wrote. If we believe that they were mistaken, let us have the honesty and courage to say so. Certainly we have no right to change or avoid their meaning, or to dishonestly correct their mistakes. Timid preachers sully their own souls when they change what the writers of the Bible believed to be facts to allegories, parables, poems and myths.
It is impossible for any man who believes in the inspiration of the Bible to explain away the Devil.
If the Bible is true the Devil exists. There is no escape from this.
If the Devil does not exist the Bible is not true. There is no escape from this.
I admit that the Devil of the Bible is an impossible contradiction; an impossible being.
This Devil is the enemy of God and God is his. Now, why should this Devil, in another world, torment sinners, who are his friends, to please God, his enemy?
If the Devil is a personification, so is hell and the lake of fire and brimstone. All these horrors fade into allegories; into ignorant lies.
Any clergyman who can read the Bible and then say that devils are personifications of evil is himself a personification of stupidity or hypocrisy.
VI.
Does any intelligent man now, whose brain has not been deformed by superstition, believe in the existence of the Devil? What evidence have we that he exists? Where does this Devil live? What does he do for a livelihood? What does he eat? If he does not eat, he cannot think. He cannot think without the expenditure of force. He cannot create force; he must borrow it—that is to say, he must eat. How does lie move from place to place? Does he walk or does he fly, or has he invented some machine? What object has he in life? What idea of success? This Devil, according to the Bible, knows that he is to be defeated; knows that the end is absolute and eternal failure; knows that every step he takes leads to the infinite catastrophe. Why does he act as he does?
Our fathers thought that everything in this world came from some other realm; that all ideas of right and wrong came from above; that conscience dropped from the clouds; that the darkness was filled with imps from perdition, and the day with angels from heaven; that souls had been breathed into man by Jehovah.
What there is in this world that lives and breathes was produced here. Life was not imported. Mind is not an exotic. Of this planet man is a native. This world is his mother. The maker did not descend from the heavens. The maker was and is here. Matter and force in their countless forms, affinities and repulsions produced the living, breathing world.
How can we account for devils? Is it possible that they creep into the bodies of men and swine? Do they stay in the stomach or brain, in the heart or liver?
Are these devils immortal or do they multiply and die? Were they all created at the same time or did they spring from a single pair? If they are subject to death what becomes of them after death? Do they go to some other world, are they annihilated, or can they get to heaven by believing on Christ?
In the brain of science the devils have never lived. There you will find no goblins, ghosts, wraiths or imps—no witches, spooks or sorcerers. There the supernatural does not exist. No man of sense in the whole world believes in devils any more than he does in mermaids, vampires, gorgons, hydras, naiads, dryads, nymphs, fairies or the anthropophagi—any more than he does in the Fountain of Youth, the Philosopher's Stone, Perpetual Motion or Fiat Money.
There is the same difference between religion and science that there is between a madhouse and a university—between a fortune teller and a mathematician—between emotion and philosophy—between guess and demonstration.
The devils have gone, and with them they have taken the miracles of Christ. They have carried away our Lord. They have taken away the inspiration of the Bible, and we are left in the darkness of nature without the consolation of hell.
But let me ask the clergy a few questions:
How did your Devil, who was at one time an angel of light, come to sin? There was no other devil to tempt him. He was in perfectly good society—in the company of God—of the Trinity. All of his associates were perfect. How did he fall? He knew that God was infinite, and yet he waged war against him and induced about a third of the angels to volunteer. He knew that he could not succeed; knew that he would be defeated and cast out; knew that he was fighting for failure.
Why was God so unpopular? Why were the angels so bad?
According to the Christians, these angels were spirits. They had never been corrupted by flesh—by the passion of love. Why were they so wicked?
Why did God create those angels, knowing that they would rebel? Why did he deliberately sow the seeds of discord in heaven, knowing that he would cast them into the lake of eternal fire—knowing that for them he would create the eternal prison, whose dungeons would echo forever the sobs and shrieks of endless pain?
How foolish is infinite wisdom!
How malicious is mercy!
How revengeful is boundless love!
Again, I say that no sensible man in all the world believes in devils.
Why does God allow these devils to enjoy themselves at the expense of his ignorant children? Why does he allow them to leave their prison? Does he give them furloughs or tickets-of-leave?
Does he want his children misled and corrupted so that he can have the pleasure of damning their souls?
VII. THE MAN OF STRAW.
Some of the preachers who have answered me say that I am fighting a man of straw.
I am fighting the supernatural—the dogma of inspiration—the belief in devils—the atonement, salvation by faith—the forgiveness of sins and the savagery of eternal pain. I am fighting the absurd,-the monstrous, the cruel.
The ministers pretend that they have advanced—that they do not believe the things that I attack. In this they are not honest.
Who is the "man of straw"?
The man of straw is their master. In every orthodox pulpit stands this man of straw—stands beside the preacher—stands with a club, called a "creed," in his upraised hand. The shadow of this club falls athwart the open Bible—falls upon the preacher's brain, darkens the light of his reason and compels him to betray himself.
The man of straw rules every sectarian school and college—every orthodox church. He is the censor who passes on every sermon. Now and then some minister puts a little sense in his discourse—tries to take a forward step. Down comes the club, and the man of straw demands an explanation—a retraction. If the minister takes it back—good. If he does not, he is brought to book. The man of straw put the plaster of silence on the lips of Prof. Briggs, and he was forced to leave the church or remain dumb.
The man of straw closed the mouth of Prof. Smith, and he has not opened it since.
The man of straw would not allow the Presbyterian creed to be changed.
The man of straw took Father McGlynn by the collar, forced him to his knees, made him take back his words and ask forgiveness for having been abused.
The man of straw pitched Prof. Swing out of the pulpit and drove the Rev. Mr. Thomas from the Methodist Church.
Let me tell the orthodox ministers that they are trying to cover their retreat.
You have given up the geology and astronomy of the Bible. You have admitted that its history is untrue. You are retreating still. You are giving up the dogma of inspiration; you have your doubts about the flood and Babel; you have given up the witches and wizards; you are beginning to throw away the miraculous; you have killed the little devils, and in a little while you will murder the Devil himself.
In a few years you will take the Bible for what it is worth. The good and true will be treasured in the heart; the foolish, the infamous, will be thrown away.
The man of straw will then be dead.
Of course, the real old petrified, orthodox Christian will cling to the Devil. He expects to have all of his sins charged to the Devil, and at the same time he will be credited with all the virtues of Christ. Upon this showing on the books, upon this balance, he will be entitled to his halo and harp. What a glorious, what an equitable, transaction! The sorcerer Superstition changes debt to credit. He waves his wand, and he who deserves the tortures of hell receives an eternal reward.
But if a man lacks faith the scheme is exactly reversed. While in one case a soul is rewarded for the virtues of another, in the other case a soul is damned for the sins of another. This is justice when it blossoms in mercy.
Beyond this idiocy cannot go.
VIII. KEEP THE DEVILS OUT OF CHILDREN.
William Kingdon Clifford, one of the greatest men of this century, said: "If there is one lesson that history forces upon us in every page, it is this: Keep your children away from the priest, or he will make them the enemies of mankind."
In every orthodox Sunday school children are taught to believe in devils. Every little brain becomes a menagerie, filled with wild beasts from hell. The imagination is polluted with the deformed, the monstrous and malicious. To fill the minds of children with leering fiends—with mocking devils—is one of the meanest and basest of crimes. In these pious prisons—these divine dungeons—these Protestant and Catholic inquisitions—children are tortured with these cruel lies. Here they are taught that to really think is wicked; that to express your honest thought is blasphemy; and that to live a free and joyous life, depending on fact instead of faith, is the sin against the Holy Ghost.
Children thus taught—thus corrupted and deformed—become the enemies of investigation—of progress. They are no longer true to themselves. They have lost the veracity of the soul. In the language of Prof. Clifford, "they are the enemies of the human race."
So I say to all fathers and mothers, keep your children away from priests; away from orthodox Sunday schools; away from the slaves of superstition.
They will teach them to believe in the Devil; in hell; in the prison of God; in the eternal dungeon, where the souls of men are to suffer forever. These frightful things are a part of Christianity. Take these lies from the creed and the whole scheme falls into shapeless ruin. This dogma of hell is the infinite of savagery—the dream of insane revenge. It makes God a wild beast—an infinite hyena. It makes Christ as merciless as the fangs of a viper. Save poor children from the pollution of this horror. Protect them from this infinite lie.
IX. CONCLUSION.
I admit that there are many good and beautiful passages in the Old and New Testament; that from the lips of Christ dropped many pearls of kindness—of love. Every verse that is true and tender I treasure in my heart. Every thought, behind which is the tear of pity, I appreciate and love. But I cannot accept it all. Many utterances attributed to Christ shock my brain and heart. They are absurd and cruel.
Take from the New Testament the infinite savagery, the shoreless malevolence of eternal pain, the absurdity of salvation by faith, the ignorant belief in the existence of devils, the immorality and cruelty of the atonement, the doctrine of non-resistance that denies to virtue the right of self-defence, and how glorious it would be to know that the remainder is true! Compared with this knowledge, how everything else in nature would shrink and shrivel! What ecstasy it would be to know that God exists; that he is our father and that he loves and cares for the children of men! To know that all the paths that human beings travel, turn and wind as they may, lead to the gates of stainless peace! How the heart would thrill and throb to know that Christ was the conqueror of Death; that at his grave the all-devouring monster was baffled and beaten forever; that from that moment the tomb became the door that opens on eternal life! To know this would change all sorrow into gladness. Poverty, failure, disaster, defeat, power, place and wealth would become meaningless sounds. To take your babe upon your knee and say: "Mine and mine forever!" What joy! To clasp the woman you love in your arms and to know that she is yours and forever—yours though suns darken and constellations vanish! This is enough: To know that the loved and dead are not lost; that they still live and love and wait for you. To know that Christ dispelled the darkness of death and filled the grave with eternal light. To know this would be all that the heart could bear. Beyond this joy cannot go. Beyond this there is no place for hope.
How beautiful, how enchanting, Death would be! How we would long to see his fleshless skull! What rays of glory would stream from his sightless sockets, and how the heart would long for the touch of his stilling hand! The shroud would become a robe of glory, the funeral procession a harvest home, and the grave would mark the end of sorrow, the beginning of eternal joy.
And yet it were better far that all this should be false than that all of the New Testament should be true.
It is far better to have no heaven than to have heaven and hell; better to have no God than God and Devil; better to rest iii eternal sleep than to be an angel and know that the ones you love are suffering eternal pain; better to live a free and loving life—a life that ends forever at the grave—than to be an immortal slave.
The master cannot be great enough to make slavery sweet. I have no ambition to become a winged servant, a winged slave. Better eternal sleep. But they say, "If you give up these superstitions, what have you left?"
Let me now give you the declaration of a creed.
DECLARATION OF THE FREE
We have no falsehoods to defend—
We want the facts;
Our force, our thought, we do not spend
In vain attacks.
And we will never meanly try
To save some fair and pleasing lie.
The simple truth is what we ask,
Not the ideal;
We've set ourselves the noble task
To find the real.
If all there is is naught but dross,
We want to know and bear our loss.
We will not willingly be fooled,
By fables nursed;
Our hearts, by earnest thought, are schooled
To bear the worst;
And we can stand erect and dare
All things, all facts that really are.
We have no God to serve or fear,
No hell to shun,
No devil with malicious leer.
When life is done
An endless sleep may close our eyes,
A sleep with neither dreams nor sighs.
We have no master on the land—
No king in air—
Without a manacle we stand,
Without a prayer,
Without a fear of coming night,
We seek the truth, we love the light.
We do not bow before a guess,
A vague unknown;
A senseless force we do not bless
In solemn tone.
When evil comes we do not curse,
Or thank because it is no worse.
When cyclones rend—when lightning blights,
'Tis naught but fate;
There is no God of wrath who smites
In heartless hate.
Behind the things that injure man
There is no purpose, thought, or plan.
We waste no time in useless dread,
In trembling fear;
The present lives, the past is dead,
And we are here,
All welcome guests at life's great feast—
We need no help from ghost or priest.
Our life is joyous, jocund, free—
Not one a slave
Who bends in fear the trembling knee,
And seeks to save
A coward soul from future pain;
Not one will cringe or crawl for gain.
The jeweled cup of love we drain,
And friendship's wine
Now swiftly flows in every vein
With warmth divine.
And so we love and hope and dream
That in death's sky there is a gleam.
We walk according to our light,
Pursue the path
That leads to honor's stainless height,
Careless of wrath
Or curse of God, or priestly spite,
Longing to know and do the right.
We love our fellow-man, our kind,
Wife, child, and friend.
To phantoms we are deaf and blind,
But we extend
The helping hand to the distressed;
By lifting others we are blessed.
Love's sacred flame within the heart
And friendship's glow;
While all the miracles of art
Their wealth bestow
Upon the thrilled and joyous brain,
And present raptures banish pain.
We love no phantoms of the skies,
But living flesh,
With passion's soft and soulful eyes,
Lips warm and fresh,
And cheeks with health's red flag unfurled,
The breathing angels of this world.
The hands that help are better far
Than lips that pray.
Love is the ever gleaming star
That leads the way,
That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss,
But on a paradise in this.
We do not pray, or weep, or wail;
We have no dread,
No fear to pass beyond the veil
That hides the dead.
And yet we question, dream, and guess,
But knowledge we do not possess.
We ask, yet nothing seems to know;
We cry in vain.
There is no "master of the show"
Who will explain,
Or from the future tear the mask;
And yet we dream, and still we ask
Is there beyond the silent night
An endless day?
Is death a door that leads to light?
We cannot say.
The tongueless secret locked in fate
We do not know.—
We hope and wait.
* This is the first lecture ever delivered by Mr. Ingersoll.
The stars indicate the words missing in the manuscript. It
was delivered in Pekin, 111., in 1860, and again in
Bloomington, 111., in 1804.
IT is admitted by all that happiness is the only good, happiness in its highest and grandest sense and the most * * springs * * of * * refined * * generous * *
Conscience * * tends * * indirectly * * truly we * * physically * * to develop the wonderful powers of the mind is progress.
It is impossible for men to become educated and refined without leisure and there can be no leisure without wealth and all wealth is produced by labor, nothing else. Nothing can * * the hands * * and * * fabrics *
America labor is not honored as it deserves.
We should remember that the prosperity of the world depends upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows and through the rustling corn, upon those whose faces are radiant with the glare of furnaces, upon the delvers in dark mines, the workers in shops, upon those who give to the wintry air the ringing music of the axe, and upon those who wrestle with the wild waves of the raging sea.
And it is from the surplus produced by labor that schools are built, that colleges and universities are founded and endowed. From this surplus the painter is paid for the immortal productions of the pencil. This pays the sculptor for chiseling the shapeless rock into forms of beauty almost divine, and the poet for singing the hopes, the loves and aspirations of the world.
This surplus has erected all the palaces and temples, all the galleries of art, has given to us all the books in which we converse, as it were, with the dead kings of the human race, and has supplied us with all there is of elegance, of beauty and of refined happiness in the world.
I am aware that the subject chosen by me is almost infinite and that in its broadest sense it is absolutely beyond the present comprehension of man.
I am also aware that there are many opinions as to what progress really is, that what one calls progress, another denominates barbarism; that many have a wonderful veneration for all that is ancient, merely because it is ancient, and they see no beauty in anything from which they do not have to blow the dust of ages with the breath of praise.
They say, no masters like the old, no governments like the ancient, no orators, no poets, no statesmen like those who have been dust for two thousand years. Others despise antiquity and admire only the modern, merely because it is modern. They find so much to condemn in the past, that they condemn all. I hope, however, that I have gratitude enough to acknowledge the obligations I am under to the great and heroic minds of antiquity, and that I have manliness and independence enough not to believe what they said merely because they said it, and that I have moral courage enough to advocate ideas, however modern they may be, if I believe that they are right. Truth is neither young nor old, is neither ancient nor modern, but is the same for all times and places and should be sought for with ceaseless activity, eagerly acknowledged, loved more than life, and abandoned—never. In accordance with the idea that labor is the basis of all prosperity and happiness, is another idea or truth, and that is, that labor in order to make the laborer and the world at large happy, must be free. That the laborer must be a free man, the thinker must be free. I do not intend in what I may say upon this subject to carry you back to the remotest antiquity,—back to Asia, the cradle of the world, where we could stand in the ashes and ruins of a civilization so old that history has not recorded even its decay. It will answer my present purpose to commence with the Middle Ages. In those times there was no freedom of either mind or body in Europe. Labor was despised, and a laborer was considered as scarcely above the beasts. Ignorance like a mantle covered the world, and superstition ran riot with the human imagination. The air was filled with angels, demons and monsters. Everything assumed the air of the miraculous. Credulity occupied the throne of reason and faith put out the eyes of the soul. A man to be distinguished had either to be a soldier or a monk. He could take his choice between killing and lying. You must remember that in those days nations carried on war as an end, not as a means. War and theology were the business of mankind. No man could win more than a bare existence by industry, much less fame and glory. Comparatively speaking, there was no commerce. Nations instead of buying and selling from and to each other, took what they wanted by brute force. And every Christian country maintained that it was no robbery to take the property of Mohammedans, and no murder to kill the owners with or without just cause of quarrel. Lord Bacon was the first man of note who maintained that a Christian country was bound to keep its plighted faith with an Infidel one. In those days reading and writing were considered very dangerous arts, and any layman who had acquired the art of reading was suspected of being a heretic or a wizard.
It is almost impossible for us to conceive of the ignorance, the cruelty, the superstition and the mental blindness of that period. In reading the history of those dark and bloody years, I am amazed at the wickedness, the folly and presumption of mankind. And yet, the solution of the whole matter is, they despised liberty; they hated freedom of mind and of body. They forged chains of superstition for the one and of iron for the other. They were ruled by that terrible trinity, the cowl, the sword and chain.
You cannot form a correct opinion of those ages without reading the standard authors, so to speak, of that time, the laws then in force, and by ascertaining the habits and customs of the people, their mode of administering the laws, and the ideas that were commonly received as correct. No one believed that honest error could be innocent; no one dreamed of such a thing as religious freedom. In the fifteenth century the following law was in force in England: "That whatsoever they were that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should forfeit land, cattle, body, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most arrant traitors to the land." The next year after this law was in force, in one day thirty-nine were hanged for its violation and their bodies afterward burned.
Laws equally unjust, bloody and cruel were in force in all parts of Europe. In the sixteenth century a man was burned in France because he refused to kneel to a procession of dirty monks. I could enumerate thousands of instances of the most horrid cruelty perpetrated upon men, women and even little children, for no other reason in the world than for a difference of opinion upon a subject that neither party knew anything about. But you are all, no doubt, perfectly familiar with the history of religious persecution.
There is one thing, however, that is strange indeed, and that is that the reformers of those days, the men who rose against the horrid tyranny of the times, the moment they attained power, persecuted with a zeal and bitterness never excelled. Luther, one of the grand men of the world, cast in the heroic mould, although he gave utterance to the following sublime sentiment: "Every one has the right to read for himself that he may prepare himself to live and to die," still had no idea of what we call religious freedom. He considered universal toleration an error, so did Melancthon, and Erasmus, and yet, strange as it may appear, they were exercising the very right they denied to others, and maintaining their right with a courage and energy absolutely sublime.
John Knox was only in favor of religious freedom when he was in the minority, and Baxter entertained the same sentiment. Castalio, a professor at Geneva, in Switzerland, was the first clergyman in Europe who declared the innocence of honest error, and who proclaimed himself in favor of universal toleration. The name of this man should never be forgotten. He had the goodness, the courage, although surrounded with prisons and inquisitions, and in the midst of millions of fierce bigots, to declare the innocence of honest error, and that every man had a right to worship the good God in his own way.
For the utterance of this sublime sentiment his professorship was taken from him, he was driven from Geneva by John Calvin and his adherents, although he had belonged to their sect.
He was denounced as a child of the Devil, a dog of Satan, as a murderer of souls, as a corrupter of the faith, and as one who by his doctrines crucified the Savior afresh. Not content with merely driving him from his home, they pursued him absolutely to the grave, with a malignity that increased rather than diminished. You must not think that Calvin was alone in this; on the contrary he was fully sustained by public opinion, and would have been sustained even though he had procured the burning of the noble Castalio at the stake. I cite this instance not merely for the purpose of casting odium upon Calvin, but to show you what public opinion was at that time, when such things were ordinary transactions. Bodi-nus, a lawyer in France, about the same time advocated something like religious liberty, but public opinion was overwhelmingly against him and the people were at all times ready with torch and brand, chain, and fagot to get the abominable heresy out of the human mind, that a man had a right to think for himself. And yet Luther, Calvin, Knox and Baxter, in spite, as it were, of themselves, conferred a great and lasting benefit upon mankind; for what they did was at least in favor of individual judgment, and one successful stand against the church produced others, all of which tended to establish universal toleration. In those times you will remember that failing to convert a man or woman by the ordinary means, they resorted to every engine of torture that the ingenuity of bigotry could devise; they crushed their feet in what they called iron boots; they roasted them upon slow fires; they plucked out their nails, and then into the bleeding quick thrust needles; and all this to convince them of the truth. I suppose that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.
Montaigne was the first man who raised his voice against torture in France; a man blessed with so much common sense, that he was the most uncommon man of the age in which he lived. But what was one voice against the terrible cry of ignorant millions?—a drowning man in the wild roar of the infinite sea. It is impossible to read the history of the long and seemingly hopeless war waged for religious freedom, without being filled with horror and disgust. Millions of men, women and children, at least one hundred millions of human beings with hopes and loves and aspirations like ourselves, have been sacrificed upon the altar of bigotry. They have perished at the stake, in prisons, by famine and by sword; they have died wandering, homeless, in deserts, groping in caves, until their blood cried from the earth for vengeance. But the principle, gathering strength from their weakness, nourished by blood and flame, rendered holier still by their sufferings—grander by their heroism, and immortal by their death, triumphed at last, and is now acknowledged by the whole civilized world. Enormous as the cost has been the principle is worth a thousand times as much. There must be freedom in religion, for without freedom there can be no real religion. And as for myself I glory in the fact that upon American soil that principle was first firmly established, and that the Constitution of the United States was the first of any great nation in which religious toleration was made one of the fundamental laws of the land. And it is not only the law of our country but the law is sustained by an enlightened public opinion. Without liberty there is no religion—no worship. What light is to the eyes—what air is to the lungs—what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man. Without liberty, the brain is a dungeon, where the chained thoughts die with their pinions pressed against the hingeless doors.
WITCHCRAFT
THE next fact to which I call your attention is, that during the Middle Ages the people, the whole people, the learned and the ignorant, the masters and the slaves, the clergy, the lawyers, doctors and statesmen, all believed in witchcraft—in the evil eye, and that the devil entered into people, into animals and even into insects to accomplish his dark designs. And all the people believed it their solemn duty to thwart the devil by all means in their power, and they accordingly set themselves at work hanging and burning everybody suspected of being in league with the Enemy of mankind. If you grant their premises, you justify their actions. If these persons had actually entered into partnership with the devil for the purpose of injuring their neighbors, the people would have been justified in exterminating them all. And the crime of witchcraft was proven over and over again in court after court in every town of Europe. Thousands of people who were charged with being in league with the devil confessed the crime, gave all the particulars of the bargain, told just what the devil said and what they replied, and exactly how the bargain was consummated, admitted in the presence of death, on the very edge of the grave, when they knew that the confession would confiscate all their property and leave their children homeless wanderers, and render their own names infamous after death.
We can account for a man suffering death for what he believes to be right. He knows that he has the sympathy of all the truly good, and he hopes that his name will be gratefully remembered in the far future, and above all, he hopes to win the approval of a just God. But the man who confessed himself guilty of being a wizard, knew that his memory would be execrated and expected that his soul would be eternally lost. What motive could then have induced so many to confess? Strange as it is, I believe that they actually believed themselves guilty. They considered their case hopeless; they confessed and died without a prayer. These things are enough to make one think that sometimes the world becomes insane and that the earth is a vast asylum without a keeper. I repeat that I am convinced that the people that confessed themselves guilty believed that they were so. In the first place, they believed in witchcraft and that people often were possessed of Satan, and when they were accused the fright and consternation produced by the accusation, in connection with their belief, often produced insanity or something akin to it, and the poor creatures charged with a crime that it was impossible to disprove, deserted and abhorred by their friends, left alone with their superstitions and fears, driven to despair, looked upon death as a blessed relief from a torture that you and I cannot at this day understand. People were charged with the most impossible crimes. In the time of James the First, a man was burned in Scotland for having produced a storm at sea for the purpose of drowning one of the royal family. A woman was tried before Sir Matthew Hale, one of the most learned and celebrated lawyers of England, for having caused children to vomit-crooked pins. She was also charged with nursing demons. Of course she was found guilty, and the learned Judge charged the jury that there was no doubt as to the existence of witches, that all history, sacred and profane, and that the experience of every country proved it beyond any manner of doubt. And the woman was either hanged or burned for a crime for which it was impossible for her to be guilty. In those times they also believed in Lycanthropy—that is, that persons of whom the devil had taken possession could assume the appearance of wolves.
One instance is related where a man was attacked by what appeared to be a wolf. He defended himself and succeeded in cutting off one of the wolf's paws, whereupon the wolf ran and the man picked up the paw and putting it in his pocket went home. When he took the paw out of his pocket it had changed to a human hand, and his wife sat in the house with one of her hands gone and the stump of her arm bleeding. He denounced his wife as a witch, she confessed the crime and was burned at the stake. People were burned for causing frosts in the summer, for destroying crops with hail, for causing cows to become dry, and even for souring beer. The life of no one was secure, malicious enemies had only to charge one with witchcraft, prove a few odd sayings and queer actions to secure the death of their victim. And this belief in witchcraft was so intense that to express a doubt upon the subject was to be suspected and probably executed. Believing that animals were also taken possession of by evil spirits and also believing that if they killed an animal containing one of the evil spirits that they caused the death of the spirit, they absolutely tried animals, convicted and executed them. At Basle, in 1474, a rooster was tried, charged with having laid an egg, and as rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment it was a serious charge, and everyone of course admitted that the devil must have been the cause, as roosters could not very well lay eggs without some help. And the egg having been produced in court, the rooster was duly convicted and he together with his miraculous egg were publicly and with all due solemnity burned in the public square. So a hog and six pigs were tried for having killed, and partially eaten a child, the hog was convicted and executed, but the pigs were acquitted on the ground of their extreme youth. Asiate as 1740 a cow was absolutely tried on a charge of being possessed of the devil. Our forefathers used to rid themselves of rats, leeches, locusts and vermin by pronouncing what they called a public exorcism.
On some occasions animals were received as witnesses in judicial proceedings.
The law was in some of the countries of Europe, that if a man's house was broken into between sunset and sunrise and the owner killed the intruder, it should be considered justifiable homicide.
But it was also considered that it was just possible that a man living alone might entice another to his house in the night-time, kill him and then pretend that his victim was a robber. In order to prevent this, it was enacted that when a person was killed by a man living alone and under such circumstances, the solitary householder should not be held innocent unless he produced in court some animal, a dog or a cat, that had been an inmate of the house and had witnessed the death of the person killed. The prisoner was then compelled in the presence of such animal to make a solemn declaration of his innocence, and if the animal failed to contradict him, he was declared guiltless,—the law taking it for granted that the Deity would cause a miraculous manifestation by a dumb animal, rather than allow a murderer to escape. It was the law in England that any one convicted of a crime, could appeal to what was called corsned or morsel of execration. This was a piece of cheese or bread of about an ounce in weight, which was first consecrated with a form of exorcism desiring that the Almighty, if the man were guilty, would cause convulsions and paleness, and that it might stick in his throat, but that it might if the man were innocent, turn to health and nourishment. Godwin, the Earl of Kent, during the reign of Edward the Confessor, appealed to the corsned, which sticking in his throat, produced death. There were also trials by water and by fire. Persons were made to handle red hot iron, and if it burned them their guilt was established; so their hands and feet were tied, and they were thrown into the water, and if they sank they were pronounced guilty and allowed to drown. I give these instances to show you what has happened, and what always will happen, in countries where ignorance prevails, and people abandon the great standard of reason. And also to show to you that scarcely any man, however great, can free himself of the superstitions of his time. Kepler, one of the greatest men of the world, and an astronomer second to none, although he plucked from the stars the secrets of the universe, was an astrologer and thought he could predict the career of any man by finding what star was in the ascendant at his birth. This infinitely foolish stuff was religiously believed by him, merely because he had been raised in an atmosphere of boundless credulity. Tycho Brahe, another astronomer who has been, and is called the prince of astronomers—not only believed in astrology, but actually kept an idiot in his service, whose disconnected and meaningless words he carefully wrote down and then put them together in such a manner as to make prophecies, and then he patiently and confidently awaited their fulfillment.
Luther believed that he had actually seen the devil not only, but that he had had discussions with him upon points of theology. On one occasion getting excited, he threw an inkstand at his majesty's head, and the ink stain is still to be seen on the wall where the stand was broken. The devil I believe, was untouched, he probably having an inkling of Luther's intention, made a successful dodge.
In the time of Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany, Stoefflerer, a noted mathematician and astronomer, a man of great learning, made an astronomical calculation according to the great science of astrology and ascertained that the world was to be visited by another deluge. This prediction was absolutely believed by the leading men of the empire not only, but of all Europe. The commissioner general of the army of Charles the Fifth recommended that a survey be made of the country by competent men in order to find out the highest land. But as it was uncertain how high the water would rise this idea was abandoned.
Thousands of people left their homes in low lands, by the rivers and near the sea and sought the more elevated ground. Immense suffering was produced. People in some instances abandoned the aged, the sick and the infirm to the tender mercies of the expected flood, so anxious were they to reach some place of security.
At Toulouse, in France, the people actually built an ark and stocked it with provisions, and it was not till long after the day upon which the flood was to have come, had passed, that the people recovered from their fright and returned to their homes. About the same time it was currently reported and believed that a child had been born in Silesia with a golden tooth. The people were again filled with wonder and consternation. They were satisfied that some great evil was coming upon mankind. At last it was solved by some chapter in Daniel wherein is predicted somebody with a golden head. Such stories would never have gained credence only for the reason that the supernatural was expected. Anything in the ordinary course of nature was not worth telling. The human mind was in chains; it had been deformed by slavery. Reason was a trembling coward, and every production of the mind was deformed, every idea was a monster. Almost every law was unjust. Their religion was nothing more or less than monsters worshiping an imaginary monster. Science could not, properly speaking, exist. Their histories were the grossest and most palpable falsehoods, and they filled all Europe with the most shocking absurdities. The histories were all written by the monks and bishops, all of whom were intensely superstitious, and equally dishonest. Everything they did was a pious fraud. They wrote as if they had been eye-witnesses of every occurrence that they related. They entertained, and consequently expressed, no doubt as to any particular, and in case of any difficulty they always had a few miracles ready just suited for the occasion, and the people never for an instant doubted the absolute truth of every statement that they made. They wrote the history of every country of any importance. They related all the past and present, and predicted nearly all the future, with an ignorant impudence actually sublime. They traced the order of St. Michael in France back to the Archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a chivalric order in heaven itself. They also said that the Tartars originally came from hell, and that they were called Tartars because Tartarus was one of the names of perdition. They declared that Scotland was so called after Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland and afterward invaded Scotland and took it by force of arms. This statement was made in a letter addressed to the Pope in the 14th century and was alluded to as a well-known fact. The letter was written by some of the highest dignitaries of the church and by direction of the king himself. Matthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the 13th century, gave the world the following piece of valuable information: "It is well known that Mohammed originally was a Cardinal and became a heretic because he failed in his design of being elected Pope."
The same gentleman informs us that Mohammed having drank to excess fell drunk by the roadside, and in that condition was killed by pigs. And this is the reason, says he, that his followers abhor pork even unto this day. Another historian of about the same period, tells us that one of the popes cut off his hand because it had been kissed by an improper person, and that the hand was still in the Lateran at Rome, where it had been miraculously preserved from corruption for over five hundred years. After that occurrence, says he, the Pope's toe was substituted, which accounts for this practice. He also has the goodness to inform his readers that Nero was in the habit of vomiting frogs. Some of the croakers of the present day against progress would, I think, be the better of such a vomit. The history of Charlemagne was written by Turpin the Archbishop of Rheims, and received the formal approbation of the Pope. In this it is asserted that the walls of a city fell down in answer to prayer; that Charlemagne was opposed by a giant called Fenacute who was a descendant of the ancient Goliath; that forty men were sent to attack this giant, and that he took them under his arms and quietly carried them away. At last Orlando engaged him singly; not meeting with the success that he anticipated, he changed his tactics and commenced a theological discussion; warming with his subject he pressed forward and suddenly stabbed his opponent, inflicting a mortal wound. After the death of the giant, Charlemagne easily conquered the whole country and divided it among his sons.
The history of the Britons, written by the Archdeacons of Monmouth and Oxford, was immensely popular. According to their account, Brutus, a Roman, conquered England, built London, called the country Britain after himself. During his time it rained blood for three days. At another time a monster came from the sea, and after having devoured a great many common people, finally swallowed the king himself. They say that King Arthur was not born like ordinary mortals, but was formed by a magical contrivance made by a wizard. That he was particularly lucky in killing giants, that he killed one in France who used to eat several people every day, and that this giant was clothed with garments made entirely of the beards of kings that he had killed and eaten. To cap the climax, one of the authors of this book was promoted for having written an authentic history of his country. Another writer of the 15th century says that after Ignatius was dead they found impressed upon his heart the Greek word Theos. In all historical compositions there was an incredible want of common honesty. The great historian Eusebius ingenuously remarks that in his history he omitted whatever tended to discredit the church and magnified whatever conduced to her glory. The same glorious principle was adhered to by most, if not all, of the writers of those days. They wrote and the people believed that the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot wheels, were still impressed upon the sands of the Red Sea and could not be obliterated either by the winds or waves.
The next subject to which I call your attention is the wonderful progress in the mechanical arts. Animals use the weapons nature has furnished, and those only—the beak, the claw, the tusk, the teeth. The barbarian uses a club, a stone. As man advances he makes tools with which to fashion his weapons; he discovers the best material to be used in their construction. The next thing was to find some power to assist him—that is to say, the weight of falling water, or the force of the wind. He then creates a force, so to speak, by changing water to steam, and with that he impels machines that can do almost everything but think. You will observe that the ingenuity of man is first exercised in the construction of weapons. There were splendid Damascus blades when plowing was done with a crooked stick. There were complete suits of armor on backs that had never felt a shirt. The world was full of inventions to destroy life before there were any to prolong it or make it endurable. Murder was always a science—medicine is not one yet. Scalping was known and practiced long before Barret discovered the Hair Regenerator. The destroyers have always been honored. The useful have always been despised. In ancient times agriculture was known only to slaves. The low, the ignorant, the contemptible, cultivated the soil. To work was to be nobody. Mechanics were only one degree above the farmer. In short, labor was disgraceful. Idleness was the badge of gentle blood. The fields being poorly cultivated produced but little at the best. Only a few kinds of crops were raised. The result was frequent famine and constant suffering. One country could not be supplied from another as now; the roads were always horrible, and besides all this, every country was at war with nearly every other. This state of things lasted until a few years ago.
Let me show you the condition of England at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At that time London was the most populous capital in Europe, yet it was dirty, ill built, without any sanitary provisions whatever. The deaths were one in 23 each year. Now in a much more crowded population they are not one in forty. Much of the country was then heath and swamp. Almost within sight of London there was a tract, twenty-five miles round, almost in a state of nature; there were but three houses upon it. In the rainy season the roads were almost impassable. Through gullies filled with mud, carriages were dragged by oxen. Between places of great importance the roads were little known, and a principal mode of transport was by pack horses, of which passengers took advantage by stowing themselves away between the packs. The usual charge for freight was 30 cents per ton a mile. After a while, what they were pleased to call flying coaches were established. They could move from thirty to fifty miles a day. Many persons thought the risk so great that it was tempting Providence to get into one of them. The mail bag was carried on horseback at five miles an hour. A penny post had been established in the city, but many long-headed men, who knew what they were saying, denounced it as a popish contrivance. Only a few years before, Parliament had resolved that all pictures in the royal collection which contained representations of Jesus or the Virgin Mary should be burned. Greek statues were handed over to Puritan stone masons to be made decent. Lewis Meggleton had given himself out as the last and the greatest of the prophets, having power to save or damn. He had also discovered that God was only six feet high and the sun four miles off. There were people in England as savage as our Indians. The women, half naked, would chant some wild measure, while the men would brandish their dirks and dance. There were thirty-four counties without a printer. Social discipline was wretched. The master flogged his apprentice, the pedagogue his scholar, the husband his wife; and I am ashamed to say that whipping has not been abolished in our schools. It is a relic of barbarism and should not be tolerated one moment. It is brutal, low and contemptible. The teacher that administers such punishment is no more to blame than the parents that allow it. Every gentleman and lady should use his or her influence to do away with this vile and infamous practice. In those days public punishments were all brutal. Men and women were put in the pillory and then pelted with brick-bats, rotten eggs and dead cats, by the rabble. The whipping-post was then an institution in England as it is now in the enlightened State of Delaware. Criminals were drawn and quartered; others were disemboweled and hung and their bodies suspended in chains to rot in the air. The houses of the people in the country were huts, thatched with straw. Anybody who could get fresh meat once a week was considered rich. Children six years old had to labor. In London the houses were of wood or plaster, the streets filthy beyond expression, even muddier than Bloomington is now. After nightfall a passenger went about at his peril, for chamber windows were opened and slop pails unceremoniously emptied. There were no lamps in the streets, but plenty of highwaymen and robbers.
The morals of the people corresponded, as they generally do, to their physical condition. It is said that the clergy did what they could to make the people pious, but they could not accomplish much. You cannot convert a man when he is hungry. He will not accept better doctrines until he gets better clothes, and he won't have more faith till he gets more food. Besides this, the clergy were a little below par, so much so that Queen Elizabeth issued an order that no clergyman should presume to marry a servant girl without the consent of her master or mistress. During the same time the condition of France and indeed of all Europe was even worse than England. What has changed the condition of Great Britain? More than any and everything else, the inventions of her mechanics. The old moral method was and always will be a failure. If you wish to better the condition of a people morally, better them physically. About the close of the 18th Century, Watt, Arkwright, Hargreave, Crompton, Cartwright, invented the steam engine, the spring frame, the jenny, the mule, the power loom, the carding machine and a hundred other minor inventions, and put it in the power of England to monopolize the markets of the world. Her machinery soon became equal to 30,000,000 of men. In a few years the population was doubled and the wealth quadrupled; and England became the first nation of the world through her inventors, her merchants, her mechanics, and in spite of her statesmen, her priests and her nobles. England began to spin for the world, cotton began to be universally worn, clean shirts began to be seen. The most cunning spinners of India could make a thread over 100 miles long from one pound of cotton. The machines of England have produced one over 1000 miles in length from the same quantity. In a short time Stephenson invented the locomotive. Railroads began to be built. Fulton gave to the world the steamboat, and commerce became independent of the winds. There are already railroads enough in the United States to make a double track around the world. Man has lengthened his arms. He reaches to every country and takes what he wants; the world is before him; he helps himself. There can be no more famine. If there is no food in this country, the boat and the car will bring it from another.
We can have the luxuries of every climate. A majority of the people now live better than the king used to do. Poor Solomon with his thousand wives, and no carpets, his great temple, and no gas light! A thousand women, and not a pin in the house; no stoves, no cooking range, no baking powder, no potatoes—think of it! Breakfast without potatoes! Plenty of wisdom and old saws—but no green corn; never heard of succotash in his whole life. No clean clothes, no music, if you except a jew's-harp, no ice water, no skates, no carriages, because there was not a decent road in all his dominions. Plenty of theology but no tobacco, no books, no pictures, not a picture in all Palestine, not a piece of statuary, not a plough that would scour. No tea, no coffee; he never heard of any place of amusement, never was at a theatre, or a circus. "Seven up" was then unknown to the world. He couldn't even play billiards, with all his knowledge, never had an idea of woman's rights, or universal suffrage; never went to school a day in his life, and cared no more about the will of the people than Andy Johnson.
The inventors have helped more than any other class to make the world what it is; the workers and the thinkers, the poor and the grand; labor and learning, industry and intelligence; Watt and Descartes, Fulton and Montaigne, Stephenson and Kepler, Crompton and Comte, Franklin and Voltaire, Morse and Buckle, Draper and Spencer, and hundreds more that I could mention. The inventors, the workers, the thinkers, the mechanics, the surgeons, the philosophers—these are the Atlases upon whose shoulders rests the great fabric of modern civilization.
LANGUAGE.
IN order to show you that the most abject superstition pervaded every department of human knowledge, or of ignorance rather, allow me to give you a few of their ideas upon language. It was universally believed that all languages could be traced back to the Hebrew; that the Hebrew was the original language, and every fact inconsistent with that idea was discarded. In consequence of this belief all efforts to investigate the science of language were utterly fruitless. After a time, the Hebrew idea falling into disrepute, other languages claimed the honor of being the original ones.
André Kempe published a work in 1569, on the language of Paradise, in which he maintained that God spoke to Adam in Swedish; that Adam answered in Danish and that the serpent (which appears quite probable) spoke to Eve in French. Erro, in a book published at Madrid, took the ground that Basque was the language spoken in the Garden of Eden. But in 1580, Goropius published his celebrated work at Antwerp, in which he put the whole matter at rest by proving that the language spoken in Paradise was nothing more or less than plain Holland Dutch. The real founder of the present science of language was a German, Leibnitz—a contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton. He discarded the idea that all language could be traced to an original one. That language was, so to speak, a natural growth. Actual experience teaches us that this must be true. The ancient sages of Egypt had a vocabulary, according to Bunsen, of only about six hundred and eighty-five words, exclusive of proper names. The English language has at least one hundred thousand.
GEOGRAPHY.
IN the 6th century a monk by the name of Cosmas wrote a kind of orthodox geography and astronomy combined. He pretended that it was all in accordance with the Bible. According to him, the world was composed, first, of a flat piece of land and circular; this piece of land was entirely surrounded by water which was the ocean, and beyond the strip of water was another circle of land; this outside circle was the land inhabited by the old world before the flood; Noah crossed the strip of water and landed on the central piece where we now are; on the outside land was a high mountain around which the sun and moon revolved; when the sun was behind the mountain it was night, and when on the side next us it was day. He also taught that on the outer edge of the outside circle of land the firmament or sky was fastened, that it was made of some solid material and turned over the world like an immense kettle. And it was declared at that time that anyone who believed either more or less on that subject than that book contained was a heretic and deserved to be exterminated from the face of the earth. This was authority until the discovery of America by Columbus. Cosmas said the earth was flat; if it was round how could men on the other side at the day of judgment see the coming of the Lord? At the risk of being tiresome, I have said what I have, to show you the productions of the mind when enslaved—the consequences of abandoning judgment and reason—the effects of wide spread ignorance and universal bigotry.
I want to convince you that every wrong is a viper that will sooner or later strike with poisoned fangs the bosom that nourishes it. You will ask what has produced this wonderful change in only three hundred years. You will remember that in those days it was said that all ghosts vanished at the dawn of day; that the sprites, the spooks, the hobgoblins and all the monsters of the imagination fled from the approaching sun. In 1441, printing was invented. In the next century it became a power, and it has been flooding the world with light from that time to this. The Press has been the true Prometheus.
It has been, so to speak, the trumpet blown by the Gabriel of Progress, until, from the graves of ignorance and superstition, the people have leaped to grand and glorious life, spurning with swift feet the dust of an infamous past.
When people read, they reason, when they reason they progress. You must not think that the enemies of progress allowed books to be published or read when they had the power to prevent it. The whole power of the church, of the government, was arrayed upon the side of ignorance. People found in the possession of books were often executed. Printing, reading and writing were crimes. Anathemas were hurled from the Vatican against all who dared to publish a word in favor of liberty or the sacred rights of man. The Inquisition was founded on purpose to crush out every noble aspiration of the heart. It was a war of darkness against light, of slavery against liberty, of superstition against reason. I shall not attempt to recount the horrors and tortures of the Inquisition. Suffice it to say that they were equal to the most terrible and vivid pictures even of Hell, and the Inquisitors were even more horrid fiends than even a real Perdition could boast. But in spite of priests, in spite of kings, in spite of mitres, in spite of crowns, in spite of Cardinals and Popes, books were published and books were read. Beam after beam of light penetrated the darkness. Star after star arose in the firmament of ignorance. The morning of Freedom began to dawn. Driven to madness by the prospect of ultimate defeat, the enemies of light persecuted with redoubled fury.
People were burned for saying that the earth was round, for saying that the sun was the center of a system. A woman was executed because she endeavored to allay the pains of a fever by singing. The very name of Philosopher became a title of proscription, and the slightest offences were punished by death. About the beginning of the sixteenth century Luther and Jerome, of Prague, inaugurated the great Reformation in Germany, Ziska was at work in Hungary, Zwinglius in Switzerland. The grand work went forward in Denmark, in Sweden and in England. All this was accomplished as early as 1534. They unmasked the corruption and withstood the tyranny of the church.
With a zeal amounting to enthusiasm, with a courage that was heroic, with an energy that never flagged, a determination that brooked no opposition, with a firmness that defied torture and death, this sublime band of reformers sprang to the attack. Stronghold after stronghold was carried, and in a few short but terrible years, the banner of the Reformation waved in triumph over the bloody ensign of Saint Peter. The soul roused from the slumbers of a thousand years began to think. When slaves begin to reason, slavery begins to die. The invention of powder had released millions from the army, and left them to prosecute the arts of peace. Industry began to be remunerative and respectable.
Science began to unfold the wings that will finally fill the heavens. Descartes announced to the world the sublime truth that the Universe is governed by law.
Commerce began to unfold her wings. People of different countries began to get acquainted. Christians found that Mohammedan gold was not the less valuable on account of the doctrines of its owners. Telescopes began to be pointed toward the stars. The Universe was getting immense. The Earth was growing small. It was discovered that a man could be healthy without being a Catholic. Innumerable agencies were at work dispelling darkness and creating light. The supernatural began to be abandoned, and mankind endeavored to account for all physical phenomena by physical laws. The light of reason was irradiating the world, and from that light, as from the approach of the sun, the ghosts and spectres of superstition wrapped their sheets around their attenuated bodies and vanished into thin air. Other inventions rapidly followed. The wonderful power of steam was made known to the world by Watts and by Fulton. Neptune was frightened from the sea. The locomotive was given to mankind by Stephenson; the telegraph by Franklin and Morse. The rush of the ship, the scream of the locomotive, and the electric flash have frightened the monsters of ignorance from the world, and have left nothing above us but the heaven's eternal blue, filled with glittering planets wheeling through immensity in accordance with Law. True religion is a subordination of the passions and interests to the perceptions of the intellect. But when religion was considered the end of life instead of a means of happiness, it overshadowed all other interests and became the destroyer of mankind. It became a hydra-headed monster—a serpent reaching in terrible coils from the heavens and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men.
SLAVERY.
I HAVE endeavored thus far to show you some of the results produced by enslaving the human mind. I now call your attention to another terrible phase of this subject; the enslavement of the body. Slavery is a very ancient institution, yes, about as ancient as robbery, theft and murder, and is based upon them all.
Springing from the same fountain, that a man is not the owner of his soul, is the doctrine that he is not the owner of his body. The two are always found together, supported by precisely the same arguments, and attended by the same infamous acts of cruelty. From the earliest time, slavery has existed in all countries, and among all people until recently. Pufendorf said that slavery was originally established by contract. Voltaire replied, "Show me the original contract, and if it is signed by the party that was to be a slave I will believe you." You will bear in mind that the slavery of which I am now speaking is white slavery.
Greeks enslaved one another as well as those captured in war. Coriolanus scrupled not to make slaves of his own countrymen captured in civil war.
Julius Cæsar sold to the highest bidder at onetime fifty-three thousand prisoners of war all of whom were white. Hannibal exposed to sale thirty thousand captives at one time, all of whom were Roman citizens. In Rome, men were sold into bondage in order to pay their debts. In Germany, men often hazarded their freedom on the throwing of dice. The Barbary States held white Christians in slavery in this, the 19th century. There were white slaves in England as late as 1574. There were white slaves in Scotland until the end of the 18th century.
These Scotch slaves were colliers and salters. They were treated as real estate and passed with a deed to the mines in which they worked.
It was also the law that no collier could work in any mine except the one to which he belonged. It was also the law that their children could follow no other occupation than that of their fathers. This slavery absolutely existed in Scotland until the beginning of the glorious 19th century.
Some of the Roman nobles were the owners of as many as twenty thousand slaves.
The common people of France were in slavery for fourteen hundred years. They were transferred with land, and women were often seen assisting cattle to pull the plough, and yet people have the impudence to say that black slavery is right, because the blacks have always been slaves in their own country. I answer, so have the whites until very recently. In the good old days when might was right and when kings and popes stood by the people, and protected the people, and talked about "holy oil and divine right," the world was filled with slaves. The traveler standing amid the ruins of ancient cities and empires, seeing on every side the fallen pillar and the prostrate wall, asks why did these cities fall, why did these empires crumble? And the Ghost of the Past, the wisdom of ages, answers: These temples, these palaces, these cities, the ruins of which you stand upon were built by tyranny and injustice. The hands that built them were unpaid. The backs that bore the burdens also bore the marks of the lash. They were built by slaves to satisfy the vanity and ambition of thieves and robbers. For these reasons they are dust.
Their civilization was a lie. Their laws merely regulated robbery and established theft. They bought and sold the bodies and souls of men, and the mournful winds of desolation, sighing amid their crumbling ruins, is a voice of prophetic warning to those who would repeat the infamous experiment. From the ruins of Babylon, of Carthage, of Athens, of Palmyra, of Thebes, of Rome, and across the great desert, over that sad and solemn sea of sand, from the land of the pyramids, over the fallen Sphinx and from the lips of Memnon the same voice, the same warning and uttering the great truth, that no nation founded upon slavery, either of body or mind, can stand.
And yet, to-day, there are thousands upon thousands endeavoring to build the temples and cities and to administer our Government upon the old plan. They are makers of brick without straw. They are bowing themselves beneath hods of untempered mortar. They are the babbling builders of another Babel, a Babel of mud upon a foundation of sand.
Nothwithstanding the experience of antiquity as to the terrible effects of slavery, bondage was the rule, and liberty the exception, during the Middle Ages not only, but for ages afterward.
The same causes that led to the liberation of mind also liberated the body. Free the mind, allow men to write and publish and read, and one by one the shackles will drop, broken, in the dust. This truth was always known, and for that reason slaves have never been allowed to read. It has always been a crime to teach a slave. The intelligent prefer death to slavery. Education is the most radical abolitionist in the world. To teach the alphabet is to inaugurate revolution. To build a schoolhouse is to construct a fort. Every library is an arsenal, and every truth is a monitor, iron-clad and steel-plated.
Do not think that white slavery was abolished without a struggle. The men who opposed white slavery were ridiculed, were persecuted, driven from their homes, mobbed, hanged, tortured and burned. They were denounced as having only one idea, by men who had none. They were called fanatics by men who were so insane as to suppose that the laws of a petty prince were greater than those of the Universe. Crime made faces at virtue, and honesty was an outcast beggar. In short, I cannot better describe to you the manner in which the friends of slavery acted at that time, than by saying that they acted precisely as they used to do in the United States. White slavery, established by kidnapping and piracy, sustained by torture and infinite cruelty, was defended to the very last.
Let me now call your attention to one of the most immediate causes of the abolition of white slavery in Europe. There were during the Middle Ages three great classes of people: the common people, the clergy and the nobility. All these people could, however, be divided into two classes, namely, the robbed and the robbers. The feudal lords were jealous of the king, the king afraid of the lords, the clergy always siding with the stronger party. The common people had only to do the work, the fighting, and to pay the taxes, as by the law the property of the nobles was exempt from taxation. The consequence was, in every war between the nobles and the king, each party endeavored by conciliation to get the peasants upon their side. When the clergy were on the side of the king they created dissension between the people and the nobles by telling them that the nobles were tyrants. When they were on the side of the nobles they told the people that the king was a tyrant. At last the people believed both, and the old adage was verified, that when thieves fall out honest men get their dues.
By virtue of the civil and religious wars of Europe, slavery was abolished, and the French Revolution, one of the grandest pages in all history, was, so to speak, the exterminator of white slavery. In that terrible period the people who had borne the yoke for fourteen hundred years, rising from the dust, casting their shackles from them, fiercely avenged their wrongs. A mob of twenty millions driven to desperation, in the sublimity of despair, in the sacred name of Liberty cried for vengeance. They reddened the earth with the blood of their masters. They trampled beneath their feet the great army of human vermin that had lived upon their labor. They filled the air with the ruins of temples and thrones, and with bloody hands tore in pieces the altar upon which their rights had been offered by an impious church. They scorned the superstitions of the past not only, but they scorned the past; for the past to them was only wrong, imposition and outrage. The French Revolution was the inauguration of a new era. The lava of freedom long buried beneath a mountain of wrong and injustice at last burst forth, overwhelming the Pompeii and Herculaneum of priestcraft and tyranny. As soon as white slavery began to decay in Europe, and while the condition of the white slaves was improving about the middle of the 16th century in 1541, Alonzo Gonzales, of Portugal, pointed out to his countrymen a new field of operations, a new market for human flesh, and in a short time the African slave-trade with all its unspeakable horrors was inaugurated.
This trade has been the great crime of modern times. It is almost impossible to conceive that nations who professed to be Christian, or even in any degree civilized, should have engaged in this infamous traffic. Yet nearly all of the nations of Europe engaged in the slave-trade, legalized it, protected it, fostered the practice, and vied with each other in acts, the bare recital of which is enough to make the heart stand still.
It has been calculated that for years, at least 400,000 Africans were either killed or enslaved annually. They crammed their ships so full of these unfortunate wretches, that, as a general thing, about ten per cent, died of suffocation on the voyage. They were treated like wild beasts. In times of danger they were thrown into the sea. Remember that this horrible traffic commenced in the middle of the 16th century, was carried on by nations pretending to Christian civilization, and when do you think it was abolished by some of the principal countries? In England, Wilberforce and Clarkson dedicated their lives to the abolition of the slave-trade. They were hated and despised. They persevered for twenty years, and it was not until the 25th of March, 1808, that England pronounced the infamous traffic in human flesh illegal, and the rejoicing in England was redoubled on receiving the news that the United States had done the same thing. After a time, those engaged in the slave-trade were declared pirates.
On the 28th day of August, 1833, England abolished slavery throughout the British Colonies, thus giving liberty to nearly one million slaves.
The United States was then the greatest slave-holding power in the civilized world.
We are all acquainted with the history of slavery in this country. We know that it corrupted our people, that it has drenched our land in fraternal blood, that it has clad our country in mourning for the loss of 300,000 of her bravest sons; that it carried us back to the darkest ages of the world, that it led us to the very brink of destruction, forced us to the shattered gates of eternal ruin, death and annihilation. But Liberty rising above party prejudice, Freedom lifting itself above all other considerations,
"As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,—
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
And on the 1st day of January, 1863, the grandest New Year that ever dawned upon this continent, in accordance with the will of the heroic North, by the sublime act of one whose name will be sacred through all the coming years, the justice so long delayed was accomplished, and four millions of slaves became chainless.
LIBERTY TRIUMPHED.
LIBERTY, that most sacred word, without which all other words are vain, without which, life is worse than death, and men are beasts! I never see the word Liberty without seeing a halo of glory around it. It is a word worthy of the lips of a God. Can you realize the fact that only a few years ago, the most shocking system of slavery—the most barbarous—existed in our country, and that you and I were bound by the laws of the United States to stand between a human being and his liberty? That we were absolutely compelled by law to hand back that human being to the lash and chain? That by our laws children were sold from the arms of mothers, wives sold from their husbands? That we executed our laws with the assistance of bloodhounds, owned and trained by human bloodhounds fiercer still, and that all this was not only upheld by politicians, but by the pretended ministers of Christ? That the pulpit was in partnership with the auction block—that the bloodhound's bark was only an echo from many of the churches? And that this was all done under the sacred name of Liberty, by a republican government that was founded upon the sublime declaration that all men are equal? This all seems to me like a horrible dream, a nightmare of terror, a hellish impossibility. And yet, with cheeks glowing and burning with shame, before the bar of history, we are forced to plead guilty to this terrible charge. We made a whip-ping-post of the cross of Christ. It is true that in a great degree we have atoned for this national crime. Our bravest and our best have been sacrificed. We have borne the bloody burden of war. The good and the true have been with us, and the women of the North have won glory imperishable. They robbed war of half its terrors. Not content with binding the wreath of victory upon the leader's brow, they bandaged the soldiers' wounds, they nerved the living, comforted the dying, and smiled upon the great victory through their tears.
They have consoled the hero's widow and are educating his orphans. They have erected a monument to enlightened charity to which time can add only grandeur. There is much, however, to be accomplished still. Slavery has been abolished, but Progress requires more. We are called upon to make this a free government in the broadest sense, to give liberty to all. Standing in the presence of all history, knowing the experience of mankind, knowing that the earth is covered with countless wrecks of cruel failures; appealed to by the great army of martyrs and heroes who have gone before; by the sacred dust filling innumerable graves; by the memory of our own noble dead; by all the suffering of the past; by all the hopes for the future; by all the glorious dead and the countless millions yet to be, I pray, I beseech, I implore the American people to lay the foundation of the Government upon the principles of eternal justice. I pray, I beseech, I implore them to take for the corner-stone, Universal Human Liberty—the stone which has been heretofore rejected by all the builders of nations. The Government will then stand, and the swelling dome of the temple will touch the stars.
I HAVE thus endeavored to show you some of the effects of slavery, and to prove to you that a step in order to be in the direction of progress must be in the direction of freedom; that slavery either of body or mind is barbarism and is practiced and defended only by infamous tyrants or their dupes. I have endeavored to point out some of the causes of the abolition of slavery, both of body and mind. There is one truth, however, that you must not forget, and that is, that every evil tends to correct and abolish itself. I believe, however, that the diffusion of knowledge, more than everything else combined, has ameliorated the condition of mankind. When there was no freedom of speech and no press, then every idea perished in the brain that gave it birth. One man could not profit by the thought of another. The experience of the past was in a great degree unknown. And this state of things produced the same effect in the mental world, that confining all the water to the springs would in the physical. Confine the water to the springs, the rivulets would cease to murmur, the rivers to flow, and the ocean itself would become a desert of sand. But with the invention of printing, ideas began to circulate, born of the busy brain of the million—little rivulets of facts running into rivers of information, and they all flowing into the great ocean of human knowledge.
This exchange of ideas, this comparison of thought, has given to each generation the advantage of all the past. This, more than all else, has enabled man to improve his condition. It is by this that from the log or piece of bark on which a naked savage floated, we have by successive improvements created a man-of-war carrying a hundred guns and miles of canvas. By these means we have changed a handful of sand into a telescope. In the hands of science a drop of water has become a giant, turning with swift and tireless arm the countless wheels. The sun has become an artist painting with shining beams the very thoughts within our eyes. The elements have been taught to do our bidding, and the electric spark, freighted with human thought and love, defies distance, and devours time as it sweeps under all the waves of the sea.
These are some of the results of free thought and free labor. I have barely alluded to a few—where is improvement to stop? Science is only in its infancy. It has accomplished all this and is in its cradle still.
We are standing on the shore of an infinite ocean whose countless waves, freighted with blessings, are welcoming our adventurous feet. Progress has been written on every soul. The human race is advancing.
Forward, oh sublime army of progress, forward until law is justice, forward until ignorance is unknown, forward while there is a spiritual or temporal throne, forward until superstition is a forgotten dream, forward until the world is free, forward until human reason, clothed in the purple of authority, is king of kings.
* This was Col. Ingersoll's last public address, delivered
before the American Free Religious Association, in the
Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, June 2, 1899.
IT is asserted that an infinite God created all things, governs all things, and that the creature should be obedient and thankful to the creator; that the creator demands certain things, and that the person who complies with these demands is religious. This kind of religion has been substantially universal.
For many centuries and by many peoples it was believed that this God demanded sacrifices; that he was pleased when parents shed the blood of their babes. Afterward it was supposed that he was satisfied with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves, and that in exchange for or on account of these sacrifices, this God gave rain, sunshine and harvest. It was also believed that if the sacrifices were not made, this God sent pestilence, famine, flood and earthquake.
The last phase of this belief in sacrifice was, according to the Christian doctrine, that God accepted the blood of his son, and that after his son had been murdered, he, God, was satisfied, and wanted no more blood.
During all these years and by all these peoples it was believed that this God heard and answered prayer, that he forgave sins and saved the souls of true believers. This, in a general way, is the definition of religion.
Now, the questions are, Whether religion was founded on any known fact? Whether such a being as God exists? Whether he was the creator of yourself and myself? Whether any prayer was ever answered? Whether any sacrifice of babe or ox secured the favor of this unseen God?
First.—Did an infinite God create the children of men?
Why did he create the intellectually inferior?
Why did he create the deformed and helpless?
Why did he create the criminal, the idiotic, the insane?
Can infinite wisdom and power make any excuse for the creation of failures?
Are the failures under obligation to their creator?
Second.—Is an infinite God the governor of this world?
Is he responsible for all the chiefs, kings, emperors, and queens?
Is he responsible for all the wars that have been waged, for all the innocent blood that has been shed?
Is he responsible for the centuries of slavery, for the backs that have been scarred with the lash, for the babes that have been sold from the breasts of mothers, for the families that have been separated and destroyed?
Is this God responsible for religious persecution, for the Inquisition, for the thumb-screw and rack, and for all the instruments of torture?
Did this God allow the cruel and vile to destroy the brave and virtuous? Did he allow tyrants to shed the blood of patriots?
Did he allow his enemies to torture and burn his friends?
What is such a God worth?
Would a decent man, having the power to prevent it, allow his enemies to torture and burn his friends?
Can we conceive of a devil base enough to prefer his enemies to his friends?
If a good and infinitely powerful God governs this world, how can we account for cyclones, earthquakes, pestilence and famine?
How can we account for cancers, for microbes, for diphtheria and the thousand diseases that prey on infancy?
How can we account for the wild beasts that devour human beings, for the fanged serpents whose bite is death?
How can we account for a world where life feeds on life?
Were beak and claw, tooth and fang, invented and produced by infinite mercy?
Did infinite goodness fashion the wings of the eagles so that their fleeing prey could be overtaken?
Did infinite goodness create the beasts of prey with the intention that they should devour the weak and helpless?
Did infinite goodness create the countless worthless living things that breed within and feed upon the flesh of higher forms?
Did infinite wisdom intentionally produce the microscopic beasts that feed upon the optic nerve?
Think of blinding a man to satisfy the appetite of a microbe!
Think of life feeding on life! Think of the victims! Think of the Niagara of blood pouring over the precipice of cruelty!
In view of these facts, what, after all, is religion?
It is fear.
Fear builds the altar and offers the sacrifice.
Fear erects the cathedral and bows the head of man in worship.
Fear bends the knees and utters the prayer.
Fear pretends to love.
Religion teaches the slave-virtues—obedience, humility, self-denial, forgiveness, non-resistance.
Lips, religious and fearful, tremblingly repeat this passage: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." This is the abyss of degradation.
Religion does not teach self-reliance, independence, manliness, courage, self-defence. Religion makes God a master and man his serf. The master cannot be great enough to make slavery sweet.
II.
IF this God exists, how do we know that he is-I good? How can we prove that he is merciful, that he cares for the children of men? If this God exists, he has on many occasions seen millions of his poor children plowing the fields, sowing and planting the grain, and when he saw them he knew that they depended on the expected crop for life, and yet this good God, this merciful being, withheld the rain. He caused the sun to rise, to steal all moisture from the land, but gave no rain. He saw the seeds that man had planted wither and perish, but he sent no rain. He saw the people look with sad eyes upon the barren earth, and he sent no rain. He saw them slowly devour the little that they had, and saw them when the days of hunger came—saw them slowly waste away, saw their hungry, sunken eyes, heard their prayers, saw them devour the miserable animals that they had, saw fathers and mothers, insane with hunger, kill and eat their shriveled babes, and yet the heaven above them was as brass and the earth beneath as iron, and he sent no rain. Can we say that in the heart of this God there blossomed the flower of pity? Can we say that he cared for the children of men? Can we say that his mercy endureth forever?
Do we prove that this God is good because he sends the cyclone that wrecks villages and covers the fields with the mangled bodies of fathers, mothers and babes? Do we prove his goodness by showing that he has opened the earth and swallowed thousands of his helpless children, or that with the volcanoes he has overwhelmed them with rivers of fire? Can we infer the goodness of God from the facts we know?
If these calamities did not happen, would we suspect that God cared nothing for human beings? If there were no famine, no pestilence, no cyclone, no earthquake, would we think that God is not good?
According to the theologians, God did not make all men alike. He made races differing in intelligence, stature and color. Was there goodness, was there wisdom in this?
Ought the superior races to thank God that they are not the inferior? If we say yes, then I ask another question: Should the inferior races thank God that they are not superior, or should they thank God that they are not beasts?
When God made these different races he knew that the superior would enslave the inferior, knew that the inferior would be conquered, and finally destroyed.
If God did this, and knew the blood that would be shed, the agonies that would be endured, saw the countless fields covered with the corpses of the slain, saw all the bleeding backs of slaves, all the broken hearts of mothers bereft of babes, if he saw and knew all this, can we conceive of a more malicious fiend?
Why, then, should we say that God is good?
The dungeons against whose dripping walls the brave and generous have sighed their souls away, the scaffolds stained and glorified with noble blood, the hopeless slaves with scarred and bleeding backs, the writhing martyrs clothed in flame, the virtuous stretched on racks, their joints and muscles torn apart, the flayed and bleeding bodies of the just, the extinguished eyes of those who sought for truth, the countless patriots who fought and died in vain, the burdened, beaten, weeping wives, the shriveled faces of neglected babes, the murdered millions of the vanished years, the victims of the winds and waves, of flood and flame, of imprisoned forces in the earth, of lightning's stroke, of lava's molten stream, of famine, plague and lingering pain, the mouths that drip with blood, the fangs that poison, the beaks that wound and tear, the triumphs of the base, the rule and sway of wrong, the crowns that cruelty has worn and the robed hypocrites, with clasped and bloody hands, who thanked their God—a phantom fiend—that liberty had been banished from the world, these souvenirs of the dreadful past, these horrors that still exist, these frightful facts deny that any God exists who has the will and power to guard and bless the human race.
III. THE POWER THAT WORKS FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
MOST people cling to the supernatural. If they give up one God, they imagine another. Having outgrown Jehovah, they talk about the power that works for righteousness.
What is this power?
Man advances, and necessarily advances through experience. A man wishing to go to a certain place comes to where the road divides. He takes the left hand, believing it to be the right road, and travels until he finds that it is the wrong one. He retraces his steps and takes the right hand road and reaches the place desired. The next time he goes to the same place, he does not take the left hand road. He has tried that road, and knows that it is the wrong road. He takes the right road, and thereupon these theologians say, "There is a power that works for righteousness."
A child, charmed by the beauty of the flame, grasps it with its dimpled hand. The hand is burned, and after that the child keeps its hand out of the fire. The power that works for righteousness has taught the child a lesson.
The accumulated experience of the world is a power and force that works for righteousness. This force is not conscious, not intelligent. It has no will, no purpose. It is a result.
So thousands have endeavored to establish the existence of God by the fact that we have what is called the moral sense; that is to say, a conscience.
It is insisted by these theologians, and by many of the so-called philosophers, that this moral sense, this sense of duty, of obligation, was imported, and that conscience is an exotic. Taking the ground that it was not produced here, was not produced by man, they then imagine a God from whom it came.
Man is a social being. We live together in families, tribes and nations.
The members of a family, of a tribe, of a nation, who increase the happiness of the family, of the tribe or of the nation, are considered good members. They are praised, admired and respected. They are regarded as good; that is to say, as moral.
The members who add to the misery of the family, the tribe or the nation, are considered bad members.
They are blamed, despised, punished. They are regarded as immoral.
The family, the tribe, the nation, creates a standard of conduct, of morality. There is nothing supernatural in this.
The greatest of human beings has said, "Conscience is born of love."
The sense of obligation, of duty, was naturally produced.
Among savages, the immediate consequences of actions are taken into consideration. As people advance, the remote consequences are perceived. The standard of conduct becomes higher. The imagination is cultivated. A man puts himself in the place of another. The sense of duty becomes stronger, more imperative. Man judges himself.
He loves, and love is the commencement, the foundation of the highest virtues. He injures one that he loves. Then comes regret, repentance, sorrow, conscience. In all this there is nothing supernatural.
Man has deceived himself. Nature is a mirror in which man sees his own image, and all supernatural religions rest on the pretence that the image, which appears to be behind this mirror, has been caught.
All the metaphysicians of the spiritual type, from Plato to Swedenborg, have manufactured their facts, and all founders of religion have done the same.
Suppose that an infinite God exists, what can we do for him? Being infinite, he is conditionless; being conditionless, he cannot be benefited or injured. He cannot want. He has.
Think of the egotism of a man who believes that an infinite being wants his praise!
IV.
WHAT has our religion done? Of course, it is admitted by Christians that all other religions are false, and consequently we need examine only our own.
Has Christianity done good? Has it made men nobler, more merciful, nearer honest? When the church had control, were men made better and happier?
What has been the effect of Christianity in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, in Ireland?
What has religion done for Hungary or Austria? What was the effect of Christianity in Switzerland, in Holland, in Scotland, in England, in America? Let us be honest. Could these countries have been worse without religion? Could they have been worse had they had any other religion than Christianity?
Would Torquemada have been worse had he been a follower of Zoroaster? Would Calvin have been more bloodthirsty if he had believed in the religion of the South Sea Islanders? Would the Dutch have been more idiotic if they had denied the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and worshiped the blessed trinity of sausage, beer and cheese? Would John Knox have been any worse had he deserted Christ and become a follower of Confucius?
Take our own dear, merciful Puritan Fathers? What did Christianity do for them? They hated pleasure. On the door of life they hung the crape of death. They muffled all the bells of gladness. They made cradles by putting rockers on coffins. In the Puritan year there were twelve Decembers. They tried to do away with infancy and youth, with prattle of babes and the song of the morning.
The religion of the Puritan was an unadulterated curse. The Puritan believed the Bible to be the word of God, and this belief has always made those who held it cruel and wretched. Would the Puritan have been worse if he had adopted the religion of the North American Indians?
Let me refer to just one fact showing the influence of a belief in the Bible on human beings.
"On the day of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth she was presented with a Geneva Bible by an old man representing Time, with Truth standing by his side as a child. The Queen received the Bible, kissed it, and pledged herself to diligently read therein. In the dedication of this blessed Bible the Queen was piously exhorted to put all Papists to the sword."
In this incident we see the real spirit of Protestant lovers of the Bible. In other words, it was just as fiendish, just as infamous as the Catholic spirit.
Has the Bible made the people of Georgia kind and merciful? Would the lynchers be more ferocious if they worshiped gods of wood and stone?
VII. HOW CAN MANKIND BE REFORMED WITHOUT RELIGION?
RELIGION has been tried, and in all countries, in all times, has failed.
Religion has never made man merciful.
Remember the Inquisition.
What effect did religion have on slavery?
What effect upon Libby, Saulsbury and Andersonville?
Religion has always been the enemy of science, of investigation and thought.
Religion has never made man free.
It has never made man moral, temperate, industrious and honest.
Are Christians more temperate, nearer virtuous, nearer honest than savages?
Among savages do we not find that their vices and cruelties are the fruits of their superstitions?
To those who believe in the Uniformity of Nature, religion is impossible.
Can we affect the nature and qualities of substance by prayer? Can we hasten or delay the tides by worship? Can we change winds by sacrifice? Will kneelings give us wealth? Can we cure disease by supplication? Can we add to our knowledge by ceremony? Can we receive virtue or honor as alms?
Are not the facts in the mental world just as stubborn—just as necessarily produced—as the facts in the material world? Is not what we call mind just as natural as what we call body?
Religion rests on the idea that Nature has a master and that this master will listen to prayer; that this master punishes and rewards; that he loves praise and flattery and hates the brave and free.
Has man obtained any help from heaven?
VI.
IF we have a theory, we must have facts for the foundation. We must have corner-stones. We must not build on guesses, fancies, analogies or inferences. The structure must have a basement. If we build, we must begin at the bottom.
I have a theory and I have four corner-stones.
The first stone is that matter—substance—cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated.
The second stone is that force cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated.
The third stone is that matter and force cannot exist apart—no matter without force—no force without matter.
The fourth stone is that that which cannot be destroyed could not have been created; that the indestructible is the uncreatable.
If these corner-stones are facts, it follows as a necessity that matter and force are from and to eternity; that they can neither be increased nor diminished.
It follows that nothing has been or can be created; that there never has been or can be a creator.
It follows that there could not have been any intelligence, any design back of matter and force.
There is no intelligence without force. There is no force without matter. Consequently there could not by any possibility have been any intelligence, any force, back of matter.
It therefore follows that the supernatural does not and cannot exist. If these four corner-stones are facts, Nature has no master. If matter and force are from and to eternity, it follows as a necessity that no God exists; that no God created or governs the universe; that no God exists who answers prayer; no God who succors the oppressed; no God who pities the sufferings of innocence; no God who cares for the slaves with scarred flesh, the mothers robbed of their babes; no God who rescues the tortured, and no God that saves a martyr from the flames. In other words, it proves that man has never received any help from heaven; that all sacrifices have been in vain, and that all prayers have died unanswered in the heedless air. I do not pretend to know. I say what I think.
If matter and force have existed from eternity, it then follows that all that has been possible has happened, all that is possible is happening, and all that will be possible will happen.
In the universe there is no chance, no caprice. Every event has parents.
That which has not happened, could not. The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.
In the infinite chain there is, and there can be, no broken, no missing link. The form and motion of every star, the climate of every world, all forms of vegetable and animal life, all instinct, intelligence and conscience, all assertions and denials, all vices and virtues, all thoughts and dreams, all hopes and fears, are necessities. Not one of the countless things and relations in the universe could have been different.
VII.
IF matter and force are from eternity, then we can say that man had no intelligent creator—that man was not a special creation.
We now know, if we know anything, that Jehovah, the divine potter, did not mix and mould clay into the forms of men and women, and then breathe the breath of life into these forms.
We now know that our first parents were not foreigners. We know that they were natives of this world, produced here, and that their life did not come from the breath of any god. We now know, if we know anything, that the universe is natural, and that men and women have been naturally produced. We now know our ancestors, our pedigree. We have the family tree.
We have all the Dlinks of the chain, twenty-six Dlinks inclusive from moner to man.
We did not get our information from inspired books. We have fossil facts and living forms.
From the simplest creatures, from blind sensation, from organism from one vague want, to a single cell with a nucleus, to a hollow ball filled with fluid, to a cup with double walls, to a flat worm, to a something that begins to breathe, to an organism that has a spinal chord, to a link between the invertebrate to the vertebrate, to one that has a cranium—a house for a brain—to one with fins, still onward to one with fore and hinder fins, to the reptile mammalia, to the marsupials, to the lemures, dwellers in trees, to the simiæ, to the pithecanthropi, and lastly, to man.
We know the paths that life has traveled. We know the footsteps of advance. They have been traced. The last link has been found. For this we are indebted, more than to all others, to the greatest of biologists, Ernst Haeckel.
We now believe that the universe is natural and we deny the existence of the supernatural.
VIII. Reform.
FOR thousands of years men and women have been trying to reform the world. They have created gods and devils, heavens and hells; they have written sacred books, performed miracles, built cathedrals and dungeons; they have crowned and uncrowned kings and queens; they have tortured and imprisoned, flayed alive and burned; they have preached and prayed; they have tried promises and threats; they have coaxed and persuaded; they have preached and taught, and in countless ways have endeavored to make people honest, temperate, industrious and virtuous; they have built hospitals and asylums, universities and schools, and seem to have done their very best to make mankind better and happier, and yet they have not succeeded.
Why have the reformers failed? I will tell them why.
Ignorance, poverty and vice are populating the world. The gutter is a nursery. People unable even to support themselves fill the tenements, the huts and hovels with children. They depend on the Lord, on luck and charity. They are not intelligent enough to think about consequences or to feel responsibility. At the same time they do not want children, because a child is a curse, a curse to them and to itself. The babe is not welcome, because it is a burden. These unwelcome children fill the jails and prisons, the asylums and hospitals, and they crowd the scaffolds. A few are rescued by chance or charity, but the great majority are failures, They become vicious, ferocious. They live by fraud and violence, and bequeath their vices to their children.
Against this inundation of vice the forces of reform are helpless, and charity itself becomes an unconscious promoter of crime.
Failure seems to be the trademark of Nature. Why? Nature has no design, no intelligence. Nature produces without purpose, sustains without intention and destroys without thought. Man has a little intelligence, and he should use it. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind.
The real question is, can we prevent the ignorant, the poor, the vicious, from filling the world with their children?
Can we prevent this Missouri of ignorance and vice from emptying into the Mississippi of civilization?
Must the world forever remain the victim of ignorant passion? Can the world be civilized to that degree that consequences will be taken into consideration by all?
Why should men and women have children that they cannot take care of, children that are burdens and curses? Why? Because they have more passion than intelligence, more passion than conscience, more passion than reason.
You cannot reform these people with tracts and talk. You cannot reform these people with preach and creed. Passion is, and always has been, deaf. These weapons of reform are substantially useless. Criminals, tramps, beggars and failures are increasing every day. The prisons, jails, poorhouses and asylums are crowded. Religion is helpless. Law can punish, but it can neither reform criminals nor prevent crime. The tide of vice is rising. The war that is now being waged against the forces of evil is as hopeless as the battle of the fireflies against the darkness of night.
There is but one hope. Ignorance, poverty and vice must stop populating the world. This cannot be done by moral suasion. This cannot be done by talk or example. This cannot be done by religion or by law, by priest or by hangman. This cannot be done by force, physical or moral.
To accomplish this there is but one way. Science must make woman the owner, the mistress of herself. Science, the only possible savior of mankind, must put it in the power of woman to decide for herself whether she will or will not become a mother.
This is the solution of the whole question. This frees woman. The babes that are then born will be welcome. They will be clasped with glad hands to happy breasts. They will fill homes with light and joy.
Men and women who believe that slaves are purer, truer, than the free, who believe that fear is a safer guide than knowledge, that only those are really good who obey the commands of others, and that ignorance is the soil in which the perfect, perfumed flower of virtue grows, will with protesting hands hide their shocked faces.
Men and women who think that light is the enemy of virtue, that purity dwells in darkness, that it is dangerous for human beings to know themselves and the facts in Nature that affect their well being, will be horrified at the thought of making intelligence the master of passion.
But I look forward to the time when men and women by reason of their knowledge of consequences, of the morality born of intelligence, will refuse to perpetuate disease and pain, will refuse to fill the world with failures.
When that time comes the prison walls will fall, the dungeons will be flooded with light, and the shadow of the scaffold will cease to curse the earth. Poverty and crime will be childless. The withered hands of want will not be stretched for alms. They will be dust. The whole world will be intelligent, virtuous and free.
IX.
RELIGION can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile.
It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart.
And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul.
This is real religion. This is real worship.
INGERSOLL'S INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.
A VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
CONTENTS
OF VOLUME V.
SIX INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.
(1882.)
Preface—First Interview: Great Men as Witnesses
to the Truth of the Gospel—No man should quote
the Words of
Another unless he is willing to
Accept all the Opinions of that Man—Reasons
of
more Weight than Reputations—Would a general
Acceptance
of Unbelief fill the Penitentiaries?—
My Creed—Most
Criminals Orthodox—Relig-ion and
Morality not Necessarily
Associates—On the
Creation of the Universe out of Omnipotence—Mr.
Talmage's Theory about the Pro-duction of Light
prior to the Creation
of the Sun—The Deluge and
the Ark—Mr. Talmage's tendency
to Belittle the
Bible Miracles—His Chemical, Geological, and
Agricultural Views—His Disregard of Good Manners-
-Second
Interview: An Insulting Text—God's Design
in Creating Guiteau
to be the Assassin of
Garfield—Mr. Talmage brings the Charge of
Blasphemy—Some Real Blasphemers—The Tabernacle
Pastor
tells the exact Opposite of the Truth about
Col. Ingersoll's Attitude
toward the Circulation
of Immoral Books—"Assassinating" God—Mr.
Talmage finds Nearly All the Invention of Modern
Times Mentioned in
the Bible—The Reverend
Gentleman corrects the Translators of
the Bible in
the Matter of the Rib Story—Denies that Polygamy
is permitted by the Old Testament—His De-fence of
Queen
Victoria and Violation of the Grave of
George Eliot—Exhibits a
Christian Spirit—Third
Interview: Mr. Talmage's Partiality in
the
Bestowal of his Love—Denies the Right of Laymen
to
Examine the Scriptures—Thinks the Infidels
Victims of
Bibliophobia —He explains the Stopping
of the Sun and Moon at
the Command of Joshua—
Instances a Dark Day in the Early Part
of the
Century—Charges that Holy Things are Made Light
of—Reaffirms
his Confidence in the Whale and
Jonah Story—The Commandment
which Forbids the
making of Graven Images—Affirmation that the
Bible is the Friend of Woman—The Present
Condition of Woman—Fourth
Interview: Colonel
Ingersoll Compared by Mr. Talmage tojehoiakim, who
Consigned Writings of Jeremiah to the Flames—An
Intimation that
Infidels wish to have all copies
of the Bible Destroyed by Fire—Laughter
Deprecated—Col. Ingersoll Accused of Denouncing
his Father—Mr.
Talmage holds that a Man may be
Perfectly Happy in Heaven with His
Mother in Hell-
-Challenges the Infidel to Read a Chapter from St.
John—On the "Chief Solace of the World"—Dis-
covers an
Attempt is being made to Put Out the
Light-houses of the Farther
Shore—Affirms our
Debt to Christianity for Schools, Hospitals,
etc.—Denies that Infidels have ever Done any
Good—
Fifth Interview: Inquiries if Men gather Grapes of
Thorns, or
Figs of Thistles, and is Answered in
the Negative—Resents the
Charge that the Bible is
a Cruel Book—Demands to Know where the
Cruelty of
the Bible Crops out in the Lives of Christians—
Col. Ingersoll Accused of saying that the Bible
is a Collection of
Polluted Writings—Mr. Talmage
Asserts the Orchestral Harmony of
the Scriptures
from Genesis to Revelation, and Repudiates the
Theory of Contradictions—His View of Mankind
Indicated in
Quotations from his Confession of
Faith—He Insists that the
Bible is Scientific—
Traces the New Testament to its Source
with St.
John—Pledges his Word that no Man ever Died for a
Lie Cheerfully and Triumphantly—As to Prophecies
and
Predictions—Alleged "Prophetic" Fate of the
Jewish People—Sixth
Interview: Dr. Talmage takes
the Ground that the Unrivalled
Circulation of the
Bible Proves that it is Inspired—Forgets'
that a
Scientific Fact does not depend on the Vote of
Numbers—Names
some Christian Millions—His
Arguments Characterized as the
Poor-est, Weakest,
and Best Possible in Support of the Doctrine of
Inspira-tion—Will God, in Judging a Man, take
into
Consideration the Cir-cumstances of that
Man's Life?—Satisfactory
Reasons for Not Believ-
ing that the Bible is inspired.
THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.
The Pith and Marrow of what Mr.
Talmage has been
Pleased to Say, set forth in the form of a Shorter
Catechism.
A VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
(1877.)
Letter to the New York Observer—An Offer to Pay
One Thousand Dollars in Gold for Proof that Thomas
Paine or Voltaire
Died in Terror because of any
Religious Opinions Either had Expressed—
Proposition to Create a Tribunal to Hear the
Evidence—The
Ob-server, after having Called upon
Col. Ingersoll to Deposit the
Money, and
Characterized his Talk as "Infidel 'Buncombe,'"
Denies its Own Words, but attempts to Prove them—
Its Memory
Refreshed by Col. Ingersoll and the
Slander Refuted—Proof that
Paine did Not Recant -
-Testimony of Thomas Nixon, Daniel Pelton, Mr.
Jarvis, B. F. Has-kin, Dr. Manley, Amasa
Woodsworth, Gilbert Vale,
Philip Graves, M. D.,
Willet Hicks, A. C. Hankinson, John Hogeboom,
W.
J. Hilton, Tames Cheetham, Revs. Milledollar and
Cunningham,
Mrs. Hedden, Andrew A. Dean, William
Carver,—The Statements of
Mary Roscoe and Mary
Hindsdale Examined—William Cobbett's
Account of a
Call upon Mary Hinsdale—Did Thomas Paine live the
Life of a Drunken Beast, and did he Die a Drunken,
Cowardly, and
Beastly Death?—Grant Thorbum's
Charges Examined—Statement
of the Rev. J. D.
Wickham, D.D., shown to be Utterly False—False
Witness of the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D.—W. H.
Ladd, James
Cheetham, and Mary Hinsdale—Paine's
Note to Cheetham—Mr-Staple,
Mr. Purdy, Col. John
Fellows, James Wilburn, Walter Morton, Clio
Rickman, Judge Herttell, H. Margary, Elihu Palmer,
Mr.
XV
Lovett, all these Testified that Paine was a
Temperate Man—Washington's
Letter to Paine—
Thomas Jefferson's—Adams and Washing-ton
on
"Common Sense"—-James Monroe's Tribute—
Quotations from Paine—Paine's Estate and His
Will—The
Observer's Second Attack (p. 492):
Statements of Elkana Watson,
William Carver, Rev.
E. F. Hatfield, D.D., James Cheetham, Dr. J. W.
Francis, Dr. Manley, Bishop Fenwick—Ingersoll's
Second Reply
(p. 516): Testimony Garbled by the
Editor of the Observer—Mary
Roscoeand Mary Hins-
dale the Same Person—Her Reputation for
Veracity-
-Letter from Rev. A. W. Cornell—Grant Thorburn
Exposed by James Parton—The Observer's Admission
that Paine did
not Recant—Affidavit of
William B. Barnes.
PREFACE
SEVERAL people, having read the sermons of
Mr. Talmage in which
he reviews some of my
lectures, have advised me not to pay the
slightest
attention to the Brooklyn divine. They think that
no
new arguments have been brought forward, and
they have even gone so
far as to say that some of
the best of the old ones have been left
out.
After thinking the matter over, I became satisfied
that my friends were mistaken, that they had been car-
ried away by
the general current of modern thought,
and were not in a frame of
mind to feel the force
of the arguments of Mr. Talmage, or to clearly
see
the candor that characterizes his utterances.
At the
first reading, the logic of these sermons does
not impress you. The
style is of a character calculated
VI
to throw the
searcher after facts and arguments off
his guard. The imagination of
the preacher is so
lurid; he is so free from the ordinary forms of
ex-
pression; his statements are so much stranger than
truth,
and his conclusions so utterly independent of
his premises, that the
reader is too astonished to
be convinced. Not until I had read with
great care
the six discourses delivered for my benefit had I any
clear and well-defined idea of the logical force of
Mr. Talmage. I
had but little conception of his
candor, was almost totally ignorant
of his power to
render the simple complex and the plain obscure by
the mutilation of metaphor and the incoherence
of inspired
declamation. Neither did I know the
generous accuracy with which he
states the position
of an opponent, and the fairness he exhibits in a
religious discussion.
He has without doubt studied the Bible as
closely
and critically as he has the works of Buckle and
Darwin,
and he seems to have paid as much attention
to scientific subjects as
most theologians. His theory
of light and his views upon geology are
strikingly
original, and his astronomical theories are certainly as
profound as practical. If his statements can be relied
upon, he has
successfully refuted the teachings of
VII
Humboldt
and Haeckel, and exploded the blunders of
Spencer and Tyndall.
Besides all this, he has the
courage of his convictions—he does
not quail before a
fact, and he does not strike his colors even to a
dem-
onstration. He cares nothing for human experience.
He
cannot be put down with statistics, nor driven
from his position by
the certainties of science. He
cares neither for the persistence of
force, nor the
indestructibility of matter.
He believes in
the Bible, and he has the bravery
to defend his belief. In this, he
proudly stands
almost alone. He knows that the salvation of the
world depends upon a belief in his creed. He
knows that what are
called "the sciences" are of
no importance in the other world. He
clearly sees
that it is better to live and die ignorant here, if you
can wear a crown of glory hereafter. He knows it
is useless to be
perfectly familiar with all the sciences
in this world, and then in
the next "lift up your eyes,
being in torment." He knows, too, that
God will
not punish any man for denying a fact in science.
A man
can deny the rotundity of the earth, the
attraction of gravitation,
the form of the earths orbit,
or the nebular hypothesis, with perfect
impunity.
He is not bound to be correct upon any philo-
VIII
sophical subject. He is at liberty to deny and ridi-
cule the rule of three, conic sections, and even the
multiplication
table. God permits every human
being to be mistaken upon every
subject but one.
No man can lose his soul by denying physical facts.
Jehovah does not take the slightest pride in his geology,
or in
his astronomy, or in mathematics, or in
any school of philosophy—he
is jealous only of his
reputation as the author of the Bible. You may
deny
everything else in the universe except that book.
This
being so, Mr. Talmage takes the safe side, and
insists that the Bible
is inspired. He knows that at
the day of judgment, not a scientific
question will be
asked. He knows that the Hæckels and Huxleys
will, on that terrible day, regret that they ever
learned to read. He
knows that there is no "saving
grace" in any department of human
knowledge; that
mathematics and all the exact sciences and all the
philosophies will be worse than useless. He knows
that inventors,
discoverers, thinkers and investigators,
have no claim upon the mercy
of Jehovah; that the
educated will envy the ignorant, and that the
writers
and thinkers will curse their books.
He knows that
man cannot be saved through
what he knows—but only by means of
what he
IX
believes. Theology is not a science. If
it were,
God would forgive his children for being mistaken
about
it. If it could be proved like geology, or
astronomy, there would be
no merit in believing it.
From a belief in the Bible, Mr. Talmage is
not to be
driven by uninspired evidence. He knows that his
logic
is liable to lead him astray, and that his reason
cannot be depended
upon. He believes that scien-
tific men are no authority in matters
concerning
which nothing can be known, and he does not wish
to
put his soul in peril, by examining by the light of
reason, the
evidences of the supernatural.
He is perfectly consistent with
his creed. What
happens to us here is of no consequence compared
with eternal joy or pain. The ambitions, honors,
glories and triumphs
of this world, compared with
eternal things, are less than naught.
Better a cross here and a crown there, than a feast
here and a
fire there.
Lazarus was far more fortunate than Dives. The
purple and fine linen of this short life are as nothing
compared with
the robes of the redeemed.
Mr. Talmage knows that philosophy is
unsafe—
that the sciences are sirens luring souls to eternal
wreck. He knows that the deluded searchers after
X
facts are planting thorns in their own pillows—that
the
geologists are digging pits for themselves, and
that the astronomers
are robbing their souls of the
heaven they explore. He knows that
thought, capa-
city, and intellectual courage are dangerous, and this
belief gives him a feeling of personal security.
The Bible is
adapted to the world as it is. Most
people are ignorant, and but few
have the capacity to
comprehend philosophical and scientific
subjects, and
if salvation depended upon understanding even one
of the sciences, nearly everybody would be lost.
Mr. Talmage sees
that it was exceedingly merciful in
God to base salvation on belief
instead of on brain.
Millions can believe, while only a few can
understand.
Even the effort to understand is a kind of treason
born of pride and ingratitude. This being so, it is far
safer, far
better, to be credulous than critical. You are
offered an infinite
reward for believing the Bible. If
you examine it you may find it
impossible for you to
believe it. Consequently, examination is
dangerous.
Mr. Talmage knows that it is not necessary to under-
stand the Bible in order to believe it. You must be-
lieve it first.
Then, if on reading it you find anything
that appears false, absurd,
or impossible, you may
be sure that it is only an appearance, and
that the real
XI
fault is in yourself. It is certain
that persons wholly
incapable of reasoning are absolutely safe, and
that
to be born brainless is to be saved in advance.
Mr.
Talmage takes the ground,—and certainly from
his point of view
nothing can be more reasonable
—that thought should be avoided,
after one has
"experienced religion" and has been the subject of
"regeneration." Every sinner should listen to ser-
mons, read
religious books, and keep thinking, until
he becomes a Christian.
Then he should stop. After
that, thinking is not the road to heaven.
The real
point and the real difficulty is to stop thinking just at
the right time. Young Christians, who have no idea
of what they are
doing, often go on thinking after
joining the church, and in this way
heresy is born, and
heresy is often the father of infidelity. If
Christians
would follow the advice and example of Mr. Talmage
all disagreements about doctrine would be avoided.
In this way the
church could secure absolute in-
tellectual peace and all the
disputes, heartburnings,
jealousies and hatreds born of thought,
discussion
and reasoning, would be impossible.
In the
estimation of Mr. Talmage, the man who
doubts and examines is not fit
for the society of
angels. There are no disputes, no discussions in
XII
heaven. The angels do not think; they believe,
they enjoy. The highest form of religion is re-
pression. We should
conquer the passions and
destroy desire. We should control the mind
and
stop thinking. In this way we "offer ourselves a
"living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." When
desire dies, when thought
ceases, we shall be pure.
—This is heaven.
Robert G.
Ingersoll.
Washington, D. C,
April; 1882.
INGERSOLL'S
INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.
FIRST INTERVIEW.
Polonius. My lord,
I will use them according to
their desert.
Hamlet. God's
bodikins, man, much better: use
every man after his desert, and who
should 'scape
whipping? Use them after your own honor and
dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is
in your bounty.
Question. Have you read the sermon of
Mr. Talmage,
in which he exposes your mis-
representations?
Answer.
I have read such reports as appeared in
some of the New York papers.
Question. What do you think of what he has
to say?
Answer. Some time ago I gave it as my opinion
of Mr.
Talmage that, while he was a man of most
excellent judgment, he was
somewhat deficient in
imagination. I find that he has the disease
that seems
16
to afflict most theologians, and that
is, a kind of intel-
lectual toadyism, that uses the names of
supposed great
men instead of arguments. It is perfectly astonishing
to the average preacher that any one should have the
temerity to
differ, on the subject of theology, with
Andrew Jackson, Daniel
Webster, and other gentlemen
eminent for piety during their lives,
but who,
as a rule, expressed their theological opinions a few
minutes before dissolution. These ministers are per-
fectly delighted
to have some great politician, some
judge, soldier, or president,
certify to the truth of the
Bible and to the moral character of Jesus
Christ.
Mr. Talmage insists that if a witness is false in one
particular, his entire testimony must be thrown away.
Daniel Webster
was in favor of the Fugitive Slave
Law, and thought it the duty of
the North to capture
the poor slave-mother. He was willing to stand
between a human being and his freedom. He was
willing to assist in
compelling persons to work without
any pay except such marks of the
lash as they might
receive. Yet this man is brought forward as a
witness
for the truth of the gospel. If he was false in his
testimony as to liberty, what is his affidavit worth as
to the value
of Christianity? Andrew Jackson was a
brave man, a good general, a
patriot second to none,
17
an excellent judge of
horses, and a brave duelist. I
admit that in his old age he relied
considerably upon
the atonement. I think Jackson was really a very
great
man, and probably no President impressed himself
more
deeply upon the American people than the hero
of New Orleans, but as
a theologian he was, in my
judgment, a most decided failure, and his
opinion as
to the authenticity of the Scriptures is of no earthly
value. It was a subject upon which he knew probably
as little as Mr.
Talmage does about modern infidelity.
Thousands of people will quote
Jackson in favor of
religion, about which he knew nothing, and yet
have
no confidence in his political opinions, although he
devoted the best part of his life to politics.
No man should
quote the words of another, in place
of an argument, unless he is
willing to accept all the
opinions of that man. Lord Bacon denied the
Copernican
system of astronomy, and, according to Mr.
Talmage, having made that mistake, his opinions upon
other subjects
are equally worthless. Mr. Wesley
believed in ghosts, witches, and
personal devils, yet
upon many subjects I have no doubt his opinions
were
correct. The truth is, that nearly everybody is right
about
some things and wrong about most things; and
if a man's testimony is
not to be taken until he is
18
right on every
subject, witnesses will be extremely
scarce.
Personally, I
care nothing about names. It makes
no difference to me what the
supposed great men of
the past have said, except as what they have
said
contains an argument; and that argument is worth to
me the
force it naturally has upon my mind. Chris-
tians forget that in the
realm of reason there are no
serfs and no monarchs. When you submit
to an
argument, you do not submit to the man who made it.
Christianity demands a certain obedience, a certain
blind,
unreasoning faith, and parades before the eyes
of the ignorant, with
great pomp and pride, the names
of kings, soldiers, and statesmen who
have admitted
the truth of the Bible. Mr. Talmage introduces as a
witness the Rev. Theodore Parker. This same The-
odore Parker
denounced the Presbyterian creed as
the most infamous of all creeds,
and said that the worst
heathen god, wearing a necklace of live
snakes, was a
representation of mercy when compared with the God
of John Calvin. Now, if this witness is false in any
particular, of
course he cannot be believed, according
to Mr. Talmage, upon any
subject, and yet Mr.
Talmage introduces him upon the stand as a good
witness.
19
Although I care but little for names,
still I will sug-
gest that, in all probability, Humboldt knew more
upon
this subject than all the pastors in the world. I cer-
tainly would have as much confidence in the opinion
of Goethe as in
that of William H. Seward; and as
between Seward and Lincoln, I
should take Lincoln;
and when you come to Presidents, for my part, if
I
were compelled to pin my faith on the sleeve of any-
body, I
should take Jefferson's coat in preference to
Jackson's. I believe
that Haeckel is, to say the least,
the equal of any theologian we
have in this country,
and the late John W. Draper certainly knew as
much
upon these great questions as the average parson. I
believe
that Darwin has investigated some of these
things, that Tyndall and
Huxley have turned their
minds somewhat in the same direction, that
Helmholtz
has a few opinions, and that, in fact, thousands of able,
intelligent and honest men differ almost entirely with
Webster and
Jackson.
So far as I am concerned, I think more of reasons
than of reputations, more of principles than of persons,
more of
nature than of names, more of facts, than of
faiths.
It is
the same with books as with persons. Proba-
bly there is not a book
in the world entirely destitute
20
of truth, and not
one entirely exempt from error.
The Bible is like other books. There
are mistakes in
it, side by side with truths,—passages
inculcating
murder, and others exalting mercy; laws devilish and
tyrannical, and others filled with wisdom and justice.
It is foolish
to say that if you accept a part, you must
accept the whole. You must
accept that which com-
mends itself to your heart and brain. There
never was
a doctrine that a witness, or a book, should be thrown
entirely away, because false in one particular. If in
any particular
the book, or the man, tells the truth, to
that extent the truth
should be accepted.
Truth is made no worse by the one who tells
it,
and a lie gets no real benefit from the reputation of its
author.
Question. What do you think of the statement
that a general belief in your teachings would fill all
the
penitentiaries, and that in twenty years there
would be a hell in
this world worse than the one
expected in the other?
Answer.
My creed is this:
1. Happiness is the only good.
2.
The way to be happy, is to make others happy.
21
Other things being equal, that man is happiest who is
nearest just—who
is truthful, merciful and intelligent—
in other words, the one
who lives in accordance with
the conditions of life.
3.
The time to be happy is now, and the place to
be happy, is here.
4. Reason is the lamp of the mind—the only torch
of
progress; and instead of blowing that out and de-
pending upon
darkness and dogma, it is far better to
increase that sacred light.
5. Every man should be the intellectual proprietor
of himself,
honest with himself, and intellectually
hospitable; and upon every
brain reason should be
enthroned as king.
6. Every man
must bear the consequences, at
least of his own actions. If he puts
his hands in
the fire, his hands must smart, and not the hands of
another. In other words: each man must eat the
fruit of the tree he
plants.
I can not conceive that the teaching of these doc-
trines would fill penitentiaries, or crowd the gallows.
The doctrine
of forgiveness—the idea that somebody
else can suffer in place
of the guilty—the notion that
just at the last the whole
account can be settled—
these ideas, doctrines, and notions are
calculated to fill
22
penitentiaries. Nothing breeds
extravagance like the
credit system.
Most criminals of the
present day are orthodox be-
lievers, and the gallows seems to be the
last round of
the ladder reaching from earth to heaven. The Rev.
Dr. Sunderland, of this city, in his sermon on the assas-
sination of
Garfield, takes the ground that God per-
mitted the murder for the
purpose of opening the eyes
of the people to the evil effects of
infidelity. Accord-
ing to this minister, God, in order to show his
hatred
of infidelity, "inspired," or allowed, one Christian to
assassinate another.
Religion and morality do not necessarily
go together.
Mr. Talmage will insist to-day that morality is not
sufficient to save any man from eternal punishment.
As a matter of
fact, religion has often been the enemy
of morality. The moralist has
been denounced by the
theologians. He sustains the same relation to
Chris-
tianity that the moderate drinker does to the total-
abstinence society. The total-abstinence people say
that the example
of the moderate drinker is far worse
upon the young than that of the
drunkard—that the
drunkard is a warning, while the moderate
drinker is
a perpetual temptation. So Christians say of moral-
ists. According to them, the moralist sets a worse
23
example than the criminal. The moralist not only in-
sists that
a man can be a good citizen, a kind husband,
an affectionate father,
without religion, but demon-
strates the truth of his doctrine by his
own life;
whereas the criminal admits that in and of himself he
is nothing, and can do nothing, but that he needs
assistance from the
church and its ministers.
The worst criminals of the modern
world have been
Christians—I mean by that, believers in
Christianity—
and the most monstrous crimes of the modern world
have been committed by the most zealous believers.
There is nothing
in orthodox religion, apart from the
morality it teaches, to prevent
the commission oF crime.
On the other hand, the perpetual proffer of
forgiveness
is a direct premium upon what Christians are pleased
to call the commission of sin.
Christianity has produced no
greater character than
Epictetus, no greater sovereign than Marcus
Aurelius.
The wickedness of the past was a good deal like that
of the present. As a rule, kings have been wicked in
direct
proportion to their power—their power having
been lessened,
their crimes have decreased. As a
matter of fact, paganism, of
itself, did not produce any
great men; neither has Christianity.
Millions of in-
fluences determine individual character, and the re-
24
ligion of the country in which a man happens to be
born may determine many of his opinions, without
influencing, to any
great extent, his real character.
There have been brave,
honest, and intelligent men
in and out of every church.
Question.
Mr. Talmage says that you insist that,
according to the Bible, the
universe was made out of
nothing, and he denounces your statement as
a gross
misrepresentation. What have you stated upon that
subject?
Answer. What I said was substantially this: "We
"are told in the first chapter of Genesis, that in the
"beginning God
created the heaven and the earth.
"If this means anything, it means
that God pro-
"duced—caused to exist, called into being—the
"heaven and the earth. It will not do to say that
"God formed the
heaven and the earth of previously
"existing matter. Moses conveys,
and intended to
"convey, the idea that the matter of which the
"universe is composed was created."
This has always been my
position. I did not sup-
pose that nothing was used as the raw
material; but
if the Mosaic account means anything, it means
that
whereas there was nothing, God caused something to
25
exist—created what we know as matter. I can not
conceive
of something being made, created, without
anything to make anything
with. I have no more
confidence in fiat worlds than I have in fiat
money.
Mr. Talmage tells us that God did not make the uni-
verse
out of nothing, but out of "omnipotence."
Exactly how God
changed "omnipotence" into matter
is not stated. If there was nothing
in the universe,
omnipotence could do you no good. The weakest
man
in the world can lift as much nothing as God.
Mr. Talmage seems to think that to create something
from nothing is
simply a question of strength—that it
requires infinite muscle—that
it is only a question of
biceps. Of course, omnipotence is an
attribute, not an
entity, not a raw material; and the idea that
something
can be made out of omnipotence—using that as the
raw material—is infinitely absurd. It would have
been equally
logical to say that God made the universe
out of his omniscience, or
his omnipresence, or his
unchangeableness, or out of his honesty, his
holiness,
or his incapacity to do evil. I confess my utter in-
ability to understand, or even to suspect, what the
reverend
gentleman means, when he says that God
created the universe out of
his "omnipotence."
I admit that the Bible does not tell when
God created
26
the universe. It is simply said that
he did this "in the
beginning." We are left, however, to infer that
"the
beginning" was Monday morning, and that on the
first Monday
God created the matter in an exceedingly
chaotic state; that on
Tuesday he made a firmament
to divide the waters from the waters;
that on Wednes-
day he gathered the waters together in seas and
allowed the dry land to appear. We are also told that
on that day
"the earth brought forth grass and herb
"yielding seed after his
kind, and the tree yielding
"fruit, whose seed was in itself, after
his kind." This
was before the creation of the sun, but Mr. Talmage
takes the ground that there are many other sources of
light; that
"there may have been volcanoes in active
operation on other planets."
I have my doubts,
however, about the light of volcanoes being
sufficient
to produce or sustain vegetable life, and think it a
little doubtful about trees growing only by "volcanic
glare." Neither
do I think one could depend upon
"three thousand miles of liquid
granite" for the pro-
duction of grass and trees, nor upon "light
that rocks
might emit in the process of crystallization." I doubt
whether trees would succeed simply with the assistance
of the "Aurora
Borealis or the Aurora Australis."
There are other sources of light,
not mentioned by
27
Mr. Talmage—lightning-bugs,
phosphorescent beetles,
and fox-fire. I should think that it would be
humili-
ating, in this age, for an orthodox preacher to insist
that vegetation could exist upon this planet without the
light of the
sun—that trees could grow, blossom and
bear fruit, having no
light but the flames of volcanoes,
or that emitted by liquid granite,
or thrown off by the
crystallization of rocks.
There is
another thing, also, that should not be for-
gotten, and that is,
that there is an even balance for-
ever kept between the totals of
animal and vegetable
life—that certain forms of animal life go
with certain
forms of vegetable life. Mr. Haeckel has shown that
"in the first epoch, algæ and skull-less vertebrates
were found
together; in the second, ferns and fishes;
in the third, pines and
reptiles; in the fourth, foliaceous
forests and mammals."
Vegetable and animal
life sustain a necessary relation; they exist
together;
they act and interact, and each depends upon the other.
The real point of difference between Mr. Talmage and
myself is this:
He says that God made the universe
out of his "omnipotence," and I
say that, although I
know nothing whatever upon the subject, my
opinion
is, that the universe has existed from eternity—that it
continually changes in form, but that it never was
28
created or called into being by any power. I think
that all
that is, is all the God there is.
Question. Mr. Talmage
charges you with having
misrepresented the Bible story of the deluge.
Has he
correctly stated your position?
Answer. Mr.
Talmage takes the ground that the
flood was only partial, and was,
after all, not much of a
flood. The Bible tells us that God said he
would
"destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from
"under heaven, and that everything that is in the
"earth shall die;"
that God also said: "I will destroy
"man, whom I have created, from
the face of the
"earth; both man and beast and the creeping thing
"and the fowls of the air, and every living substance
"that I have
made will I destroy from off the face of
"the earth."
I
did not suppose that there was any miracle in the
Bible larger than
the credulity of Mr. Talmage. The
flood story, however, seems to be a
little more than
he can bear. He is like the witness who stated that
he had read Gullivers Travels, the Stories of Mun-
chausen,
and the Flying Wife, including Robinson
Crusoe, and
believed them all; but that Wirt's Life of
Patrick Henry was a
litde more than he could stand.
29
It is strange
that a man who believes that God
created the universe out of
"omnipotence" should
believe that he had not enough omnipotence left
to
drown a world the size of this. Mr. Talmage seeks
to make the
story of the flood reasonable. The
moment it is reasonable, it ceases
to be miraculous.
Certainly God cannot afford to reward a man with
eternal joy for believing a reasonable story. Faith is
only necessary
when the story is unreasonable, and if
the flood only gets small
enough, I can believe it
myself. I ask for evidence, and Mr. Talmage
seeks
to make the story so little that it can be believed
without evidence. He tells us that it was a kind of
"local option"
flood—a little wet for that part of the
country.
Why
was it necessary to save the birds? They
certainly could have gotten
out of the way of a real
small flood. Of the birds, Noah took
fourteen of each
species. He was commanded to take of the fowls of
the
air by sevens—seven of each sex—and, as there are
at least 12,500 species, Noah collected an aviary of
about 175,000
birds, provided the flood was general.
If it was local, there are no
means of determining the
number. But why, if the flood was local,
should he
have taken any of the fowls of the air into his ark?
30
All they had to do was to fly away, or "roost high;"
and it would have been just as easy for God to have
implanted in
them, for the moment, the instinct of
getting out of the way as the
instinct of hunting the ark.
It would have been quite a saving of
room and pro-
visions, and would have materially lessened the labor
and anxiety of Noah and his sons.
Besides, if it had been a
partial flood, and great
enough to cover the highest mountains in
that country,
the highest mountain being about seventeen thousand
feet, the flood would have been covered with a sheet
of ice several
thousand feet in thickness. If a column
of water could have been
thrown seventeen thousand
feet high and kept stationary, several
thousand feet
of the upper end would have frozen. If, however,
the deluge was general, then the atmosphere would
have been forced
out the same on all sides, and the
climate remained substantially
normal.
Nothing can be more absurd than to attempt to
explain the flood by calling it partial.
Mr. Talmage also says
that the window ran clear
round the ark, and that if I had only known
as much
Hebrew as a man could put on his little finger, I
would
have known that the window went clear round.
To this I reply that, if
his position is correct, then the
31
original
translators of King James' edition did not
know as much Hebrew as
they could have put on
their little fingers; and yet I am obliged to
believe
their translation or be eternally damned. If the
window
went clear round, the inspired writer should
have said so, and the
learned translators should have
given us the truth. No one pretends
that there was
more than one door, and yet the same language is
used about the door, except this—that the exact size
of the
window is given, and the only peculiarity men-
tioned as to the door
is that it shut from the outside.
For any one to see that Mr. Talmage
is wrong on the
window question, it is only necessary to read the
story
of the deluge.
Mr. Talmage also endeavors to
decrease the depth
of the flood. If the flood did not cover the
highest
hills, many people might have been saved. He also
insists that all the water did not come from the rains,
but that "the
fountains of the great deep were broken
"up." What are "the fountains
of the great deep"?
How would their being "broken up" increase the
depth of the water? He seems to imagine that these
"fountains" were
in some way imprisoned—anxious
to get to the surface, and that,
at that time, an oppor-
tunity was given for water to run up hill, or
in some
32
mysterious way to rise above its level.
According to
the account, the ark was at the mercy of the waves for
at least seven months. If this flood was only partial,
it seems a
little curious that the water did not seek its
level in less than
seven months. With anything like
a fair chance, by that time most of
it would have
found its way to the sea again.
There is in
the literature of ignorance no more
perfectly absurd and cruel story
than that of the
deluge.
I am very sorry that Mr. Talmage
should disagree
with some of the great commentators. Dr. Scott
tells us that, in all probability, the angels assisted in
getting the
animals into the ark. Dr. Henry insists
that the waters in the bowels
of the earth, at God's
command, sprung up and flooded the earth. Dr.
Clark tells us that it would have been much easier
for God to have
destroyed all the people and made
some new ones, but that he did not
want to waste
anything. Dr. Henry also tells us that the lions, while
in the ark, ate straw like oxen. Nothing could be
more amusing than
to see a few lions eating good,
dry straw. This commentator assures
us that the
waters rose so high that the loftiest mountains were
overflowed fifteen cubits, so that salvation was not
33
hoped for from any hills or mountains. He tells us
that some of
the people got on top of the ark, and
hoped to shift for themselves,
but that, in all proba-
bility, they were washed off by the rain.
When we
consider that the rain must have fallen at the rate of
about eight hundred feet a day, I am inclined to think
that they were
washed off.
Mr. Talmage has clearly misrepresented the Bible.
He is not prepared to believe the story as it is told.
The seeds of
infidelity seem to be germinating in his
mind. His position no doubt
will be a great relief to
most of his hearers. After this, their
credulity will
not be strained. They can say that there was probably
quite a storm, some rain, to an extent that rendered it
necessary for
Noah and his family—his dogs, cats,
and chickens—to get
in a boat. This would not be
unreasonable. The same thing happens
almost every
year on the shores of great rivers, and consequently
the story of the flood is an exceedingly reasonable
one.
Mr. Talmage also endeavors to account for the
miraculous collection
of the animals in the ark by
the universal instinct to get out of the
rain. There
are at least two objections to this: 1. The animals
went into the ark before the rain commenced; 2. I
34
have never noticed any great desire on the part of
ducks, geese, and
loons to get out of the water. Mr.
Talmage must have been misled by a
line from an old
nursery book that says: "And the little fishes got
"under the bridge to keep out of the rain." He tells
us that Noah
described what he saw. He is the first
theologian who claims that
Genesis was written by
Noah, or that Noah wrote any account of the
flood.
Most Christians insist that the account of the flood
was
written by Moses, and that he was inspired to
write it. Of course, it
will not do for me to say that
Mr. Talmage has misrepresented the
facts.
Question. You are also charged with misrepresen-
tation in your statement as to where the ark at last
rested. It is
claimed by Mr. Talmage that there is
nothing in the Bible to show
that the ark rested on
the highest mountains.
Answer.
Of course I have no knowledge as to
where the ark really came to
anchor, but after it struck
bottom, we are told that a dove was sent
out, and
that the dove found no place whereon to rest her
foot.
If the ark touched ground in the low country,
surely the mountains
were out of water, and an or-
dinary mountain furnishes, as a rule,
space enough
35
for a dove's foot. We must infer
that the ark rested
on the only land then above water, or near enough
above water to strike the keel of Noah's boat. Mount
Ararat is about
seventeen thousand feet high; so I
take it that the top of that
mountain was where Noah
ran aground—otherwise, the account
means nothing.
Here Mr. Talmage again shows his tendency to
belittle the miracles of the Bible. I am astonished
that he should
doubt the power of God to keep an
ark on a mountain seventeen
thousand feet high.
He could have changed the climate for that
occasion.
He could have made all the rocks and glaciers pro-
duce wheat and corn in abundance. Certainly God,
who could overwhelm
a world with a flood, had the
power to change every law and fact in
nature.
I am surprised that Mr. Talmage is not willing to
believe the story as it is told. What right has he to
question the
statements of an inspired writer? Why
should he set up his judgment
against the Websters
and Jacksons? Is it not infinitely impudent in
him
to contrast his penny-dip with the sun of inspiration?
What
right has he to any opinion upon the subject?
He must take the Bible
as it reads. He should
remember that the greater the miracle the
greater
should be his faith.
36
Question.
You do not seem to have any great
opinion of the chemical,
geological, and agricultural
views expressed by Mr. Talmage?
Answer. You must remember that Mr. Talmage
has a certain
thing to defend. He takes the Bible as
actually true, and with the
Bible as his standard, he
compares and measures all sciences. He does
not
study geology to find whether the Mosaic account is
true,
but he reads the Mosaic account for the purpose
of showing that
geology can not be depended upon.
His idea that "one day is as a
thousand years with
"God," and that therefore the "days" mentioned in
the
Mosaic account are not days of twenty-four hours, but
long
periods, is contradicted by the Bible itself. The
great reason given
for keeping the Sabbath day is, that
"God rested on the seventh day
and was refreshed."
Now, it does not say that he rested on the
"seventh
"period," or the "seventh good—while," or the
"seventh long-time," but on the "seventh day." In
imitation of this
example we are also to rest—not on
the seventh good-while, but
on the seventh day.
Nothing delights the average minister more than
to
find that a passage of Scripture is capable of several
interpretations. Nothing in the inspired book is so
37
dangerous as accuracy. If the holy writer uses
general terms,
an ingenious theologian can harmonize
a seemingly preposterous
statement with the most
obdurate fact. An "inspired" book should
contain
neither statistics nor dates—as few names as possible,
and not one word about geology or astronomy. Mr.
Talmage is doing the
best he can to uphold the fables
of the Jews. They are the foundation
of his faith.
He believes in the water of the past and the fire of
the
future—in the God of flood and flame—the eternal
torturer of his helpless children.
It is exceedingly
unfortunate that Mr. Talmage does
not appreciate the importance of
good manners, that
he does not rightly estimate the convincing power
of
kindness and good nature. It is unfortunate that a
Christian,
believing in universal forgiveness, should
exhibit so much of the
spirit of detraction, that he
should run so easily and naturally into
epithets, and
that he should mistake vituperation for logic. Thou-
sands of people, knowing but little of the mysteries of
Christianity—never
having studied theology,—may
become prejudiced against the
church, and doubt the
divine origin of a religion whose defenders
seem to
rely, at least to a great degree, upon malignant per-
sonalities. Mr. Talmage should remember that in a
38
discussion of this kind, he is supposed to represent a
being of
infinite wisdom and goodness. Surely, the
representative of the
infinite can afford to be candid,
can afford to be kind. When he
contemplates the
condition of a fellow-being destitute of religion, a
fellow-being now travelling the thorny path to eternal
fire, he
should be filled with pity instead of hate.
Instead of deforming his
mouth with scorn, his eyes
should be filled with tears. He should
take into
consideration the vast difference between an infidel
and a minister of the gospel,—knowing, as he does,
that a crown
of glory has been prepared for the
minister, and that flames are
waiting for the soul
of the unbeliever. He should bear with
philosophic
fortitude the apparent success of the skeptic, for a
few days in this brief life, since he knows that in a
little while
the question will be eternally settled in
his favor, and that the
humiliation of a day is as
nothing compared with the victory of
eternity. In
this world, the skeptic appears to have the best
of
the argument; logic seems to be on the side
of blasphemy; common
sense apparently goes hand
in hand with infidelity, and the few
things we are
absolutely certain of, seem inconsistent with the
Christian creeds.
39
This, however, as Mr. Talmage
well knows, is but
apparent. God has arranged the world in this way
for the purpose of testing the Christian's faith.
Beyond all these
facts, beyond logic, beyond reason,
Mr. Talmage, by the light of
faith, clearly sees the
eternal truth. This clearness of vision
should give
him the serenity of candor and the kindness born of
absolute knowledge. He, being a child of the light,
should not expect
the perfect from the children of
darkness. He should not judge
Humboldt and
Wesley by the same standard. He should remember
that Wesley was especially set apart and illuminated
by divine
wisdom, while Humboldt was left to grope
in the shadows of nature. He
should also remember
that ministers are not like other people. They
have
been "called." They have been "chosen" by infinite
wisdom.
They have been "set apart," and they
have bread to eat that we know
not of. While
other people are forced to pursue the difficult paths
of investigation, they fly with the wings of faith.
Mr. Talmage
is perfectly aware of the advantages
he enjoys, and yet he deems it
dangerous to be fair.
This, in my judgment, is his mistake. If he
cannot
easily point out the absurdities and contradictions in
infidel lectures, surely God would never have selected
40
him for that task. We cannot believe that imperfect
instruments
would be chosen by infinite wisdom.
Certain lambs have been entrusted
to the care of Mr.
Talmage, the shepherd. Certainly God would not
select a shepherd unable to cope with an average
wolf. Such a
shepherd is only the appearance of
protection. When the wolf is not
there, he is a
useless expense, and when the wolf comes, he goes.
I cannot believe that God would select a shepherd
of that kind.
Neither can the shepherd justify his
selection by abusing the wolf
when out of sight.
The fear ought to be on the other side. A divinely
appointed shepherd ought to be able to convince his
sheep that a wolf
is a dangerous animal, and ought
to be able to give his reasons. It
may be that the
shepherd has a certain interest in exaggerating the
cruelty and ferocity of the wolf, and even the number
of the wolves.
Should it turn out that the wolves
exist only in the imagination of
the shepherd, the
sheep might refuse to pay the salary of their pro-
tector. It will, however, be hard to calculate the
extent to which
the sheep will lose confidence in a
shepherd who has not even the
courage to state the
facts about the wolf. But what must be the
result
when the sheep find that the supposed wolf is, in
41
fact, their friend, and that he is endeavoring to rescue
them from the exactions of the pretended shepherd,
who creates, by
falsehood, the fear on which he
lives?
SECOND INTERVIEW.
Por. Why, man, what's the matter? Don't tear
your
hair.
Sir Hugh. I have been beaten in a discussion,
overwhelmed and humiliated.
Por. Why didn't you call your
adversary a fool?
Sir Hugh. My God! I forgot it!
Question. I want to ask you a few questions
about the second
sermon of Mr. Talmage;
have you read it, and what do you think of it?
Answer. The text taken by the reverend gentle-
man is an
insult, and was probably intended as such:
"The fool hath said in his
heart, there is no God."
Mr. Talmage seeks to apply this text to any
one
who denies that the Jehovah of the Jews was and is
the
infinite and eternal Creator of all. He is per-
fectly satisfied that
any man who differs with him on
this question is a "fool," and he has
the Christian
forbearance and kindness to say so. I presume he
46
is honest in this opinion, and no doubt regards Bruno,
Spinoza and Humboldt as driveling imbeciles. He
entertains the same
opinion of some of the greatest,
wisest and best of Greece and Rome.
No man is fitted to reason upon this question who
has not the
intelligence to see the difficulties in all
theories. No man has yet
evolved a theory that
satisfactorily accounts for all that is. No
matter
what his opinion may be, he is beset by a thousand
difficulties, and innumerable things insist upon an
explanation. The
best that any man can do is to
take that theory which to his mind
presents the
fewest difficulties. Mr. Talmage has been educated
in a certain way—has a brain of a certain quantity,
quality and
form—and accepts, in spite it may be,
of himself, a certain
theory. Others, formed differ-
ently, having lived under different
circumstances,
cannot accept the Talmagian view, and thereupon he
denounces them as fools. In this he follows the
example of David the
murderer; of David, who
advised one of his children to assassinate
another;
of David, whose last words were those of hate and
crime. Mr. Talmage insists that it takes no especial
brain to reason
out a "design" in Nature, and in a
moment afterward says that "when
the world slew
47
"Jesus, it showed what it would do
with the eternal
"God, if once it could get its hands on Him." Why
should a God of infinite wisdom create people who
would gladly murder
their Creator? Was there any
particular "design" in that? Does the
existence
of such people conclusively prove the existence of a
good Designer? It seems to me—and I take it that
my thought is
natural, as I have only been born
once—that an infinitely wise
and good God would
naturally create good people, and if he has not,
cer-
tainly the fault is his. The God of Mr. Talmage
knew, when
he created Guiteau, that he would
assassinate Garfield. Why did he
create him? Did
he want Garfield assassinated? Will somebody be
kind enough to show the "design" in this trans-
action? Is it
possible to see "design" in earth-
quakes, in volcanoes, in
pestilence, in famine, in
ruthless and relentless war? Can we find
"design" in
the fact that every animal lives upon some other—
that every drop of every sea is a battlefield where
the strong devour
the weak? Over the precipice
of cruelty rolls a perpetual Niagara of
blood. Is
there "design" in this? Why should a good God
people a
world with men capable of burning their
fellow-men—and capable
of burning the greatest and
48
best? Why does a good
God permit these things?
It is said of Christ that he was infinitely
kind and
generous, infinitely merciful, because when on earth
he
cured the sick, the lame and blind. Has he not
as much power now as
he had then? If he was and
is the God of all worlds, why does he not
now give
back to the widow her son? Why does he with-
hold light
from the eyes of the blind? And why
does one who had the power
miraculously to feed
thousands, allow millions to die for want of
food?
Did Christ only have pity when he was part human?
Are we
indebted for his kindness to the flesh that
clothed his spirit? Where
is he now? Where has he
been through all the centuries of slavery and
crime?
If this universe was "designed," then all that
happens
was "designed." If a man constructs an
engine, the boiler of which
explodes, we say either
that he did not know the strength of his
materials, or
that he was reckless of human life. If an infinite
being
should construct a weak or imperfect machine, he must
be
held accountable for all that happens. He cannot
be permitted to say
that he did not know the strength
of the materials. He is directly
and absolutely re-
sponsible. So, if this world was designed by a
being
of infinite power and wisdom, he is responsible for
49
the result of that design. My position is this: I do
not know. But there are so many objections to the
personal-God
theory, that it is impossible for me to
accept it. I prefer to say
that the universe is all the
God there is. I prefer to make no being
responsible.
I prefer to say: If the naked are clothed, man
must
clothe them; if the hungry are fed, man must
feed them. I prefer to
rely upon human endeavor,
upon human intelligence, upon the heart and
brain
of man. There is no evidence that God has ever
interfered
in the affairs of man. The hand of earth
is stretched uselessly
toward heaven. From the
clouds there comes no help. In vain the
shipwrecked
cry to God. In vain the imprisoned ask for liberty
and light—the world moves on, and the heavens are
deaf and dumb
and blind. The frost freezes, the fire
burns, slander smites, the
wrong triumphs, the good
suffer, and prayer dies upon the lips of
faith.
Question. Mr. Talmage charges you with being
"the champion blasphemer of America"—what do
you understand
blasphemy to be?
Answer. Blasphemy is an epithet
bestowed by su-
perstition upon common sense. Whoever investi-
gates a religion as he would any department of
50
science, is called a blasphemer. Whoever contradicts
a priest,
whoever has the impudence to use his own
reason, whoever is brave
enough to express his
honest thought, is a blasphemer in the eyes of
the
religionist. When a missionary speaks slightingly of
the
wooden god of a savage, the savage regards him
as a blasphemer. To
laugh at the pretensions of
Mohammed in Constantinople is blasphemy.
To say
in St. Petersburg that Mohammed was a prophet of
God is
also blasphemy. There was a time when to
acknowledge the divinity of
Christ in Jerusalem was
blasphemy. To deny his divinity is now
blasphemy
in New York. Blasphemy is to a considerable extent
a
geographical question. It depends not only on what
you say, but where
you are when you say it. Blas-
phemy is what the old calls the new,—what
last
year's leaf says to this year's bud. The founder of
every
religion was a blasphemer. The Jews so re-
garded Christ, and the
Athenians had the same
opinion of Socrates. Catholics have always
looked
upon Protestants as blasphemers, and Protestants have
always held the same generous opinion of Catholics.
To deny that Mary
is the Mother of God is blas-
phemy. To say that she is the Mother of
God is
blasphemy. Some savages think that a dried snake-
51
skin stuffed with leaves is sacred, and he who thinks
otherwise is a blasphemer. It was once blasphemy
to laugh at Diana,
of the Ephesians. Many people
think that it is blasphemous to tell
your real opinion
of the Jewish Jehovah. Others imagine that words
can be printed upon paper, and the paper bound into
a book covered
with sheepskin, and that the book is
sacred, and that to question its
sacredness is blas-
phemy. Blasphemy is also a crime against God, but
nothing can be more absurd than a crime against
God. If God is
infinite, you cannot injure him. You
cannot commit a crime against
any being that you
cannot injure. Of course, the infinite cannot be
in-
jured. Man is a conditioned being. By changing
his
conditions, his surroundings, you can injure him;
but if God is
infinite, he is conditionless. If he is
conditionless, he cannot by
any possibility be injured.
You can neither increase, nor decrease,
the well-being
of the infinite. Consequently, a crime against God
is a demonstrated impossibility. The cry of blasphemy
means only that
the argument of the blasphemer can-
not be answered. The
sleight-of-hand performer,
when some one tries to raise the curtain
behind which
he operates, cries "blasphemer!" The priest, find-
ing that he has been attacked by common sense,—
52
by a fact,—resorts to the same cry. Blasphemy is the
black flag of theology, and it means: No argument
and no quarter! It
is an appeal to prejudice, to
passions, to ignorance. It is the last
resort of a
defeated priest. Blasphemy marks the point where
argument stops and slander begins. In old times, it
was the signal
for throwing stones, for gathering
fagots and for tearing flesh; now
it means falsehood
and calumny.
Question. Then you
think that there is no such
thing as the crime of blasphemy, and that
no such
offence can be committed?
Answer. Any one
who knowingly speaks in favor
of injustice is a blasphemer. Whoever
wishes to
destroy liberty of thought,—the honest expression of
ideas,—is a blasphemer. Whoever is willing to malign
his
neighbor, simply because he differs with him upon
a subject about
which neither of them knows anything
for certain, is a blasphemer. If
a crime can be com-
mitted against God, he commits it who imputes to
God the commission of crime. The man who says
that God ordered the
assassination of women and
babes, that he gave maidens to satisfy the
lust of
soldiers, that he enslaved his own children,—that man
53
is a blasphemer. In my judgment, it would be far
better to deny the existence of God entirely. It
seems to me that
every man ought to give his honest
opinion. No man should suppose
that any infinite
God requires him to tell as truth that which he
knows
nothing about.
Mr. Talmage, in order to make a point
against
infidelity, states from his pulpit that I am in favor of
poisoning the minds of children by the circulation of
immoral books.
The statement is entirely false. He
ought to have known that I
withdrew from the Liberal
League upon the very question whether the
law should
be repealed or modified. I favored a modification
of
that law, so that books and papers could not be
thrown from the mails
simply because they were
"infidel."
I was and am in favor
of the destruction of
every immoral book in the world. I was and am
in favor, not only of the law against the circulation
of such filth,
but want it executed to the letter in every
State of this Union. Long
before he made that state-
ment, I had introduced a resolution to
that effect, and
supported the resolution in a speech. Notwithstand-
ing these facts, hundreds of clergymen have made
haste to tell the
exact opposite of the truth. This
54
they have done
in the name of Christianity, under the
pretence of pleasing their
God. In my judgment, it
is far better to tell your honest opinions,
even upon
the subject of theology, than to knowingly tell a false-
hood about a fellow-man. Mr. Talmage may have
been ignorant of the
truth. He may have been misled
by other ministers, and for his
benefit I make this ex-
planation. I wanted the laws modified so that
bigotry
could not interfere with the literature of intelligence;
but I did not want, in any way, to shield the writers or
publishers
of immoral books. Upon this subject I
used, at the last meeting of
the Liberal League that
I attended, the following language:
"But there is a distinction wide as the Mississippi,
"yes,
wider than the Atlantic, wider than all oceans,
"between the
literature of immorality and the litera-
"ture of free thought. One
is a crawling, slimy lizard,
"and the other an angel with wings of
light. Let us
"draw this distinction. Let us understand ourselves.
"Do not make the wholesale statement that all these
"laws ought to be
repealed. They ought not to be
"repealed. Some of them are good, and
the law
"against sending instruments of vice through the
"mails
is good. The law against sending obscene
"pictures and books is good.
The law against send-
55
"ing bogus diplomas through
the mails, to allow a
"lot of ignorant hyenas to prey upon the sick
people
"of the world, is a good law. The law against rascals
"who are getting up bogus lotteries, and sending their
"circulars in
the mails is a good law. You know, as
"well as I, that there are
certain books not fit to go
"through the mails. You know that. You
know there
"are certain pictures not fit to be transmitted, not fit
"to be delivered to any human being. When these
"books and pictures
come into the control of the
"United States, I say, burn them up! And
when any
"man has been indicted who has been trying to make
"money by pandering to the lowest passions in the
"human breast, then
I say, prosecute him! let the
"law take its course."
I can
hardly convince myself that when Mr.
Talmage made the charge, he was
acquainted with
the facts. It seems incredible that any man, pre-
tending to be governed by the law of common
honesty, could make a
charge like this knowing
it to be untrue. Under no circumstances,
would
I charge Mr. Talmage with being an infamous
man, unless
the evidence was complete and over-
whelming. Even then, I should
hesitate long before
making the charge. The side I take on
theological
56
questions does not render a resort to
slander or
calumny a necessity. If Mr. Talmage is an honor-
able
man, he will take back the statement he has
made. Even if there is a
God, I hardly think that
he will reward one of his children for
maligning
another; and to one who has told falsehoods about
"infidels," that having been his only virtue, I doubt
whether he will
say: "Well done good and faithful
"servant."
Question.
What have you to say to the charge
that you are endeavoring to
"assassinate God,"
and that you are "far worse than the man who at-
"tempts to kill his father, or his mother, or his sister,
"or his
brother"?
Answer. Well, I think that is about as reason-
able as anything he says. No one wishes, so far as I
know, to
assassinate God. The idea of assassinating
an infinite being is of
course infinitely absurd. One
would think Mr. Talmage had lost his
reason! And
yet this man stands at the head of the Presbyterian
clergy. It is for this reason that I answer him. He
is the only
Presbyterian minister in the United
States, so far as I know, able to
draw an audience.
He is, without doubt, the leader of that
denomination.
57
He is orthodox and conservative. He
believes im-
plicitly in the "Five Points" of Calvin, and says
nothing simply for the purpose of attracting attention.
He believes
that God damns a man for his own glory;
that he sends babes to hell
to establish his mercy,
and that he filled the world with disease and
crime
simply to demonstrate his wisdom. He believes that
billions of years before the earth was, God had made
up his mind as
to the exact number that he would
eternally damn, and had counted his
saints. This
doctrine he calls "glad tidings of great joy." He
really believes that every man who is true to himself
is waging war
against God; that every infidel is a
rebel; that every Freethinker is
a traitor, and that
only those are good subjects who have joined the
Presbyterian Church, know the Shorter Catechism by
heart, and
subscribe liberally toward lifting the mort-
gage on the Brooklyn
Tabernacle. All the rest are
endeavoring to assassinate God, plotting
the murder
of the Holy Ghost, and applauding the Jews for the
crucifixion of Christ. If Mr. Talmage is correct in
his views as to
the power and wisdom of God, I
imagine that his enemies at last will
be overthrown,
that the assassins and murderers will not succeed, and
that the Infinite, with Mr. Talmage s assistance, will
58
finally triumph. If there is an infinite God, certainly
he
ought to have made man grand enough to have
and express an opinion of
his own. Is it possible
that God can be gratified with the applause
of moral
cowards? Does he seek to enhance his glory by
receiving
the adulation of cringing slaves? Is God
satisfied with the adoration
of the frightened?
Question. You notice that Mr. Talmage
finds
nearly all the inventions of modern times mentioned
in the
Bible?
Answer: Yes; Mr. Talmage has made an ex-
ceedingly important discovery. I admit that I am
somewhat amazed at
the wisdom of the ancients.
This discovery has been made just in the
nick of
time. Millions of people were losing their respect
for
the Old Testament. They were beginning to
think that there was some
discrepancy between the
prophecies of Ezekiel and Daniel and the
latest devel-
opments in physical science. Thousands of preachers
were telling their flocks that the Bible is not a
scientific book;
that Joshua was not an inspired as-
tronomer, that God never
enlightened Moses about
geology, and that Ezekiel did not understand
the
entire art of cookery. These admissions caused
59
some young people to suspect that the Bible, after all,
was not
inspired; that the prophets of antiquity did
not know as much as the
discoverers of to-day. The
Bible was falling into disrepute. Mr.
Talmage has
rushed to the rescue. He shows, and shows conclu-
sively as anything can be shown from the Bible, that
Job understood
all the laws of light thousands of
years before Newton lived; that he
anticipated the
discoveries of Descartes, Huxley and Tyndall; that
he was familiar with the telegraph and telephone;
that Morse, Bell
and Edison simply put his discov-
eries in successful operation; that
Nahum was, in
fact, a master-mechanic; that he understood perfectly
the modern railway and described it so accurately
that Trevethick,
Foster and Stephenson had no diffi-
culty in constructing a
locomotive. He also has
discovered that Job was well acquainted with
the
trade winds, and understood the mysterious currents,
tides
and pulses of the sea; that Lieutenant Maury
was a plagiarist; that
Humboldt was simply a biblical
student. He finds that Isaiah and
Solomon were
far in advance of Galileo, Morse, Meyer and Watt.
This is a discovery wholly unexpected to me. If
Mr. Talmage is right,
I am satisfied the Bible is an
inspired book. If it shall turn out
that Joshua was
60
superior to Laplace, that Moses
knew more about
geology than Humboldt, that Job as a scientist was
the superior of Kepler, that Isaiah knew more than
Copernicus, and
that even the minor prophets ex-
celled the inventors and discoverers
of our time—
then I will admit that infidelity must become
speech-
less forever. Until I read this sermon, I had never
even
suspected that the inventions of modern times
were known to the
ancient Jews. I never supposed
that Nahum knew the least thing about
railroads, or
that Job would have known a telegraph if he had seen
it. I never supposed that Joshua comprehended the
three laws of
Kepler. Of course I have not read
the Old Testament with as much care
as some other
people have, and when I did read it, I was not looking
for inventions and discoveries. I had been told so
often that the
Bible was no authority upon scientific
questions, that I was lulled
into a state of lethargy.
What is amazing to me is, that so many men
did
read it without getting the slightest hint of the
smallest
invention. To think that the Jews read that
book for hundreds and
hundreds of years, and yet
went to their graves without the slightest
notion of
astronomy, or geology, of railroads, telegraphs, or
steamboats! And then to think that the early fathers
61
made it the study of their lives and died without in-
venting
anything! I am astonished that Mr. Talmage
himself does not figure in
the records of the Patent
Office. I cannot account for this, except
upon the
supposition that he is too honest to infringe on the
patents of the patriarchs. After this, I shall read
the Old Testament
with more care.
Question. Do you see that Mr. Talmage
endeav-
ors to convict you of great ignorance in not knowing
that the word translated "rib" should have been
translated "side,"
and that Eve, after all, was not
made out of a rib, but out of Adam's
side?
Answer. I may have been misled by taking the
Bible as it is translated. The Bible account is simply
this: "And the
Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall
"upon Adam, and he slept. And he
took one of
"his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
"and the rib which the Lord God had taken from
"man made he a woman,
and brought her unto the
"man. And Adam said: This is now bone of my
"bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called
"woman, because
she was taken out of man." If
Mr. Talmage is right, then the account
should be as
follows: "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep
62
"to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one
"of his sides, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
"and the side
which the Lord God had taken from
"man made he a woman, and brought
her unto the
"man. And Adam said: This is now side of my
"side,
and flesh of my flesh." I do not see that the
story is made any
better by using the word "side"
instead of "rib." It would be just as
hard for God
to make a woman out of a man's side as out of a
rib. Mr. Talmage ought not to question the power
of God to make a
woman out of a bone, and he must
recollect that the less the material
the greater the
miracle.
There are two accounts of the
creation of man,
in Genesis, the first being in the twenty-first
verse
of the first chapter and the second being in the
twenty-first and twenty-second verses of the sec-
ond chapter.
According to the second account, "God formed
"man of the dust
of the ground, and breathed into
"his nostrils the breath of life."
And after this,
"God planted a garden eastward in Eden and put
"the man" in this garden. After this, "He made
"every tree to grow
that was good for food and
"pleasant to the sight," and, in addition,
"the tree
63
"of life in the midst of the garden,"
beside "the tree
"of the knowledge of good and evil." And he "put
"the man in the garden to dress it and keep it,"
telling him that he
might eat of everything he saw
except of "the tree of the knowledge
of good and
"evil."
After this, God having noticed that it
"was not
"good for man to be alone, formed out of the ground
"every beast of the field, every fowl of the air, and
"brought them
to Adam to see what he would call
"them, and Adam gave names to all
cattle, and to
"the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.
"But for Adam there was not found an helpmeet for
"him."
We are not told how Adam learned the language,
or how he understood
what God said. I can hardly
believe that any man can be created with
the know-
ledge of a language. Education cannot be ready
made
and stuffed into a brain. Each person must
learn a language for
himself. Yet in this account we
find a language ready made for man's
use. And not
only man was enabled to speak, but a serpent also
has the power of speech, and the woman holds a
conversation with this
animal and with her husband;
and yet no account is given of how any
language was
64
learned. God is described as walking
in the garden
in the cool of the day, speaking like a man—holding
conversations with the man and woman, and occa-
sionally addressing
the serpent.
In the nursery rhymes of the world there is
nothing more childish than this "inspired" account
of the creation of
man and woman.
The early fathers of the church held that woman
was inferior to man, because man was not made for
woman, but woman
for man; because Adam was
made first and Eve afterward. They had not
the
gallantry of Robert Burns, who accounted for the
beauty of
woman from the fact that God practiced
on man first, and then gave
woman the benefit of
his experience. Think, in this age of the world,
of a well-educated, intelligent gentleman telling his
little child
that about six thousand years ago a
mysterious being called God made
the world out of
his "omnipotence;" then made a man out of some
dust which he is supposed to have moulded into
form; that he put this
man in a garden for the pur-
pose of keeping the trees trimmed; that
after a little
while he noticed that the man seemed lonesome, not
particularly happy, almost homesick; that then it oc-
curred to this
God, that it would be a good thing for
65
the man to
have some company, somebody to help
him trim the trees, to talk to
him and cheer him up
on rainy days; that, thereupon, this God caused
a deep sleep to fall on the man, took a knife, or a
long, sharp piece
of "omnipotence," and took out one
of the man's sides, or a rib, and
of that made a
woman; that then this man and woman got along
real well till a snake got into the garden and induced
the woman to
eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil; that the woman got
the man to take
a bite; that afterwards both of them were detected by
God, who was walking around in the cool of the
evening, and thereupon
they were turned out of the
garden, lest they should put forth their
hands and eat
of the tree of life, and live forever.
This
foolish story has been regarded as the sacred,
inspired truth; as an
account substantially written by
God himself; and thousands and
millions of people
have supposed it necessary to believe this
childish
falsehood, in order to save their souls. Nothing
more
laughable can be found in the fairy tales and
folk-lore of savages.
Yet this is defended by the
leading Presbyterian divine, and those
who fail to
believe in the truth of this story are called "brazen
"faced fools," "deicides," and "blasphemers."
66
By
this story woman in all Christian countries was
degraded. She was
considered too impure to preach
the gospel, too impure to distribute
the sacramental
bread, too impure to hand about the sacred wine,
too impure to step within the "holy of holies," in the
Catholic
Churches, too impure to be touched by a
priest. Unmarried men were
considered purer than
husbands and fathers. Nuns were regarded as su-
perior to mothers, a monastery holier than a home, a
nunnery nearer
sacred than the cradle. And through
all these years it has been
thought better to love
God than to love man, better to love God than
to
love your wife and children, better to worship an
imaginary
deity than to help your fellow-men.
I regard the rights of men
and women equal. In
Love's fair realm, husband and wife are king and
queen, sceptered and crowned alike, and seated on
the self-same
throne.
Question. Do you still insist that the Old
Testa-
ment upholds polygamy? Mr. Talmage denies this
charge,
and shows how terribly God punished those
who were not satisfied with
one wife.
Answer. I see nothing in what Mr. Talmage has
said calculated to change my opinion. It has been
67
admitted by thousands of theologians that the Old
Testament upholds
polygamy. Mr. Talmage is
among the first to deny it. It will not do
to say that
David was punished for the crime of polygamy
or
concubinage. He was "a man after God's own
"heart." He was made a
king. He was a successful
general, and his blood is said to have
flowed in the
veins of God. Solomon was, according to the ac-
count, enriched with wisdom above all human beings.
Was that a
punishment for having had so many
wives? Was Abraham pursued by the
justice of
God because of the crime against Hagar, or for the
crime against his own wife? The verse quoted by
Mr. Talmage to show
that God was opposed to
polygamy, namely, the eighteenth verse of the
eight-
eenth chapter of Leviticus, cannot by any ingenuity
be
tortured into a command against polygamy. The
most that can be
possibly said of it is, that you shall
not marry the sister of your
wife, while your wife is
living. Yet this passage is quoted by Mr.
Talmage
as "a thunder of prohibition against having more
"than
one wife." In the twentieth chapter of
Leviticus it is enacted: "That
if a man take a wife
"and her mother they shall be burned with fire."
A
commandment like this shows that he might take his
68
wife and somebody else's mother. These passages
have nothing to
do with polygamy. They show
whom you may marry, not how many; and
there is
not in Leviticus a solitary word against polygamy—
not one. Nor is there such a word in Genesis, nor
Exodus, nor in the
entire Pentateuch—not one
word. These books are filled with the
most minute
directions about killing sheep, and goats and doves;
about making clothes for priests, about fashioning
tongs and
snuffers; and yet, they contain not one
word against polygamy. It
never occurred to the in-
spired writers that polygamy was a crime.
Polygamy
was accepted as a matter of course. Women were
simple
property.
Mr. Talmage, however, insists that, although God
was against polygamy, he permitted it, and at the
same time threw his
moral influence against it.
Upon this subject he says: "No doubt God
per-
"mitted polygamy to continue for sometime, just
"as he
permits murder and arson, theft and gam-
"bling to-day to continue,
although he is against
"them." If God is the author of the Ten Com-
mandments, he prohibited murder and theft, but
he said nothing about
polygamy. If he was so
terribly against that crime, why did he forget
to
69
mention it? Was there not room enough on the
tables of stone for just one word on this subject?
Had he no time to
give a commandment against
slavery? Mr. Talmage of course insists
that God
had to deal with these things gradually, his idea being
that if God had made a commandment against them all
at once, the Jews
would have had nothing more to do
with him.
For instance:
if we wanted to break cannibals
of eating missionaries, we should not
tell them all
at once that it was wrong, that it was wicked, to
eat missionaries raw; we should induce them first
to cook the
missionaries, and gradually wean them
from raw flesh. This would be
the first great step.
We would stew the missionaries, and after a
time
put a little mutton in the stew, not enough to excite
the
suspicion of the cannibal, but just enough to get
him in the habit of
eating mutton without knowing it.
Day after day we would put in more
mutton and less
missionary, until finally, the cannibal would be
perfectly
satisfied with clear mutton. Then we would tell him
that it was wrong to eat missionary. After the can-
nibal got so that
he liked mutton, and cared nothing
for missionary, then it would be
safe to have a law
upon the subject.
70
Mr.
Talmage insists that polygamy cannot exist
among people who believe
the Bible. In this he is
mistaken. The Mormons all believe the Bible.
There
is not a single polygamist in Utah who does not insist
upon the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments.
The Rev.
Mr. Newman, a kind of peripatetic consu-
lar theologian, once had a
discussion, I believe, with
Elder Orson Pratt, at Salt Lake City,
upon the question
of polygamy. It is sufficient to say of this
discussion
that it is now circulated by the Mormons as a campaign
document. The elder overwhelmed the parson.
Passages of Scripture in
favor of polygamy were
quoted by the hundred. The lives of all the
patriarchs
were brought forward, and poor parson Newman was
driven from the field. The truth is, the Jews at that
time were much
like our forefathers. They were
barbarians, and many of their laws
were unjust
and cruel. Polygamy was the right of all; practiced,
as a matter of fact, by the rich and powerful, and the
rich and
powerful were envied by the poor. In such
esteem did the ancient Jews
hold polygamy, that the
number of Solomons wives was given, simply to
en-
hance his glory. My own opinion is, that Solomon
had very
few wives, and that polygamy was not
general in Palestine. The
country was too poor, and
71
Solomon, in all his
glory was hardly able to support
one wife. He was a poor barbarian
king with a
limited revenue, with a poor soil, with a sparse popu-
lation, without art, without science and without power.
He sustained
about the same relation to other kings
that Delaware does to other
States. Mr. Talmage
says that God persecuted Solomon, and yet, if he
will
turn to the twenty-second chapter of First Chronicles,
he
will find what God promised to Solomon. God,
speaking to David, says:
"Behold a son shall be born
"to thee, who shall be a man of rest, and
I will give him
"rest from his enemies around about; for his name
shall
"be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness
"unto
Israel in his days. He shall build a house in my
"name, and he shall
be my son and I will be his father,
"and I will establish the throne
of his kingdom over
"Israel forever." Did God keep his promise?
So he tells us that David was persecuted by
God, on account of
his offences, and yet I find in
the twenty-eighth verse of the
twenty-ninth chapter
of First Chronicles, the following account of
the death
of David: "And he died in a good old age, full of
"days, riches and honor." Is this true?
Question. What
have you to say to the charge
that you were mistaken in the number of
years that
72
the Hebrews were in Egypt? Mr. Talmage
says that
they were there 430 years, instead of 215 years.
Answer. If you will read the third chapter of
Galatians,
sixteenth and seventeenth verses, you will
find that it was 430 years
from the time God made the
promise to Abraham to the giving of the
law from
Mount Sinai. The Hebrews did not go to Egypt for
215
years after the promise was made to Abraham,
and consequently did not
remain in Egypt more than
215 years. If Galatians is true, I am
right.
Strange that Mr. Talmage should belittle the mira-
cles. The trouble with this defender of the faith is that
he cares
nothing for facts. He makes the strangest
statements, and cares the
least for proof, of any
man I know. I can account for what he says of
me
only upon the supposition that he has not read my
lectures.
He may have been misled by the pirated
editions; Persons have stolen
my lectures, printed the
same ones under various names, and filled
them with
mistakes and things I never said. Mr. C. P. Farrell,
of Washington, is my only authorized publisher.
Yet Mr. Talmage
prefers to answer the mistakes of
literary thieves, and charge their
ignorance to me.
Question. Did you ever attack the
character of
Queen Victoria, or did you draw any parallel between
73
her and George Eliot, calculated to depreciate the
reputation of the Queen?
Answer. I never said a word
against Victoria.
The fact is, I am not acquainted with her—never
met
her in my life, and know but little of her. I never
happened
to see her "in plain clothes, reading the
"Bible to the poor in the
lane,"—neither did I ever
hear her sing. I most cheerfully
admit that her
reputation is good in the neighborhood where she
resides. In one of my lectures I drew a parallel
between George Eliot
and Victoria. I was showing
the difference between a woman who had
won her
position in the world of thought, and one who was
queen
by chance. This is what I said:
"It no longer satisfies the
ambition of a great man
"to be a king or emperor. The last Napoleon
was
"not satisfied with being the Emperor of the French.
"He was
not satisfied with having a circlet of gold
"about his head—he
wanted some evidence that he
"had something of value in his head. So
he wrote
"the life of Julius Cæsar that he might become a
"member of the French Academy. The emperors,
"the kings, the popes,
no longer tower above their
"fellows. Compare King William with the
philoso-
"pher Hæckel. The king is one of the 'anointed
74
"'of the Most High'—as they claim—one upon
"whose head has been poured the divine petroleum
"of authority.
Compare this king with Hæckel, who
"towers an intellectual
Colossus above the crowned
"mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with
Queen
"Victoria. The queen is clothed in garments given
"her by
blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while
"George Eliot wears robes
of glory, woven in the
"loom of her own genius. The world is
beginning
"to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart."
I
said not one word against Queen Victoria, and did
not intend to even
intimate that she was not an ex-
cellent woman, wife and mother. I
was simply trying
to show that the world was getting great enough to
place a genius above an accidental queen. Mr. Tal-
mage, true to the
fawning, cringing spirit of ortho-
doxy, lauds the living queen and
cruelly maligns the
genius dead. He digs open the grave of George
Eliot,
and tries to stain the sacred dust of one who was the
greatest woman England has produced. He calls her
"an adultress." He
attacks her because she was an
atheist—because she abhorred
Jehovah, denied the
inspiration of the Bible, denied the dogma of
eternal
pain, and with all her heart despised the Presbyterian
creed. He hates her because she was great and brave
75
and free—because she lived without "faith" and died
without fear—because she dared to give her honest
thought, and
grandly bore the taunts and slanders of
the Christian world.
George Eliot tenderly carried in her heart the
burdens of our
race. She looked through pity's tears
upon the faults and frailties
of mankind. She knew
the springs and seeds of thought and deed, and
saw,
with cloudless eyes, through all the winding ways of
greed,
ambition and deceit, where folly vainly plucks
with thorn-pierced
hands the fading flowers of selfish
joy—the highway of eternal
right. Whatever her
relations may have been—no matter what I
think, or
others say, or how much all regret the one mistake in
all her self-denying, loving life—I feel and know that
in the
court where her own conscience sat as judge, she
stood acquitted—pure
as light and stainless as a star.
How appropriate here, with
some slight change,
the wondrously poetic and pathetic words of
Laertes
at Ophelia's grave:
Leave her i' the earth;
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!
I
tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall this woman be,
When thou liest howling!
I have no words with which to tell
my loathing for
a man who violates a noble woman's grave.
76
Question. Do you think that the spirit in which
Mr. Talmage reviews your lectures is in accordance
with the teachings
of Christianity?
Answer. I think that he talks like a
true Presby-
terian. If you will read the arguments of Calvin
against the doctrines of Castalio and Servetus, you will
see that Mr.
Talmage follows closely in the footsteps
of the founder of his
church. Castalio was such a
wicked and abandoned wretch, that he
taught the
innocence of honest error. He insisted that God
would
not eternally damn a man for being honestly
mistaken. For the
utterance of such blasphemous
sentiments, abhorrent to every
Christian mind, Calvin
called him "a dog of Satan, and a child of
hell." In
short, he used the usual arguments. Castalio was
banished, and died in exile. In the case of Servetus,
after all the
epithets had been exhausted, an appeal
was made to the stake, and the
blasphemous wretch
was burned to ashes.
If you will read
the life of John Knox, you will find
that Mr. Talmage is as orthodox
in his methods of
dealing with infidels, as he is in his creed. In my
opinion, he would gladly treat unbelievers now, as the
Puritans did
the Quakers, as the Episcopalians did the
Presbyterians, as the
Presbyterians did the Baptists,
77
and as the
Catholics have treated all heretics. Of
course, all these sects will
settle their differences in
heaven. In the next world, they will
laugh at the
crimes they committed in this.
The course
pursued by Mr. Talmage is consistent.
The pulpit cannot afford to
abandon the weapons of
falsehood and defamation. Candor sows the
seeds of
doubt. Fairness is weakness. The only way to suc-
cessfully uphold the religion of universal love, is to
denounce all
Freethinkers as blasphemers, adulterers,
and criminals. No matter how
generous they may
appear to be, no matter how fairly they may deal
with
their fellow-men, rest assured that they are actuated
by
the lowest and basest motives. Infidels who out-
wardly live honest
and virtuous lives, are inwardly
vicious, virulent and vile. After
all, morality is only
a veneering. God is not deceived with the
varnish of
good works. We know that the natural man is
totally
depraved, and that until he has been regene-
rated by the spirit of
God, he is utterly incapable of a
good action. The generosity of the
unbeliever is, in
fact, avarice. His honesty is only a form of
larceny.
His love is only hatred. No matter how sincerely
he may
love his wife,—how devoted he may be to
his children,—no
matter how ready he may be 'to
78
sacrifice even his
life for the good of mankind, God,
looking into his very heart, finds
it only a den of
hissing snakes, a lair of wild, ferocious beasts, a
cage
of unclean birds.
The idea that God will save a man
simply because
he is honest and generous, is almost too preposterous
for serious refutation. No man should rely upon his
own goodness. He
should plead the virtue of another.
God, in his infinite justice,
damns a good man on his
own merits, and saves a bad man on the merits
of
another. The repentant murderer will be an angel
of light,
while his honest and unoffending victim will
be a fiend in hell.
A little while ago, a ship, disabled, was blown about
the
Atlantic for eighty days. Everything had been
eaten. Nothing remained
but bare decks and hunger.
The crew consisted of Captain Kruger and
nine others.
For nine days, nothing had been eaten. The captain,
taking a revolver in his hand, said: "Mates, some
"one must die for
the rest. I am willing to sacrifice
"myself for you." One of his
comrades grasped his
hand, and implored him to wait one more day. The
next morning, a sail was seen upon the horizon, and
the dying men
were rescued.
To an ordinary man,—to one guided by the
light of
79
reason,—it is perfectly clear that
Captain Kruger was
about to do an infinitely generous action. Yet Mr.
Talmage will tell us that if that captain was not a
Christian, and if
he had sent the bullet crashing
through his brain in order that his
comrades might eat
his body, and live to reach their wives and homes,—
his soul, from that ship, would have gone, by dark
and tortuous ways,
down to the prison of eternal pain.
Is it possible that Christ
would eternally damn a
man for doing exactly what Christ would have
done,
had he been infinitely generous, under the same cir-
cumstances? Is not self-denial in a man as praise-
worthy as in a
God? Should a God be worshiped,
and a man be damned, for the same
action?
According to Mr. Talmage, every soldier who fought
for our country in the Revolutionary war, who was
not a Christian, is
now in hell. Every soldier, not a
Christian, who carried the flag of
his country to vic-
tory—either upon the land or sea, in the
war of 1812,
is now in hell. Every soldier, not a Christian, who
fought for the preservation of this Union,—to break
the chains
of slavery—to free four millions of people
—to keep the
whip from the naked back—every man
who did this—every one
who died at Andersonville
and Libby, dreaming that his death would
help make
80
the lives of others worth living, is
now a lost and
wretched soul. These men are now in the prison of
God,—a prison in which the cruelties of Libby and
Andersonville
would be regarded as mercies,—in
which famine would be a joy.
THIRD
INTERVIEW.
Sinner. Is God infinite in wisdom and
power?
Parson. He is.
Sinner. Does he at all times
know just what ought
to be done?
Parson. He does.
Sinner. Does he always do just what ought to be
done?
Parson. He does.
Sinner. Why do you pray to him?
Parson. Because he is unchangeable.
Question.
I want to ask you a few questions
about Mr. Talmage's third sermon.
What do
you think of it?
Answer. I often ask myself
the questions: Is
there anything in the occupation of a minister,—any-
thing in his surroundings, that makes him incapable
of treating an
opponent fairly, or decently? Is there
anything in the doctrine of
universal forgiveness that
compels a man to speak of one who differs
with him
only in terms of disrespect and hatred? Is it neces-
sary for those who profess to love the whole world,
to hate the few
they come in actual contact with?
84
Mr. Talmage, no
doubt, professes to love all man-
kind,—Jew and Gentile,
Christian and Pagan. No
doubt, he believes in the missionary effort,
and thinks
we should do all in our power to save the soul of the
most benighted savage; and yet he shows anything
but affection for
the "heathen" at home. He loves
the ones he never saw,—is real
anxious for their wel-
fare,—but for the ones he knows, he
exhibits only
scorn and hatred. In one breath, he tells us that
Christ loves us, and in the next, that we are "wolves
"and dogs." We
are informed that Christ forgave
even his murderers, but that now he
hates an honest
unbeliever with all his heart. He can forgive the
ones who drove the nails into his hands and feet,—
the one who
thrust the spear through his quivering
flesh,—but he cannot
forgive the man who entertains
an honest doubt about the "scheme of
salvation."
He regards the man who thinks, as a "mouth-maker
"at
heaven." Is it possible that Christ is less for-
giving in heaven
than he was in Jerusalem? Did he
excuse murderers then, and does he
damn thinkers
now? Once he pitied even thieves; does he now
abhor an intellectually honest man?
Question. Mr.
Talmage seems to think that you
have no right to give your opinion
about the Bible.
85
Do you think that laymen have
the same right as
ministers to examine the Scriptures?
Answer.
If God only made a revelation for
preachers, of course we will have
to depend on the
preachers for information. But the preachers have
made the mistake of showing the revelation. They
ask us, the laymen,
to read it, and certainly there is
no use of reading it, unless we
are permitted to think
for ourselves while we read. If after reading
the Bible
we believe it to be true, we will say so, if we are
honest. If we do not believe it, we will say so, if we
are honest.
But why should God be so particular about our
believing the
stories in his book? Why should God
object to having his book
examined? We do not
have to call upon legislators, or courts, to
protect
Shakespeare from the derision of mankind. Was not
God
able to write a book that would command the
love and admiration of
the world? If the God of
Mr. Talmage is infinite, he knew exactly how
the
stories of the Old Testament would strike a gentle-
man of
the nineteenth century. He knew that many
would have their doubts,—that
thousands of them—
and I may say most of them,—would
refuse to believe
that a miracle had ever been performed.
86
Now, it seems to me that he should either have left
the
stories out, or furnished evidence enough to con-
vince the world.
According to Mr. Talmage, thou-
sands of people are pouring over the
Niagara of
unbelief into the gulf of eternal pain. Why does not
God furnish more evidence? Just in proportion as
man has developed
intellectually, he has demanded
additional testimony. That which
satisfies a barbarian,
excites only the laughter of a civilized man.
Cer-
tainly God should furnish evidence in harmony with
the
spirit of the age. If God wrote his Bible for the
average man, he
should have written it in such a way
that it would have carried
conviction to the brain and
heart of the average man; and he should
have
made no man in such a way that he could not, by any
possibility, believe it. There certainly should be a
harmony between
the Bible and the human brain. If
I do not believe the Bible, whose
fault is it? Mr.
Talmage insists that his God wrote the Bible for me.
and made me. If this is true, the book and the man
should agree.
There is no sense in God writing
a book for me and then making me in
such a way that
I cannot believe his book.
Question.
But Mr. Talmage says the reason why
you hate the Bible is, that your
soul is poisoned; that
87
the Bible "throws you into
a rage precisely as pure
"water brings on a paroxysm of hydrophobia."
Answer. Is it because the mind of the infidel is
poisoned, that he refuses to believe that an infinite
God commanded
the murder of mothers, maidens and
babes? Is it because their minds
are impure, that
they refuse to believe that a good God established
the institution of human slavery, or that he protected
it when
established? Is it because their minds are
vile, that they refuse to
believe that an infinite God
established or protected polygamy? Is it
a sure
sign of an impure mind, when a man insists that
God never
waged wars of extermination against his
helpless children? Does it
show that a man has
been entirely given over to the devil, because he
refuses to believe that God ordered a father to sacri-
fice his son?
Does it show that a heart is entirely
without mercy, simply because a
man denies the
justice of eternal pain?
I denounce many
parts of the Old Testament
because they are infinitely repugnant to
my sense
of justice,—because they are bloody, brutal and in-
famous,—because they uphold crime and destroy
human liberty. It
is impossible for me to imagine
a greater monster than the God of the
Old Testa-
88
ment. He is unworthy of my worship. He
com-
mands only my detestation, my execration, and my
passionate
hatred. The God who commanded the
murder of children is an infamous
fiend. The God
who believed in polygamy, is worthy only of con-
tempt. The God who established slavery should be
hated by every free
man. The Jehovah of the Jews
was simply a barbarian, and the Old
Testament is
mostly the barbarous record of a barbarous people.
If the Jehovah of the Jews is the real God, I do
not wish to be
his friend. From him I neither ask,
nor expect, nor would I be
willing to receive, even an
eternity of joy. According to the Old
Testament,
he established a government,—a political state,—and
yet, no civilized country to-day would re-enact these
laws of God.
Question. What do you think of the explanation
given by
Mr. Talmage of the stopping of the sun and
moon in the time of
Joshua, in order that a battle
might be completed?
Answer.
Of course, if there is an infinite God,
he could have stopped the sun
and moon. No one
pretends to prescribe limits to the power of the
infinite. Even admitting that such a being existed,
the question
whether he did stop the sun and moon,
89
or not,
still remains. According to the account, these
planets were stopped,
in order that Joshua might con-
tinue the pursuit of a routed enemy.
I take it for
granted that a being of infinite wisdom would not
waste any force,—that he would not throw away any
"omnipotence," and that, under ordinary circum-
stances, he would
husband his resources. I find that
this spirit exists, at least in
embryo, in Mr. Talmage.
He proceeds to explain this miracle. He does
not
assert that the earth was stopped on its axis, but sug-
gests "refraction" as a way out of the difficulty. Now,
while the
stopping of the earth on its axis accounts for
the sun remaining in
the same relative position, it does
not account for the stoppage of
the moon. The moon
has a motion of its own, and even if the earth had
been
stopped in its rotary motion, the moon would have gone
on.
The Bible tells us that the moon was stopped. One
would suppose that
the sun would have given sufficient
light for all practical purposes.
Will Mr. Talmage be
kind enough to explain the stoppage of the moon?
Every one knows that the moon is somewhat obscure
when the sun is in
the midst of the heavens. The moon
when compared with the sun at such
a time, is much
like one of the discourses of Mr. Talmage side by
side
with a chapter from Humboldt;—it is useless.
90
In the same chapter in which the account of the
stoppage of the
sun and moon is given, we find that
God cast down from heaven great
hailstones on
Joshua's enemies. Did he get out of hailstones?
Had he no "omnipotence" left? Was it necessary
for him to stop the
sun and moon and depend entirely
upon the efforts of Joshua? Would
not the force
employed in stopping the rotary motion of the earth
have been sufficient to destroy the enemy? Would
not a millionth part
of the force necessary to stop the
moon, have pierced the enemy's
centre, and rolled up
both his flanks? A resort to lightning would
have
been, in my judgment, much more economical and
rather more
effective. If he had simply opened the
earth, and swallowed them, as
he did Korah and his
company, it would have been a vast saving of
"omnipotent" muscle. Yet, the foremost orthodox
minister of the
Presbyterian Church,—the one who
calls all unbelievers "wolves
and dogs," and "brazen
"fools," in his effort to account for this
miracle, is
driven to the subterfuge of an "optical illusion."
We are seriously informed that "God probably
"changed the nature of
the air," and performed this
feat of ledgerdemain through the
instrumentality of
"refraction." It seems to me it would have been
fully
91
as easy to have changed the nature of the
air breathed
by the enemy, so that it would not have supported
life. He could have accomplished this by changing
only a little air,
in that vicinity; whereas, according
to the Talmagian view, he
changed the atmosphere
of the world. Or, a small "local flood" might
have
done the work. The optical illusion and refraction
view,
ingenious as it may appear, was not original
with Mr. Talmage. The
Rev. Henry M. Morey, of
South Bend, Indiana, used, upon this subject,
the fol-
lowing language; "The phenomenon was simply
"optical.
The rotary motion of the earth was not
"disturbed, but the light of
the sun was prolonged by
"the same laws of refraction and reflection
by which
"the sun now appears to be above the horizon when
"it
is really below. The medium through which the
"sun's rays passed,
might have been miraculously
"influenced so as to have caused the sun
to linger
"above the horizon long after its usual time for dis-
"appearance."
I pronounce the opinion of Mr. Morey to be the
ripest product of Christian scholarship. According to
the
Morey-Talmage view, the sun lingered somewhat
above the horizon. But
this is inconsistent with the
Bible account. We are not told in the
Scriptures that
92
the sun "lingered above the
horizon," but that it "stood
"still in the midst of heaven for about
a whole day."
The trouble about the optical-illusion view is, that it
makes the day too long. If the air was miraculously
changed, so that
it refracted the rays of the sun, while
the earth turned over as
usual for about a whole day,
then, at the end of that time, the sun
must have been
again visible in the east. It would then naturally
shine twelve hours more, so that this miraculous day
must have been
at least thirty-six hours in length.
There were first twelve hours of
natural light, then
twelve hours of refracted and reflected light,
and then
twelve hours more of natural light. This makes the
day
too long. So, I say to Mr. Talmage, as I said to
Mr. Morey: If you
will depend a little less on
refraction, and a little more on
reflection, you will see
that the whole story is a barbaric myth and
foolish
fable.
For my part, I do not see why God should be
pleased to have me believe a story of this character.
I can hardly
think that there is great joy in heaven
over another falsehood
swallowed. I can imagine
that a man may deny this story, and still be
an excel-
lent citizen, a good father, an obliging neighbor, and
in all respects a just and truthful man. I can also
93
imagine that a man may believe this story, and yet
assassinate
a President of the United States.
I am afraid that Mr. Talmage
is beginning to be
touched, in spite of himself, with some new ideas.
He
tells us that worlds are born and that worlds die.
This is
not exactly the Bible view. You would think
that he imagined that a
world was naturally pro-
duced,—that the aggregation of atoms
was natural,
and that disintegration came to worlds, as to men,
through old age. Yet this is not the Bible view.
According to the
Bible, these worlds were not born,—
they were created out of
"nothing," or out of
"omnipotence," which is much the same. According
to the Bible, it took this infinite God six days to make
this atom
called earth; and according to the account,
he did not work nights,—he
worked from the morn-
ings to the evenings,—and I suppose
rested nights,
as he has since that time on Sundays.
Admitting that the battle which Joshua fought
was exceedingly
important—which I do not think—
is it not a little
strange that this God, in all subse-
quent battles of the world's
history, of which we
know anything, has maintained the strictest neu-
trality? The earth turned as usual at Yorktown,
and at Gettysburg the
moon pursued her usual
94
course; and so far as I
know, neither at Waterloo
nor at Sedan were there any peculiar freaks
of "re-
"fraction" or "reflection."
Question. Mr.
Talmage tells us that there was in
the early part of this century a
dark day, when
workmen went home from their fields, and legis-
latures and courts adjourned, and that the darkness
of that day has
not yet been explained. What is
your opinion about that?
Answer. My opinion is, that if at that time we
had been at war
with England, and a battle had
been commenced in the morning, and in
the after-
noon the American forces had been driven from their
position and were hard pressed by the enemy, and
if the day had
become suddenly dark, and so dark
that the Americans were thereby
enabled to escape,
thousands of theologians of the calibre of Mr.
Tal-
mage would have honestly believed that there had
been an
interposition of divine Providence. No
battle was fought that day,
and consequently, even
the ministers are looking for natural causes.
In
olden times, when the heavens were visited by
comets, war,
pestilence and famine were predicted.
If wars came, the prediction
was remembered; if
95
nothing happened, it was
forgotten. When eclipses
visited the sun and moon, the barbarian fell
upon his
knees, and accounted for the phenomena by the
wickedness of his neighbor. Mr. Talmage tells us
that his father was
terrified by the meteoric shower
that visited our earth in 1833. The
terror of the
father may account for the credulity of the son.
Astronomers will be surprised to read the declaration
of Mr. Talmage
that the meteoric shower has never
been explained. Meteors visit the
earth every year
of its life, and in a certain portion of the orbit
they
are always expected, and they always come. Mr.
Newcomb has
written a work on astronomy that
all ministers ought to read.
Question. Mr. Talmage also charges you with
"making
light of holy things," and seems to be aston-
ished that you should
ridicule the anointing oil of
Aaron?
Answer. I find
that the God who had no time to
say anything on the subject of
slavery, and who found
no room upon the tables of stone to say a word
against polygamy, and in favor of the rights of
woman, wife and
mother, took time to give a recipe
for making hair oil. And in order
that the priests
96
might have the exclusive right
to manufacture this oil,
decreed the penalty of death on all who
should
infringe. I admit that I am incapable of seeing the
beauty of this symbol. Neither could I ever see the
necessity of
Masons putting oil on the corner-stone
of a building. Of course, I do
not know the exact
chemical effect that oil has on stone, and I see
no harm
in laughing at such a ceremony. If the oil does good,
the laughter will do no harm; and if the oil will do no
harm, the
laughter will do no good. Personally, I am
willing that Masons should
put oil on all stones; but,
if Masons should insist that I must
believe in the effi-
cacy of the ceremony, or be eternally damned, I
would have about the same feeling toward the
Masons that I now have
toward Mr. Talmage. I
presume that at one time the putting of oil on
a
corner-stone had some meaning; but that it ever did
any good,
no sensible man will insist. It is a custom
to break a bottle of
champagne over the bow of
a newly-launched ship, but I have never
considered
this ceremony important to the commercial interests
of the world.
I have the same opinion about putting oil on
stones, as about putting water on heads. For my
part, I see no good
in the rite of baptism. Still, it
97
may do no harm,
unless people are immersed during
cold weather. Neither have I the
slightest objection
to the baptism of anybody; but if people tell me
that
I must be baptized or suffer eternal agony, then I deny
it.
If they say that baptism does any earthly good, I
deny it. No one
objects to any harmless ceremony;
but the moment it is insisted that
a ceremony is neces-
sary, the reason of which no man can see, then
the
practice of the ceremony becomes hurtful, for the
reason
that it is maintained only at the expense of
intelligence and
manhood.
It is hurtful for people to imagine that they can
please God by any ceremony whatever. If there is
any God, there is
only one way to please him, and
that is, by a conscientious discharge
of your obliga-
tions to your fellow-men. Millions of people imagine
that they can please God by wearing certain kinds
of cloth. Think of
a God who can be pleased with
a coat of a certain cut! Others, to
earn a smile of
heaven, shave their heads, or trim their beards, or
perforate their ears or lips or noses. Others maim
and mutilate their
bodies. Others think to please
God by simply shutting their eyes, by
swinging
censers, by lighting candles, by repeating poor Latin,
by making a sign of the cross with holy water, by
98
ringing bells, by going without meat, by eating fish,
by getting
hungry, by counting beads, by making
themselves miserable Sundays, by
looking solemn,
by refusing to marry, by hearing sermons; and
others imagine that they can please God by calumni-
ating
unbelievers.
There is an old story of an Irishman who, when
dying, sent for a priest. The reputation of the
dying man was so
perfectly miserable, that the priest
refused to administer the rite
of extreme unction.
The priest therefore asked him if he could
recollect
any decent action that he had ever done. The dying
man
said that he could not. "Very well," said the
priest, "then you will
have to be damned." In a
moment, the pinched and pale face
brightened, and
he said to the priest: "I have thought of one good
"action." "What is it?" asked the priest. And the
dying man said,
"Once I killed a gauger."
I suppose that in the next world some
ministers,
driven to extremes, may reply: "Once I told a lie
"about an infidel."
Question. You see that Mr. Talmage
still sticks to
the whale and Jonah story. What do you think of
his argument, or of his explanation, rather, of that
miracle?
99
Answer. The edge of his orthodoxy seems to be
crumbling. He tells us that "there is in the mouth
"of the common
whale a cavity large enough for a
"man to live in without descent
into his stomach,"—
and yet Christ says, that Jonah was in the
whale's
belly, not in his mouth. But why should Mr. Tal-
mage
say that? We are told in the sacred account
that "God prepared a
great fish" for the sole pur-
pose of having Jonah swallowed. The
size of the
present whale has nothing to do with the story. No
matter whether the throat of the whale of to-day is
large or small,—that
has nothing to do with it. The
simple story is, that God prepared a
fish and had
Jonah swallowed. And yet Mr. Talmage throws out
the
suggestion that probably this whale held Jonah
in his mouth for three
days and nights. I admit that
Jonah's chance for air would have been
a little better
in his mouth, and his chance for water a little
worse.
Probably the whale that swallowed Jonah was the
same fish
spoken of by Procopius,—both accounts
being entitled, in my
judgment, to equal credence.
I am a little surprised that Mr. Talmage
forgot
to mention the fish spoken of by Munchausen—an
equally reliable author,—and who has given, not
simply the bald
fact that a fish swallowed a ship, but
100
was good
enough to furnish the details. Mr. Talmage
should remember that out
of Jonah's biography
grew the habit of calling any remarkable lie, "a
fish
"story." There is one thing that Mr. Talmage
should not
forget; and that is, that miracles should
not be explained. Miracles
are told simply to be
believed, not to be understood.
Somebody suggested to Mr. Talmage that, in
all probability, a person
in the stomach of a whale
would be digested in less than three days.
Mr. Tal-
mage, again showing his lack of confidence in God,
refusing to believe that God could change the nature
of gastric
juice,—having no opportunity to rely
upon "refraction or
reflection," frankly admits that
Jonah had to save himself by keeping
on the
constant go and jump. This gastric-juice theory of
Mr.
Talmage is an abandonment of his mouth hy-
pothesis. I do not wonder
that Mr. Talmage thought
of the mouth theory. Possibly, the two
theories had
better be united—so that we may say that Jonah,
when he got tired of the activity necessary to
avoid the gastric
juice, could have strolled into
the mouth for a rest. What a picture!
Jonah
sitting on the edge of the lower jaw, wiping the
perspiration and the gastric juice from his anxious
101
face, and vainly looking through the open mouth
for signs of
land!
In this story of Jonah, we are told that "the Lord
"spake unto the fish." In what language? It must
be remembered that
this fish was only a few hours
old. He had been prepared during the
storm, for
the sole purpose of swallowing Jonah. He was a
fish
of exceedingly limited experience. He had no
hereditary knowledge,
because he did not spring
from ancestors; consequently, he had no
instincts.
Would such a fish understand any language? It
may be
contended that the fish, having been made
for the occasion, was given
a sufficient knowledge
of language to understand an ordinary command-
ment; but, if Mr. Talmage is right, I think an order
to the fish
would have been entirely unnecessary.
When we take into consideration
that a thing the
size of a man had been promenading up and down
the stomach of this fish for three days and three
nights,
successfully baffling the efforts of gastric
juice, we can readily
believe that the fish was as
anxious to have Jonah go, as Jonah was
to leave.
But the whale part is, after all, not the most won-
derful portion of the book of Jonah. According to
this wonderful
account, "the word of the Lord came
102
"to Jonah,"
telling him to "go and cry against the
"city of Nineveh;" but Jonah,
instead of going,
endeavored to evade the Lord by taking ship for
Tarshish. As soon as the Lord heard of this, he
"sent out a great
wind into the sea," and frightened
the sailors to that extent that
after assuring them-
selves, by casting lots, that Jonah was the man,
they
threw him into the sea. After escaping from the
whale, he
went to Nineveh, and delivered his pre-
tended message from God. In
consequence of his
message, Jonah having no credentials from God,—
nothing certifying to his official character, the King
of Nineveh
covered himself with sack-cloth and sat
down in some ashes. He then
caused a decree to
be issued that every man and beast should abstain
from food and water; and further, that every man and
beast should be
covered with sack-cloth. This was
done in the hope that Jonah's God
would repent, and
turn away his fierce anger. When we take into con-
sideration the fact that the people of Nineveh were
not Hebrews, and
had not the slightest confidence in
the God of the Jews—knew no
more of, and cared no
more for, Jehovah than we now care for Jupiter,
or
Neptune; the effect produced by the proclamation of
Jonah is,
to say the least of it, almost incredible.
103
We
are also informed, in this book, that the
moment God saw all the
people sitting in the ashes,
and all the animals covered with
sack-cloth, he
repented. This failure on the part of God to destroy
the unbelievers displeased Jonah exceedingly, and
he was very angry.
Jonah was much like the
modern minister, who seems always to be
personally
aggrieved if the pestilence and famine prophesied by
him do not come. Jonah was displeased to that
degree, that he asked
God to kill him. Jonah then
went out of the city, even after God had
repented,
made him a booth and sat under it, in the shade,
waiting to see what would become of the city. God
then "prepared a
gourd, and made it to come up
"over Jonah that it might be a shadow
over his
"head to deliver him from his grief." And then we
have
this pathetic line: "So Jonah was exceedingly
"glad of the gourd."
God having prepared a fish, and also prepared
a gourd, proposed
next morning to prepare a worm.
And when the sun rose next day, the
worm that
God had prepared, "smote the gourd, so that
"it
withered." I can hardly believe that an in-
finite being prepared a
worm to smite a gourd
so that it withered, in order to keep the sun
from
104
the bald head of a prophet. According to
the
account, after sunrise, and after the worm had
smitten the
gourd, "God prepared a vehement east
"wind." This was not an ordinary
wind, but one
prepared expressly for that occasion. After the wind
had been prepared, "the sun beat upon the head of
"Jonah, and he
fainted, and wished in himself to
"die." All this was done in order
to convince
Jonah that a man who would deplore the loss of a
gourd, ought not to wish for the destruction of a city.
Is it
possible for any intelligent man now to
believe that the history of
Jonah is literally true?
For my part, I cannot see the necessity
either of
believing it, or of preaching it. It has nothing to do
with honesty, with mercy, or with morality. The
bad may believe it,
and the good may hold it in
contempt. I do not see that civilization
has the
slightest interest in the fish, the gourd, the worm, or
the vehement east wind.
Does Mr. Talmage think that it is
absolutely neces-
sary to believe all the story? Does he not
think it
probable that a God of infinite mercy, rather than
damn
the soul of an honest man to hell forever, would
waive, for instance,
the worm,—provided he believed
in the vehement east wind, the
gourd and the fish?
105
Mr. Talmage, by insisting on
the literal truth of
the Bible stories, is doing Christianity great
harm.
Thousands of young men will say: "I can't become
"a
Christian if it is necessary to believe the adven-
"tures of Jonah."
Mr. Talmage will put into the
paths of multitudes of people willing
to do right,
anxious to make the world a little better than it is,—
this stumbling block. He could have explained it,
called it an
allegory, poetical license, a child of the
oriental imagination, a
symbol, a parable, a poem, a
dream, a legend, a myth, a divine
figure, or a great
truth wrapped in the rags and shreds and patches
of
seeming falsehood. His efforts to belittle the miracle,
to
suggest the mouth instead of the stomach,—to
suggest that Jonah
took deck passage, or lodged in
the forecastle instead of in the
cabin or steerage,—
to suggest motion as a means of avoiding
digestion,
is a serious theological blunder, and may cause the
loss of many souls.
If Mr. Talmage will consult with other
ministers,
they will tell him to let this story alone—that he
will
simply "provoke investigation and discussion"—two
things to be avoided. They will tell him that they
are not willing
their salary should hang on so slender
a thread, and will advise him
not to bother his gourd
106
about Jonah's. They will
also tell him that in this
age of the world, arguments cannot be
answered by
"a vehement east wind."
Some people will think
that it would have been
just as easy for God to have pulled the gourd
up, as
to have prepared a worm to bite it.
Question.
Mr. Talmage charges that you have
said there are indecencies in the
Bible. Are you
still of that opinion?
Answer. Mr.
Talmage endeavors to evade the
charge, by saying that "there are
things in the Bible
"not intended to be read, either in the family
circle,
"or in the pulpit, but nevertheless they are to be
"read." My own judgment is, that an infinite being
should not inspire
the writing of indecent things.
It will not do to say, that the Bible
description of sin
"warns and saves." There is nothing in the history
of Tamar calculated to "warn and save and the
same may be said of
many other passages in the
Old Testament. Most Christians would be
glad
to know that all such passages are interpolations.
I regret
that Shakespeare ever wrote a line that
could not be read any where,
and by any person.
But Shakespeare, great as he was, did not rise en-
107
tirely above his time. So of most poets. Nearly all
have stained their pages with some vulgarity; and I
am sorry for it,
and hope the time will come when
we shall have an edition of all the
great writers and
poets from which every such passage is elimi-
nated.
It is with the Bible as with most other books. It
is a mingling of good and bad. There are many
exquisite passages in
the Bible,—many good laws,—
many wise sayings,—and
there are many passages
that should never have been written. I do not
pro-
pose to throw away the good on account of the
bad, neither
do I propose to accept the bad on
account of the good. The Bible need
not be taken
as an entirety. It is the business of every man who
reads it, to discriminate between that which is good
and that which
is bad. There are also many passages
neither good nor bad,—wholly
and totally indifferent
—conveying 110 information—utterly
destitute of
ideas,—and as to these passages, my only objection
to them is that they waste time and paper.
I am in favor of
every passage in the Bible that
conveys information. I am in favor of
every wise
proverb, of every verse coming from human ex-
perience and that appeals to the heart of man. I am
108
in favor of every passage that inculcates justice,
generosity,
purity, and mercy. I am satisfied that
much of the historical part is
false. Some of it
is probably true. Let us have the courage to take
the true, and throw the false away. I am satisfied
that many of the
passages are barbaric, and many of
them are good. Let us have the
wisdom to accept
the good and to reject the barbaric.
No
system of religion should go in partnership
with barbarism. Neither
should any Christian feel
it his duty to defend the savagery of the
past. The
philosophy of Christ must stand independently of the
mistakes of the Old Testament. We should do jus-
tice whether a woman
was made from a rib or from
"omnipotence." We should be merciful
whether
the flood was general, or local. We should be kind
and
obliging whether Jonah was swallowed by a fish
or not. The miraculous
has nothing to do with the
moral. Intelligence is of more value than
inspiration.
Brain is better than Bible. Reason is above all
religion. I do not believe that any civilized human
being clings to
the Bible on account of its barbaric
passages. I am candid enough to
believe that every
Christian in the world would think more of the
Bible,
if it had not upheld slavery, if it had denounced
109
polygamy, if it had cried out against wars of exter-
mination, if it had spared women and babes, if it had
upheld
everywhere, and at all times, the standard of
justice and mercy. But
when it is claimed that the
book is perfect, that it is inspired,
that it is, in fact,
the work of an infinitely wise and good God,—then
it should be without a defect. There should not be
within its lids an
impure word; it should not express
an impure thought. There should
not be one word
in favor of injustice, not one word in favor of
slavery,
not one word in favor of wars of extermination.
There
must be another revision of the Scriptures.
The chaff must be thrown
away. The dross must
be rejected; and only that be retained which is
in
exact harmony with the brain and heart of the
greatest and
the best.
Question. Mr. Talmage charges you with unfair-
ness, because you account for the death of art in
Palestine, by the
commandment which forbids the
making of graven images.
Answer.
I have said that that commandment was
the death of art, and I say so
still. I insist that by
reason of that commandment, Palestine
produced no
painter and no sculptor until after the destruction of
110
Jerusalem. Mr. Talmage, in order to answer that
statement, goes on to show that hundreds and thou-
sands of pictures
were produced in the Middle Ages.
That is a departure in pleading.
Will he give us the
names of the painters that existed in Palestine
from
Mount Sinai to the destruction of the temple? Will
he give
us the names of the sculptors between those
times? Mohammed
prohibited his followers from
making any representation of human or
animal life,
and as a result, Mohammedans have never produced
a
painter nor a sculptor, except in the portrayal and
chiseling of
vegetable forms. They were confined
to trees and vines, and flowers.
No Mohammedan
has portrayed the human face or form. But the
commandment of Jehovah went farther than that of
Momammed, and
prevented portraying the image of
anything. The assassination of art
was complete.
There is another thing that should not be
forgotten.
We are indebted for the encouragement of
art,
not to the Protestant Church; if indebted to any,
it is to the
Catholic. The Catholic adorned the cathedral
with painting and
statue—not the Protestant.
The Protestants opposed music and
painting, and
refused to decorate their temples. But if Mr. Tal-
mage wishes to know to whom we are indebted for
111
art, let him read the mythology of Greece and Rome.
The early
Christians destroyed paintings and statues.
They were the enemies of
all beauty. They hated
and detested every expression of art. They
looked
upon the love of statues as a form of idolatry. They
looked upon every painting as a remnant of Pagan-
ism. They destroyed
all upon which they could lay
their ignorant hands. Hundred of years
afterwards,
the world was compelled to search for the fragments
that Christian fury had left. The Greeks filled the
world with
beauty. For every stream and mountain
and cataract they had a god or
goddess. Their
sculptors impersonated every dream and hope, and
their mythology feeds, to-day, the imagination of
mankind. The Venus
de Milo is the impersonation
of beauty, in ruin—the sublimest
fragment of the
ancient world. Our mythology is infinitely unpoetic
and barren—our deity an old bachelor from eternity,
who once
believed in indiscriminate massacre. Upon
the throne of our heaven,
woman finds no place.
Our mythology is destitute of the maternal.
Question. Mr. Talmage denies your statement
that the Old
Testament humiliates woman. He also
denies that the New Testament
says anything
against woman. How is it?
112
Answer.
Of course, I never considered a book up-
holding polygamy to be the
friend of woman. Eve,
according to that book, is the mother of us
all, and
yet the inspired writer does not tell us how long she
lived,—does not even mention her death,—makes
not the
slightest reference as to what finally became
of her. Methuselah
lived nine hundred and sixty-
nine years, and yet, there is not the
slightest mention
made of Mrs. Methuselah. Enoch was translated,
and his widow is not mentioned. There is not a
word about Mrs. Seth,
or Mrs. Enos, or Mrs. Cainan,
or Mrs. Mahalaleel, or Mrs. Jared. We
do not
know the name of Mrs. Noah, and I believe not the
name of
a solitary woman is given from the creation
of Eve—with the
exception of two of Lamech's
wives—until Sarai is mentioned as
being the wife
of Abram.
If you wish really to know the
Bible estimation of
woman, turn to the fourth and fifth verses of the
twelfth chapter of Leviticus, in which a woman, for
the crime of
having borne a son, is unfit to touch a
hallowed thing, or to come in
the holy sanctuary for
thirty-three days; but if a woman was the
mother
of a girl, then she became totally unfit to enter the
sanctuary, or pollute with her touch a hallowed thing,
113
for sixty-six days. The pollution was twice as great
when she
had borne a daughter.
It is a little difficult to see why it is
a greater crime
to give birth to a daughter than to a son. Surely, a
law like that did not tend to the elevation of woman.
You will also
find in the same chapter that a woman
had to offer a pigeon, or a
turtle-dove, as a sin offer-
ing, in order to expiate the crime of
having become a
mother. By the Levitical law, a mother was unclean.
The priest had to make an atonement for her.
If there is,
beneath the stars, a figure of complete
and perfect purity, it is a
mother holding in her arms
her child. The laws respecting women,
given by
commandment of Jehovah to the Jews, were born of
barbarism, and in this day and age should be re-
garded only with
detestation and contempt. The
twentieth and twenty-first verses of
the nineteenth
chapter of Leviticus show that the same punishment
was not meted to men and women guilty of the
same crime.
The real explanation of what we find in the Old
Testament degrading
to woman, lies in the fact, that
the overflow of Love's mysterious
Nile—the sacred
source of life—was, by its savage
authors, deemed
unclean.
114
Question.
But what have you to say about the
women of the Bible, mentioned by
Mr. Talmage,
and held up as examples for all time of all that is
sweet and womanly?
Answer. I believe that Esther is his
principal
heroine. Let us see who she was.
According to
the book of Esther, Ahasuerus who
was king of Persia, or some such
place, ordered
Vashti his queen to show herself to the people
and the princes, because she was "exceedingly fair
"to look upon."
For some reason—modesty per-
haps—she refused to appear.
And thereupon the
king "sent letters into all his provinces and to
every
"people after their language, that every man should
"bear
rule in his own house;" it being feared that
if it should become
public that Vashti had disobeyed,
all other wives might follow her
example. The king
also, for the purpose of impressing upon all women
the necessity of obeying their husbands, issued a
decree that "Vashti
should come no more before
"him," and that he would "give her royal
estate
"unto another." This was done that "all the
"wives should
give to their husbands honor, both to
"great and small."
After this, "the king appointed officers in all the
115
"provinces of his kingdom that they might gather
"together all
the fair young virgins," and bring
them to his palace, put them in
the custody of
his chamberlain, and have them thoroughly washed.
Then the king was to look over the lot and take
each day the one that
pleased him best until he found
the one to put in the place of
Vashti. A fellow by
the name of Mordecai, living in that part of the
country, hearing of the opportunity to sell a girl,
brought Esther,
his uncle's daughter,—she being an
orphan, and very beautiful—to
see whether she
might not be the lucky one.
The remainder
of the second chapter of this
book, I do not care to repeat. It is
sufficient to say
that Esther at last was chosen.
The king
at this time did not know that Esther
was a Jewess. Mordecai her
kinsman, however,
discovered a plot to assassinate the king, and
Esther
told the king, and the two plotting gentlemen were
hanged
on a tree.
After a while, a man by the name of Haman was
made Secretary of State, and everybody coming in
his presence bowed
except Mordecai. Mordecai was
probably depending on the influence of
Esther.
Haman finally became so vexed, that he made up
116
his mind to have all the Jews in the kingdom
destroyed. (The
number of Jews at that time
in Persia must have been immense.) Haman
there-
upon requested the king to have an order issued to
destroy all the Jews, and in consideration of the
order, proposed to
pay ten thousand talents of silver.
And thereupon, letters were
written to the governors
of the various provinces, sealed with the
king's ring,
sent by post in all directions, with instructions to
kill
all the Jews, both young and old—little children and
women,—in one day. (One would think that the
king copied this
order from another part of the Old
Testament, or had found an
original by Jehovah.) The
people immediately made preparations for
the killing.
Mordecai clothed himself with sack-cloth, and Esther
called upon one of the king's chamberlains, and she
finally got the
history of the affair, as well as a copy
of the writing, and
thereupon made up her mind to
go in and ask the king to save her
people.
At that time, Bismarck's idea of government being
in full force, any one entering the king's presence with-
out an
invitation, was liable to be put to death. And
in case any one did go
in to see the king, if the king
failed to hold out his golden
sceptre, his life was not
spared. Notwithstanding this order, Esther
put on
117
her best clothes, and stood in the inner
court of the
king's house, while the king sat on his royal throne.
When the king saw her standing in the court, he
held out his sceptre,
and Esther drew near, and he
asked her what she wished; and thereupon
she
asked that the king and Haman might take dinner
with her
that day, and it was done. While they were
feasting, the king again
asked Esther what she
wanted; and her second request was, that they
would come and dine with her once more. When
Haman left the palace
that day, he saw Mordecai
again at the gate, standing as stiffly as
usual, and it
filled Haman with indignation. So Haman, taking
the advice of his wife, made a gallows fifty cubits
high, for the
special benefit of Mordecai. The next
day, when Haman went to see the
king, the king,
having the night before refreshed his memory in
respect to the service done him by Mordecai, asked
Haman what ought
to be done for the man whom
the king wished to honor. Haman,
supposing of
course that the king referred to him, said that royal
purple ought to be brought forth, such as the king
wore, and the
horse that the king rode on, and the
crown-royal should be set on the
man's head;—that
one of the most noble princes should lead the
horse,
118
and as he went through the streets,
proclaim: "Thus
"shall it be done to the man whom the king de-
"lighteth to honor."
Thereupon the king told Haman that
Mordecai
was the man that the king wished to honor. And
Haman
was forced to lead this horse, backed by
Mordecai, through the
streets, shouting: "This shall
"be done to the man whom the king
delighteth to
"honor." Immediately afterward, he went to the
banquet that Esther had prepared, and the king
again asked Esther her
petition. She then asked
for the salvation of her people; stating at
the same
time, that if her people had been sold into slavery,
she would have held her tongue; but since they
were about to be
killed, she could not keep silent.
The king asked her who had done
this thing; and
Esther replied that it was the wicked Haman.
Thereupon one of the chamberlains, remembering
the gallows that
had been made for Mordecai, men-
tioned it, and the king immediately
ordered that
Haman be hanged thereon; which was done. And
Mordecai immediately became Secretary of State.
The order against the
Jews was then rescinded; and
Ahasuerus, willing to do anything that
Esther de-
sired, hanged all of Haman's folks. He not only did
119
this, but he immediately issued an order to all the
Jews allowing them to kill the other folks. And the
Jews got together
throughout one hundred and
twenty-seven provinces, "and such was
their power,
"that no man could stand against them; and there-
"upon the Jews smote all their enemies with the
"stroke of the sword,
and with slaughter and de-
"struction, and did whatever they pleased
to those
"who hated them." And in the palace of the king,
the
Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men, besides
ten sons of Haman;
and in the rest of the provinces,
they slew seventy-five thousand
people. And after
this work of slaughter, the Jews had a day of glad-
ness and feasting.
One can see from this, what a beautiful
Bible
character Esther was—how filled with all that is
womanly, gentle, kind and tender!
This story is one of the most
unreasonable, as well
as one of the most heartless and revengeful, in
the
whole Bible. Ahasuerus was a monster, and Esther
equally
infamous; and yet, this woman is held up for
the admiration of
mankind by a Brooklyn pastor.
There is this peculiarity about the
book of Esther:
the name of God is not mentioned in it, and the
deity is not referred to, directly or indirectly;—yet
120
it is claimed to be an inspired book. If Jehovah
wrote it, he
certainly cannot be charged with
egotism.
I most
cheerfully admit that the book of Ruth is
quite a pleasant story, and
the affection of Ruth for
her mother-in-law exceedingly touching, but
I am of
opinion that Ruth did many things that would be re-
garded as somewhat indiscreet, even in the city of
Brooklyn.
All I can find about Hannah is, that she made a
little coat for
her boy Samuel, and brought it to him
from year to year. Where he got
his vest and
pantaloons we are not told. But this fact seems
hardly enough to make her name immortal.
So also Mr. Talmage
refers us to the wonderful
woman Abigail. The story about Abigail,
told in
plain English, is this: David sent some of his fol-
lowers to Nabal, Abigail's husband, and demanded
food. Nabal, who
knew nothing about David, and
cared less, refused. Abigail heard
about it, and took
food to David and his servants. She was very much
struck, apparently, with David and David with her.
A few days
afterward Nabal died—supposed to have
been killed by the Lord—but
probably poisoned;
and thereupon David took Abigail to wife. The
121
whole matter should have been investigated by the
grand jury.
We are also referred to Dorcas, who no doubt was a
good woman—made clothes for the poor and gave
alms, as millions
have done since then. It seems
that this woman died. Peter was sent
for, and there-
upon raised her from the dead, and she is never men-
tioned any more. Is it not a little strange that a
woman who had been
actually raised from the dead,
should have so completely passed out
of the memory
of her time, that when she died the second time, she
was entirely unnoticed?
Is it not astonishing that so little is
in the New
Testament concerning the mother of Christ? My
own
opinion is, that she was an excellent woman, and
the wife of Joseph;
and that Joseph was the actual
father of Christ. I think there can be
no reasonable
doubt that such was the opinion of the authors of the
original gospels. Upon any other hypothesis, it is
impossible to
account for their having given the
genealogy of Joseph to prove that
Christ was of the
blood of David. The idea that he was the Son of
God, or in any way miraculously produced, was an
afterthought, and is
hardly entitled now to serious
consideration. The gospels were
written so long after
122
the death of Christ, that
very little was known of him,
and substantially nothing of his
parents. How is it
that not one word is said about the death of Mary—
not one word about the death of Joseph? How did
it happen that Christ
did not visit his mother after his
resurrection? The first time he
speaks to his mother
is when he was twelve years old. His mother
having
told him that she and his father had been seeking
him, he
replied: "How is it that ye sought me: wist
"ye not that I must be
about my Father s business?"
The second time was at the
marriage feast in Cana,
when he said to her: "Woman, what have I to
do
"with thee?" And the third time was at the cross,
when
"Jesus, seeing his mother standing by the
"disciple whom he loved,
said to her: Woman, be-
"hold thy son;" and to the disciple: "Behold
thy
"mother." And this is all.
The best thing about the
Catholic Church is
the deification of Mary,—and yet this is
denounced
by Protestantism as idolatry. There is something
in
the human heart that prompts man to tell his faults
more freely to
the mother than to the father. The
cruelty of Jehovah is softened by
the mercy of
Mary.
Is it not strange that none of the
disciples of Christ
123
said anything about their
parents,—that we know
absolutely nothing of them? Is there any
evidence
that they showed any particular respect even for the
mother of Christ?
Mary Magdalen is, in many respects, the
tenderest
and most loving character in the New Testament.
According to the account, her love for Christ knew
no abatement,—no
change—true even in the hopeless
shadow of the cross. Neither
did it die with his
death. She waited at the sepulchre; she hasted in
the early morning to his tomb, and yet the only
comfort Christ gave
to this true and loving soul lies
in these strangely cold and
heartless words: "Touch
"me not."
There is nothing tending
to show that the women
spoken of in the Bible were superior to the
ones we
know. There are to-day millions of women making
coats
for their sons,—hundreds of thousands of
women, true not simply
to innocent people, falsely
accused, but to criminals. Many a loving
heart is
as true to the gallows as Mary was to the cross.
There
are hundreds of thousands of women accept-
ing poverty and want and
dishonor, for the love they
bear unworthy men; hundreds and
thousands, hun-
dreds and thousands, working day and night, with
124
strained eyes and tired hands, for husbands and
children,—clothed in rags, housed in huts and hovels,
hoping
day after day for the angel of death. There are
thousands of women in
Christian England, working in
iron, laboring in the fields and
toiling in mines. There
are hundreds and thousands in Europe,
everywhere,
doing the work of men—deformed by toil, and who
would become simply wild and ferocious beasts,
except for the love
they bear for home and child.
You need not go back four
thousand years for
heroines. The world is filled with them to-day.
They do not belong to any nation, nor to any religion,
nor
exclusively to any race. Wherever woman is
found, they are found.
There is no description of any women in the Bible
that equal
thousands and thousands of women known
to-day. The women mentioned by
Mr. Talmage fall
almost infinitely below, not simply those in real
life, but
the creations of the imagination found in the world of
fiction. They will not compare with the women born
of Shakespeare's
brain. You will find none like
Isabella, in whose spotless life, love
and reason
blended into perfect truth; nor Juliet, within whose
heart passion and purity met, like white and red within
the bosom of
a rose; nor Cordelia, who chose to
125
suffer loss
rather than show her wealth of love with
those who gilded dross with
golden words in hope
of gain; nor Miranda, who told her love as
freely
as a flower gives its bosom to the kisses of the sun;
nor
Imogene, who asked: "What is it to be false?"
nor Hermione, who bore
with perfect faith and hope
the cross of shame, and who at last
forgave with all
her heart; nor Desdemona, her innocence so perfect
and her love so pure, that she was incapable of sus-
pecting that
another could suspect, and sought with
dying words to hide her
lover's crime.
If we wish to find what the Bible thinks of
woman, all that is necessary to do is to read it.
We will find that
everywhere she is spoken of
simply as property,—as belonging
absolutely to the
man. We will find that whenever a man got tired
of his wife, all he had to do was to give her a writing
of
divorcement, and that then the mother of his
children became a
houseless and a homeless wanderer.
We will find that men were allowed
to have as
many wives as they could get, either by courtship,
purchase, or conquest. The Jewish people in the
olden time were in
many respects like their barbarian
neighbors.
If we read
the New Testament, we will find in the
126
epistle
of Paul to Timothy, the following gallant
passages:
"Let
the woman learn in silence, with all
"subjection."
"But I
suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp
"authority over the man,
but to be in silence."
And for these kind, gentle and civilized
remarks,
the apostle Paul gives the following reasons:
"For Adam was first formed, then Eve."
"And Adam was not
deceived, but the woman
"being deceived was in the transgression."
Certainly women ought to feel under great obli-
gation to the
apostle Paul.
In the fifth chapter of the same epistle, Paul,
advising Timothy as to what kind of people he
should admit into his
society or church, uses the
following language:
"Let not a
widow be taken into the number under
"threescore years old, having
been the wife of one
"man."
"But the younger widows
refuse, for when they
"have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they
will
"marry."
This same Paul did not seem to think
polygamy
wrong, except in a bishop. He tells Timothy that:
127
"A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one
"wife."
He also lays down the rule that a deacon should be
the husband of one wife, leaving us to infer that the
other members
might have as many as they could get.
In the second epistle to
Timothy, Paul speaks of
"grandmother Lois," who was referred to in
such
extravagant language by Mr. Talmage, and nothing
is said
touching her character in the least. All her
virtues live in the
imagination, and in the imagina-
tion alone.
Paul, also,
in his epistle to the Ephesians, says:
"Wives, submit
yourselves unto your own hus-
"bands, as unto the Lord. For the
husband is the
"head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the
"church."
"Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ,
"so let the wives be to their own husbands, in
"everything."
You will find, too, that in the seventh chapter of
First
Corinthians, Paul laments that all men are not
bachelors like
himself, and in the second verse of
that chapter he gives the only
reason for which he
was willing that men and women should marry. He
advised all the unmarried, and all widows, to remain
128
as he was. In the ninth verse of this same chapter
is a slander
too vulgar for repetition,—an estimate
of woman and of woman's
love so low and vile, that
every woman should hold the inspired
author in
infinite abhorrence.
Paul sums up the whole
matter, however, by telling
those who have wives or husbands, to stay
with
them—as necessary evils only to be tolerated—but
sincerely regrets that anybody was ever married;
and finally says
that:
"They that have wives should be as though they
"had
none;" because, in his opinion:
"He that is unmarried careth
for the things that
"belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord;
"but he that is married careth for the things that are
"of the world,
how he may please his wife."
"There is this difference also,"
he tells us, "be-
"tween a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman
"careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be
"holy both in
body and in spirit; but she that is
"married careth for the things of
the world, how she
" may please her husband."
Of course,
it is contended that these things have
tended to the elevation of
woman.
The idea that it is better to love the Lord than to
129
love your wife, or your husband, is infinitely
absurd.
Nobody ever did love the Lord,—nobody can—until
he becomes acquainted with him.
Saint Paul also tells us that
"Man is the image
"and glory of God; but woman is the glory of
"man;" and for the purpose of sustaining this posi-
tion, says:
"For the man is not of the woman, but the woman
"of the man;
neither was the man created for the
"woman, but the woman for the
man."
Of course, we can all see that man could have
gotten
along well enough without woman, but woman,
by no possibility, could
have gotten along without
man. And yet, this is called "inspired;"
and this
apostle Paul is supposed to have known more than
all
the people now upon the earth. No wonder Paul
at last was constrained
to say: "We are fools for
"Christ's sake."
Question.
How do you account for the present
condition of woman in what is
known as "the civilized
"world," unless the Bible has bettered her
condition?
Answer. We must remember that thousands of
things enter into the problem of civilization. Soil,
climate, and
geographical position, united with count-
130
less
other influences, have resulted in the civilization
of our time. If
we want to find what the influence of
the Bible has been, we must
ascertain the condition
of Europe when the Bible was considered as
abso-
lutely true, and when it wielded its greatest influence.
Christianity as a form of religion had actual posses-
sion of
Europe during the Middle Ages. At that
time, it exerted its greatest
power. Then it had the
opportunity of breaking the shackles from the
limbs
of woman. Christianity found the Roman matron a
free
woman. Polygamy was never known in Rome;
and although divorces were
allowed by law, the
Roman state had been founded for more than five
hundred years before either a husband or a wife
asked for a divorce.
From the foundation of Chris-
tianity,—I mean from the time it
became the force in
the Roman state,—woman, as such, went down
in
the scale of civilization. The sceptre was taken from
her
hands, and she became once more the slave and
serf of man. The men
also were made slaves, and
woman has regained her liberty by the same
means
that man has regained his,—by wresting authority
from the hands of the church. While the church had
power, the wife
and mother was not considered as
good as the begging nun; the husband
and father
was far below the vermin-covered monk; homes
were of
no value compared with the cathedral; for
God had to have a house, no
matter how many of
his children were wanderers. During all the years
in
which woman has struggled for equal liberty with
man, she has
been met with the Bible doctrine that
she is the inferior of the man;
that Adam was made
first, and Eve afterwards; that man was not made
for
woman, but that woman was made for man.
I find that in
this day and generation, the meanest
men have the lowest estimate of
woman; that the
greater the man is, the grander he is, the more he
thinks of mother, wife and daughter. I also find that
just in the
proportion that he has lost confidence in the
polygamy of Jehovah and
in the advice and philosophy
of Saint Paul, he believes in the rights
and liberties of
woman. As a matter of fact, men have risen from a
perusal of the Bible, and murdered their wives. They
have risen from
reading its pages, and inflicted cruel
and even mortal blows upon
their children. Men
have risen from reading the Bible and torn the
flesh
of others with red-hot pincers. They have laid
down the
sacred volume long enough to pour molten
lead into the ears of
others. They have stopped
reading the sacred Scriptures for a
sufficient time to
132
incarcerate their fellow-men,
to load them with chains,
and then they have gone back to their
reading,
allowing their victims to die in darkness and despair.
Men have stopped reading the Old Testament long
enough to drive a
stake into the ground and collect a
few fagots and burn an honest
man. Even ministers
have denied themselves the privilege of reading
the
sacred book long enough to tell falsehoods about
their
fellow-men. There is no crime that Bible
readers and Bible believers
and Bible worshipers and
Bible defenders have not committed. There is
no
meanness of which some Bible reader, believer, and
defender,
has not been guilty. Bible believers and
Bible defenders have filled
the world with calumnies
and slanders. Bible believers and Bible
defenders
have not only whipped their wives, but they have
murdered them; they have murdered their children.
I do not say that
reading the Bible will necessarily
make men dishonest, but I do say,
that reading the
Bible will not prevent their committing crimes. I do
not say that believing the Bible will necessarily make
men commit
burglary, but I do say that a belief in the
Bible has caused men to
persecute each other, to
imprison each other, and to burn each other.
Only a little while ago, a British clergyman mur-
133
dered his wife. Only a little while ago, an American
Protestant
clergyman whipped his boy to death be-
cause the boy refused to say a
prayer.
The Rev. Mr. Crowley not only believed the Bible,
but was licensed to expound it. He had been
"called" to the ministry,
and upon his head had
been laid the holy hands; and yet, he
deliberately
starved orphans, and while looking upon their
sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, sung pious hymns
and quoted with great
unction: "Suffer little chil-
"dren to come unto me."
As a
matter of fact, in the last twenty years,
more money has been stolen
by Christian cashiers,
Christian presidents, Christian directors,
Christian
trustees and Christian statesmen, than by all other
convicts in all the penitentiaries in all the Christian
world.
The assassin of Henry the Fourth was a Bible reader
and a Bible
believer. The instigators of the massacre
of St. Bartholomew were
believers in your sacred
Scriptures. The men who invested their money
in the
slave-trade believed themselves filled with the Holy
Ghost, and read with rapture the Psalms of David and
the Sermon on
the Mount. The murderers of Scotch
Presbyterians were believers in
Revelation, and the
134
Presbyterians, when they murdered
others, were also
believers. Nearly every man who expiates a crime
upon the gallows is a believer in the Bible. For a
thousand years,
the daggers of assassination and the
swords of war were blest by
priests—by the believers
in the sacred Scriptures. The assassin
of President
Garfield is a believer in the Bible, a hater of
infidelity,
a believer in personal inspiration, and he expects in a
few weeks to join the winged and redeemed in
heaven.
If a
man would follow, to-day, the teachings of the
Old Testament, he
would be a criminal. If he would
follow strictly the teachings of the
New, he would be
insane.
FOURTH INTERVIEW.
Son. There is no devil.
Mother. I know there is.
Son. How do you know?
Mother. Because they make pictures
that look just
like him.
Son. But, mother—
Mother. Don't "mother" me! You are trying to
disgrace your
parents.
Question. I want to ask you a few questions
about
Mr. Talmage's fourth sermon against you, entitled:
"The
Meanness of Infidelity," in which he compares
you to Jehoiakim, who
had the temerity to throw
some of the writings of the weeping
Jeremiah into
the fire?
Answer. So far as I am
concerned, I really re-
gret that a second edition of Jeremiah's roll
was
gotten out. It would have been far better for us all,
if it
had been left in ashes. There was nothing but
curses and prophecies
of evil, in the sacred roll that
138
Jehoiakim
burned. The Bible tells us that Jehovah
became exceedingly wroth
because of the destruction
of this roll, and pronounced a curse upon
Jehoiakim
and upon Palestine. I presume it was on account of
the
burning of that roll that the king of Babylon
destroyed the chosen
people of God. It was on
account of that sacrilege that the Lord said
of
Jehoiakim: "He shall have none to sit upon the
"throne of
David; and his dead body shall be cast
"out in the day to the heat,
and in the night to the
"frost." Any one can see how much a dead body
would suffer under such circumstances. Imagine an
infinitely wise,
good and powerful God taking ven-
geance on the corpse of a barbarian
king! What
joy there must have been in heaven as the angels
watched the alternate melting and freezing of the
dead body of
Jehoiakim!
Jeremiah was probably the most accomplished
croaker of all time. Nothing satisfied him. He was
a prophetic
pessimist,—an ancient Bourbon. He
was only happy when
predicting war, pestilence and
famine. No wonder Jehoiakim despised
him, and
hated all he wrote.
One can easily see the
character of Jeremiah from
the following occurrence: When the
Babylonians
139
had succeeded in taking Jerusalem,
and in sacking
the city, Jeremiah was unfortunately taken prisoner;
but Captain Nebuzaradan came to Jeremiah, and told
him that he would
let him go, because he had pro-
phesied against his own country. He
was regarded
as a friend by the enemy.
There was, at that
time, as now, the old fight
between the church and the civil power.
Whenever
a king failed to do what the priests wanted, they
immediately prophesied overthrow, disaster, and de-
feat. Whenever
the kings would hearken to their
voice, and would see to it that the
priests had plenty
to eat and drink and wear, then they all declared
that Jehovah would love that king, would let him live
out all his
days, and allow his son to reign in his
stead. It was simply the old
conflict that is still being
waged, and it will be carried on until
universal civil-
ization does away with priestcraft and superstition.
The priests in the days of Jeremiah were the same
as now. They
sought to rule the State. They pre-
tended that, at their request,
Jehovah would withhold
or send the rain; that the seasons were within
their
power; that they with bitter words could blight the
fields
and curse the land with want and death. They
gloried then, as now, in
the exhibition of God's wrath.
140
In prosperity,
the priests were forgotten. Success
scorned them; Famine flattered
them; Health laughed
at them; Pestilence prayed to them; Disaster was
their only friend.
These old prophets prophesied nothing but
evil,
and consequently, when anything bad happened, they
claimed
it as a fulfillment, and pointed with pride to
the fact that they
had, weeks or months, or years
before, foretold something of that
kind. They were
really the originators of the phrase, "I told you
so!"
There was a good old Methodist class-leader that
lived down near a place called Liverpool, on the
Illinois river. In
the spring of 1861 the old man,
telling his experience, among other
things said, that he
had lived there by the river for more than
thirty
years, and he did not believe that a year had passed
that
there were not hundreds of people during the
hunting season shooting
ducks on Sunday; that he
had told his wife thousands of times that no
good
would come of it; that evil would come of it; "And
"now,
said the old man, raising his voice with the
importance of the
announcement, "war is upon us!"
Question. Do you wish,
as Mr. Talmage says, to de-
stroy the Bible—to have all the
copies burned to ashes?
What do you wish to have done with the Bible?
141
Answer. I want the Bible treated exactly as we
treat other books—preserve the good and throw
away the foolish
and the hurtful. I am fighting the
doctrine of inspiration. As long
as it is believed that
the Bible is inspired, that book is the master—no
mind is free. With that belief, intellectual liberty is
impossible.
With that belief, you can investigate
only at the risk of losing your
soul. The Catholics
have a pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet
the
pope is capable of intellectual advancement. In
addition to
this, the pope is mortal, and the church
cannot be afflicted with the
same idiot forever. The
Protestants have a book for their pope. The
book
cannot advance. Year after year, and century after
century,
the book remains as ignorant as ever. It is
only made better by those
who believe in its inspira-
tion giving better meanings to the words
than their
ancestors did. In this way it may be said that the
Bible grows a little better.
Why should we have a book for a
master? That
which otherwise might be a blessing, remains a curse.
If every copy of the Bible were destroyed, all that is
good in that
book would be reproduced in a single
day. Leave every copy of the
Bible as it is, and
have every human being believe in its
inspiration,
142
and intellectual liberty would
cease to exist. The
whole race, from that moment, would go back to-
ward the night of intellectual death.
The Bible would do more
harm if more people
really believed it, and acted in accordance with
its
teachings. Now and then a Freeman puts the knife
to the
heart of his child. Now and then an assassin
relies upon some sacred
passage; but, as a rule, few
men believe the Bible to be absolutely
true.
There are about fifteen hundred million people in
the world. There are not two million who have read
the Bible through.
There are not two hundred
million who ever saw the Bible. There are
not five
hundred million who ever heard that such a book
exists.
Christianity is claimed to be a religion for all
mankind. It
was founded more than eighteen cen-
turies ago; and yet, not one
human being in three
has ever heard of it. As a matter of fact, for
more
than fourteen centuries and-a-half after the crucifixion
of
Christ, this hemisphere was absolutely unknown.
There was not a
Christian in the world who knew
there was such a continent as ours,
and all the
inhabitants of this, the New World, were deprived
of
the gospel for fourteen centuries and-a-half, and
143
knew nothing of its blessings until they were in-
formed by
Spanish murderers and marauders. Even
in the United States,
Christianity is not keeping pace
with the increase of population.
When we take
into consideration that it is aided by the momentum
of eighteen centuries, is it not wonderful that it is not
to-day
holding its own? The reason of this is, that
we are beginning to
understand the Scriptures. We
are beginningto see, and to see
clearly, that they are
simply of human origin, and that the Bible
bears
the marks of the barbarians who wrote it. The best
educated among the clergy admit that we know but
little as to the
origin of the gospels; that we do not
positively know the author of
one of them; that it is
really a matter of doubt as to who wrote the
five
books attributed to Moses. They admit now, that
Isaiah was
written by more than one person; that
Solomon's Song was not written
by that king; that
Job is, in all probability, not a Jewish book;
that
Ecclesiastes must have been written by a Freethinker,
and
by one who had his doubts about the immortality
of the soul. The best
biblical students of the so-
called orthodox world now admit that
several stories
were united to make the gospel of Saint Luke; that
Hebrews is a selection from many fragments, and
144
that no human being, not afflicted with delirium
tremens, can
understand the book of Revelation.
I am not the only one
engaged in the work of
destruction. Every Protestant who expresses a
doubt
as to the genuineness of a passage, is destroying the
Bible. The gentlemen who have endeavored to treat
hell as a question
of syntax, and to prove that eternal
punishment depends upon grammar,
are helping to
bring the Scriptures into contempt. Hundreds of
years ago, the Catholics told the Protestant world that
it was
dangerous to give the Bible to the people.
The Catholics were right;
the Protestants were
wrong. To read is to think. To think is to
investi-
gate. To investigate is, finally, to deny. That book
should have been read only by priests. Every copy
should have been
under the lock and key of bishop,
cardinal and pope. The common
people should have
received the Bible from the lips of the ministers.
The world should have been kept in ignorance. In
that way, and in
that way only, could the pulpit have
maintained its power. He who
teaches a child
the alphabet sows the seeds of heresy. I have lived
to see the schoolhouse in many a village larger than
the church.
Every man who finds a fact, is the
enemy of theology. Every man who
expresses an
145
honest thought is a soldier in the
army of intellectual
liberty.
Question. Mr. Talmage
thinks that you laugh too
much,—that you exhibit too much
mirth, and that no
one should smile at sacred things?
Answer.
The church has always feared ridicule.
The minister despises
laughter. He who builds upon
ignorance and awe, fears intelligence
and mirth. The
theologians always begin by saying: "Let us be
"solemn." They know that credulity and awe are
twins. They also know
that while Reason is the
pilot of the soul, Humor carries the lamp.
Whoever
has the sense of humor fully developed, cannot, by
any
possibility, be an orthodox theologian. He would
be his own laughing
stock. The most absurd stories,
the most laughable miracles, read in
a solemn, stately
way, sound to the ears of ignorance and awe like
truth. It has been the object of the church for
eighteen hundred
years to prevent laughter.
A smile is the dawn of a doubt.
Ministers are always talking about death, and
coffins, and
dust, and worms,—the cross in this life,
and the fires of
another. They have been the
enemies of human happiness. They hate to
hear
146
even the laughter of children. There seems
to have
been a bond of sympathy between divinity and
dyspepsia,
between theology and indigestion. There
is a certain pious hatred of
pleasure, and those who
have been "born again" are expected to
despise
"the transitory joys of this fleeting life." In this,
they follow the example of their prophets, of whom
they proudly say:
"They never smiled."
Whoever laughs at a holy falsehood, is
called a
"scoffer." Whoever gives vent to his natural feel-
ings
is regarded as a "blasphemer," and whoever
examines the Bible as he
examines other books, and
relies upon his reason to interpret it, is
denounced
as a "reprobate."
Let us respect the truth, let
us laugh at miracles,
and above all, let us be candid with each
other.
'Question. Mr. Talmage charges that you have, in
your lectures, satirized your early home; that you
have described
with bitterness the Sundays that were
forced upon you in your youth;
and that in various
ways you have denounced your father as a
"tyrant,"
or a "bigot," or a "fool"?
Answer. I have
described the manner in which
Sunday was kept when I was a boy. My
father for
147
many years regarded the Sabbath as a
sacred day.
We kept Sunday as most other Christians did. I think
that my father made a mistake about that day. I
have no doubt he was
honest about it, and really
believed that it was pleasing to God for
him to keep
the Sabbath as he did.
I think that Sunday
should not be a day of gloom,
of silence and despair, or a day in
which to hear that
the chances are largely in favor of your being
eternally
damned. That day, in my opinion, should be one of
joy;
a day to get acquainted with your wife and
children; a day to visit
the woods, or the sea, or the
murmuring stream; a day to gather
flowers, to visit
the graves of your dead, to read old poems, old
letters, old books; a day to rekindle the fires of
friendship and
love.
Mr. Talmage says that my father was a Christian,
and
he then proceeds to malign his memory. It
seems to me that a living
Christian should at least
tell the truth about one who sleeps the
silent sleep
of death.
I have said nothing, in any of my
lectures, about
my father, or about my mother, or about any of my
relatives. I have not the egotism to bring them
forward. They have
nothing to do with the subject
148
in hand. That my
father was mistaken upon the
subject of religion, I have no doubt. He
was a good,
a brave and honest man. I loved him living, and
I
love him dead. I never said to him an unkind
word, and in my heart
there never was of him an
unkind thought. He was grand enough to say
to
me, that I had the same right to my opinion that he
had to
his. He was great enough to tell me to read
the Bible for myself, to
be honest with myself, and if
after reading it I concluded it was not
the word of
God, that it was my duty to say so.
My mother
died when I was but a child; and from
that day—the darkest of
my life—her memory has
been within my heart a sacred thing, and
I have felt,
through all these years, her kisses on my lips.
I know that my parents—if they are conscious now
—do
not wish me to honor them at the expense of
my manhood. I know that
neither my father nor my
mother would have me sacrifice upon their
graves my
honest thought. I know that I can only please them by
being true to myself, by defending what I believe is
good, by
attacking what I believe is bad. Yet this min-
ister of Christ is
cruel enough, and malicious enough,
to attack the reputation of the
dead. What he says
about my father is utterly and unqualifiedly
false.
149
Right here, it may be well enough for me
to say,
that long before my father died, he threw aside, as
unworthy of a place in the mind of an intelligent
man, the infamous
dogma of eternal fire; that he
regarded with abhorrence many passages
in the Old
Testament; that he believed man, in another world,
would have the eternal opportunity of doing right,
and that the pity
of God would last as long as the
suffering of man. My father and my
mother were
good, in spite of the Old Testament. They were mer-
ciful, in spite of the one frightful doctrine in the New.
They did
not need the religion of Presbyterianism.
Presbyterianism never made
a human being better.
If there is anything that will freeze the
generous
current of the soul, it is Calvinism. If there is any
creed that will destroy charity, that will keep the
tears of pity
from the cheeks of men and women, it
is Presbyterianism. If there is
any doctrine calcu-
lated to make man bigoted, unsympathetic, and
cruel, it is the doctrine of predestination. Neither
my father, nor
my mother, believed in the damnation
of babes, nor in the inspiration
of John Calvin.
Mr. Talmage professes to be a Christian. What
effect has the religion of Jesus Christ had upon him?
Is he the
product—the natural product—of Chris-
150
tianity? Does the real Christian violate the sanctity
of death?
Does the real Christian malign the
memory of the dead? Does the good
Christian
defame unanswering and unresisting dust?
But why
should I expect kindness from a Chris-
tian? Can a minister be
expected to treat with
fairness a man whom his God intends to damn?
If
a good God is going to burn an infidel forever, in
the world
to come, surely a Christian should have
the right to persecute him a
little here.
What right has a Christian to ask anybody to love
his father, or mother, or wife, or child? According
to the gospels,
Christ offered a reward to any one
who would desert his father or his
mother. He
offered a premium to gentlemen for leaving their
wives, and tried to bribe people to abandon their
little children. He
offered them happiness in this
world, and a hundred fold in the next,
if they would
turn a deaf ear to the supplications of a father, the
beseeching cry of a wife, and would leave the out-
stretched arms of
babes. They were not even
allowed to bury their fathers and their
mothers. At
that time they were expected to prefer Jesus to their
wives and children. And now an orthodox minister
says that a man
ought not to express his honest
151
thoughts,
because they do not happen to be in accord
with the belief of his
father or mother.
Suppose Mr. Talmage should read the Bible
care-
fully and without fear, and should come to the honest
conclusion that it is not inspired, what course would
he pursue for
the purpose of honoring his parents?
Would he say, "I cannot tell the
truth, I must lie,
"for the purpose of shedding a halo of glory
around
"the memory of my mother"? Would he say: "Of
"course, my
father and mother would a thousand
"times rather have their son a
hypocritical Christian
"than an honest, manly unbeliever"? This might
please Mr. Talmage, and accord perfectly with his
view, but I prefer
to say, that my father wished me to
be an honest man. If he is in
"heaven" now, I am
sure that he would rather hear me attack the
"inspired" word of God, honestly and bravely, than
to hear me, in the
solemn accents of hypocrisy, defend
what I believe to be untrue.
I may be mistaken in the estimate angels put upon
human beings.
It may be that God likes a pretended
follower better than an honest,
outspoken man—one
who is an infidel simply because he does not
under-
stand this God. But it seems to me, in my unregenerate
condition, touched and tainted as I am by original sin,
152
that a God of infinite power and wisdom ought to be
able to
make a man brave enough to have an opinion
of his own. I cannot
conceive of God taking any
particular pride in any hypocrite he has
ever made.
Whatever he may say through his ministers, or
whatever the angels may repeat, a manly devil
stands higher in my
estimation than an unmanly
angel. I do not mean by this, that there
are any
unmanly angels, neither do I pretend that there
are any
manly devils. My meaning is this: If I have
a Creator, I can only
honor him by being true to
myself, and kind and just to my
fellow-men. If I wish
to shed lustre upon my father and mother, I can
only do so by being absolutely true to myself.
Never will I lay the
wreath of hypocrisy upon the
tombs of those I love.
Mr.
Talmage takes the ground that we must defend
the religious belief of
our parents. He seems to
forget that all parents do not believe
exactly alike,
and that everybody has at least two parents. Now,
suppose that the father is an infidel, and the mother
a Christian,
what must the son do? Must he "drive
"the ploughshare of contempt
through the grave of
"the father," for the purpose of honoring the
mother;
or must he drive the ploughshare through the grave
153
of the mother to honor the father; or must he com-
promise, and talk one way and believe another? If
Mr. Talmage's
doctrine is correct, only persons who
have no knowledge of their
parents can have liberty
of opinion. Foundlings would be the only
free
people. I do not suppose that Mr. Talmage would
go so far
as to say that a child would be bound by
the religion of the person
upon whose door-steps he
was found. If he does not, then over every
foundling
hospital should be these words: "Home of Intel-
"lectual Liberty."
Question. Do you suppose that we will
care
nothing in the next world for those we loved in this?
Is it
worse in a man than in an angel, to care nothing
for his mother?
Answer. According to Mr. Talmage, a man can
be perfectly
happy in heaven, with his mother in hell.
He will be so entranced
with the society of Christ,
that he will not even inquire what has
become of his
wife. The Holy Ghost will keep him in such a state
of happy wonder, of ecstatic joy, that the names,
even, of his
children will never invade his memory.
It may be that I am lacking in
filial affection, but
I would much rather be in hell, with my parents
154
in heaven, than be in heaven with my parents in hell.
I think a thousand times more of my parents than I
do of Christ. They
knew me, they worked for me,
they loved me, and I can imagine no
heaven, no
state of perfect bliss for me, in which they have no
share. If God hates me, because I love them,
I cannot love him.
I cannot truthfully say that I look forward with any
great
degree of joy, to meeting with Haggai and
Habakkuk; with Jeremiah,
Nehemiah, Obadiah,
Zechariah or Zephaniah; with Ezekiel, Micah, or
Malachi; or even with Jonah. From what little
I have read of their
writings, I have not formed a
very high opinion of the social
qualities of these
gentlemen.
I want to meet the persons I
have known; and if
there is another life, I want to meet the really
and
the truly great—men who have been broad enough to
be
tender, and great enough to be kind.
Because I differ with my
parents, because I am
convinced that my father was wrong in some of
his religious opinions, Mr. Talmage insists that I dis-
grace my
parents. How did the Christian religion
commence? Did not the first
disciples advocate
theories that their parents denied? Were they
155
not false,—in his sense of the word,—to
their
fathers and mothers? How could there have been
any
progress in this world, if children had not
gone beyond their
parents? Do you consider that
the inventor of a steel plow cast a
slur upon his
father who scratched the ground with a wooden
one?
I do not consider that an invention by the
son is a slander upon the
father; I regard each
invention simply as an improvement; and every
father should be exceedingly proud of an ingenious
son. If Mr.
Talmage has a son, it will be impossible
for him to honor his father
except by differing with
him.
It is very strange that Mr.
Talmage, a believer in
Christ, should object to any man for not
loving his
mother and his father, when his Master, according
to
the gospel of Saint Luke, says: "If any man
"come to me, and hate not
his father, and mother,
"and wife, and children, and brethren, and
sis-
"ters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my
"disciple."
According to this, I have to make my choice be-
tween my wife, my children, and Jesus Christ. I have
concluded to
stand by my folks—both in this world,
and in "the world to
come."
156
Question. Mr. Talmage asks you
whether, in your
judgment, the Bible was a good, or an evil, to your
parents?
Answer. I think it was an evil. The worst thing
about my father was his religion. He would have
been far happier, in
my judgment, without it. I
think I get more real joy out of life than
he did.
He was a man of a very great and tender heart. He
was
continually thinking—for many years of his
life—of the
thousands and thousands going down to
eternal fire. That doctrine
filled his days with
gloom, and his eyes with tears. I think that my
father and mother would have been far happier had
they believed as I
do. How any one can get any
joy out of the Christian religion is past
my compre-
hension. If that religion is true, hundreds of mil-
lions are now in hell, and thousands of millions yet
unborn will be.
How such a fact can form any part
of the "glad tidings of great joy,"
is amazing to me.
It is impossible for me to love a being who would
create countless millions for eternal pain. It is
impossible for me
to worship the God of the Bible,
or the God of Calvin, or the God of
the Westminster
Catechism.
157
Question.
I see that Mr. Talmage challenges you
to read the fourteenth chapter
of Saint John. Are
you willing to accept the challenge; or have you
ever read that chapter?
Answer. I do not claim to be
very courageous,
but I have read that chapter, and am very glad that
Mr. Talmage has called attention to it. According
to the gospels,
Christ did many miracles. He healed
the sick, gave sight to the
blind, made the lame
walk, and raised the dead. In the fourteenth
chapter
of Saint John, twelfth verse, I find the following:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you: He that believeth
"on me, the
works that I do shall he do also; and
"greater works than these shall
he do, because I go
"unto my Father."
I am willing to
accept that as a true test of a
believer. If Mr. Talmage really
believes in Jesus
Christ, he ought to be able to do at least as great
miracles as Christ is said to have done. Will Mr.
Talmage have the
kindness to read the fourteenth
chapter of John, and then give me
some proof, in
accordance with that chapter, that he is a believer in
Jesus Christ? Will he have the kindness to perform
a miracle?—for
instance, produce a "local flood,"
make a worm to smite a gourd, or
"prepare a fish"?
158
Can he do anything of that
nature? Can he even
cause a "vehement east wind"? What evidence,
according to the Bible, can Mr. Talmage give of his
belief? How does
he prove that he is a Christian?
By hating infidels and maligning
Christians? Let
Mr. Talmage furnish the evidence, according to the
fourteenth chapter of Saint John, or forever after
hold his peace.
He has my thanks for calling my attention to the
fourteenth
chapter of Saint John.
Question. Mr. Talmage charges
that you are at-
tempting to destroy the "chief solace of the world,"
without offering any substitute. How do you answer
this?
Answer. If he calls Christianity the "chief solace
"of the
world," and if by Christianity he means that all
who do not believe
in the inspiration of the Scrip-
tures, and have no faith in Jesus
Christ, are to be
eternally damned, then I admit that I am doing the
best I can to take that "solace" from the human
heart. I do not
believe that the Bible, when prop-
erly understood, is, or ever has
been, a comfort to
any human being. Surely, no good man can be
comforted by reading a book in which he finds that
159
a large majority of mankind have been sentenced to
eternal
fire. In the doctrine of total depravity there
is no "solace." In the
doctrine of "election" there can
be no joy until the returns are in,
and a majority
found for you.
Question. Mr. Talmage
says that you are taking
away the world's medicines, and in place of
anaes-
thetics, in place of laudanum drops, you read an
essay to
the man in pain, on the absurdities of mor-
phine and nervines in
general.
Answer. It is exactly the other way. I say, let
us depend upon morphine, not upon prayer. Do
not send for the
minister—take a little laudanum.
Do not read your Bible,—chloroform
is better. Do
not waste your time listening to meaningless ser-
mons, but take real, genuine soporifics.
I regard the
discoverer of ether as a benefactor.
I look upon every great surgeon
as a blessing to
mankind. I regard one doctor, skilled in his profes-
sion, of more importance to the world than all the
orthodox
ministers.
Mr. Talmage should remember that for hundreds
of years, the church fought, with all its power, the
science of
medicine. Priests used to cure diseases
160
by
selling little pieces of paper covered with cabalistic
marks. They
filled their treasuries by the sale of
holy water. They healed the
sick by relics—the teeth
and ribs of saints, the finger-nails
of departed wor-
thies, and the hair of glorified virgins. Infidelity
said: "Send for the doctor." Theology said: "Stick
"to the priest."
Infidelity,—that is to say, science,—
said: "Vaccinate
him." The priest said: "Pray;—
"I will sell you a charm." The
doctor was regarded
as a man who was endeavoring to take from God his
means of punishment. He was supposed to spike
the artillery of
Jehovah, to wet the powder of the
Almighty, and to steal the flint
from the musket of
heavenly retribution.
Infidelity has
never relied upon essays, it has
never relied upon words, it has
never relied upon
prayers, it has never relied upon angels or gods;
it
has relied upon the honest efforts of men and women.
It has
relied upon investigation, observation, experi-
ence, and above all,
upon human reason.
We, in America, know how much prayers are
worth. We have lately seen millions of people upon
their knees. What
was the result?
In the olden times, when a plague made its ap-
pearance, the people fell upon their knees and died.
161
When pestilence came, they rushed to their ca-
thedrals, they
implored their priests—and died. God
had no pity upon his
ignorant children. At last,
Science came to the rescue. Science,—not
in the
attitude of prayer, with closed eyes, but in the atti-
tude of investigation, with open eyes,—looked for and
discovered some of the laws of health. Science
found that cleanliness
was far better than godliness. It
said: Do not spend your time in
praying;—clean your
houses, clean your streets, clean
yourselves. This pest-
ilence is not a punishment. Health is not
simply a favor
of the gods. Health depends upon conditions, and
when the conditions are violated, disease is inevitable,
and no God
can save you. Health depends upon
your surroundings, and when these
are favorable,
the roses are in your cheeks.
We find in
the Old Testament that God gave
to Moses a thousand directions for
ascertaining
the presence of leprosy. Yet it never occurred
to
this God to tell Moses how to cure the disease.
Within the lids of
the Old Testament, we have no
information upon a subject of such
vital importance
to mankind.
It may, however, be claimed
by Mr. Talmage, that
this statement is a little too broad, and I will
therefore
162
give one recipe that I find in the
fourteenth chapter
of Leviticus:
"Then shall the priest
command to take for him
" that is to be cleansed two birds alive and
clean, and
"cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop; and the priest
"shall command that one of the birds be killed in an
"earthen vessel
over running water. As for the
"living bird, he shall take it, and
the cedar wood,
"and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them
"and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was
"killed over
the running water. And he shall
"sprinkle upon him that is to be
cleansed from the
"leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him
clean,
"and shall let the living bird loose into the open
"field."
Prophets were predicting evil—filling the
country
with their wails and cries, and yet it never occurred
to
them to tell one solitary thing of the slightest
importance to
mankind. Why did not these inspired
men tell us how to cure some of
the diseases that
have decimated the world? Instead of spending
forty days and forty nights with Moses, telling him
how to build a
large tent, and how to cut the gar-
ments of priests, why did God not
give him a little
useful information in respect to the laws of
health?
163
Mr. Talmage must remember that the
church has
invented no anodynes, no anaesthetics, no medicines,
and has affected no cures. The doctors have not
been inspired. All
these useful things men have
discovered for themselves, aided by no
prophet and
by no divine Savior. Just to the extent that man
has
depended upon the other world, he has failed to
make the best of
this. Just in the proportion that he
has depended on his own efforts,
he has advanced.
The church has always said:
"Consider the
lilies of the field; they toil not,
"neither do they spin." "Take no
thought for the
"morrow." Whereas, the real common sense of this
world has said: "No matter whether lilies toil and
spin, or not, if
you would succeed, you must work;
you must take thought for the
morrow, you must
look beyond the present day, you must provide for
your wife and your children."
What can I be expected to give as
a substitute for
perdition? It is enough to show that it does not
exist. What does a man want in place of a disease?
Health. And what
is better calculated to increase
the happiness of mankind than to
know that the
doctrine of eternal pain is infinitely and absurdly
false?
164
Take theology from the world, and natural
Love
remains, Science is still here, Music will not be lost,
the
page of History will still be open, the walls of
the world will still
be adorned with Art, and the
niches rich with Sculpture.
Take theology from the world, and we all shall
have a common hope,—and
the fear of hell will be
removed from every human heart.
Take theology from the world, and millions of
men will be compelled
to earn an honest living.
Impudence will not tax credulity. The
vampire of
hypocrisy will not suck the blood of honest toil.
Take theology from the world, and the churches
can be schools,
and the cathedrals universities.
Take theology from the world,
and the money
wasted on superstition will do away with want.
Take theology from the world, and every brain
will find itself
without a chain.
There is a vast difference between what is
called
infidelity and theology.
Infidelity is honest. When
it reaches the confines
of reason, it says: "I know no further."
Infidelity does not palm its guess upon an ignorant
world as a
demonstration.
165
Infidelity proves nothing by
slander—establishes
nothing by abuse.
Infidelity has
nothing to hide. It has no "holy
"of holies," except the abode of
truth. It has no
curtain that the hand of investigation has not the
right to draw aside. It lives in the cloudless light,
in the very
noon, of human eyes.
Infidelity has no bible to be blasphemed.
It does
not cringe before an angry God.
Infidelity says to
every man: Investigate for
yourself. There is no punishment for
unbelief.
Infidelity asks no protection from legislatures. It
wants no man fined because he contradicts its doc-
trines.
Infidelity relies simply upon evidence—not evi-
dence of the
dead, but of the living.
Infidelity has no infallible pope. It
relies only
upon infallible fact. It has no priest except the
interpreter of Nature. The universe is its church.
Its bible is
everything that is true. It implores every
man to verify every word
for himself, and it implores
him to say, if he does not believe it,
that he does
not.
Infidelity does not fear contradiction.
It is not
afraid of being laughed at. It invites the scrutiny
166
of all doubters, of all unbelievers. It does not rely
upon awe, but upon reason. It says to the whole
world: It is
dangerous not to think. It is dan-
gerous not to be honest. It is
dangerous not to
investigate. It is dangerous not to follow where
your reason leads.
Infidelity requires every man to judge for
himself.
Infidelity preserves the manhood of man.
Question.
Mr. Talmage also says that you are
trying to put out the light-houses
on the coast of the
next world; that you are "about to leave
everybody
"in darkness at the narrows of death"?
Answer.
There can be no necessity for these
light-houses, unless the God of
Mr. Talmage has
planted rocks and reefs within that unknown sea.
If there is no hell, there is no need of any light-
house on the
shores of the next world; and only
those are interested in keeping up
these pretended
light-houses who are paid for trimming invisible
wicks and supplying the lamps with allegorical oil.
Mr. Talmage is
one of these light-house keepers,
and he knows that if it is
ascertained that the coast
is not dangerous, the light-house will be
abandoned,
and the keeper will have to find employment else-
167
where. As a matter of fact, every church is a use-
less light-house. It warns us only against breakers
that do not
exist. Whenever a mariner tells one of
the keepers that there is no
danger, then all the
keepers combine to destroy the reputation of
that
mariner.
No one has returned from the other world to
tell
us whether they have light-houses on that shore or
not; or
whether the light-houses on this shore—one
of which Mr. Talmage
is tending—have ever sent a
cheering ray across the sea.
Nature has furnished every human being with
a light more or
less brilliant, more or less powerful.
That light is Reason; and he
who blows that light
out, is in utter darkness. It has been the
business of
the church for centuries to extinguish the lamp of the
mind, and to convince the people that their own
reason is utterly
unreliable. The church has asked
all men to rely only upon the light
of the church.
Every priest has been not only a light-house but
a guide-board. He has threatened eternal damna-
tion to all who
travel on some other road. These
guide-boards have been toll-gates,
and the principal
reason why the churches have wanted people to go
their road is, that tolls might be collected. They
168
have regarded unbelievers as the owners of turnpikes
do people
who go 'cross lots. The toll-gate man
always tells you that other
roads are dangerous—
filled with quagmires and quicksands.
Every church is a kind of insurance society, and
proposes, for
a small premium, to keep you from
eternal fire. Of course, the man
who tells you that
there is to be no fire, interferes with the
business,
and is denounced as a malicious meddler and blas-
phemer. The fires of this world sustain the same
relation to
insurance companies that the fires of the
next do to the churches.
Mr. Talmage also insists that I am breaking up the
"life-boats." Why should a ship built by infinite
wisdom, by an
infinite shipbuilder, carry life-boats?
The reason we have life-boats
now is, that we are
not entirely sure of the ship. We know that man
has not yet found out how to make a ship that can
certainly brave all
the dangers of the deep. For this
reason we carry life-boats. But
infinite wisdom must
surely build ships that do not need life-boats.
Is there
to be a wreck at last? Is God's ship to go down in
storm and darkness? Will it be necessary at last to
forsake his ship
and depend upon life-boats?
For my part, I do not wish to be
rescued by a life-
169
boat. When the ship, bearing
the whole world, goes
down, I am willing to go down with it—with
my
wife, with my children, and with those I have loved.
I will
not slip ashore in an orthodox canoe with
somebody else's folks,—I
will stay with my own.
What a picture is presented by the
church! A few
in life's last storm are to be saved; and the saved,
when they reach shore, are to look back with joy
upon the great ship
going down to the eternal depths!
This is what I call the unutterable
meanness of or-
thodox Christianity.
Mr. Talmage speaks of
the "meanness of in-
"fidelity."
The meanness of orthodox
Christianity permits the
husband to be saved, and to be ineffably
happy, while
the wife of his bosom is suffering the tortures of hell.
The meanness of orthodox Christianity tells the
boy that he can
go to heaven and have an eternity
of bliss, and that this bliss will
not even be clouded
by the fact that the mother who bore him writhes
in
eternal pain.
The meanness of orthodox Christianity
allows
a soul to be so captivated with the companionship
of
angels as to forget all the old loves and friend-
ships of this
world.
170
The meanness of orthodox Christianity,
its un-
speakable selfishness, allows a soul in heaven to exult
in the fact of its own salvation, and at the same time
to care
nothing for the damnation of all the rest.
The orthodox
Christian says that if he can only
save his little soul, if he can
barely squeeze into
heaven, if he can only get past Saint Peter's
gate,
if he can by hook or crook climb up the opposite
bank of
Jordan, if he can get a harp in his hand, it
matters not to him what
becomes of brother or
sister, father or mother, wife or child. He is
willing
that they should burn if he can sing.
Oh, the
unutterable meanness of orthodox Chris-
tianity, the infinite
heartlessness of the orthodox
angels, who with tearless eyes will
forever gaze upon
the agonies of those who were once blood of their
blood and flesh of their flesh!
Mr. Talmage describes a picture
of the scourging
of Christ, painted by Rubens, and he tells us that
he was so appalled by this picture—by the sight of
the naked
back, swollen and bleeding—that he could
not have lived had he
continued to look; yet this
same man, who could not bear to gaze upon
a
painted pain, expects to be perfectly happy in heaven,
while
countiess billions of actual—not painted—men,
171
women, and children writhe—not in a pictured flame,
but
in the real and quenchless fires of hell.
Question. Mr.
Talmage also claims that we are
indebted to Christianity for schools,
colleges, univer-
sities, hospitals and asylums?
Answer.
This shows that Mr. Talmage has not
read the history of the world.
Long before Chris-
tianity had a place, there were vast libraries.
There
were thousands of schools before a Christian existed
on
the earth. There were hundreds of hospitals
before a line of the New
Testament was written.
Hundreds of years before Christ, there were
hospitals
in India,—not only for men, women and children, but
even for beasts. There were hospitals in Egypt long
before Moses was
born. They knew enough then
to cure insanity with music. They
surrounded the
insane with flowers, and treated them with kindness.
The great libraries at Alexandria were not Chris-
tian. The
most intellectual nation of the Middle
Ages was not Christian. While
Christians were
imprisoning people for saying that the earth is
round,
the Moors in Spain were teaching geography with
globes.
They had even calculated the circumference
of the earth by the tides
of the Red Sea.
Where did education come from? For a thousand
172
years Christianity destroyed books and paintings and
statues. For a thousand years Christianity was filled
with hatred
toward every effort of the human mind.
We got paper from the Moors.
Printing had been
known thousands of years before, in China. A few
manuscripts, containing a portion of the literature of
Greece, a few
enriched with the best thoughts of
the Roman world, had been
preserved from the
general wreck and ruin wrought by Christian hate.
These became the seeds of intellectual progress.
For a thousand years
Christianity controlled Europe.
The Mohammedans were far in advance
of the
Christians with hospitals and asylums and institutions
of
learning.
Just in proportion that we have done away with
what is known as orthodox Christianity, humanity
has taken its place.
Humanity has built all the asy-
lums, all the hospitals. Humanity,
not Christianity,
has done these things. The people of this country
are all willing to be taxed that the insane may be
cared for, that
the sick, the helpless, and the desti-
tute may be provided for, not
because they are
Christians, but because they are humane; and they
are not humane because they are Christians.
The colleges of
this country have been poisoned by
173
theology, and
their usefulness almost destroyed. Just
in proportion that they have
gotten from ecclesiastical
control, they have become a good. That
college, to-
day, which has the most religion has the least true
learning; and that college which is the nearest free,
does the most
good. Colleges that pit Moses against
modern geology, that undertake
to overthrow the
Copernican system by appealing to Joshua, have
done, and are doing, very little good in this world.
Suppose
that in the first century Pagans had said
to Christians: Where are
your hospitals, where are
your asylums, where are your works of
charity, where
are your colleges and universities?
The
Christians undoubtedly would have replied:
We have not been in power.
There are but few
of us. We have been persecuted to that degree
that it has been about as much as we could do to
maintain ourselves.
Reasonable Pagans would have regarded such an
answer as
perfectly satisfactory. Yet that question
could have been asked of
Christianity after it had
held the reins of power for a thousand
years, and
Christians would have been compelled to say: We
have
no universities, we have no colleges, we have
no real asylums.
174
The Christian now asks of the atheist: Where
is
your asylum, where is your hospital, where is your
university? And
the atheist answers: There have
been but few atheists. The world is
not yet suffi-
ciently advanced to produce them. For hundreds
and hundreds of years, the minds of men have been
darkened by the
superstitions of Christianity. Priests
have thundered against human
knowledge, have de-
nounced human reason, and have done all within
their power to prevent the real progress of mankind.
You must
also remember that Christianity has
made more lunatics than it ever
provided asylums
for. Christianity has driven more men and women
crazy than all other religions combined. Hundreds
and thousands and
millions have lost their reason in
contemplating the monstrous
falsehoods of Chris-
tianity. Thousands of mothers, thinking of their
sons in hell—thousands of fathers, believing their
boys and
girls in perdition, have lost their reason.
So, let it be
distinctly understood, that Christianity
has made ten lunatics—twenty—one
hundred—
where it has provided an asylum for one.
Mr. Talmage also speaks of the hospitals. When
we take into
consideration the wars that have been
waged on account of religion,
the countless thou-
175
sands who have been maimed
and wounded, through
all the years, by wars produced by theology—then
I
say that Christianity has not built hospitals enough
to take
care of her own wounded—not enough to
take care of one in a
hundred. Where Christianity
has bound up the wounds of one, it has
pierced the
bodies of a hundred others with sword and spear,
with bayonet and ball. Where she has provided
one bed in a hospital,
she has laid away a hundred
bodies in bloody graves.
Of
course I do not expect the church to do
anything but beg. Churches
produce nothing. They
are like the lilies of the field. "They toil
not, neither
"do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not
"arrayed like most of them."
The churches raise no corn nor
wheat. They
simply collect tithes. They carry the alms' dish.
They pass the plate. They take toll. Of course
a mendicant is not
expected to produce anything.
He does not support,—he is
supported. The church
does not help. She receives, she devours, she
consumes, and she produces only discord. She ex-
changes mistakes for
provisions, faith for food,
prayers for pence. The church is a
beggar. But we
have this consolation: In this age of the world, this
176
beggar is not on horseback, and even the walking is
not good.
Question. Mr. Talmage says that infidels have
done no good?
Answer. Well, let us see. In the first
place,
what is an "infidel"? He is simply a man in advance
of
his time. He is an intellectual pioneer. He is
the dawn of a new day.
He is a gentleman with an
idea of his own, for which he gave no
receipt to the
church. He is a man who has not been branded as
the property of some one else. An "infidel" is one
who has made a
declaration of independence. In
other words, he is a man who has had
a doubt. To
have a doubt means that you have thought upon
the
subject—that you have investigated the question;
and he who
investigates any religion will doubt.
All the advance that has
been made in the religious
world has been made by "infidels," by
"heretics,"
by "skeptics," by doubters,—that is to say, by
thoughtful men. The doubt does not come from the
ignorant members of
your congregations. Heresy is
not born of stupidity,—it is not
the child of the brain-
less. He who is so afraid of hurting the
reputation
of his father and mother that he refuses to advance,
177
is not a "heretic." The "heretic" is not true to
falsehood. Orthodoxy is. He who stands faithfully
by a mistake is
"orthodox." He who, discovering
that it is a mistake, has the courage
to say so, is an
"infidel."
An infidel is an intellectual
discoverer—one who
finds new isles, new continents, in the vast
realm of
thought. The dwellers on the orthodox shore de-
nounce
this brave sailor of the seas as a buccaneer.
And yet we are
told that the thinkers of new
thoughts have never been of value to
the world.
Voltaire did more for human liberty than all the
orthodox ministers living and dead. He broke a
thousand times more
chains than Luther. Luther
simply substituted his chain for that of
the Catholics.
Voltaire had none. The Encyclopaedists of France
did more for liberty than all the writers upon theology.
Bruno did
more for mankind than millions of "be-
"lievers." Spinoza contributed
more to the growth
of the human intellect than all the orthodox
theolo-
gians.
Men have not done good simply because they
have
believed this or that doctrine. They have done good
in the
intellectual world as they have thought and
secured for others the
liberty to think and to ex-
178
press their
thoughts. They have done good in the
physical world by teaching their
fellows how to
triumph over the obstructions of nature. Every
man who has taught his fellow-man to think, has
been a benefactor.
Every one who has supplied his
fellow-men with facts, and insisted
upon their right
to think, has been a blessing to his kind.
Mr. Talmage, in order to show what Christians
have done, points
us to Whitefield, Luther, Oberlin,
Judson, Martyn, Bishop Mcllvaine
and Hannah
More. I would not for one moment compare George
Whitefield with the inventor of movable type, and
there is no
parallel between Frederick Oberlin and
the inventor of paper; not the
slightest between
Martin Luther and the discoverer of the New World;
not the least between Adoniram Judson and the in-
ventor of the
reaper, nor between Henry Martyn
and the discoverer of photography.
Of what use to
the world was Bishop Mcllvaine, compared with
the
inventor of needles? Of what use were a
hundred such priests compared
with the inventor
of matches, or even of clothes-pins? Suppose that
Hannah More had never lived? about the same
number would read her
writings now. It is hardly fair
to compare her with the inventor of
the steamship?
179
The progress of the world—its
present improved
condition—can be accounted for only by the
discov-
eries of genius, only by men who have had the
courage to
express their honest thoughts.
After all, the man who invented
the telescope
found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of
prayer had ever discovered. I feel absolutely certain
that the
inventor of the steam engine was a greater
benefactor to mankind than
the writer of the Presby-
terian creed. I may be mistaken, but I
think that
railways have done more to civilize mankind, than any
system of theology. I believe that the printing press
has done more
for the world than the pulpit. It is
my opinion that the discoveries
of Kepler did a
thousand times more to enlarge the minds of men
than the prophecies of Daniel. I feel under far
greater obligation to
Humboldt than to Haggai.
The inventor of the plow did more good than
the
maker of the first rosary—because, say what you
will,
plowing is better than praying; we can live by
plowing without
praying, but we can not live by
praying without plowing. So I put my
faith in the
plow.
As Jehovah has ceased to make garments
for his
children,—as he has stopped making coats of skins,
180
I have great respect for the inventors of the
spinning-
jenny and the sewing machine. As no more laws
are
given from Sinai, I have admiration for the real
statesmen. As
miracles have ceased, I rely on
medicine, and on a reasonable
compliance with the
conditions of health.
I have infinite
respect for the inventors, the
thinkers, the discoverers, and above
all, for the un-
known millions who have, without the hope of fame,
lived and labored for the ones they loved.
FIFTH
INTERVIEW.
Parson. You had belter join the church;
it is
the safer way.
Sinner. I can't live up to your
doctrines, and you
know it.
Parson. Well, you can come as
near it in the
church as out; and forgiveness
will be
easier if you join us.
Sinner. What do you mean by that?
Parson. I will tell you. If you join the church,
and happen to
back-slide now and then, Christ will
say to his Father: "That man is
a "friend of mine,
and you may charge his account to me."
Question. What have you to say about the
fifth sermon of
the Rev. Mr. Talmage in reply
to you?
Answer. The
text from which he preached is:
"Do men gather grapes of thorns, or
figs of thistles?"
I am compelled to answer these questions in the
negative. That is one reason why I am an infidel.
I do not believe
that anybody can gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles. That
is exactly my doctrine.
But the doctrine of the church is, that you
can. The
184
church says, that just at the last, no
matter if you
have spent your whole life in raising thorns and
thistles,
in planting and watering and hoeing and plowing
thorns
and thistles—that just at the last, if you will
repent, between
hoeing the last thistle and taking the
last breath, you can reach out
the white and palsied
hand of death and gather from every thorn a
cluster
of grapes and from every thistle an abundance of
figs.
The church insists that in this way you can
gather enough grapes and
figs to last you through all
eternity.
My doctrine is,
that he who raises thorns must
harvest thorns. If you sow thorns, you
must reap
thorns; and there is no way by which an innocent
being
can have the thorns you raise thrust into his
brow, while you gather
his grapes.
But Christianity goes even further than this. It
insists that a man can plant grapes and gather thorns.
Mr. Talmage
insists that, no matter how good you
are, no matter how kind, no
matter how much you
love your wife and children, no matter how many
self-denying acts you do, you will not be allowed to
eat of the
grapes you raise; that God will step be-
tween you and the natural
consequences of your
goodness, and not allow you to reap what you
sow.
185
Mr. Talmage insists, that if you have no
faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, although you have been good
here, you will reap eternal pain as your harvest; that
the effect of
honesty and kindness will not be peace
and joy, but agony and pain.
So that the church
does insist not only that you can gather grapes
from
thorns, but thorns from grapes.
I believe exactly the
other way. If a man is a
good man here, dying will not change him,
and he
will land on the shore of another world—if there is
one—the same good man that he was when he left
this; and I do
not believe there is any God in this
universe who can afford to damn
a good man. This
God will say to this man: You loved your wife,
your children, and your friends, and I love you.
You treated others
with kindness; I will treat you
in the same way. But Mr. Talmage
steps up to
his God, nudges his elbow, and says: Although he
was
a very good man, he belonged to no church;
he was a blasphemer; he
denied the whale story, and
after I explained that Jonah was only in
the whale's
mouth, he still denied it; and thereupon Mr. Tal-
mage expects that his infinite God will fly in a
passion, and in a
perfect rage will say: What! did
he deny that story? Let him be
eternally damned!
186
Not only this, but Mr. Talmage
insists that a man
may have treated his wife like a wild beast; may
have
trampled his child beneath the feet of his rage; may
have
lived a life of dishonesty, of infamy, and yet,
having repented on
his dying bed, having made his
peace with God through the
intercession of his Son,
he will be welcomed in heaven with shouts of
joy.
I deny it. I do not believe that angels can be so
quickly
made from rascals. I have but little confi-
dence in repentance
without restitution, and a hus-
band who has driven a wife to
insanity and death by
his cruelty—afterward repenting and
finding himself
in heaven, and missing his wife,—were he worthy
to
be an angel, would wander through all the gulfs of
hell until
he clasped her once again..
Now, the next question is, What
must be done with
those who are sometimes good and sometimes bad?
That is my condition. If there is another world, I
expect to have the
same opportunity of behaving
myself that I have here. If, when I get
there, I fail
to act as I should, I expect to reap what I sow. If,
when I arrive at the New Jerusalem, I go into the
thorn business, I
expect to harvest what I plant. If
I am wise enough to start a
vineyard, I expect to
have grapes in the early fall. But if I do
there as I
187
have done here—plant some
grapes and some thorns,
and harvest them together—I expect to
fare very
much as I have fared here. But I expect year by
year
to grow wiser, to plant fewer thorns every
spring, and more grapes.
Question. Mr. Talmage charges that you have
taken the
ground that the Bible is a cruel book, and
has produced cruel people?
Answer. Yes, I have taken that ground, and I
maintain
it. The Bible was produced by cruel people,
and in its turn it has
produced people like its authors.
The extermination of the Canaanites
was cruel.
Most of the laws of Moses were bloodthirsty and
cruel. Hundreds of offences were punishable by
death, while now, in
civilized countries, there are only
two crimes for which the
punishment is capital. I
charge that Moses and Joshua and David and
Samuel
and Solomon were cruel. I believe that to read and
believe the Old Testament naturally makes a man
careless of human
life. That book has produced
hundreds of religious wars, and it has
furnished the
battle-cries of bigotry for fifteen hundred years.
The Old Testament is filled with cruelty, but its
cruelty stops
with this world, its malice ends with
188
death;
whenever its victim has reached the grave,
revenge is satisfied. Not
so with the New Testament.
It pursues its victim forever. After
death, comes
hell; after the grave, the worm that never dies. So
that, as a matter of fact, the New Testament is in-
finitely more
cruel than the Old.
Nothing has so tended to harden the human
heart
as the doctrine of eternal punishment, and that
passage:
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be
"saved, and he that
believeth not shall be damned,"
has shed more blood than all the
other so-called
"sacred books" of all this world.
I insist
that the Bible is cruel. The Bible invented
instruments of torture.
The Bible laid the foundations
of the Inquisition. The Bible
furnished the fagots and
the martyrs. The Bible forged chains not
only for the
hands, but for the brains of men. The Bible was at
the bottom of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Every man who has been
persecuted for religion's
sake has been persecuted by the Bible. That
sacred
book has been a beast of prey.
The truth is,
Christians have been good in spite of
the Bible. The Bible has lived
upon the reputations of
good men and good women,—men and women
who
were good notwithstanding the brutality they found
189
upon the inspired page. Men have said: "My mother
"believed in the Bible; my mother was good; there-
"fore, the Bible
is good," when probably the mother
never read a chapter in it.
The Bible produced the Church of Rome, and
Torquemada was a
product of the Bible. Philip of
Spain and the Duke of Alva were
produced by the
Bible. For thirty years Europe was one vast battle-
field, and the war was produced by the Bible. The re-
vocation of the
Edict of Nantes was produced by the
sacred Scriptures. The
instruments of torture—the
pincers, the thumb-screws, the
racks, were produced
by the word of God. The Quakers of New England
were whipped and burned by the Bible—their children
were stolen
by the Bible. The slave-ship had for its
sails the leaves of the
Bible. Slavery was upheld in
the United States by the Bible. The
Bible was the
auction-block. More than this, worse than this,
infinitely beyond the computation of imagination, the
despotisms of
the old world all rested and still rest
upon the Bible. "The powers
that be" were sup-
posed to have been "ordained of God;" and he who
rose against his king periled his soul.
In this connection, and
in order to show the state
of society when the church had entire
control of civil
190
and ecclesiastical affairs, it
may be well enough to
read the following, taken from the New York
Sun of
March 21, 1882. From this little extract, it will be
easy in the imagination to re-organize the government
that then
existed, and to see clearly the state of so-
ciety at that time. This
can be done upon the same
principle that one scale tells of the
entire fish, or one
bone of the complete animal:
"From
records in the State archives of Hesse-
"Darmstadt, dating back to
the thirteenth century,
"it appears that the public executioner's fee
for boiling
"a criminal in oil was twenty-four florins; for decapi-
"tating with the sword, fifteen florins and-a-half; for
"quartering,
the same; for breaking on the wheel,
"five florins, thirty kreuzers;
for tearing a man to
"pieces, eighteen florins. Ten florins per head
was
"his charge for hanging, and he burned delinquents
"alive at
the rate of fourteen florins apiece. For ap-
"plying the 'Spanish
boot' his fee was only two
"florins. Five florins were paid to him
every time he
"subjected a refractory witness to the torture of the
"rack. The same amount was his due for 'branding
"'the sign of the
gallows with a red-hot iron upon
"'the back, forehead, or cheek of a
thief,' as well as
"for 'cutting off the nose and ears of a slanderer
or
191
"'blasphemer.' Flogging with rods was a cheap
"punishment, its remuneration being fixed at three
"florins, thirty
kreuzers."
The Bible has made men cruel. It is a cruel book.
And yet, amidst its thorns, amidst its thistles, amidst
its nettles
and its swords and pikes, there are some
flowers, and these I wish,
in common with all good
men, to save.
I do not believe
that men have ever been made
merciful in war by reading the Old
Testament. I do
not believe that men have ever been prompted to
break the chain of a slave by reading the Pentateuch.
The question is
not whether Florence Nightingale and
Miss Dix were cruel. I have said
nothing about
John Howard, nothing about Abbott Lawrence.
I say
nothing about people in this connection. The
question is: Is the
Bible a cruel book? not: Was
Miss Nightingale a cruel woman? There
have been
thousands and thousands of loving, tender and char-
itable Mohammedans. Mohammedan mothers love
their children as well as
Christian mothers can.
Mohammedans have died in defence of the Koran—
died for the honor of an impostor. There were
millions of charitable
people in India—millions in
Egypt—and I am not sure that
the world has ever
192
produced people who loved one
another better than
the Egyptians.
I think there are many
things in the Old Testament
calculated to make man cruel. Mr. Talmage
asks:
"What has been the effect upon your children? As
"they
have become more and more fond of the
"Scriptures have they become
more and more fond
"of tearing off the wings of flies and pinning
grass-
"hoppers and robbing birds' nests?"
I do not
believe that reading the bible would make
them tender toward flies or
grasshoppers. According
to that book, God used to punish animals for
the
crimes of their owners. He drowned the animals in
a flood.
He visited cattle with disease. He bruised
them to death with
hailstones—killed them by the
thousand. Will the reading of
these things make
children kind to animals? So, the whole system of
sacrifices in the Old Testament is calculated to harden
the heart.
The butchery of oxen and lambs, the killing
of doves, the perpetual
destruction of life, the con-
tinual shedding of blood—these
things, if they have
any tendency, tend only to harden the heart of
child-
hood.
The Bible does not stop simply with the
killing of
animals. The Jews were commanded to kill their
193
neighbors—not only the men, but the women; not
only the women, but the babes. In accordance with
the command of God,
the Jews killed not only their
neighbors, but their own brothers; and
according to
this book, which is the foundation, as Mr. Talmage
believes, of all mercy, men were commanded to kill
their wives
because they differed with them on the
subject of religion.
Nowhere in the world can be found laws more un-
just and cruel
than in the Old Testament.
Question. Mr. Talmage wants
you to tell where
the cruelty of the Bible crops out in the lives of
Chris-
tians?
Answer. In the first place, millions
of Christians
have been persecutors. Did they get the idea of
persecution from the Bible? Will not every honest
man admit that the
early Christians, by reading the
Old Testament, became convinced that
it was not
only their privilege, but their duty, to destroy heathen
nations? Did they not, by reading the same book,
come to the
conclusion that it was their solemn duty
to extirpate heresy and
heretics? According to the
New Testament, nobody could be saved
unless he
believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The early Chris-
194
tians believed this dogma. They also believed that
they had a right to defend themselves and their
children from
"heretics."
We all admit that a man has a right to defend his
children against the assaults of a would-be murderer,
and he has the
right to carry this defence to the
extent of killing the assailant.
If we have the right
to kill people who are simply trying to kill the
bodies
of our children, of course we have the right to kill
them
when they are endeavoring to assassinate, not
simply their bodies,
but their souls. It was in this
way Christians reasoned. If the
Testament is right,
their reasoning was correct. Whoever believes the
New Testament literally—whoever is satisfied that it
is
absolutely the word of God, will become a perse-
cutor. All religious
persecution has been, and is, in
exact harmony with the teachings of
the Old and
New Testaments. Of course I mean with some of
the
teachings. I admit that there are passages in
both the Old and New
Testaments against persecu-
tion. These are passages quoted only in
time of
peace. Others are repeated to feed the flames of
war.
I find, too, that reading the Bible and believing the
Bible do
not prevent even ministers from telling false-
195
hoods about their opponents. I find that the Rev.
Mr. Talmage is
willing even to slander the dead,—
that he is willing to stain
the memory of a Christian,
and that he does not hesitate to give
circulation
to what he knows to be untrue. Mr. Talmage
has
himself, I believe, been the subject of a church
trial. How many of
the Christian witnesses against
him, in his judgment, told the truth?
Yet they were
all Bible readers and Bible believers. What effect, in
his judgment, did the reading of the Bible have upon
his enemies? Is
he willing to admit that the testi-
mony of a Bible, reader and
believer is true? Is he
willing to accept the testimony even of
ministers?
—of his brother ministers? Did reading the Bible
make them bad people? Was it a belief in the Bible
that colored their
testimony? Or, was it a belief in
the Bible that made Mr. Talmage
deny the truth of
their statements?
Question. Mr.
Talmage charges you with having
said that the Scriptures are a
collection of polluted
writings?
Answer. I have
never said such a thing. I have
said, and I still say, that there are
passages in the
Bible unfit to be read—passages that never
should
196
have been written—passages, whether
inspired or
uninspired, that can by no possibility do any human
being any good. I have always admitted that there
are good passages
in the Bible—many good, wise
and just laws—many things
calculated to make men
better—many things calculated to make
men worse.
I admit that the Bible is a mixture of good and bad,
of truth and falsehood, of history and fiction, of sense
and
nonsense, of virtue and vice, of aspiration and
revenge, of liberty
and tyranny.
I have never said anything against Solomon's
Song. I like it better than I do any book that pre-
cedes it, because
it touches upon the human. In the
desert of murder, wars of
extermination, polygamy,
concubinage and slavery, it is an oasis
where the
trees grow, where the birds sing, and where human
love
blossoms and fills the air with perfume. I do
not regard that book as
obscene. There are many
things in it that are beautiful and tender,
and it is
calculated to do good rather than harm.
Neither
have I any objection to the book of Eccle-
siastes—except a few
interpolations in it. That book
was written by a Freethinker, by a
philosopher.
There is not the slightest mention of God in it, nor
of another state of existence. All portions in which
197
God is mentioned are interpolations. With some of
this book I
agree heartily. I believe in the doctrine
of enjoying yourself, if
you can, to-day. I think it
foolish to spend all your years in
heaping up treas-
ures, not knowing but he who will spend them is to
be an idiot. I believe it is far better to be happy with
your wife
and child now, than to be miserable here,
with angelic expectations
in some other world.
Mr. Talmage is mistaken when he supposes
that all
Bible believers have good homes, that all Bible readers
are kind in their families. As a matter of fact, nearly all
the
wife-whippers of the United States are orthodox.
Nine-tenths of the
people in the penitentiaries are
believers. Scotland is one of the
most orthodox
countries in the world, and one of the most intem-
perate. Hundreds and hundreds of women are
arrested every year in
Glasgow for drunkenness.
Visit the Christian homes in the
manufacturing dis-
tricts of England. Talk with the beaters of
children
and whippers of wives, and you will find them be-
lievers. Go into what is known as the "Black
"Country," and you will
have an idea of the Chris-
tian civilization of England.
Let me tell you something about the "Black
"Country." There women
work in iron; there women
198
do the work of men.
Let me give you an instance:
A commission was appointed by Parliament
to ex-
amine into the condition of the women in the "Black
"Country," and a report was made. In that report
I read the
following:
"A superintendent of a brickyard where women
"were engaged in carrying bricks from the yard to
"the kiln, said to
one of the women:
"'Eliza, you don't appear to be very uppish
this
"morning.'"
"'Neither would you be very uppish, sir,'
she re-
"plied, 'if you had had a child last night.'"
This
gives you an idea of the Christian civilization
of England.
England and Ireland produce most of the prize-
fighters. The
scientific burglar is a product of Great
Britain. There is not the
great difference that Mr.
Talmage supposes, between the morality of
Pekin
and of New York. I doubt if there is a city in
the world
with more crime according to the population
than New York, unless it
be London, or it may be
Dublin, or Brooklyn, or possibly Glasgow,
where
a man too pious to read a newspaper published on
Sunday,
stole millions from the poor.
I do not believe there is a
country in the world
199
where there is more robbery
than in Christian lands—
no country where more cashiers are
defaulters, where
more presidents of banks take the money of
depositors,
where there is more adulteration of food, where
fewer ounces make a pound, where fewer inches make
a yard, where
there is more breach of trust, more
respectable larceny under the
name of embezzlement,
or more slander circulated as gospel.
Question. Mr. Talmage insists that there are no
contradictions in the Bible—that it is a perfect har-
mony from
Genesis to Revelation—a harmony as
perfect as any piece of
music ever written by
Beethoven or Handel?
Answer.
Of course, if God wrote it, the Bible
ought to be perfect. I do not
see why a minister
should be so perfectly astonished to find that an
inspired book is consistent with itself throughout.
Yet the truth is,
the Bible is infinitely inconsistent.
Compare the two systems—the
system of Jehovah
and that of Jesus. In the Old Testament the
doctrine
of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was
taught. In the New Testament, "forgive your
"enemies," and "pray for
those who despitefully
"use you and persecute you." In the Old
Testament
200
it is kill, burn, massacre, destroy;
in the New forgive.
The two systems are inconsistent, and one is just
about as far wrong as the other. To live for and
thirst for revenge,
to gloat over the agony of an
enemy, is one extreme; to "resist not
evil" is the
other extreme; and both these extremes are equally
distant from the golden mean of justice.
The four gospels do
not even agree as to the terms
of salvation. And yet, Mr. Talmage
tells us that
there are four cardinal doctrines taught in the Bible—
the goodness of God, the fall of man, the sympathetic
and forgiving
nature of the Savior, and two desti-
nies—one for believers and
the other for unbelievers.
That is to say:
1. That God is
good, holy and forgiving.
2. That man is a lost sinner.
3. That Christ is "all sympathetic," and ready to
take the
whole world to his heart.
4. Heaven for believers and hell for
unbelievers.
First. I admit that the Bible says that God
is
good and holy. But this Bible also tells what God
did,
and if God did what the Bible says he did, then I
insist that God is
not good, and that he is not holy,
or forgiving. According to the
Bible, this good
God believed in religious persecution; this good
201
God believed in extermination, in polygamy, in con-
cubinage, in human slavery; this good God com-
manded murder and
massacre, and this good God
could only be mollified by the shedding
of blood.
This good God wanted a butcher for a priest. This
good
God wanted husbands to kill their wives—
wanted fathers and
mothers to kill their children.
This good God persecuted animals on
account of the
crimes of their owners. This good God killed the
common people because the king had displeased him.
This good God
killed the babe even of the maid
behind the mill, in order that he
might get even with
a king. This good God committed every possible
crime.
Second. The statement that man is a lost sinner
is not true. There are thousands and thousands of
magnificent Pagans—men
ready to die for wife, or
child, or even for friend, and the history
of Pagan
countries is filled with self-denying and heroic acts.
If man is a failure, the infinite God, if there be one,
is to blame.
Is it possible that the God of Mr. Tal-
mage could not have made man
a success? Accord-
ing to the Bible, his God made man knowing that in
about fifteen hundred years he would have to drown
all his
descendants.
202
Why would a good God create a man
that he
knew would be a sinner all his life, make hundreds
of
thousands of his fellow-men unhappy, and who at
last would be doomed
to an eternity of suffering?
Can such a God be good? How could a
devil have
done worse?
Third. If God is infinitely
good, is he not fully as
sympathetic as Christ? Do you have to employ
Christ to mollify a being of infinite mercy? Is Christ
any more
willing to take to his heart the whole world
than his Father is?
Personally, I have not the
slightest objection in the world to
anybody believing
in an infinitely good and kind God—not the
slightest
objection to any human being worshiping an infi-
nitely tender and merciful Christ—not the slightest
objection
to people preaching about heaven, or about
the glories of the future
state—not the slightest.
Fourth. I object to the
doctrine of two destinies
for the human race. I object to the
infamous false-
hood of eternal fire. And yet, Mr. Talmage is en-
deavoring to poison the imagination of men, women
and children with
the doctrine of an eternal hell.
Here is what he preaches, taken from
the "Constitu-
"tion of the Presbyterian Church of the United
"States:"
203
"By the decrees of God, for the
manifestation of
"his glory, some men and angels are predestinated
"to everlasting life, and others foreordained to ever-
"lasting
death."
That is the doctrine of Mr. Talmage. He wor-
ships
a God who damns people "for the manifesta-
"tion of his glory,"—a
God who made men, knowing
that they would be damned—a God who
damns
babes simply to increase his reputation with the
angels.
This is the God of Mr. Talmage. Such a
God I abhor, despise and
execrate.
Question. What does Mr. Talmage think of man-
kind? What is his opinion of the "unconverted"?
How does he regard
the great and glorious of the
earth, who have not been the victims of
his particular
superstition? What does he think of some of the
best the earth has produced?
Answer. I will tell you how
he looks upon all
such. Read this from his "Confession of Faith:"
"Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety
"of the
tempter, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit.
"By this sin, they
fell from their original righteous-
"ness and communion with God, and
so became
"dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties
204
"and parts of soul and body; and they being the
"root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was
"imputed, and the
same death in sin and corrupted
"nature conveyed to all their
posterity. From this
"original corruption—whereby we are
utterly indis-
"posed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,
"and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual
"transgressions."
This is Mr. Talmage's view of humanity.
Why did his God make a devil? Why did he
allow the devil to
tempt Adam and Eve? Why did
he leave innocence and ignorance at the
mercy of
subtlety and wickedness? Why did he put "the
"tree of
the knowledge of good and evil" in the
garden? For what reason did he
place temptation
in the way of his children? Was it kind, was it
just,
was it noble, was it worthy of a good God? No
wonder
Christ put into his prayer: "Lead us not
"into temptation."
At the time God told Adam and Eve not to eat,
why did he not
tell them of the existence of Satan?
Why were they not put upon their
guard against the
serpent? Why did not God make his appearance
just before the sin, instead of just after. Why did
he not play the
role of a Savior instead of that of a
205
detective?
After he found that Adam and Eve had
sinned—knowing as he did
that they were then
totally corrupt—knowing that all their
children
would be corrupt, knowing that in fifteen hundred
years
he would have to drown millions of them, why
did he not allow Adam
and Eve to perish in accord-
ance with natural law, then kill the
devil, and make a
new pair?
When the flood came, why did
he not drown all?
Why did he save for seed that which was "perfectly
"and thoroughly corrupt in all its parts and facul-
"ties"? If God
had drowned Noah and his sons
and their families, he could have then
made a new
pair, and peopled the world with men not "wholly
"defiled in all their faculties and parts of soul and
"body."
Jehovah learned nothing by experience. He per-
sisted in his
original mistake. What would we think
of a man who finding that a
field of wheat was
worthless, and that such wheat never could be
raised with profit, should burn all of the field with the
exception
of a few sheaves, which he saved for seed?
Why save such seed? Why
should God have pre-
served Noah, knowing that he was totally
corrupt,
and that he would again fill the world with infamous
206
people—people incapable of a good action? He
must have known at that time, that by preserving
Noah, the Canaanites
would be produced, that these
same Canaanites would have to be
murdered, that
the babes in the cradles would have to be strangled.
Why did he produce them? He knew at that time,
that Egypt would
result from the salvation of Noah,
that the Egyptians would have to
be nearly de-
stroyed, that he would have to kill their first-born,
that he would have to visit even their cattle with
disease and
hailstones. He knew also that the
Egyptians would oppress his chosen
people for two
hundred and fifteen years, that they would upon the
back of toil inflict the lash. Why did he preserve
Noah? He should
have drowned all, and started
with a new pair. He should have warned
them
against the devil, and he might have succeeded, in
that
way, in covering the world with gentlemen and
ladies, with real men
and real women.
We know that most of the people now in the
world are not Christians. Most who have heard the
gospel of Christ
have rejected it, and the Presby-
terian Church tells us what is to
become of all these
people. This is the "glad tidings of great joy."
Let us see:
207
"All mankind, by their fall, lost
communion with
"God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made
"liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself,
"and to
the pains of hell forever."
According to this good Presbyterian
doctrine, all
that we suffer in this world, is the result of Adam's
fall. The babes of to-day suffer for the crime of the
first parents.
Not only so; but God is angry at us
for what Adam did. We are under
the wrath of an
infinite God, whose brows are corrugated with eternal
hatred.
Why should God hate us for being what we are
and
necessarily must have been? A being that God
made—the devil—for
whose work God is responsible,
according to the Bible wrought this
woe. God of his
own free will must have made the devil. What did
he make him for? Was it necessary to have a devil
in heaven? God,
having infinite power, can of
course destroy this devil to-day. Why
does he per-
mit him to live? Why did he allow him to thwart his
plans? Why did he permit him to pollute the inno-
cence of Eden? Why
does he allow him now to
wrest souls by the million from the
redeeming hand
of Christ?
According to the Scriptures, the
devil has always
208
been successful. He enjoys
himself. He is called
"the prince of the power of the air." He has no
conscientious scruples. He has miraculous power.
All miraculous power
must come of God, otherwise
it is simply in accordance with nature.
If the devil
can work a miracle, it is only with the consent and
by the assistance of the Almighty. Is the God of
Mr. Talmage in
partnership with the devil? Do
they divide profits?
We are
also told by the Presbyterian Church—
I quote from their
Confession of Faith—that "there
"is no sin so small but it
deserves damnation.'' Yet
Mr. Talmage tells us that God is good, that
he is filled
with mercy and loving-kindness. A child nine or ten
years of age commits a sin, and thereupon it deserves
eternal
damnation. That is what Mr. Talmage calls,
not simply justice, but
mercy; and the sympathetic
heart of Christ is not touched. The same
being who
said: "Suffer little children to come unto me," tells
us that a child, for the smallest sin, deserves to be
eternally
damned. The Presbyterian Church tells us
that infants, as well as
adults, in order to be saved,
need redemption by the blood of Christ,
and regen-
eration by the Holy Ghost.
I am charged with
trying to take the consolation
209
of this doctrine
from the world. I am a criminal
because I am endeavoring to convince
the mother
that her child does not deserve eternal punishment.
I
stand by the graves of those who "died in their
"sins," by the tombs
of the "unregenerate," over the
ashes of men who have spent their
lives working for
their wives and children, and over the sacred dust
of
soldiers who died in defence of flag and country,
and I say
to their friends—I say to the living who
loved them, I say to
the men and women for whom
they worked, I say to the children whom
they edu-
cated, I say to the country for which they died:
These
fathers, these mothers, these wives, these
husbands, these soldiers
are not in hell.
Question. Mr. Talmage insists that the
Bible is
scientific, and that the real scientific man sees no
contradiction between revelation and science; that,
on the contrary,
they are in harmony. What is your
understanding of this matter?
Answer. I do not believe the Bible to be a sci-
entific
book. In fact, most of the ministers now admit
that it was not
written to teach any science. They
admit that the first chapter of
Genesis is not geo-
logically true. They admit that Joshua knew
nothing
210
of science. They admit that four-footed
birds did
not exist in the days of Moses. In fact, the only
way
they can avoid the unscientific statements of the
Bible, is to assert
that the writers simply used the
common language of their day, and
used it, not with
the intention of teaching any scientific truth, but
for
the purpose of teaching some moral truth. As a
matter of
fact, we find that moral truths have been
taught in all parts of this
world. They were taught
in India long before Moses lived; in Egypt
long be-
fore Abraham was born; in China thousands of
years
before the flood. They were taught by hundreds
and thousands and
millions before the Garden of
Eden was planted.
It would
be impossible to prove the truth of a
revelation simply because it
contained moral truths.
If it taught immorality, it would be
absolutely certain
that it was not a revelation from an infinitely
good
being. If it taught morality, it would be no reason
for
even suspecting that it had a divine origin. But
if the Bible had
given us scientific truths; if the
ignorant Jews had given us the
true theory of our
solar system; if from Moses we had learned the
nature of light and heat; if from Joshua we had
learned something of
electricity; if the minor pro-
211
phets had given
us the distances to other planets;
if the orbits of the stars had
been marked by the
barbarians of that day, we might have admitted
that
they must have been inspired. If they had said any-
thing
in advance of their day; if they had plucked
from the night of
ignorance one star of truth, we
might have admitted the claim of
inspiration; but
the Scriptures did not rise above their source, did
not rise above their ignorant authors—above the
people who
believed in wars of extermination, in
polygamy, in concubinage, in
slavery, and who taught
these things in their "sacred Scriptures."
The greatest men in the scientific world have not
been, and are
not, believers in the inspiration of the
Scriptures. There has been
no greater astronomer
than Laplace. There is no greater name than
Humboldt. There is no living scientist who stands
higher than Charles
Darwin. All the professors in
all the religious colleges in this
country rolled into
one, would not equal Charles Darwin. All the cow-
ardly apologists for the cosmogony of Moses do not
amount to as much
in the world of thought as Ernst
Haeckel. There is no orthodox
scientist the equal
of Tyndall or Huxley. There is not one in this
country the equal of John Fiske. I insist, that the
212
foremost men to-day in the scientific world reject the
dogma of
inspiration. They reject the science of the
Bible, and hold in utter
contempt the astronomy of
Joshua, and the geology of Moses.
Mr. Talmage tells us "that Science is a boy and
"Revelation is
a man." Of course, like the most he
says, it is substantially the
other way. Revelation,
so-called, was the boy. Religion was the
lullaby of
the cradle, the ghost-story told by the old woman,
Superstition. Science is the man. Science asks for
demonstration.
Science impels us to investigation,
and to verify everything for
ourselves. Most pro-
fessors of American colleges, if they were not
afraid
of losing their places, if they did not know that
Christians were bad enough now to take the bread
from their mouths,
would tell their students that the
Bible is not a scientific book.
I admit that I have said:
1. That the Bible is cruel.
2. That in many passages it is impure.
3. That it is
contradictory.
4. That it is unscientific.
Let me
now prove these propositions one by one.
First. The Bible is
cruel.
I have opened it at random, and the very first
213
chapter that has struck my eye is the sixth of First
Samuel. In the nineteenth verse of that chapter, I
find the
following:
"And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because
"they had looked into the ark of the Lord; even he
"smote of the
people fifty thousand and three-score
"and ten men."
All
this slaughter was because some people had
looked into a box that was
carried upon a cart. Was
that cruel?
I find, also, in the
twenty-fourth chapter of Second
Samuel, that David was moved by God
to number
Israel and Judah. God put it into his heart to take
a
census of his people, and thereupon David said to
Joab, the captain
of his host:
"Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from
"Dan even to Beersheba, and number ye the people,
"that I may know
the number of the people."
At the end of nine months and twenty
days, Joab
gave the number of the people to the king, and
there
were at that time, according to that census,
"eight hundred thousand
valiant men that drew the
"sword," in Israel, and in Judah, "five
hundred
"thousand men," making a total of thirteen hundred
thousand men of war. The moment this census was
214
taken, the wrath of the Lord waxed hot against
David, and thereupon
he sent a seer, by the name of
Gad, to David, and asked him to choose
whether he
would have seven years of famine, or fly three
months
before his enemies, or have three days of
pestilence. David concluded
that as God was so
merciful as to give him a choice, he would be more
merciful than man, and he chose the pestilence.
Now, it must be
remembered that the sin of taking
the census had not been committed
by the people,
but by David himself, inspired by God, yet the
people were to be punished for David's sin. So,,
when David chose the
pestilence, God immediately
killed "seventy thousand men, from Dan
even to
"Beersheba."
"And when the angel stretched out his
hand upon
"Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of
"the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the
"people, It is
enough; stay now thine hand."
Was this cruel?
Why
did a God of infinite mercy destroy seventy
thousand men? Why did he
fill his land with widows
and orphans, because King David had taken
the cen-
sus? If he wanted to kill anybody, why did he not
kill
David? I will tell you why. Because at that
215
time, the people were considered as the property of
the king. He
killed the people precisely as he killed
the cattle. And yet, I am
told that the Bible is not a
cruel book.
In the
twenty-first chapter of Second Samuel, I
find that there were three
years of famine in the days
of David, and that David inquired of the
Lord the
reason of the famine; and the Lord told him that it
was
because Saul had slain the Gibeonites. Why did
not God punish Saul
instead of the people? And
David asked the Gibeonites how he should
make
atonement, and the Gibeonites replied that they
wanted no
silver nor gold, but they asked that seven
of the sons of Saul might
be delivered unto them, so
that they could hang them before the Lord,
in Gibeah.
And David agreed to the proposition, and thereupon
he
delivered to the Gibeonites the two sons of Rizpah,
Saul's concubine,
and the five sons of Michal, the
daughter of Saul, and the Gibeonites
hanged all
seven of them together. And Rizpah, more tender
than
them all, with a woman's heart of love kept
lonely vigil by the dead,
"from the beginning of har-
"vest until water dropped upon them out
of heaven,
"and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon
"them by day, nor the beast of the field by night."
216
I want to know if the following, from the fifteenth
chapter of
First Samuel, is inspired:
"Thus saith the Lord of hosts; I
remember that
"which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for
"him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now
"go and smite Amalek,
and utterly destroy all that
"they have, and spare them not, but slay
both man
"and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep,
"camel
and ass."
We must remember that those he was commanded
to
slay had done nothing to Israel. It was something
done by their
forefathers, hundreds of years before;
and yet they are commanded to
slay the women and
children and even the animals, and to spare none.
It seems that Saul only partially carried into exe-
cution this
merciful command of Jehovah. He spared
the life of the king. He
"utterly destroyed all the
"people with the edge of the sword," but
he kept
alive the best of the sheep and oxen and of the fat-
lings and lambs. Then God spake unto Samuel and
told him that he was
very sorry he had made Saul
king, because he had not killed all the
animals, and
because he had spared Agag; and Samuel asked
Saul:
"What meaneth this bleating of sheep in mine
"ears, and the lowing of
the oxen which I hear?"
217
Are stories like this
calculated to make soldiers
merciful?
So I read in the
sixth chapter of Joshua, the fate
of the city of Jericho: "And they
utterly destroyed
"all that was in the city, both man and woman,
"young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the
"edge of the
sword. And they burnt the city with
"fire, and all that was therein."
But we are told that
one family was saved by Joshua, out of the
general
destruction: "And Joshua saved Rahab, the harlot,
"alive, and her father's household, and all that she
"had." Was this
fearful destruction an act of
mercy?
It seems that they
saved the money of their
victims: "the silver and gold and the
vessels of brass
"and of iron they put into the treasury of the house
"of the Lord."
After all this pillage and carnage, it appears
that there was a suspicion in Joshua's mind that
somebody was keeping
back a part of the treasure.
Search was made, and a man by the name
of Achan
admitted that he had sinned against the Lord, that he
had seen a Babylonish garment among the spoils, and
two hundred
shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of
fifty shekels' weight, and
that he took them and hid
2l8
them in his tent. For
this atrocious crime it seems
that the Lord denied any victories to
the Jews until
they found out the wicked criminal. When they dis-
covered poor Achan, "they took him and his sons
"and his daughters,
and his oxen and his asses and
"his sheep, and all that he had, and
brought them unto
"the valley of Achor; and all Israel stoned him
with
"stones and burned them with fire after they had
"stoned
them with stones."
After Achan and his sons and his daughters
and
his herds had been stoned and burned to death, we
are told
that "the Lord turned from the fierceness of
"his anger."
And yet it is insisted that this God "is merciful,
"and that his
loving-kindness is over all his works."
In the eighth chapter of this
same book, the infi-
nite God, "creator of heaven and earth and all
that is
"therein," told his general, Joshua, to lay an ambush
for a city—to "lie in wait against the city, even be-
"hind the
city; go not very far from the city, but be
"ye all ready." He told
him to make an attack and
then to run, as though he had been beaten,
in order
that the inhabitants of the city might follow, and
thereupon his reserves that he had ambushed might
rush into the city
and set it on fire. God Almighty
219
planned the
battle. God himself laid the snare. The
whole programme was carried
out. Joshua made
believe that he was beaten, and fled, and then the
soldiers in ambush rose out of their places, enter-
ed the city, and
set it on fire. Then came the
slaughter. They "utterly destroyed all
the inhabit-
"ants of Ai," men and maidens, women and babes,
sparing only their king till evening, when they
hanged him on a tree,
then "took his carcase down
"from the tree and cast it at the
entering of the
"gate, and raised thereon a great heap of stones
"which remaineth unto this day." After having
done all this, "Joshua
built an altar unto the Lord
"God of Israel, and offered burnt
offerings unto the
"Lord." I ask again, was this cruel?
Again I ask, was the treatment of the Gibeonites
cruel when they
sought to make peace but were
denied, and cursed instead; and
although permitted
to live, were yet made slaves? Read the mandate
consigning them to bondage: "Now therefore ye
"are cursed, and there
shall none of you be freed
"from being bondmen and hewers of wood and
"drawers of water for the house of my God."
Is it possible, as
recorded in the tenth chapter of
Joshua, that the Lord took part in
these battles, and
220
cast down great hail-stones
from the battlements of
heaven upon the enemies of the Israelites, so
that
"they were more who died with hail-stones, than
"they whom
the children of Israel slew with the
"sword"?
Is it
possible that a being of infinite power would
exercise it in that way
instead of in the interest of
kindness and peace?
I find,
also, in this same chapter, that Joshua took
Makkedah and smote it
with the edge of the sword,
that he utterly destroyed all the souls
that were
therein, that he allowed none to remain.
I find
that he fought against Libnah, and smote
it with the edge of the
sword, and utterly destroyed
all the souls that were therein, and
allowed none to
remain, and did unto the king as he did unto the king
of Jericho.
I find that he also encamped against Lachish, and
that God gave him that city, and that he "smote it
"with the edge of
the sword, and all the souls that
"were therein," sparing neither old
nor young, help-
less women nor prattling babes.
He also
vanquished Horam, King of Gezer, "and
"smote him and his people until
he left him none
"remaining."
221
He encamped
against the city of Eglon, and killed
every soul that was in it, at
the edge of the sword,
just as he had done to Lachish and all the
others.
He fought against Hebron, "and took it and
"smote
it with the edge of the sword, and the king
"thereof,"—and it
appears that several cities, their
number not named, were included in
this slaughter,
for Hebron "and all the cities thereof and all the
"souls that were therein," were utterly destroyed.
He then
waged war against Debir and took it, and
more unnumbered cities with
it, and all the souls that
were therein shared the same horrible fate—he
did
not leave a soul alive.
And this chapter of horrors
concludes with this
song of victory:
"So Joshua smote all
the country of the hills, and
"of the south, and of the vale, and of
the springs,
"and all their kings: he left none remaining, but
"utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord
"God of Israel
commanded. And Joshua smote
"them from Kadeshbarnea even unto Gaza,
and all the
"country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon. And all these
"kings and their land did Joshua take at one time,
"because the Lord
God of Israel fought for Israel."
Was God, at that time, merciful?
222
I find, also, in the twenty-first chapter that many
Icings met, with their armies, for the purpose of
overwhelming
Israel, and the Lord said unto Joshua:
"Be not afraid because of
them, for to-morrow about
"this time I will deliver them all slain
before Israel.
"I will hough their horses and burn their chariots
"with fire." Were animals so treated by the com-
mand of a merciful
God?
Joshua captured Razor, and smote all the souls
that
were therein with the edge of the sword, there
was not one left to
breathe; and he took all the
cities of all the kings that took up
arms against him,
and utterly destroyed all the inhabitants thereof.
He took the cattle and spoils as prey unto himself,
and smote every
man with the edge of the sword;
and not only so, but left not a human
being to
breathe.
I find the following directions given to
the Israel-
ites who were waging a war of conquest. They are
in
the twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy, from the
tenth to the
eighteenth verses:
"When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight
"against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it
"shall be, if it
make thee an answer of peace, and
"open unto thee, then it shall be
that all the people
223
"that is found therein shall
be tributaries unto thee,
"and they shall serve thee. And if it will
make no
"peace with thee, but will war against thee, then
"thou
shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy
"God hath delivered it into
thine hands, thou shalt
"smite every male thereof with the edge of
the
"sword; but the women, and the little ones, and
"the cattle,
and all that is in the city, even the spoil
"thereof, shalt thou take
unto thyself; and thou
"shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which
the
"Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou
"do unto all
the cities which are very far off from
"thee, which are not of the
cities of these nations."
It will be seen from this that people could
take
their choice between death and slavery, provided
these
people lived a good ways from the Israelites.
Now, let us see how
they were to treat the inhabit-
ants of the cities near to them:
"But of the cities of these people which the Lord
"thy God doth
give thee for an inheritance, thou
"shalt save alive nothing that
breatheth. But thou
"shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the
Hittites,
"and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites,
"the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God
"hath commanded
thee."
224
It never occurred to this merciful God to
send
missionaries to these people. He built them no
schoolhouses, taught them no alphabet, gave them
no book; they were
not supplied even with a copy of
the Ten Commandments. He did not say
"Reform,"
but "Kill;" not "Educate," but "Destroy." He gave
them
no Bible, built them no church, sent them no
preachers. He knew when
he made them that he
would have to have them murdered. When he
created them he knew that they were not fit to live;
and yet, this is
the infinite God who is infinitely
merciful and loves his children
better than an earthly
mother loves her babe.
In order to
find just how merciful God is, read the
twenty-eighth chapter of
Deuteronomy, and see what
he promises to do with people who do not
keep all of
his commandments and all of his statutes. He curses
them in their basket and store, in the fruit of their
body, in the
fruit of their land, in the increase of their
cattle and sheep. He
curses them in the city and in
the field, in their coming in and
their going out. He
curses them with pestilence, with consumption,
with
fever, with inflammation, with extreme burning, with
sword,
with blasting, with mildew. He tells them
that the heavens shall be
as brass over their heads
225
and the earth as iron
under their feet; that the rain
shall be powder and dust and shall
come down on
them and destroy them; that they shall flee seven
ways before their enemies; that their carcasses shall
be meat for the
fowls of the air, and the beasts of the
earth; that he will smite
them with the botch of
Egypt, and with the scab, and with the itch,
and with
madness and blindness and astonishment; that he
will
make them grope at noonday; that they shall be
oppressed and spoiled
evermore; that one shall be-
troth a wife and another shall have her;
that they
shall build a house and not dwell in it; plant a vine-
yard and others shall eat the grapes; that their
sons and daughters
shall be given to their enemies;
that he will make them mad for the
sight of their
eyes; that he will smite them in the knees and in the
legs with a sore botch that cannot be healed, and
from the sole of
the foot to the top of the head;
that they shall be a by-word among
all nations; that
they shall sow much seed and gather but little;
that
the locusts shall consume their crops; that they shall
plant vineyards and drink no wine,—that they shall
gather
grapes, but worms shall eat them; that they
shall raise olives but
have no oil; beget sons and
daughters, but they shall go into
captivity; that all
226
the trees and fruit of the
land shall be devoured by
locusts, and that all these curses shall
pursue them
and overtake them, until they be destroyed; that they
shall be slaves to their enemies, and be constantly in
hunger and
thirst and nakedness, and in want of all
things. And as though this
were not enough, the
Lord tells them that he will bring a nation
against
them swift as eagles, a nation fierce and savage, that
will show no mercy and no favor to old or young,
and leave them
neither corn, nor wine, nor oil, nor
flocks, nor herds; and this
nation shall besiege them
in their cities until they are reduced to
the necessity
of eating the flesh of their own sons and daughters;
so that the men would eat their wives and their
children, and women
eat their husbands and their
own sons and daughters, and their own
babes.
All these curses God pronounced upon them if they
did not observe to do all the words of the law that
were written in
his book.
This same merciful God threatened that he would
bring upon them all the diseases of Egypt—every
sickness and
every plague; that he would scatter
them from one end of the earth to
the other; that
they should find no rest; that their lives should
hang
in perpetual doubt; that in the morning they would
227
say: Would God it were evening! and in the even-
ing,
Would God it were morning! and that he would
finally take them back
to Egypt where they should
be again sold for bondmen and bondwomen.
This curse, the foundation of the Anathema
maranatha;
this curse, used by the pope of Rome to
prevent the spread of
thought; this curse used even
by the Protestant Church; this curse
born of barba-
rism and of infinite cruelty, is now said to have
issued from the lips of an infinitely merciful God. One
would suppose
that Jehovah had gone insane; that
he had divided his kingdom like
Lear, and from the
darkness of insanity had launched his curses upon
a
world.
In order that there may be no doubt as to the
mercy of Jehovah, read the thirteenth chapter of
Deuteronomy:
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy
"son, or thy
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or
"thy friend, which is as thine
own soul, entice thee
"secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other
gods,
"which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers;
" * * *
thou shalt not consent unto him, nor
"hearken unto him; neither shall
thine eyes pity him,
"neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou
conceal
228
"him; but thou shalt surely kill him:
thine hand
"shall be first upon him to put him to death, and
"afterwards the hand of all the people; and thou
"shalt stone him
with stones that he die, because he
"hath sought to entice thee away
from the Lord thy
"God."
This, according to Mr. Talmage,
is a commandment
of the infinite God. According to him, God ordered
a man to murder his own son, his own wife, his own
brother, his own
daughter, if they dared even to sug-
gest the worship of some other
God than Jehovah.
For my part, it is impossible not to despise such
a God—a God not willing that one should worship
what he must.
No one can control his admiration,
and if a savage at sunrise falls
upon his knees and
offers homage to the great light of the East, he
can-
not help it. If he worships the moon, he cannot help
it. If
he worships fire, it is because he cannot control
his own spirit. A
picture is beautiful to me in spite
of myself. A statue compels the
applause of my
brain. The worship of the sun was an exceedingly
natural religion, and why should a man or woman be
destroyed for
kneeling at the fireside of the world?
No wonder that this same
God, in the very next
chapter of Deuteronomy to that quoted, says to
his
229
chosen people: "Ye shall not eat of anything
that
"dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger
"that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou
"mayest sell
it unto an alien: for thou art a holy
"people unto the Lord thy God."
What a mingling of heartlessness and thrift—the
religion
of sword and trade!
In the seventh chapter of Deuteronomy,
Jehovah
gives his own character. He tells the Israelites that
there are seven nations greater and mightier than
themselves, but
that he will deliver them to his chosen
people, and that they shall
smite them and utterly
destroy them; and having some fear that a drop
of
pity might remain in the Jewish heart, he says:
"Thou
shalt make no covenant with them, nor
"show mercy unto them. * * *
Know therefore
"that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God,
"which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that
"love him and keep
his commandments to a thousand
"generations, and repayeth them that
hate him to
"their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to
"him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face."
This is the
description which the merciful, long-suffer-
ing Jehovah gives of
himself.
So, he promises great prosperity to the Jews if
230
they will only obey his commandments, and says:
"And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness,
"and will put
none of the evil diseases of Egypt
"upon thee, but will lay them upon
all them that
"hate thee. And thou shalt consume all the people
"which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine
"eye shall have no
pity upon them."
Under the immediate government of Jehovah,
mercy was a crime. According to the law of God,
pity was weakness,
tenderness was treason, kindness
was blasphemy, while hatred and
massacre were
virtues.
In the second chapter of
Deuteronomy we find
another account tending to prove that Jehovah is
a
merciful God. We find that Sihon, king of Heshbon,
would not
let the Hebrews pass by him, and the
reason given is, that "the Lord
God hardened his
"spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might
"deliver him into the hand" of the Hebrews. Sihon,
his heart having
been hardened by God, came out
against the chosen people, and God
delivered him to
them, and "they smote him, and his sons, and all his
"people, and took all his cities, and utterly destroyed
"the men and
the women, and the little ones of
"every city: they left none to
remain." And in this
231
same chapter this same God
promises that the dread
and fear of his chosen people should be "upon
all the
"nations that are under the whole heaven," and that
"they should "tremble and be in anguish because of"
the Hebrews.
Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and see
how the
Midianites were slain. You will find that
"the children of Israel
took all the women of Midian
"captives, and their little ones," that
they took "all
"their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their
goods,"
that they slew all the males, and burnt all their cities
and castles with fire, that they brought the captives
and the prey
and the spoil unto Moses and Eleazar
the priest; that Moses was wroth
with the officers
of his host because they had saved all the women
alive, and thereupon this order was given: "Kill
"every male among
the little ones, and kill every
"woman, * * * but all the women
children
"keep alive for yourselves."
After this, God
himself spake unto Moses, and
said: "Take the sum of the prey that
was taken,
"both of man and of beast, thou and Eleazar the
"priest * * * and divide the prey into two
"parts, between those who
went to war, and between
"all the congregation, and levy a tribute
unto the
232
"Lord, one soul of five hundred of the
persons,
"and the cattle; take it of their half and give it to
"the priest for an offering * * * and of the
"children of Israel's
half, take one portion of fifty of
"the persons and the animals and
give them unto
"the Levites. * * * And Moses and the priest
"did
as the Lord had commanded." It seems that
they had taken six hundred
and seventy-five thou-
sand sheep, seventy-two thousand beeves,
sixty-one
thousand asses, and thirty-two thousand women
children
and maidens. And it seems, by the fortieth
verse, that the Lord's
tribute of the maidens was thirty-
two,—the rest were given
to the soldiers and to the
congregation of the Lord.
Was
anything more infamous ever recorded in the
annals of barbarism? And
yet we are told that the
Bible is an inspired book, that it is not a
cruel book,
and that Jehovah is a being of infinite mercy.
In the twenty-fifth chapter of Numbers we find
that the Israelites
had joined themselves unto Baal-
Peor, and thereupon the anger of the
Lord was
kindled against them, as usual. No being ever lost
his
temper more frequently than this Jehovah. Upon
this particular
occasion, "the Lord said unto Moses,
"Take all the heads of the
people, and hang them
233
"up before the Lord
against the sun, that the fierce
"anger of the Lord may be turned
away from Israel."
And thereupon "Moses said unto the judges of
Israel,
"Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto
"Baal-peor."
Just as soon as these people were killed, and
their
heads hung up before the Lord against the sun, and
a
horrible double murder of a too merciful Israelite
and a Midianitish
woman, had been committed by
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, "the
plague was stayed
"from the children of Israel." Twenty-four thousand
had died. Thereupon, "the Lord spake unto Moses
"and said"—and
it is a very merciful commandment
—"Vex the Midianites and
smite them."
In the twenty-first chapter of Numbers is more
evi-
dence that God is merciful and compassionate.
The
children of Israel had become discouraged.
They had wandered so long
in the desert that they
finally cried out: "Wherefore have ye brought
us
"up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There
"is no
bread, there is no water, and our soul loatheth
"this light bread."
Of course they were hungry and
thirsty. Who would not complain under
similar cir-
cumstances? And yet, on account of this complaint,
the God of infinite tenderness and compassion sent
234
serpents among them, and these serpents bit them—
bit the
cheeks of children, the breasts of maidens,
and the withered faces of
age. Why would a God
do such an infamous thing? Why did he not, as
the
leader of this people, his chosen children, feed them
better? Certainly an infinite God had the power
to satisfy their
hunger and to quench their thirst.
He who overwhelmed a world with
water, certainly
could have made a few brooks, cool and babbling,
to follow his chosen people through all their jour-
neying. He could
have supplied them with miracu-
lous food.
How fortunate
for the Jews that Jehovah was not
revengeful, that he was so slow to
anger, so patient,
so easily pleased. What would they have done had
he been exacting, easily incensed, revengeful, cruel,
or
blood-thirsty?
In the sixteenth chapter of Numbers, an account
is
given of a rebellion. It seems that Korah, Dathan
and Abiram
got tired of Moses and Aaron. They
thought the priests were taking a
little too much
upon themselves. So Moses told them to have two
hundred and fifty of their men bring their censers
and put incense in
them before the Lord, and stand
in the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation
235
with Moses and Aaron. That being
done, the Lord
appeared, and told Moses and Aaron to separate
themselves from the people, that he might consume
them all in a
moment. Moses and Aaron, having a
little compassion, begged God not
to kill everybody.
The people were then divided, and Dathan and
Abiram came out and stood in the door of their
tents with their wives
and their sons and their little
children. And Moses said:
"Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent
"me to do all these
works; for I have not done them
"of my mine own mind. If these men
die the
"common death of all men, or if they be visited
"after
the common visitation of all men, then the
"Lord hath not sent me.
But if the Lord make a
"new thing, and the earth open her mouth and
"swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them,
"and they go
down quick into the pit, then ye shall
"understand that these men
have provoked the
"Lord." The moment he ceased speaking, "the
"ground clave asunder that was under them; and
"the earth opened her
mouth and swallowed them up,
"and their houses, and all the men that
appertained
"unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that
"appertained to them went down alive into the pit,
236
"and the earth closed upon them, and they perished
"from among
the congregation."
This, according to Mr. Talmage, was the act
of an
exceedingly merciful God, prompted by infinite kind-
ness,
and moved by eternal pity. What would he
have done had he acted from
motives of revenge?
What would he Jiave done had he been remorse-
lessly cruel and wicked?
In addition to those swallowed by the
earth, the
two hundred and fifty men that offered the incense
were consumed by "a fire that came out from the
"Lord." And not only
this, but the same merciful
Jehovah wished to consume all the people,
and he
would have consumed them all, only that Moses pre-
vailed
upon Aaron to take a censer and put fire
therein from off the altar
of incense and go quickly
to the congregation and make an atonement
for them.
He was not quick enough. The plague had already
begun;
and before he could possibly get the censers
and incense among the
people, fourteen thousand and
seven hundred had died of the plague.
How many
more might have died, if Jehovah had not been so
slow
to anger and so merciful and tender to his
children, we have no means
of knowing.
In the thirteenth chapter of the same book of
237
Numbers, we find that some spies were sent over
into the promised land, and that they brought back
grapes and figs
and pomegranates, and reported that
the whole land was flowing with
milk and honey, but
that the people were strong, that the cities were
walled, and that the nations in the promised land
were mightier than
the Hebrews. They reported that
all the people they met were men of a
great stature,
that they had seen "the giants, the sons of Anak
"which come of giants," compared with whom the
Israelites were "in
their own sight as grasshoppers,
"and so were we in their sight."
Entirely discour-
aged by these reports, "all the congregation lifted
up
"their voice and cried, and the people wept that
"night * * *
and murmured against Moses and
"against Aaron, and said unto them:
Would God
"that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would
"God
we had died in this wilderness!" Some of
them thought that it would
be better to go back,—
that they might as well be slaves in
Egypt as to be
food for giants in the promised land. They did not
want their bones crunched between the teeth of the
sons of Anak.
Jehovah got angry again, and said to Moses:
"How long will
these people provoke me? * * *
238
"I will smite
them with pestilence, and disinherit
"them." But Moses said: Lord, if
you do this,
the Egyptians will hear of it, and they will say that
you were not able to bring your people into the
promised land. Then
he proceeded to flatter him by
telling him how merciful and
long-suffering he had
been. Finally, Jehovah concluded to pardon the
people this time, but his pardon depended upon the
violation of his
promise, for he said: "They shall
"not see the land which I sware
unto their fathers,
"neither shall any of them that provoked me see
it;
"but my servant Caleb, * * * him will I bring
"into the
land." And Jehovah said to the people:
"Your carcasses shall fall in
this wilderness, and all
"that were numbered of you according to your
"whole number, from twenty years old and upward,
"which have murmured
against me, ye shall not
"come into the land concerning which I sware
to
"make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of
"Jephunneh,
and Joshua the son of Nun. But your
"little ones, which ye said
should be a prey, them
"will I bring in, and they shall know the land
"which ye have despised. But as for you, your
"carcasses shall fall
in this wilderness. And your
"children shall wander in the wilderness
forty
239
"years * * * until your carcasses be
wasted in
"the wilderness."
And all this because the
people were afraid of
giants, compared with whom they were but as
grass-
hoppers.
So we find that at one time the people
became
exceedingly hungry. They had no flesh to eat.
There were
six hundred thousand men of war, and
they had nothing to feed on but
manna. They
naturally murmured and complained, and thereupon a
wind from the Lord went forth and brought quails
from the sea,
(quails are generally found in the sea,)
"and let them fall by the
camp, as it were a day's
"journey on this side, and as it were a
day's journey
"on the other side, round about the camp, and as it
"were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.
"And the people
stood up all that day, and all that
"night, and all the next day, and
they gathered the
"quails. * * * And while the flesh was yet be-
"tween their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of
"the Lord was
kindled against the people, and the
"Lord smote the people with a
very great plague."
Yet he is slow to anger, long-suffering,
merciful
and just.
In the thirty-second chapter of Exodus,
is the ac-
240
count of the golden calf. It must be
borne in mind
that the worship of this calf by the people was before
the Ten Commandments had been given to them.
Christians now insist
that these commandments must
have been inspired, because no human
being could
have constructed them,—could have conceived of
them.
It seems, according to this account, that Moses had
been up in the mount with God, getting the Ten Com-
mandments, and
that while he was there the people
had made the golden calf. When he
came down and
saw them, and found what they had done, having in
his hands the two tables, the work of God, he cast
the tables out of
his hands, and broke them beneath
the mount. He then took the calf
which they had
made, ground it to powder, strewed it in the water,
and made the children of Israel drink of it. And in the
twenty-seventh verse we are told what the Lord did:
"Thus saith the
Lord God of Israel: Put every man
"his sword by his side, and go in
and out from gate
"to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man
"his brother, and every man his companion, and
"every man his
neighbor. And the children of Levi
"did according to the word of
Moses; and there fell
"of the people that day about three thousand
men."
241
The reason for this slaughter is thus
given: "For
"Moses had said: Consecrate yourselves to-day to
"the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon
" his brother, that
he may bestow upon you a blessing
"this day."
Now, it must
be remembered that there had not
been as yet a promulgation of the
commandment
u Thou shalt have no other gods before me." This
was
a punishment for the infraction of a law before
the law was known—before
the commandment had
been given. Was it cruel, or unjust?
Does the following sound as though spoken by a
God of mercy: "I will
make mine arrows drunk
"with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh"?
And yet this is but a small part of the vengeance and
destruction
which God threatens to his enemies, as
recorded in the thirty-second
chapter of the book of
Deuteronomy.
In the sixty-eighth
Psalm is found this merciful
passage: "That thy foot may be dipped in
the blood
"of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the
"same.
So we find in the eleventh chapter of Joshua the
reason why the Canaanites and other nations made
war upon the Jews.
It is as follows: "For it was of
242
"the Lord to
harden their hearts that they should
"come against Israel in battle,
that he might destroy
"them utterly, and that they might have no
favor, but
"that he might destroy them."
Read the
thirtieth chapter of Exodus and you will
find that God gave to Moses
a recipe for making
the oil of holy anointment, and in the
thirty-second
verse we find that no one was to make any oil like it
and in the next verse it is declared that whoever
compounded any like
it, or whoever put any of it on
a stranger, should be cut off from
the Lord's people.
In the same chapter, a recipe is given for
per-
fumery, and it is declared that whoever shall make
any like
it, or that smells like it, shall suffer death.
In the next
chapter, it is decreed that if any one fails
to keep the Sabbath "he
shall be surely put to death."
There are in the Pentateuch
hundreds and hun-
dreds of passages showing the cruelty of Jehovah.
What could have been more cruel than the flood?
What more heartless
than to overwhelm a world?
What more merciless than to cover a
shoreless sea
with the corpses of men, women and children?
The Pentateuch is filled with anathemas, with
curses, with words of
vengeance, of jealousy, of
hatred, and brutality. By reason of these
passages,
243
millions of people have plucked from
their hearts the
flowers of pity and justified the murder of women
and the assassination of babes.
In the second chapter of Second
Kings we find
that the prophet Elisha was on his way to a place
called Bethel, and as he was going, there came forth
little children
out of the city and mocked him and
said: "Go up thou bald head; Go up
thou bald
"head! And he turned back and looked on them
"and
cursed them in the name of the Lord. And
"there came forth two she
bears out of the wood and
"tare forty and two children of them."
Of course he obtained his miraculous power from
Jehovah; and
there must have been some communi-
cation between Jehovah and the
bears. Why did the
bears come? How did they happen to be there?
Here is a prophet of God cursing children in the
name of the Lord,
and thereupon these children
are torn in fragments by wild beasts.
This is the mercy of Jehovah; and yet I am told
that the Bible
has nothing cruel in it; that it preaches
only mercy, justice,
charity, peace; that all hearts
are softened by reading it; that the
savage nature of
man is melted into tenderness and pity by it, and
that
only the totally depraved can find evil in it.
244
And so I might go on, page after page, book after
book, in the
Old Testament, and describe the cruelties
committed in accordance
with the commands of
Jehovah.
But all the cruelties in the
Old Testament are ab-
solute mercies compared with the hell of the
New
Testament. In the Old Testament God stops with
the grave. He
seems to have been satisfied when he
saw his enemies dead, when he
saw their flesh rotting
in the open air, or in the beaks of birds, or
in the teeth
of wild beasts. But in the New Testament, ven-
geance does not stop with the grave. It begins there,
and stops
never. The enemies of Jehovah are to be
pursued through all the ages
of eternity. There is to
be no forgiveness—no cessation, no
mercy, nothing
but everlasting pain.
And yet we are told
that the author of hell is a
being of infinite mercy.
Second;
All intelligent Christians will admit that
there are many passages in
the Bible that, if found in
the Koran, they would regard as impure
and immoral.
It is not necessary for me to specify the
passages,
nor to call the attention of the public to such things.
I am willing to trust the judgment of every honest
reader, and the
memory of every biblical student.
245
The Old
Testament upholds polygamy. That is
infinitely impure. It sanctions
concubinage. That
is impure; nothing could or can be worse. Hun-
dreds of things are publicly told that should have re-
mained unsaid.
No one is made better by reading
the history of Tamar, or the
biography of Lot, or
the memoirs of Noah, of Dinah, of Sarah and
Abraham, or of Jacob and Leah and Rachel and others
that I do not
care to mention. No one is improved
in his morals by reading these
things.
All I mean to say is, that the Bible is like other
books produced by other nations in the same stage
of civilization.
What one age considers pure, the
next considers impure. What one age
may consider
just, the next may look upon as infamous. Civiliza-
tion is a growth. It is continually dying, and continu-
ally being
born. Old branches rot and fall, new buds
appear. It is a perpetual
twilight, and a perpetual
dawn—the death of the old, and the
birth of the new.
I do not say, throw away the Bible because
there
are some foolish passages in it, but I say, throw away
the
foolish passages. Don't throw away wisdom
because it is found in
company with folly; but do not
say that folly is wisdom, because it
is found in its
company. All that is true in the Bible is true
whether
246
it is inspired or not. All that is true
did not need to
be inspired. Only that which is not true needs the
assistance of miracles and wonders. I read the Bible
as I read other
books. What I believe to be good,
I admit is good; what I think is
bad, I say is bad;
what I believe to be true, I say is true, and what
I
believe to be false, I denounce as false.
Third.
Let us see whether there are any contra-
dictions in the Bible.
A little book has been published, called "Self
"Contradictions
of the Bible," by J. P. Mendum, of
The Boston Investigator. I find
many of the apparent
contradictions of the Bible noted in this book.
We all know that the Pentateuch is filled with the
commandments
of God upon the subject of sacrificing
animals. We know that God
declared, again and
again, that the smell of burning flesh was a
sweet
savor to him. Chapter after chapter is filled with direc-
tions how to kill the beasts that were set apart for
sacrifices; what
to do with their blood, their flesh and
their fat. And yet, in the
seventh chapter of Jeremiah,
all this is expressly denied, in the
following language:
"For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded
"them in the day that I brought them out of the land
"of Egypt,
concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices."
247
And
in the sixth chapter of Jeremiah, the same
Jehovah says; "Your burnt
offerings are not ac-
"ceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me."
In the Psalms, Jehovah derides the idea of
sacrifices, and
says: "Will I eat of the flesh of
"bulls, or drink the blood of
goats? Offer unto God
"thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most
"High."
So I find in Isaiah the following: "Bring no more
"vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me;
"the new moons
and sabbaths, the calling of as-
"semblies, I cannot away with; it is
iniquity, even
"the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your
"appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble
"to me; I am
weary to bear them." "To what
"purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me?
"saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt offerings
of
"rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not
"in the
blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
"When ye come to
appear before me, who hath re-
"quired this at your hand?"
So I find in James: "Let no man say when he is
"tempted: I am tempted
of God; for God cannot be
"tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any
man;"
and yet in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis I
248
find this: "And it came to pass after these things,
"that God did tempt Abraham."
In Second Samuel we see that he
tempted David.
He also tempted Job, and Jeremiah says: "O Lord,
"thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived." To
such an extent was
Jeremiah deceived, that in the
fourteenth chapter and eighteenth
verse we find him
crying out to the Lord: "Wilt thou be altogether
"unto me as a liar?"
So in Second Thessalonians: "For these
things
"God shall send them strong delusions, that they
"should
believe a lie."
So in First Kings, twenty-second chapter:
"Behold,
"the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all
"these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil
"concerning thee."
So in Ezekiel: "And if the prophet be deceived
"when he hath
spoken a thing, I, the Lord, have de-
"ceived that prophet."
So I find: "Thou shalt not bear false witness;"
and in the book
of Revelation: "All liars shall have
"their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and
"brimstone;" yet in First Kings, twenty-second
chapter, I find the following: "And the Lord said:
"Who shall
persuade Ahab, that he may go up and
249
"fall at
Ramoth-Gilead? And one said on this
"manner, and another said on that
manner. And
"there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord,
"and said: I will persuade him. And the Lord said
"unto him:
Wherewith? And he said: I will go
"forth, and I will be a lying
spirit in the mouth of all
"his prophets. And he said: Thou shalt
persuade
"him, and prevail also. Go forth, and do so."
In
the Old Testament we find contradictory laws
about the same thing,
and contradictory accounts of
the same occurrences.
In the
twentieth chapter of Exodus we find the first
account of the giving
of the Ten Commandments. In
the thirty-fourth chapter another account
of the same
transaction is given. These two accounts could not
have been written by the same person. Read them,
and you will be
forced to admit that both of them
cannot by any possibility be true.
They differ in so
many particulars, and the commandments themselves
are so different, that it is impossible that both can be
true.
So there are two histories of the creation. If you
will read
the first and second chapters of Genesis,
you will find two accounts
inconsistent with each
other, both of which cannot be true. The first
account
250
ends with the third verse of the second
chapter of
Genesis. By the first account, man and woman were
made at the same time, and made last of all. In the
second account,
not to be too critical, all the beasts
of the field were made before
Eve was, and Adam
was made before the beasts of the field; whereas in
the first account, God made all the animals before he
made Adam. In
the first account there is nothing
about the rib or the bone or the
side,—that is only
found in the second account. In the first
account,
there is nothing about the Garden of Eden, nothing
about the four rivers, nothing about the mist that
went up from the
earth and watered the whole face
of the ground; nothing said about
making man from
dust; nothing about God breathing into his nostrils
the breath of life; yet according to the second ac-
count, the Garden
of Eden was planted, and all the
animals were made before Eve was
formed. It is
impossible to harmonize the two accounts.
So, in the first account, only the word God is
used—"God said
so and so,—God did so and so."
In the second account he is
called Lord God,—"the
"Lord God formed man,"—"the Lord
God caused
"it to rain,"—"the Lord God planted a garden." It
is now admitted that the book of Genesis is made up
251
of two stories, and it is very easy to take them apart
and show
exactly how they were put together.
So there are two stories of
the flood, differing
almost entirely from each other—that is to
say, so
contradictory that both cannot be true.
There are
two accounts of the manner in which
Saul was made king, and the
accounts are inconsistent
with each other.
Scholars now
everywhere admit that the copyists
made many changes, pieced out
fragments, and made
additions, interpolations, and meaningless
repetitions.
It is now generally conceded that the speeches of
Elihu, in Job, were interpolated, and most of the
prophecies were
made by persons whose names even
are not known.
The
manuscripts of the Old Testament were not
alike. The Greek version
differed from the Hebrew,
and there was no generally received text of
the Old
Testament until after the beginning of the Christian
era. Marks and points to denote vowels were in-
vented probably in
the seventh century after Christ;
and whether these marks and points
were put in the
proper places, is still an open question. The Alex-
andrian version, or what is known as the Septuagint,
translated by
seventy-two learned Jews assisted by
252
miraculous
power, about two hundred years before
Christ, could not, it is now
said, have been translated
from the Hebrew text that we now have.
This can
only be accounted for by supposing that we have a
different Hebrew text. The early Christians adopted
the Septuagint
and were satisfied for a time; but so
many errors were found, and so
many were scanning
every word in search of something to assist their
peculiar views, that new versions were produced,
and the new versions
all differed somewhat from the
Septuagint as well as from each other.
These ver-
sions were mostly in Greek. The first Latin Bible
was
produced in Africa, and no one has ever found
out which Latin
manuscript was original. Many were
produced, and all differed from
each other. These
Latin versions were compared with each other and
with the Hebrew, and a new Latin version was made
in the fifth
century, and the old ones held their own
for about four hundred
years, and no one knows
which version was right. Besides, there were
Ethi-
opie, Egyptian, Armenian and several other ver-
sions, all
differing from each other as well as from all
others. It was not
until the fourteenth century that
the Bible was translated into
German, and not until
the fifteenth that Bibles were printed in the
principal
253
languages of Europe; and most of these
Bibles
differed from each other, and gave rise to endless
disputes and to almost numberless crimes.
No man in the world
is learned enough, nor has
he time enough, even if he could live a
thousand
years, to find what books belonged to and consti-
tuted
the Old Testament. He could not ascertain
the authors of the books,
nor when they were written,
nor what they mean. Until a man has
sufficient
time to do all this, no one can tell whether he be-
lieves the Bible or not. It is sufficient, however, to
say that the
Old Testament is filled with contradic-
tions as to the number of men
slain in battle, as to
the number of years certain kings reigned, as
to the
number of a woman's children, as to dates of events,
and
as to locations of towns and cities.
Besides all this, many of
its laws are contradictory,
often commanding and prohibiting the same
thing.
The New Testament also is filled with contradic-
tions. The gospels do not even agree upon the
terms of salvation.
They do not even agree as to
the gospel of Christ, as to the mission
of Christ.
They do not tell the same story regarding the be-
trayal, the crucifixion, the resurrection or the ascen-
sion of
Christ. John is the only one that ever heard
254
of
being "born again." The evangelists do not give
the same account of
the same miracles, and the
miracles are not given in the same order.
They do
not agree even in the genealogy of Christ.
Fourth.
Is the Bible scientific? In my judgment
it is not
It is
unscientific to say that this world was "cre-
"ated that the universe
was produced by an infinite
being, who had existed an eternity prior
to such
"creation." My mind is such that I cannot possibly
conceive of a "creation." Neither can I conceive of
an infinite being
who dwelt in infinite space an infi-
nite length of time.
I do not think it is scientific to say that the uni-
verse was made
in six days, or that this world is only
about six thousand years old,
or that man has only
been upon the earth for about six thousand
years.
If the Bible is true, Adam was the first man. The
age of Adam is given, the age of his children, and
the time,
according to the Bible, was kept and known
from Adam, so that if the
Bible is true, man has only
been in this world about six thousand
years. In my
judgment, and in the judgment of every scientific
man whose judgment is worth having or quoting,
man inhabited this
earth for thousands of ages prior
255
to the
creation of Adam. On one point the Bible is
at least certain, and
that is, as to the life of Adam.
The genealogy is given, the pedigree
is there, and it
is impossible to escape the conclusion that,
according
to the Bible, man has only been upon this earth
about
six thousand years. There is no chance there
to say "long periods of
time," or "geological ages."
There we have the years. And as to the
time of the
creation of man, the Bible does not tell the truth.
What is generally called "The Fall of Man" is
unscientific. God
could not have made a moral
character for Adam. Even admitting the
rest of the
story to be true, Adam certainly had to make char-
acter for himself.
The idea that there never would have been
any
disease or death in this world had it not been for the
eating of the forbidden fruit is preposterously unsci-
entific.
Admitting that Adam was made only six
thousand years ago, death was
in the world millions of
years before that time. The old rocks are
filled with re-
mains of what were once living and breathing animals.
Continents were built up with the petrified corpses of
animals. We
know, therefore, that death did not enter
the world because of Adam's
sin. We know that life
and death are but successive Elinks in an
eternal chain.
256
So it is unscientific to say that
thorns and brambles
were produced by Adam's sin.
It is
also unscientific to say that labor was pro-
nounced as a curse upon
man. Labor is not a curse.
Labor is a blessing. Idleness is a curse.
It is unscientific to say that the sons of God,
living, we
suppose, in heaven, fell in love with the
daughters of men, and that
on account of this a
flood was sent upon the earth that covered the
highest mountains.
The whole story of the flood is
unscientific, and no
scientific man worthy of the name, believes it.
Neither is the story of the tower of Babel a scien-
tific
thing. Does any scientific man believe that
God confounded the
language of men for fear they
would succeed in building a tower high
enough to
reach to heaven?
It is not scientific to say
that angels were in the
habit of walking about the earth, eating veal
dressed
with butter and milk, and making bargains about the
destruction of cities.
The story of Lot's wife having been
turned into a
pillar of salt is extremely unscientific.
It
is unscientific to say that people at one time lived
to be nearly a
thousand years of age. The history
257
of the world
shows that human life is lengthening
instead of shortening.
It is unscientific to say that the infinite God
wrestled with
Jacob and got the better of him, put-
ting his thigh out of joint.
It is unscientific to say that God, in the likeness of
a flame
of fire, inhabited a bush.
It is unscientific to say that a
stick could be
changed into a living snake. Living snakes can not
be made out of sticks. There are not the necessary
elements in a
stick to make a snake.
It is not scientific to say that God
changed water
into blood. All the elements of blood are not in
water.
It is unscientific to declare that dust was changed
into lice.
It is not scientific to say that God caused a thick
darkness over the land of Egypt, and yet allowed it
to be light in
the houses of the Jews.
It is not scientific to say that about
seventy people
could, in two hundred and fifteen years increase to
three millions.
It is not scientific to say that an infinitely
good
God would destroy innocent people to get revenge
upon a
king.
258
It is not scientific to say that slavery
was once
right, that polygamy was once a virtue, and that ex-
termination was mercy.
It is not scientific to assert that a
being of infinite
power and goodness went into partnership with in-
sects,—granted letters of marque and reprisal to
hornets.
It is unscientific to insist that bread was really
rained from
heaven.
It is not scientific to suppose that an infinite being
spent forty days and nights furnishing Moses with plans
and
specifications for a tabernacle, an ark, a mercy seat,
cherubs of
gold, a table, four rings, some dishes, some
spoons, one candlestick,
several bowls, a few knobs,
seven lamps, some snuffers, a pair of
tongs, some cur-
tains, a roof for a tent of rams' skins dyed red, a
few
boards, an altar with horns, ash pans, basins and flesh
hooks, shovels and pots and sockets of silver and
ouches of gold and
pins of brass—for all of which this
God brought with him
patterns from heaven.
It is not scientific to say that when a
man commits
a sin, he can settle with God by killing a sheep.
It is not scientific to say that a priest, by laying
his hands
on the head of a goat, can transfer the sins
of a people to the
animal.
259
Was it scientific to endeavor to
ascertain whether
a woman was virtuous or not, by compelling her to
drink water mixed with dirt from the floor of the
sanctuary?
Is it scientific to say that a dry stick budded,
blossomed, and
bore almonds; or that the ashes of a
red heifer mixed with water can
cleanse us of sin;
or that a good being gave cities into the hands of
the
Jews in consideration of their murdering all the in-
habitants?
Is it scientific to say that an animal saw an angel,
and conversed with a man?
Is it scientific to imagine that
thrusting a spear
through the body of a woman ever stayed a plague?
Is it scientific to say that a river cut itself in two
and
allowed the lower end to run off?
Is it scientific to assert
that seven priests blew
seven rams' horns loud enough to blow down
the
walls of a city?
Is it scientific to say that the sun
stood still in the
midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down for
about a whole day, and that the moon also stayed?
Is it
scientifically probable that an angel of the
Lord devoured unleavened
cakes and broth with
fire that came out of the end of a stick, as he
sat
260
under an oak tree; or that God made known
his
will by letting dew fall on wool without wetting the
ground
around it; or that an angel of God appeared
to Manoah in the absence
of her husband, and that
this angel afterwards went up in a flame of
fire, and
as the result of this visit a child was born whose
strength was in his hair?
Is it scientific to say that the
muscle of a man de-
pended upon the length of his locks?
Is it unscientific to deny that water gushed from a
hollow place in a
dry bone?
Is it evidence of a thoroughly scientific mind to
believe that one man turned over a house so large
that three thousand
people were on its roof?
Is it purely scientific to say that a
man was once
fed by the birds of the air, who brought him bread
and meat every morning and evening, and that after-
ward an angel
turned cook and prepared two sup-
pers in one night, for the same
prophet, who ate
enough to last him forty days and forty nights?
Is it scientific to say that a river divided because
the water
had been struck with a cloak; or that a
man actually went to heaven
in a chariot of fire
drawn by horses of fire; or that a being of
infinite
mercy would destroy children for laughing at a bald-
261
headed prophet; or curse children and childrens
children with leprosy for a father's fault; or that he
made iron
float in water; or that when one corpse
touched another it came to
life; or that the sun went
backward in heaven so that the shadow on a
sun-
dial went back ten degrees, as a sign that a miserable
barbarian king would get well?
Is it scientific to say that the
earth not only
stopped in its rotary motion, but absolutely turned
the other way,—that its motion was reversed simply
as a sign to
a petty king?
Is it scientific to say that Solomon made gold
and
silver at Jerusalem as plentiful as stones, when we
know
that there were kings in his day who could
have thrown away the value
of the whole of Palestine
without missing the amount?
Is
it scientific to say that Solomon exceeded all
the kings of the earth
in glory, when his country
was barren, without roads, when his people
were
few, without commerce, without the arts, without the
sciences, without education, without luxuries?
According to the
Bible, as long as Jehovah attended
to the affairs of the Jews, they
had nothing but war,
pestilence and famine; after Jehovah abandoned
them,
and the Christians ceased, in a measure, to persecute
262
them, the Jews became the most prosperous of people.
Since Jehovah in his anger cast them away, they have
produced
painters, sculptors, scientists, statesmen,
composers, soldiers and
philosophers.
It is not scientific to believe that God ever
pre-
vented rain, that he ever caused famine, that he ever
sent
locusts to devour the wheat and corn, that he
ever relied on
pestilence for the government of man-
kind; or that he ever killed
children to get even with
their parents.
It is not
scientific to believe that the king of Egypt
invaded Palestine with
seventy thousand horsemen
and twelve hundred chariots of war. There
was not,
at that time, a road in Palestine over which a chariot
could be driven.
It is not scientific to believe that in a
battle between
Jeroboam and Abijah, the army of Abijah slew in
one day five hundred thousand chosen men.
It is not scientific
to believe that Zerah, the Ethio-
pian, invaded Palestine with a
million of men who
were overthrown and destroyed; or that Jehoshaphat
had a standing army of nine hundred and sixty
thousand men.
It is unscientific to believe that Jehovah advertised
for a
liar, as is related in Second Chronicles.
263
It is
not scientific to believe that fire refused to
burn, or that water
refused to wet.
It is not scientific to believe in dreams, in
visions,
and in miracles.
It is not scientific to believe
that children have
been born without fathers, that the dead have ever
been raised to life, or that people have bodily as-
cended to heaven
taking their clothes with them.
It is not scientific to believe
in the supernatural.
Science dwells in the realm of fact, in the
realm of
demonstration. Science depends upon human ex-
perience,
upon observation, upon reason.
It is unscientific to say that
an innocent man can
be punished in place of a criminal, and for a
criminal,
and that the criminal, on account of such punishment,
can be justified.
It is unscientific to say that a finite sin
deserves
infinite punishment.
It is unscientific to
believe that devils can inhabit
human beings, or that they can take
possession of
swine, or that the devil could bodily take a man, or
the Son of God, and carry him to the pinnacle of a
temple.
In short, the foolish, the unreasonable, the false,
the miraculous
and the supernatural are unscientific.
264
Question.
Mr. Talmage gives his reason for
accepting the New Testament, and
says: "You
"can trace it right out. Jerome and Eusebius in the
"first century, and Origen in the second century,
"gave lists of the
writers of the New Testament.
"These lists correspond with our list
of the writers
"of the New Testament, showing that precisely as
"we have it, they had it in the third and fourth cen-
"turies. Where
did they get it? From Irenæus.
"Where did he get it? From
Polycarp. Where did
"Polycarp get it? From Saint John, who was a per-
"sonal associate of Jesus. The line is just as clear
"as anything
ever was clear." How do you under-
stand this matter, and has Mr.
Talmage stated the
facts?
Answer. Let us examine
first the witnesses pro-
duced by Mr. Talmage. We will also call
attention
to the great principle laid down by Mr. Talmage for
the examination of evidence,—that where a witness
is found
false in one particular, his entire testimony
must be thrown away.
Eusebius was born somewhere about two hundred
and seventy years
after Christ. After many vicissi-
tudes he became, it is said, the
friend of Constantine.
He made an oration in which he extolled the
virtues
265
of this murderer, and had the honor of
sitting at the
right hand of the man who had shed the blood of his
wife and son. In the great controversy with regard
to the position
that Christ should occupy in the Trinity,
he sided with Arius, "and
lent himself to the perse-
"cution of the orthodox with Athanasius."
He in-
sisted that Jesus Christ was not the same as God,
and
that he was not of equal power and glory. Will
Mr. Talmage admit that
his witness told the truth in
this? "He would not even call the Son
co-eternal
"with God."
Eusebius must have been an
exceedingly truthful
man. He declared that the tracks of Pharaoh's
chariots
were in his day visible upon the shores of the Red
Sea;
that these tracks had been through all the years
miraculously
preserved from the action of wind and
wave, as a supernatural
testimony to the fact that
God miraculously overwhelmed Pharaoh and
his
hosts.
Eusebius also relates that when Joseph and Mary
arrived in Eygpt they took up their abode in Hermopolis,
a city
of Thebæus, in which was the superb
temple of Serapis. When
Joseph and Mary entered
the temple, not only the great idol, but all
the lesser
idols fell down before him.
266
"It
is believed by the learned Dr. Lardner, that
"Eusebius was the one
guilty of the forgery in the
"passage found in Josephus concerning
Christ. Un-
"blushing falsehoods and literary forgeries of the
"vilest character darkened the pages of his historical
"writings."
(Waites History.)
From the same authority I learn that Eusebius
invented an eclipse, and some earthquakes, to agree
with the account
of the crucifixion. It is also be-
lieved that Eusebius quoted from
works that never
existed, and that he pretended a work had been
written by Porphyry, entitled: "The Philosophy of
"Oracles," and then
quoted from it for the purpose
of proving the truth of the Christian
religion.
The fact is, Eusebius was utterly destitute of truth.
He believed, as many still believe, that he could
please God by the
fabrication of lies.
Irenæus lived somewhere about the
end of the
second century. "Very little is known of his early
"history, and the accounts given in various biogra-
"phies are for
the most part conjectural." The
writings of Irenæus are known
to us principally
through Eusebius, and we know the value of his
testimony.
Now, if we are to take the testimony of Irenæus,
267
why not take it? He says that the ministry of Christ
lasted for twenty years, and that Christ was fifty years
old at the
time of his crucifixion. He also insisted
that the "Gospel of Paul"
was written by Luke, "a
"statement made to give sanction to the
gospel of
"Luke."
Irenæus insisted that there were
four gospels, that
there must be, and "he speaks frequently of these
"gospels, and argues that they should be four in
"number, neither
more nor less, because there are
"four universal winds, and four
quarters of the
"world;" and he might have added: because
donkeys have four legs.
These facts can be found in "The
History of the
"Christian Religion to A. D. 200," by Charles B.
Waite,—a book that Mr. Talmage ought to read.
According
to Mr. Waite, Irenæus, in the thirty-
third chapter of his
fifth book, Adversus Hæreses,
cites from Papias the
following sayings of Christ:
"The days will come in which vines shall
grow
"which shall have ten thousand branches, and on
"each
branch ten thousand twigs, and in each twig
"ten thousand shoots, and
in each shoot ten thousand
"clusters, and in every one of the
clusters ten
"thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed
268
"will give five and twenty metrets of wine." Also
that "one thousand million pounds of clear, pure, fine
"flour will be
produced from one grain of wheat."
Irenæus adds that "these
things were borne witness
"to by Papias the hearer of John and the
companion
"of Polycarp."
Is it possible that the eternal
welfare of a human
being depends upon believing the testimony of
Poly-
carp and Irenæus? Are people to be saved or lost
on
the reputation of Eusebius? Suppose a man is
firmly convinced that
Polycarp knew nothing about
Saint John, and that Saint John knew
nothing about
Christ,—what then? Suppose he is convinced that
Eusebius is utterly unworthy of credit,—what then?
Must a man
believe statements that he has every
reason to think are false?
The question arises as to the witnesses named by
Mr. Talmage,
whether they were competent to decide
as to the truth or falsehood of
the gospels. We have
the right to inquire into their mental traits
for the
purpose of giving only due weight to what they have
said.
Mr. Bronson C. Keeler is the author of a book
called: "A Short History of the Bible." I avail
myself of a few of
the facts he has there collected. I
269
find in this
book, that Irenæus, Clement and Origen
believed in the fable of
the Phoenix, and insisted that
God produced the bird on purpose to
prove the
probability of the resurrection of the body. Some
of
the early fathers believed that the hyena changed
its sex every year.
Others of them gave as a reason
why good people should eat only
animals with a
cloven foot, the fact that righteous people lived not
only in this world, but had expectations in the next.
They also
believed that insane people were pos-
sessed by devils; that angels
ate manna; that some
angels loved the daughters of men and fell; that
the
pains of women in childbirth, and the fact that ser-
pents
crawl on their bellies, were proofs that the
account of the fall, as
given in Genesis, is true; that
the stag renewed its youth by eating
poisonous
snakes; that eclipses and comets were signs of God's
anger; that volcanoes were openings into hell; that
demons blighted
apples; that a corpse in a cemetery
moved to make room for another
corpse to be placed
beside it. Clement of Alexandria believed that
hail
storms, tempests and plagues were caused by demons.
He also
believed, with Mr. Talmage, that the events
in the life of Abraham
were typical and prophetical
of arithmetic and astronomy.
270
Origen, another of the witnesses of Mr. Talmage,
said
that the sun, moon and stars were living crea-
tures, endowed with
reason and free will, and occa-
sionally inclined to sin. That they
had free will, he
proved by quoting from Job; that they were rational
creatures, he inferred from the fact that they moved.
The sun, moon
and stars, according to him, were
"subject to vanity," and he
believed that they prayed
to God through his only begotten son.
These intelligent witnesses believed that the blight-
ing of
vines and fruit trees, and the disease and de-
struction that came
upon animals and men, were all
the work of demons; but that when they
had entered
into men, the sign of the cross would drive them out.
They derided the idea that the earth is round, and
one of them said:
"About the antipodes also, one
"can neither hear nor speak without
laughter. It is
"asserted as something serious that we should be-
"lieve that there are men who have their feet oppo-
"site to ours.
The ravings of Anaxagoras are more
"tolerable, who said that snow was
black."
Concerning these early fathers, Professor Davidson,
as quoted by Mr. Keeler, uses the following lan-
guage: "Of the three
fathers who contributed
"most to the growth of the canon, Irenæus
was
271
"credulous and blundering; Tertullian
passionate
"and one-sided; and Clement of Alexandria, im-
"bued
with the treasures of Greek wisdom, was
"mainly occupied with
ecclesiastical ethics. Their
"assertions show both ignorance and
exaggeration."
These early fathers relied upon by Mr. Talmage,
quoted from books now regarded as apocryphal—
books that have
been thrown away by the church
and are no longer considered as of the
slightest
authority. Upon this subject I again quote Mr.
Keeler:
"Clement quoted the 'Gospel according to
"'the Hebrews,' which is now
thrown away by the
"church; he also quoted from the Sibylline books
"and the Pentateuch in the same sentence. Origen
"frequently cited
the Gospel of the Hebrews. Jerome
"did the same, and Clement believed
in the 'Gospel
"'according to the Egyptians.' The Shepherd of
"Hermas, a book in high repute in the early church,
"and one which
distinctly claims to have been
"inspired, was quoted by Irenæus
as Scripture.
"Clement of Alexandria said it was a divine revela-
"tion. Origen said it was divinely inspired, and
"quoted it as Holy
Scripture at the same time that
"he cited the Psalms and Epistles of
Paul. Jerome
"quoted the 'Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach,'
272
"as divine Scripture. Origen quotes the 'Wisdom
"of Solomon' as the 'Word of God' and 'the
"'words of Christ
himself.' Eusebius of Cæsarea
"cites it as a * Divine Oracle,'
and St. Chrysostom
"used it as Scripture. So Eusebius quotes the
"thirteenth chapter of Daniel as Scripture, but as a
"matter of fact,
Daniel has not a thirteenth chapter,—
"the church has taken it
away. Clement spoke of
"the writer of the fourth book of Esdras as a
prophet;
"he thought Baruch as much the word of God as
"any
other book, and he quotes it as divine Scripture.
"Clement cites
Barnabas as an apostle. Origen
"quotes from the Epistle of Barnabas,
calls it 'Holy
" 'Scripture,' and places it on a level with the
Psalms
"and the Epistles of Paul; and Clement of Alexan-
"dria
believed in the 'Epistle of Barnabas,' and the
"'Revelation, of
Peter,' and wrote comments upon
"these holy books."
Nothing can exceed the credulity of the early
fathers, unless it may
be their ignorance. They be-
lieved everything that was miraculous.
They believed
everything except the truth. Anything that really
happened was considered of no importance by them.
They looked for
wonders, miracles, and monstrous
things, and—generally found
them. They revelled
273
in the misshapen and the
repulsive. They did not
think it wrong to swear falsely in a good
cause.
They interpolated, forged, and changed the records to
suit themselves, for the sake of Christ. They quoted
from persons who
never wrote. They misrepresented
those who had written, and their
evidence is abso-
lutely worthless. They were ignorant, credulous,
mendacious, fanatical, pious, unreasonable, bigoted,
hypocritical,
and for the most part, insane. Read the
book of Revelation, and you
will agree with me that
nothing that ever emanated from a madhouse
can
more than equal it for incoherence. Most of the
writings of
the early fathers are of the same kind.
As to Saint John, the
real truth is, that we know
nothing certainly of him. We do not know
that he
ever lived.
We know nothing certainly of Jesus
Christ. We
know nothing of his infancy, nothing of his youth,
and we are not sure that such a person ever existed.
We know
nothing of Polycarp. We do not know
where he was born, or where, or
how he died. We
know nothing for certain about Irenæus. All the
names quoted by Mr. Talmage as his witnesses
are surrounded by clouds
and doubts, by mist and
darkness. We only know that many of their
274
statements are false, and do not know that any of
them are true.
Question. What do you think of the
following state-
ment by Mr. Talmage: "Oh, I have to tell you that no
"man ever died for a lie cheerfully and triumphantly"?
Answer.
There was a time when men "cheerfully
"and triumphantly died" in
defence of the doctrine
of the "real presence" of God in the wafer
and wine.
Does Mr. Talmage believe in the doctrine of "tran-
"substantiation"? Yet hundreds have died "cheer-
"fully and
triumphantly" for it. Men have died for
the idea that baptism by
immersion is the only
scriptural baptism. Did they die for a lie? If
not,
is Mr. Talmage a Baptist?
Giordano Bruno was an
atheist, yet he perished at
the stake rather than retract his
opinions. He did
not expect to be welcomed by angels and by God.
He did not look for a crown of glory. He expected
simply death and
eternal extinction. Does the fact
that he died for that belief prove
its truth?
Thousands upon thousands have died in defence of
the religion of Mohammed. Was Mohammed an im-
postor? Thousands have
welcomed death in defence
of the doctrines of Buddha. Is Buddhism
true?
275
So I might make a tour of the world, and
of all
ages of human history, and find that millions and
millions have died "cheerfully and triumphantly" in
defence of their
opinions. There is not the slightest
truth in Mr. Talmage's
statement.
A little while ago, a man shot at the Czar of
Russia.
On the day of his execution he was asked if he
wished
religious consolation. He replied that he
believed in no religion.
What did that prove? It
proved only the man's honesty of opinion. All
the
martyrs in the world cannot change, never did
change, a
falsehood into a truth, nor a truth into
a falsehood. Martyrdom
proves nothing but the
sincerity of the martyr and the cruelty and
mean-
ness of his murderers. Thousands and thousands of
people
have imagined that they knew things, that
they were certain, and have
died rather than retract
their honest beliefs.
Mr. Talmage
now says that he knows all about the
Old Testament, that the
prophecies were fulfilled,
and yet he does not know when the
prophecies were
made—whether they were made before or after the
fact. He does not know whether the destruction of
Babylon was told
before it happened, or after. He
knows nothing upon the subject. He
does not know
276
who made the pretended prophecies.
He does not
know that Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Habakkuk, or
Hosea
ever lived in this world. He does not know
who wrote a single book of
the Old Testament. He
knows nothing on the subject. He believes in
the
inspiration of the Old Testament because ancient
cities
finally fell into decay—were overrun and de-
stroyed by
enemies, and he accounts for the fact that
the Jew does not lose his
nationality by saying that
the Old Testament is true.
The
Jews have been persecuted by the Christians,
and they are still
persecuted by them; and Mr. Tal-
mage seems to think that this
persecution was a part
of Gods plan, that the Jews might, by
persecution,
be prevented from mingling with other nationalities,
and so might stand, through the instrumentality of
perpetual hate and
cruelty, the suffering witnesses of
the divine truth of the Bible.
The Jews do not testify to the truth of the Bible,
but to the
barbarism and inhumanity of Christians—
to the meanness and
hatred of what we are pleased
to call the "civilized world." They
testify to the fact
that nothing so hardens the human heart as
religion.
There is no prophecy in the Old Testament fore-
telling the coming of Jesus Christ. There is not one
277
word in the Old Testament referring to him in any
way—not
one word. The only way to prove this
is to take your Bible, and
wherever you find these
words: "That it might be fulfilled," and
"which
"was spoken," turn to the Old Testament and
find what was
written, and you will see that it had
not the slightest possible
reference to the thing re-
counted in the New Testament—not the
slightest.
Let us take some of the prophecies of the Bible,
and see how plain they are, and how beautiful they
are. Let us see
whether any human being can tell
whether they have ever been
fulfilled or not.
Here is a vision of Ezekiel: "I looked, and
be-
"hold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great
"cloud, and
a fire infolding itself, and a brightness
"was about it, and out of
the midst thereof as the
"color of amber, out of the midst of the
fire. Also
"out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four
"living creatures. And this was their appearance;
"they had the
likeness of a man. And every one
"had four faces, and every one had
four wings.
"And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of
"their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they
"sparkled
like the color of burnished brass. And
"they had the hands of a man
under their wings on
278
"their four sides; and they
four had their faces and
"their wings. Their wings were joined one to
"another; they turned not when-they went; they
"went every one
straight forward. As for the like-
"ness of their faces, they four
had the face of a man,
"and the face of a lion, on the right side:
and they
"four had the face of an ox on the left side; they
"four also had the face of an eagle.
"Thus were their faces:
and their wings were
"stretched upward; two wings of every one were
"joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.
"And they went
every one straight forward: whither
"the spirit was to go, they went;
and they turned not
"when they went.
"As for the likeness
of the living creatures, their
"appearance was like burning coals of
fire, and like
"the appearance of lamps: it went up and down
"among the living creatures; and the fire was bright,
"and out of the
fire went forth lightning. And the
"living creatures ran and returned
as the appearance
"of a flash of lightning.
"Now as I
beheld the living creatures, behold one
"wheel upon the earth by the
living creatures, with
"his four faces. The appearance of the wheels
and
"their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and
279
"they four had one likeness: and their appearance
"and
their work was as it were a wheel in the middle
"of a wheel. When
they went, they went upon
"their four sides: and they turned not when
they
"went. As for their rings, they were so high that
"they
were dreadful; and their rings were full of
"eyes round about them
four. And when the living
"creatures went, the wheels went by them:
and
"when the living creatures were lifted up from the
"earth,
the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever
"the spirit was to go, they
went, thither was their
"spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up
over
"against them: for the spirit of the living creature
"was
in the wheels. When those went, these went;
"and when those stood,
these stood; and when those
"were lifted up from the earth, the
wheels were
"lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the
"living creature was in the wheels. And the like-
"ness of the
firmament upon the heads of the living
"creature was as the color of
the terrible crystal,
"stretched forth over their heads above. And
under
"the firmament were their wings straight, the one
"toward
the other; every one had two, which
"covered on this side, and every
one had two,
"which covered on that side, their bodies."
280
Is such a vision a prophecy? Is it calculated
to
convey the slightest information? If so, what?
So, the
following vision of the prophet Daniel is
exceedingly important and
instructive:
"Daniel spake and said: I saw in my vision by
"night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven
"strove upon the
great sea. And four great beasts
"came up from the sea, diverse one
from another.
"The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings:
"I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it
"was lifted up
from the earth, and made stand upon
"the feet as a man, and a man's
heart was given to
"it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a
"bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had
"three ribs in
the mouth of it between the teeth of
"it: and they said thus unto it,
Arise, devour much
"flesh.
"After this I beheld, and lo
another, like a leopard,
"which had upon the back of it four wings of
a fowl;
"the beast had also four heads, and dominion was
"given
to it.
"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold
"a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong ex-
"ceedingly;
and it had great iron teeth; it devoured
"and brake in pieces, and
stamped the residue with
281
"the feet of it; and it
was diverse from all the beasts
"that were before it, and it had ten
horns. I con-
"sidered the horns, and, behold, there came up
"among them another little horn, before whom
"there were three of the
first horns plucked up by
"the roots: and behold, in this horn were
eyes like
"the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great
"things."
I have no doubt that this prophecy has been liter-
ally
fulfilled, but I am not at present in condition to
give the time,
place, or circumstances.
A few moments ago, my attention was
called to
the following extract from The New York Herald of
the thirteenth of March, instant:
"At the Fifth Avenue Baptist
Church, Dr. Armi-
"tage took as his text, 'A wheel in the middle of a
"'wheel'—Ezekiel, i., 16. Here, said the preacher,
"are three
distinct visions in one—the living crea-
"tures, the moving
wheels and the fiery throne. We
"have time only to stop the wheels of
this mystic
"chariot of Jehovah, that we may hold holy converse
"with Him who rides upon the wings of the wind.
"In this vision of
the prophet we have a minute and
"amplified account of these
magnificent symbols or
"hieroglyphics, this wondrous machinery which
de-
282
"notes immense attributes and agencies and
voli-
"tions, passing their awful and mysterious course of
"power and intelligence in revolution after revolu-
"tion of the
emblematical mechanism, in steady and
"harmonious advancement to the
object after which
"they are reaching. We are compelled to look
"upon the whole as symbolical of that tender and
"endearing
providence of which Jesus spoke when
"He said, 'The very hairs of
your head are num-
"* bered.'"
Certainly, an ordinary
person, not having been
illuminated by the spirit of prophecy, would
never
have even dreamed that there was the slightest re-
ference
in Ezekiel's vision to anything like counting
hairs. As a
commentator, the Rev. Dr. Armitage
has no equal; and, in my judgment,
no rival. He
has placed himself beyond the reach of ridicule. It
is impossible to say anything about his sermon as
laughable as his
sermon.
Question. Have you no confidence in any pro-
phecies? Do you take the ground that there never
has been a human
being who could predict the
future?
Answer. I admit
that a man of average intelli-
283
gence knows that
a certain course, when pursued
long enough, will bring national
disaster, and it is
perfectly safe to predict the downfall of any and
every country in the world. In my judgment,
nations, like
individuals, have an average life.
Every nation is mortal. An
immortal nation cannot
be constructed of mortal individuals. A nation
has
a reason for existing, and that reason sustains the
same
relation to the nation that the acorn does to
the oak. The nation
will attain its growth—other
things being equal. It will reach
its manhood and
its prime, but it will sink into old age, and at last
must die. Probably, in a few thousand years, men
will be able to
calculate the average life of nations,
as they now calculate the
average life of persons.
There has been no period since the morning
of his-
tory until now, that men did not know of dead and
dying
nations. There has always been a national
cemetery. Poland is dead,
Turkey is dying. In
every nation are the seeds of dissolution. Not
only
nations die, but races of men. A nation is born,
becomes
powerful, luxurious, at last grows weak, is
overcome, dies, and
another takes its place, In this
way civilization and barbarism, like
day and night,
alternate through all of history's years.
284
In every nation there are at least two classes of
men:
First, the enthusiastic, the patriotic, who be-
lieve that the nation
will live forever,—that its flag
will float while the earth has
air; Second, the owls
and ravens and croakers, who are always
predicting
disaster, defeat, and death. To the last class belong
the Jeremiahs, Ezekiels, and Isaiahs of the Jews.
They were always
predicting the downfall of Jeru-
salem. They revelled in defeat and
captivity. They
loved to paint the horrors of famine and war. For
the most part, they were envious, hateful, misan-
thropic and unjust.
There seems to have been a war between church
and state. The
prophets were endeavoring to pre-
serve the ecclesiastical power.
Every king who would
listen to them, was chosen of God. He instantly
became the model of virtue, and the prophets assured
him that he was
in the keeping of Jehovah. But if
the king had a mind of his own, the
prophets im-
mediately called down upon him all the curses of
heaven, and predicted the speedy destruction of his
kingdom.
If our own country should be divided, if an empire
should rise
upon the ruins of the Republic, it would
be very easy to find that
hundreds and thousands of
285
people had foretold
that very thing. If you will read
the political speeches of the last
twenty-two years,
you will find prophecies to fit any possible future
state of affairs in our country. No matter what
happens, you will
find that somebody predicted it.
If the city of London should lose
her trade, if the
Parliament house should become the abode of moles
and bats, if "the New Zealander should sit upon the
"ruins of London
Bridge," all these things would be
simply the fulfillment of
prophecy. The fall of every
nation under the sun has been predicted
by hundreds
and thousands of people.
The prophecies of the
Old Testament can be made
to fit anything that may happen, or that
may not
happen. They will apply to the death of a king, or
to
the destruction of a people,—to the loss of com-
merce, or the
discovery of a continent. Each pro-
phecy is a jugglery of words, of
figures, of symbols,
so put together, so used, so interpreted, that
they
can mean anything, everything, or nothing.
Question.
Do you see anything "prophetic" in
the fate of the Jewish people
themselves? Do you
think that God made the Jewish people wanderers,
so
that they might be perpetual witnesses to the truth
of the
Scriptures?
286
Answer. I cannot believe that
an infinitely good
God would make anybody a wanderer. Neither can
I believe that he would keep millions of people with-
out country and
without home, and allow them to be
persecuted for thousands of years,
simply that they
might be used as witnesses. Nothing could be more
absurdly cruel than this.
The Christians justify their
treatment of the Jews
on the ground that they are simply fulfilling
prophecy.
The Jews have suffered because of the horrid story
that their ancestors crucified the Son of God. Chris-
tianity, coming
into power, looked with horror upon
the Jews, who denied the truth of
the gospel. Each
Jew was regarded as a dangerous witness against
Christianity. The early Christians saw how neces-
sary it was that
the people who lived in Jerusalem
at the time of Christ should be
convinced that
he was God, and should testify to the miracles he
wrought. Whenever a Jew denied it, the Christian
was filled with
malignity and hatred, and immediately
excited the prejudice of other
Christians against the
man simply because he was a Jew. They forgot,
in
their general hatred, that Mary, the mother of Christ,
was a
Jewess; that Christ himself was of Jewish
blood; and with an
inconsistency of which, of all
287
religions,
Christianity alone could have been guilty,
the Jew became an object
of especial hatred and
aversion.
When we remember that
Christianity pretends to
be a religion of love and kindness, of
charity and for-
giveness, must not every intelligent man be shocked
by the persecution of the Jews? Even now, in learned
and cultivated
Germany, the Jew is treated as though
he were a wild beast. The
reputation of this great
people has been stained by a persecution
spring-
ing only from ignorance and barbarian prejudice.
So in
Russia, the Christians are anxious to shed
every drop of Jewish
blood, and thousands are to-day
fleeing from their homes to seek a
refuge from Chris-
tian hate. And Mr. Talmage believes that all these
persecutions are kept up by the perpetual intervention
of God, in
order that the homeless wanderers of the
seed of Abraham may testify
to the truth of the Old
and New Testaments. He thinks that every
burning
Jewish home sheds light upon the gospel,—that
every gash in Jewish flesh cries out in favor of the
Bible,—that
every violated Jewish maiden shows the
interest that God still takes
in the preservation of
his Holy Word.
I am endeavoring to
do away with religious
288
prejudice. I wish to
substitute humanity for super-
stition, the love of our fellow-men,
for the fear of
God. In the place of ignorant worship, let us put
good deeds. We should be great enough and grand
enough to know that
the rights of the Jew are pre-
cisely the same as our own. We cannot
trample
upon their rights, without endangering our own; and
no
man who will take liberty from another, is great
enough to enjoy
liberty himself.
Day by day Christians are laying the
foundation
of future persecution. In every Sunday school little
children are taught that Jews killed the God of this
universe. Their
little hearts are filled with hatred
against the Jewish people. They
are taught as a
part of the creed to despise the descendants of the
only people with whom God is ever said to have had
any conversation
whatever.
When we take into consideration what the Jewish
people have suffered, it is amazing that every one of
them does not
hate with all his heart and soul and
strength the entire Christian
world. But in spite of
the persecutions they have endured, they are
to-day,
where they are permitted to enjoy reasonable liberty,
the most prosperous people on the globe. The idea
that their
condition shows, or tends to show, that
289
upon
them abides the wrath of Jehovah, cannot be
substantiated by the
facts.
The Jews to-day control the commerce of the
world.
They control the money of the world. It is
for them to say whether
nations shall or shall not go
to war. They are the people of whom
nations borrow
money. To their offices kings come with their hats
in their hands. Emperors beg them to discount their
notes. Is all
this a consequence of the wrath of
God?
We find upon our
streets no Jewish beggars. It is
a rare sight to find one of these
people standing as
a criminal before a court. They do not fill our
alms-
houses, nor our penitentiaries, nor our jails. In-
tellectually and morally they are the equal of any
people. They have
become illustrious in every de-
partment of art and science. The old
cry against
them is at last perceived to be ignorant. Only a few
years ago, Christians would rob a Jew, strip him of
his possessions,
steal his money, declare him an out-
cast, and drive him forth. Then
they would point
to him as a fulfillment of prophecy.
If
you wish to see the difference between some
Jews and some Christians,
compare the addresses of
Felix Adler with the sermons of Mr. Talmage.
290
I cannot convince myself that an infinitely good
and wise God holds a Jewish babe in the cradle of
to-day responsible
for the crimes of Caiaphas the
high priest. I hardly think that an
infinitely good
being would pursue this little babe through all its
life
simply to get revenge on those who died two thou-
sand
years ago. An infinite being ought certainly to
know that the child
is not to blame; and an infinite
being who does not know this, is not
entitled to the
love or adoration of any honest man.
There
is a strange inconsistency in what Mr. Tal-
mage says. For instance,
he finds great fault with
me because I do not agree with the
religious ideas
of my father; and he finds fault equally with the
Jews who do. The Jews who were true to the re-
ligion of their
fathers, according to Mr. Talmage,
have been made a by-word and a
hissing and a re-
proach among all nations, and only those Jews were
fortunate and blest who abandoned the religion of
their fathers. The
real reason for this inconsistency
is this: Mr. Talmage really thinks
that a man can
believe as he wishes. He imagines that evidence de-
pends simply upon volition; consequently, he holds
every one
responsible for his belief. Being satisfied
that he has the exact
truth in this matter, he meas-
291
ures all other
people by his standard, and if they
fail by that measurement, he
holds them personally
responsible, and believes that his God does the
same.
If Mr. Talmage had been born in Turkey, he would
in all
probability have been a Mohammedan, and
would now be denouncing some
man who had denied
the inspiration of the Koran, as the "champion
blas-
"phemer" of Constantinople. Certainly he would
have been,
had his parents been Mohammedans;
because, according to his doctrine,
he would have
been utterly lacking in respect and love for his father
and mother had he failed to perpetuate their errors.
So, had he been
born in Utah, of Mormon parents,
he would now have been a defender of
polygamy.
He would not "run the ploughshare of contempt
"through
the graves of his parents," by taking the
ground that polygamy is
wrong.
I presume that all of Mr. Talmage's forefathers
were not Presbyterians. There must have been
a time when one of his
progenitors left the faith of
his father, and joined the Presbyterian
Church. Ac-
cording to the reasoning of Mr. Talmage, that particular
progenitor was an exceedingly bad man; but had it
not been for the
crime of that bad man, Mr. Talmage
might not now have been on the
road to heaven.
292
I hardly think that all the
inventors, the thinkers,
the philosophers, the discoverers,
dishonored their
parents. Fathers and mothers have been made
immortal by such sons. And yet these sons demon-
strated the errors
of their parents. A good father
wishes to be excelled by his
children.
SIXTH INTERVIEW.
It is a
contradiction in terms and ideas to call
anything a revelation that
comes to us at second-
hand, either verbally or in writing.
Revelation is
necessarily limited to the first communication—
after this, it is only an account of something
which that person says
was a revelation made to
him; and though he may find himself obliged
to
believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to
believe it in the
same manner; for it was not a
revelation made to me, and I have only
his word
for it that it was made to him.—Thomas Paine.
Question. What do you think of the argu-
ments presented
by Mr. Talmage in favor of
the inspiration of the Bible?
Answer. Mr. Talmage takes the ground that
there are more
copies of the Bible than of any
other book, and that consequently it
must be in-
spired.
It seems to me that this kind of
reasoning proves
entirely too much. If the Bible is the inspired word
of God, it was certainly just as true when there was
only one copy,
as it is to-day; and the facts con-
tained in it were just as true
before they were
296
written, as afterwards. We all
know that it is a fact
in human nature, that a man can tell a
falsehood so
often that he finally believes it himself; but I never
suspected, until now, that a mistake could be printed
enough times to
make it true.
There may have been a time, and probably there
was, when there were more copies of the Koran
than of the Bible. When
most Christians were ut-
terly ignorant, thousands of Moors were
educated;
and it is well known that the arts and sciences
flourished in Mohammedan countries in a far greater
degree than in
Christian. Now, at that time, it may
be that there were more copies
of the Koran than of
the Bible. If some enterprising Mohammedan had
only seen the force of such a fact, he might have
established the
inspiration of the Koran beyond
a doubt; or, if it had been found by
actual count that
the Koran was a little behind, a few years of in-
dustry spent in the multiplication of copies, might
have furnished
the evidence of its inspiration.
Is it not simply amazing that
a doctor of divinity,
a Presbyterian clergyman, in this day and age,
should
seriously rely upon the number of copies of the Bible
to
substantiate the inspiration of that book? Is it
possible to conceive
of anything more fig-leaflessly
297
absurd? If there
is anything at all in this argument,
it is, that all books are true
in proportion to the
number of copies that exist. Of course, the same
rule will work with newspapers; so that the news-
paper having the
largest circulation can consistently
claim infallibility. Suppose
that an exceedingly absurd
statement should appear in The New York
Herald,
and some one should denounce it as utterly without
any foundation in fact or probability; what would
Mr. Talmage think
if the editor of the Herald, as an
evidence of the truth of the
statement, should rely
on the fact that his paper had the largest
circulation
of any in the city? One would think that the whole
church had acted upon the theory that a falsehood re-
peated often
enough was as good as the truth.
Another evidence brought
forward by the reverend
gentleman to prove the inspiration of the
Scriptures,
is the assertion that if Congress should undertake to
pass a law to take the Bible from the people, thirty,
millions would
rise in defence of that book.
This argument also seems to me to
prove too much,
and as a consequence, to prove nothing. If Con-
gress should pass a law prohibiting the reading of
Shakespeare, every
American would rise in defence
of his right to read the works of the
greatest man
298
this world has known. Still, that
would not even
tend to show that Shakespeare was inspired. The
fact is, the American people would not allow Con-
gress to pass a law
preventing them from reading
any good book. Such action would not
prove the
book to be inspired; it would prove that the American
people believe in liberty.
There are millions of people in
Turkey who would
peril their lives in defence of the Koran. A fact
like
this does not prove the truth of the Koran; it simply
proves what Mohammedans think of that book, and
what they are willing
to do for its preservation.
It can not be too often repeated,
that martyrdom
does not prove the truth of the thing for which the
martyr dies; it only proves the sincerity of the martyr
and the
cruelty of his murderers. No matter how
many people regard the Bible
as inspired,—that fact
furnishes no evidence that it is
inspired. Just as many
people have regarded other books as inspired;
just as
many millions have been deluded about the inspiration
of
books ages and ages before Christianity was born.
The simple
belief of one man, or of millions of men,
is no evidence to another.
Evidence must be based,
not upon the belief of other people, but upon
facts.
A believer may state the facts upon which his belief
299
is founded, and the person to whom he states them
gives them the weight that according to the con-
struction and
constitution of his mind he must. But
simple, bare belief is not
testimony. We should build
upon facts, not upon beliefs of others,
nor upon the
shifting sands of public opinion. So much for this
argument.
The next point made by the reverend gentleman
is, that an infidel cannot be elected to any office in
the United
States, in any county, precinct, or ward.
For the sake of the
argument, let us admit that this
is true. What does it prove? There
was a time
when no Protestant could have been elected to any
office. What did that prove? There was a time
when no Presbyterian
could have been chosen to fill
any public station. What did that
prove? The
same may be said of the members of each religious
denomination. What does that prove?
Mr. Talmage says that
Christianity must be true,
because an infidel cannot be elected to
office. Now,
suppose that enough infidels should happen to settle
in one precinct to elect one of their own number to
office; would
that prove that Christianity was not
true in that precinct? There was
a time when no
man could have been elected to any office, who in-
300
sisted on the rotundity of the earth; what did that
prove? There was a time when no man who denied
the existence of
witches, wizards, spooks and devils,
could hold any position of
honor; what did that
prove? There was a time when an abolitionist
could
not be elected to office in any State in this Union;
what
did that prove? There was a time when they
were not allowed to
express their honest thoughts;
what does that prove? There was a time
when a
Quaker could not have been elected to any office;
there
was a time in the history of this country when
but few of them were
allowed to live; what does
that prove? Is it necessary, in order to
ascertain the
truth of Christianity, to look over the election re-
turns? Is "inspiration" a question to be settled by
the ballot? I
admit that it was once, in the first
place, settled that way. I admit
that books were
voted in and voted out, and that the Bible was
finally
formed in accordance with a vote; but does Mr.
Talmage
insist that the question is not still open?
Does he not know, that a
fact cannot by any possi-
bility be affected by opinion? We make laws
for
the whole people, by the whole people. We agree
that a
majority shall rule, but nobody ever pretended
that a question of
taste could be settled by an appeal
301
to
majorities, or that a question of logic could be
affected by numbers.
In the world of thought, each
man is an absolute monarch, each brain
is a king-
dom, that cannot be invaded even by the tyranny of
majorities.
No man can avoid the intellectual responsibility of
deciding for himself.
Suppose that the Christian religion had
been put
to vote in Jerusalem? Suppose that the doctrine of
the
"fall" had been settled in Athens, by an appeal
to the people, would
Mr. Talmage have been willing
to abide by their decision? If he
settles the inspira-
tion of the Bible by a popular vote, he must
settle the
meaning of the Bible by the same means. There are
more Methodists than Presbyterians—why does the
gentleman
remain a Presbyterian? There are more
Buddhists than Christians—why
does he vote against
majorities? He will remember that Christianity
was
once settled by a popular vote—that the divinity of
Christ was submitted to the people, and the people
said: "Crucify
him!"
The next, and about the strongest, argument Mr.
Talmage makes is, that I am an infidel because I was
defeated for
Governor of Illinois.
When put in plain English, his statement
is this:
302
that I was defeated because I was an
infidel, and that
I am an infidel because I was defeated. This, I be-
lieve, is called reasoning in a circle. The truth is,
that a good
many people did object to me because I
was an infidel, and the
probability is, that if I had
denied being an infidel, I might have
obtained an
office. The wonderful part is, that any Christian
should deride me because I preferred honor to po-
litical success. He
who dishonors himself for the
sake of being honored by others, will
find that two
mistakes have been made—one by himself, and the
other, by the people.
I presume that Mr.Talmage really thinks
that I was
extremely foolish to avow my real opinions. After
all, men are apt to judge others somewhat by them-
selves. According
to him, I made the mistake of
preserving my manhood and losing an
office. Now,
if I had in fact been an infidel, and had denied it, for
the sake of position, then I admit that every Christian
might have
pointed at me the finger of contempt.
But I was an infidel, and
admitted it. Surely, I should
not be held in contempt by Christians
for having
made the admission. I was not a believer in the
Bible, and I said so. I was not a Christian, and I said
so. I was not
willing to receive the support of any
303
man under
a false impression. I thought it better to
be honestly beaten, than
to dishonestly succeed.
According to the ethics of Mr. Talmage I made
a
mistake, and this mistake is brought forward as
another
evidence of the inspiration of the Scriptures.
If I had only been
elected Governor of Illinois,—that
is to say, if I had been a
successful hypocrite, I might
now be basking in the sunshine of this
gentleman's
respect. I preferred to tell the truth—to be an
honest man,—and I have never regretted the course
I pursued.
There are many men now in office who, had they
pursued a nobler
course, would be private citizens.
Nominally, they are Christians;
actually, they are
nothing; and this is the combination that
generally
insures political success.
Mr. Talmage is
exceedingly proud of the fact that
Christians will not vote for
infidels. In other words,
he does not believe that in our Government
the
church has been absolutely divorced from the state.
He
believes that it is still the Christian's duty to
make the religious
test. Probably he wishes to get
his God into the Constitution. My
position is this:
Religion is an individual matter—a
something for
each individual to settle for himself, and with which
304
no other human being has any concern, provided the
religion of each human being allows liberty to every
other. When
called upon to vote for men to fill the
offices of this country, I do
not inquire as to the re-
ligion of the candidates. It is none of my
business.
I ask the questions asked by Jefferson: "Is he
"honest; is he capable?" It makes no difference to
me, if he is
willing that others should be free, what
creed he may profess. The
moment I inquire into his
religious belief, I found a little
inquisition of my own;
I repeat, in a small way, the errors of the
past, and
reproduce, in so far as I am capable, the infamy of
the ignorant orthodox years.
Mr. Talmage will accept my thanks
for his frankness.
I now know what controls a Presbyterian when he
casts his vote. He cares nothing for the capacity,
nothing for the
fitness, of the candidate to discharge
the duties of the office to
which he aspires; he
simply asks: Is he a Presbyterian, is he a
Protestant,
does he believe our creed? and then, no matter how
ignorant he may be, how utterly unfit, he receives the
Presbyterian
vote. According to Mr. Talmage, he
would vote for a Catholic who, if
he had the power,
would destroy all liberty of conscience, rather
than
vote for an infidel who, had he the power, would
305
destroy all the religious tyranny of the world, and
allow every
human being to think for himself, and
to worship God, or not, as and
how he pleased.
Mr. Talmage makes the serious mistake of
placing
the Bible above the laws and Constitution of his
country. He places Jehovah above humanity. Such
men are not entirely
safe citizens of any republic.
And yet, I am in favor of giving to
such men all the
liberty I ask for myself, trusting to education and
the
spirit of progress to overcome any injury they may
do, or
seek to do.
When this country was founded, when the Con-
stitution was adopted, the churches agreed to let the
State alone.
They agreed that all citizens should have
equal civil rights. Nothing
could be more dangerous
to the existence of this Republic than to
introduce
religion into politics. The American theory is, that
governments are founded, not by gods, but by men,
and that the right
to govern does not come from
God, but "from the consent of the
governed." Our
fathers concluded that the people were sufficiently
intelligent to take care of themselves—to make good
laws and to
execute them. Prior to that time, all
authority was supposed to come
from the clouds.
Kings were set upon thrones by God, and it was the
306
business of the people simply to submit. In all
really
civilized countries, that doctrine has been abandoned.
The source of political power is here, not in heaven.
We are willing
that those in heaven should control
affairs there; we are willing
that the angels should
have a government to suit themselves; but
while we
live here, and while our interests are upon this earth,
we propose to make and execute our own laws.
If the doctrine of
Mr. Talmage is the true doctrine,
if no man should be voted for
unless he is a Christian,
then no man should vote unless he is a
Christian. It
will not do to say that sinners may vote, that an
infidel
may be the repository of political power, but must not
be voted for. A decent Christian who is not willing
that an infidel
should be elected to an office, would
not be willing to be elected to
an office by infidel
votes. If infidels are too bad to be voted for,
they
are certainly not good enough to vote, and no
Christian
should be willing to represent such an
infamous constituency.
If the political theory of Mr. Talmage is carried
out, of
course the question will arise in a little while,
What is a
Christian? It will then be necessary to
write a creed to be
subscribed by every person before
he is fit to vote or to be voted
for. This of course
307
must be done by the State,
and must be settled,
under our form of government, by a majority
vote.
Is Mr. Talmage willing that the question, What is
Christianity? should be so settled? Will he pledge
himself in advance
to subscribe to such a creed? Of
course he will not. He will insist
that he has the
right to read the Bible for himself, and that he must
be bound by his own conscience. In this he would
be right. If he has
the right to read the Bible for
himself, so have I. If he is to be
bound by his con-
science, so am I. If he honestly believes the Bible
to
be true, he must say so, in order to preserve his man-
hood;
and if I honestly believe it to be uninspired,—
filled with
mistakes,—I must say so, or lose my man-
hood. How infamous I
would be should I endeavor
to deprive him of his vote, or of his
right to be voted
for, because he had been true to his conscience!
And
how infamous he is to try to deprive me of the right
to
vote, or to be voted for, because I am true to my
conscience!
When we were engaged in civil war, did Mr. Tal-
mage object to
any man's enlisting in the ranks who
was not a Christian? Was he
willing, at that time,
that sinners should vote to keep our flag in
heaven?
Was he willing that the "unconverted" should cover
308
the fields of victory with their corpses, that this nation
might not die? At the same time, Mr. Talmage
knew that every
"unconverted" soldier killed, went
down to eternal fire. Does Mr.
Talmage believe that
it is the duty of a man to fight for a
government in
which he has no rights? Is the man who shoulders
his musket in the defence of human freedom good
enough to cast a
ballot? There is in the heart of this
priest the safne hatred of real
liberty that drew the
sword of persecution, that built dungeons, that
forged
chains and made instruments of torture.
Nobody,
with the exception of priests, would be
willing to trust the
liberties of this country in the
hands of any church. In order to
show the political
estimation in which the clergy are held, in order
to
show the confidence the people at large have in the
sincerity
and wisdom of the clergy, it is sufficient to
state, that no priest,
no bishop, could by any possi-
bility be elected President of the
United States. No
party could carry that load. A fear would fall upon
the mind and heart of every honest man that this
country was about to
drift back to the Middle Ages,
and that the old battles were to be
refought. If the
bishop running for President was of the Methodist
Church, every other church would oppose him. If
309
he was a Catholic, the Protestants would as a body
combine against
him. Why? The churches have
no confidence in each other. Why? Because
they
are acquainted with each other.
As a matter of fact,
the infidel has a thousand
times more reason to vote against the
Christian,
than the Christian has to vote against the infidel.
The Christian believes in a book superior to the
Constitution—superior
to all Constitutions and all
laws. The infidel believes that the
Constitution and
laws are superior to any book. He is not controlled
by any power beyond the seas or above the clouds.
He does not receive
his orders from Rome, or Sinai.
He receives them from his
fellow-citizens, legally and
constitutionally expressed. The
Christian believes in
a power greater than man, to which, upon the
peril
of eternal pain, he must bow. His allegiance, to say
the
best of it, is divided. The Christian puts the for-
tune of his own
soul over and above the temporal
welfare of the entire world; the
infidel puts the good
of mankind here and now, beyond and over all.
There was a time in New England when only
church members were
allowed to vote, and it may be
instructive to state the fact that
during that time
Quakers were hanged, women were stripped, tied to
310
carts, and whipped from town to town, and their
babes sold into slavery, or exchanged for rum. Now
in that same
country, thousands and thousands of
infidels vote, and yet the laws
are nearer just, women
are not whipped and children are not sold.
If all the convicts in all the penitentiaries of the
United
States could be transported to some island in
the sea, and there
allowed to make a government for
themselves, they would pass better
laws than John
Calvin did in Geneva. They would have clearer and
better views of the rights of men, than unconvicted
Christians used
to have. I do not say that these
convicts are better people, but I do
say that, in my
judgment, they would make better laws. They cer-
tainly could not make worse.
If these convicts were taken from
the prisons of
the United States, they would not dream of uniting
church and state. They would have no religious
test. They would allow
every man to vote and to be
voted for, no matter what his religious
views might
be. They would not dream of whipping Quakers, of
burning Unitarians, of imprisoning or burning Uni-
versalists or
infidels. They would allow all the people
to guess for themselves.
Some of these convicts, of
course, would believe in the old ideas,
and would
insist upon the suppression of free thought. Those
coming from Delaware would probably repeat with
great gusto the
opinions of Justice Comegys, and
insist that the whipping-post was
the handmaid of
Christianity.
It would be hard to conceive
of a much worse
government than that founded by the Puritans.
They took the Bible for the foundation of their
political structure.
They copied the laws given to
Moses from Sinai, and the result was
one of the
worst governments that ever disgraced this world.
They believed the Old Testament to be inspired.
They believed that
Jehovah made laws for all people
and for all time. They had not
learned the hypoc-
risy that believes and avoids. They did not say:
This law was once just, but is now unjust; it was
once good, but now
it is infamous; it was given by
God once, but now it can only be
obeyed by the
devil. They had not reached the height of biblical
exegesis on which we find the modern theologian
perched, and who
tells us that Jehovah has reformed.
The Puritans were consistent.
They did what people
must do who honestly believe in the inspiration
of
the Old Testament. If God gave laws from Sinai
what right
have we to repeal them?
312
As people have gained
confidence in each other,
they have lost confidence in the sacred
Scriptures.
We know now that the Bible can not be used as the
foundation of government. It is capable of too many
meanings. Nobody
can find out exactly what it
upholds, what it permits, what it
denounces, what it
denies. These things depend upon what part you
read. If it is all true, it upholds everything bad and
denounces
everything good, and it also denounces
the bad and upholds the good.
Then there are
passages where the good is denounced and the bad
commanded; so that any one can go to the Bible
and find some text,
some passage, to uphold anything
he may desire. If he wishes to
enslave his fellow-
men, he will find hundreds of passages in his
favor.
If he wishes to be a polygamist, he can find his
authority there. If he wishes to make war, to exter-
minate his
neighbors, there his warrant can be found.
If, on the other hand, he
is oppressed himself, and
wishes to make war upon his king, he can
find a
battle-cry. And if the king wishes to put him down,
he
can find text for text on the other side. So, too,
upon all questions
of reform. The teetotaler goes
there to get his verse, and the
moderate drinker
finds within the sacred lids his best excuse.
313
Most intelligent people are now convinced that the
bible is not a guide; that in reading it you must
exercise your
reason; that you can neither safely
reject nor accept all; that he
who takes one passage
for a staff, trips upon another; that while one
text is
a light, another blows it out; that it is such a ming-
ling of rocks and quicksands, such a labyrinth of
clews and snares—so
few flowers among so many
nettles and thorns, that it misleads rather
than di-
rects, and taken altogether, is a hindrance and not
a
help.
Another important point made by Mr. Talmage is,
that
if the Bible is thrown away, we will have nothing
left to swear
witnesses on, and that consequently the
administration of justice
will become impossible.
There was a time when the Bible did not
exist, and
if Mr. Talmage is correct, of course justice was im-
possible then, and truth must have been a stranger
to human lips. How
can we depend upon the testi-
mony of those who wrote the Bible, as
there was no
Bible in existence while they were writing, and con-
sequently there was no way to take their testimony,
and we have no
account of their having been sworn
on the Bible after they got it
finished. It is extremely
sad to think that all the nations of
antiquity were left
314
entirely without the means
of eliciting truth. No
wonder that Justice was painted blindfolded.
What perfect fetichism it is, to imagine that a man
will tell
the truth simply because he has kissed an
old piece of sheepskin
stained with the saliva of all
classes. A farce of this kind adds
nothing to the
testimony of an honest man; it simply allows a rogue
to give weight to his false testimony. This is really
the only result
that can be accomplished by kissing
the Bible. A desperate villain,
for the purpose of
getting revenge, or making money, will gladly go
through the ceremony, and ignorant juries and su-
perstitious judges
will be imposed upon. The whole
system of oaths is false, and does
harm instead of
good. Let every man walk into court and tell his
story, and let the truth of the story be judged by its
reasonableness, taking into consideration the charac-
ter of the
witness, the interest he has, and the posi-
tion he occupies in the
controversy, and then let it
be the business of the jury to ascertain
the real truth
—to throw away the unreasonable and the impossi-
ble, and make up their verdict only upon what they
believe to be
reasonable and true. An honest man
does not need the oath, and a
rascal uses it simply
to accomplish his purpose. If the history of
courts
315
proved that every man, after kissing the
Bible, told
the truth, and that those who failed to kiss it some-
times lied, I should be in favor of swearing all people
on the Bible;
but the experience of every lawyer is,
that kissing the Bible is not
always the preface of a
true story. It is often the ceremonial
embroidery
of a falsehood.
If there is an infinite God who
attends to the
affairs of men, it seems to me almost a sacrilege to
publicly appeal to him in every petty trial. If one
will go into any
court, and notice the manner in
which oaths are administered,—the
utter lack of
solemnity—the matter-of-course air with which the
whole thing is done, he will be convinced that it is a
form of no
importance. Mr. Talmage would probably
agree with the judge of whom
the following story is
told:
A witness was being sworn.
The judge noticed
that he was not holding up his hand. He said to the
clerk: "Let the witness hold up his right hand."
"His right arm was
shot off," replied the clerk. "Let
"him hold up his left, then."
"That was shot off, too,
"your honor." "Well, then, let him raise one
foot;
"no man can be sworn in this court without holding
"something up."
My own opinion is, that if every copy of
the Bible
in the world were destroyed, there would be some
way
to ascertain the truth in judicial proceedings;
and any other book
would do just as well to swear
witnesses upon, or a block in the
shape of a book
covered with some kind of calfskin could do equally
well, or just the calfskin would do. Nothing is more
laughable than
the performance of this ceremony,
and I have never seen in court one
calf kissing the
skin of another, that I did not feel humiliated that
such things were done in the name of Justice.
Mr. Talmage has
still another argument in favor
of the preservation of the Bible. He
wants to
know what book could take its place on the centre-
table.
I admit that there is much force in this. Suppose
we all admitted the Bible to be an uninspired book,
it could still be
kept on the centre-table. It would
be just as true then as it is now.
Inspiration can not
add anything to a fact; neither can inspiration
make
the immoral moral, the unjust just, or the cruel merci-
ful. If it is a fact that God established human slavery,
that does
not prove slavery to be right; it simply
shows that God was wrong. If
I have the right to
use my reason in determining whether the Bible is
317
inspired or not, and if in accordance with my reason
I conclude that it is inspired, I have still the right to
use my
reason in determining whether the command-
ments of God are good or
bad. Now, suppose we
take from the Bible every word upholding
slavery,
every passage in favor of polygamy, every verse
commanding soldiers to kill women and children, it
would be just as
fit for the centre-table as now. Sup-
pose every impure word was
taken from it; suppose
that the history of Tamar was left out, the
biography
of Lot, and all other barbarous accounts of a barbarous
people, it would look just as well upon the centre-
table as now.
Suppose that we should become convinced that
the writers of the
New Testament were mistaken as
to the eternity of punishment, or that
all the passages
now relied upon to prove the existence of perdition
were shown to be interpolations, and were thereupon
expunged, would
not the book be dearer still to
every human being with a heart? I
would like to
see every good passage in the Bible preserved. I
would like to see, with all these passages from the
Bible, the
loftiest sentiments from all other books
that have ever been uttered
by men in all ages and
of all races, bound in one volume, and to see
that
318
volume, filled with the greatest, the
purest and the
best, become the household book.
The
average Bible, on the average centre-table, is
about as much used as
though it were a solid block.
It is scarcely ever opened, and people
who see its
covers every day are unfamiliar with its every page.
I admit that some things have happened some-
what hard to
explain, and tending to show that the
Bible is no ordinary book. I
heard a story, not long
ago, bearing upon this very subject.
A man was a member of the church, but after a
time, having had
bad luck in business affairs, became
somewhat discouraged. Not
feeling able to con-
tribute his share to the support of the church,
he
ceased going to meeting, and finally became an
average
sinner. His bad luck pursued him until he
found himself and his
family without even a crust to
eat. At this point, his wife told him
that she be-
lieved they were suffering from a visitation of God,
and begged him to restore family worship, and see if
God would not do
something for them. Feeling that
he could not possibly make matters
worse, he took
the Bible from its resting place on a shelf where
it had quietly slumbered and collected the dust of
many months, and
gathered his family about him.
319
He opened the
sacred volume, and to his utter as-
tonishment, there, between the
divine leaves, was a
ten-dollar bill. He immediately dropped on his
knees. His wife dropped on hers, and the children on
theirs, and with
streaming eyes they returned thanks
to God. He rushed to the
butcher's and bought
some steak, to the baker's and bought some
bread,
to the grocer's and got some eggs and butter and tea,
and
joyfully hastened home. The supper was cooked,
it was on the table,
grace was said, and every face
was radiant with joy. Just at that
happy moment a
knock was heard, the door was opened, and a police-
man entered and arrested the father for passing
counterfeit money.
Mr. Talmage is also convinced that the Bible is
inspired and
should be preserved because there is no
other book that à
mother could give her son as he
leaves the old home to make his way
in the world.
Thousands and thousands of mothers have pre-
sented their sons with Bibles without knowing really
what the book
contains. They simply followed the
custom, and the sons as a rule
honored the Bible, not
because they knew anything of it, but because
it was
a gift from mother. But surely, if all the passages
upholding polygamy were out, the mother would give
320
the book to her son just as readily, and he would re-
ceive it
just as joyfully. If there were not one word
in it tending to degrade
the mother, the gift would cer-
tainly be as appropriate. The fact
that mothers have
presented Bibles to their sons does not prove that
the
book is inspired. The most that can be proved by
this fact
is that the mothers believed it to be inspired.
It does not even tend
to show what the book is,
neither does it tend to establish the truth
of one
miracle recorded upon its pages. We cannot believe
that
fire refused to burn, simply because the state-
ment happens to be in
a book presented to a son by
his mother, and if all the mothers of
the entire world
should give Bibles to all their children, this would
not
prove that it was once right to murder mothers, or to
enslave mothers, or to sell their babes.
The inspiration of the
Bible is not a question of
natural affection. It can not be decided
by the love
a mother bears her son. It is a question of fact, to
be substantiated like other facts. If the Turkish
mother should give
a copy of the Koran to her
son, I would still have my doubts about
the in-
spiration of that book; and if some Turkish soldier
saved his life by having in his pocket a copy of
the Koran that
accidentally stopped a bullet just
321
opposite his
heart, I should still deny that Mohammed
was a prophet of God.
Nothing can be more childish than to ascribe
mysterious powers
to inanimate objects. To imagine
that old rags made into pulp,
manufactured into
paper, covered with words, and bound with the skin
of a calf or a sheep, can have any virtues when thus
put together
that did not belong to the articles out
of which the book was
constructed, is of course
infinitely absurd.
In the days
of slavery, negroes used to buy dried
roots of other negroes, and put
these roots in their
pockets, so that a whipping would not give them
pain. Kings have bought diamonds to give them
luck. Crosses and
scapularies are still worn for the
purpose of affecting the
inevitable march of events.
People still imagine that a verse in the
Bible can step
in between a cause and its effect; really believe that
an amulet, a charm, the bone of some saint, a piece
of a cross, a
little image of the Virgin, a picture of a
priest, will affect the
weather, will delay frost, will
prevent disease, will insure safety
at sea, and in some
cases prevent hanging. The banditti of Italy have
great confidence in these things, and whenever they
start upon an
expedition of theft and plunder, they
322
take
images and pictures of saints with them, such
as have been blest by a
priest or pope. They pray
sincerely to the Virgin, to give them luck,
and see not
the slightest inconsistency in appealing to all the
saints in the calendar to assist them in robbing honest
people.
Edmund About tells a story that illustrates the belief
of the
modern Italian. A young man was gambling.
Fortune was against him. In
the room was a little
picture representing the Virgin and her child.
Before
this picture he crossed himself, and asked the assist-
ance of the child. Again he put down his money
and again lost.
Returning to the picture, he told the
child that he had lost all but
one piece, that he was
about to hazard that, and made a very urgent
request
that he would favor him with divine assistance. He
put
down the last piece. He lost. Going to the
picture and shaking his
fist at the child, he cried out:
"Miserable bambino, I am glad they
crucified you!"
The confidence that one has in an image, in a
relic,
in a book, comes from the same source,—fetichism.
To ascribe supernatural virtues to the skin of a snake,
to a picture,
or to a bound volume, is intellectually
the same.
Mr.
Talmage has still another argument in favor
323
of
the inspiration of the Scriptures. He takes the
ground that the Bible
must be inspired, because so
many people believe it.
Mr.
Talmage should remember that a scientific
fact does not depend upon
the vote of numbers;—
it depends simply upon demonstration; it
depends
upon intelligence and investigation, not upon an
ignorant multitude; it appeals to the highest, in-
stead of to the
lowest. Nothing can be settled
by popular prejudice.
According to Mr. Talmage, there are about three
hundred million
Christians in the world. Is this true?
In all countries claiming to
be Christian—including
all of civilized Europe, Russia in Asia,
and every
country on the Western hemisphere, we have nearly
four
hundred millions of people. Mr. Talmage claims
that three hundred
millions are Christians. I sup-
pose he means by this, that if all
should perish to-
night, about three hundred millions would wake up
in heaven—having lived and died good and consist-
ent
Christians.
There are in Russia about eighty millions of people
—how many Christians? I admit that they have re-
cently given
more evidence of orthodox Christianity
than formerly. They have been
murdering old men;
324
they have thrust daggers into
the breasts of women;
they have violated maidens—because they
were Jews.
Thousands and thousands are sent each year to the
mines of Siberia, by the Christian government of
Russia. Girls
eighteen years of age, for having ex-
pressed a word in favor of
human liberty, are to-day
working like beasts of burden, with chains
upon
their limbs and with the marks of whips upon
their backs.
Russia, of course, is considered by Mr.
Talmage as a Christian
country—a country utterly
destitute of liberty—without
freedom of the press,
without freedom of speech, where every mouth is
locked and every tongue a prisoner—a country filled
with
victims, soldiers, spies, thieves and executioners.
What would Russia
be, in the opinion of Mr. Tal-
mage, but for Christianity? How could
it be worse,
when assassins are among the best people in it?
The
truth is, that the people in Russia, to-day, who
are in favor of
human liberty, are not Christians.
The men willing to sacrifice their
lives for the good
of others, are not believers in the Christian
religion.
The men who wish to break chains are infidels;
the men
who make chains are Christians. Every
good and sincere Catholic of
the Greek Church
is a bad citizen, an enemy of progress, a foe of
325
human liberty. Yet Mr. Talmage regards Russia
as
a Christian country.
The sixteen millions of people in Spain
are claimed
as Christians. Spain, that for centuries was the as-
sassin of human rights; Spain, that endeavored to
spread Christianity
by flame and fagot; Spain, the
soil where the Inquisition flourished,
where bigotry
grew, and where cruelty was worship,—where
murder was prayer. I admit that Spain is a Chris-
tian nation. I
admit that infidelity has gained no
foothold beyond the Pyrenees. The
Spaniards are
orthodox. They believe in the inspiration of the
Old and New Testaments. They have no doubts
about miracles—no
doubts about heaven, no doubts
about hell. I admit that the priests,
the highway-
men, the bishops and thieves, are equally true be-
lievers. The man who takes your purse on the
highway, and the priest
who forgives the robber,
are alike orthodox.
It gives me
pleasure, however, to say that even in
Spain there is a dawn. Some
great men, some men
of genius, are protesting against the tyranny of
Cath-
olicism. Some men have lost confidence in the
cathedral,
and are beginningto ask the State to erect
the schoolhouse. They are
beginning to suspect
326
that priests are for the
most part impostors and
plunderers.
According to Mr.
Talmage, the twenty-eight mil-
lions in Italy are Christians. There
the Christian
Church was early established, and the popes are to-
day the successors of St. Peter. For hundreds and
hundreds of years,
Italy was the beggar of the world,
and to her, from every land,
flowed streams of gold
and silver. The country was covered with
convents,
and monasteries, and churches, and cathedrals filled
with monks and nuns. Its roads were crowded with
pilgrims, and its
dust was on the feet of the world.
What has Christianity done for
Italy—Italy, its soil a
blessing, its sky a smile—Italy,
with memories great
enough to kindle the fires of enthusiasm in any
human breast?
Had it not been for a few Freethinkers, for a few
infidels, for such men as Garibaldi and Mazzini, the
heaven of Italy
would still have been without a star.
I admit that Italy, with
its popes and bandits, with
its superstition and ignorance, with its
sanctified
beggars, is a Christian nation; but in a little while,—
in a few days,—when according to the prophecy of
Garibaldi
priests, with spades in their hands, will
dig ditches to drain the
Pontine marshes; in a little
327
while, when the
pope leaves the Vatican, and seeks
the protection of a nation he has
denounced,—asking
alms of intended victims; when the nuns shall
marry,
and the monasteries shall become factories, and the
whirl
of wheels shall take the place of drowsy prayers
—then, and not
until then, will Italy be,—not a
Christian nation, but great,
prosperous, and free.
In Italy, Giordano Bruno was burned. Some
day,
his monument will rise above the cross of Rome.
We
have in our day one example,—and so far as I
know, history
records no other,—of the resurrection
of a nation. Italy has
been called from the grave of
superstition. She is "the first fruits
of them that
"slept."
I admit with Mr. Talmage that
Portugal is a Chris-
tian country—that she engaged for hundreds
of years
in the slave trade, and that she justified the infamous
traffic by passages in the Old Testament. I admit,
also, that she
persecuted the Jews in accordance
with the same divine volume. I
admit that all the
crime, ignorance, destitution, and superstition in
that
country were produced by the Catholic Church. I
also admit
that Portugal would be better if it were
Protestant.
Every
Catholic is in favor of education enough to
328
change a barbarian into a Catholic; every Protestant
is in favor of
education enough to change a Catholic
into a Protestant; but
Protestants and Catholics alike
are opposed to education that will
lead to any
real philosophy and science. I admit that Portugal
is what it is, on account of the preaching of the
gospel. I admit
that Portugal can point with pride
to the triumphs of what she calls
civilization within
her borders, and truthfully ascribe the glory to
the
church. But in a litde while, when more railroads
are built,
when telegraphs connect her people with
the civilized world, a spirit
of doubt, of investigation,
will manifest itself in Portugal.
When the people stop counting beads, and go to
the study of
mathematics; when they think more of
plows than of prayers for
agricultural purposes; when
they find that one fact gives more light
to the mind
than a thousand tapers, and that nothing can by any
possibility be more useless than a priest,—then Por-
tugal will
begin to cease to be what is called a
Christian nation.
I
admit that Austria, with her thirty-seven millions,
is a Christian
nation—including her Croats, Hungar-
ians, Servians, and
Gypsies. Austria was one of the
assassins of Poland. When we remember
that John
329
Sobieski drove the Mohammedans from
the gates of
Vienna, and rescued from the hand of the "infidel"
the beleagured city, the propriety of calling Austria a
Christian
nation becomes still more apparent. If one
wishes to know exactly how
"Christian" Austria is,
let him read the history of Hungary, let him
read
the speeches of Kossuth. There is one good thing
about
Austria: slowly but surely she is undermining
the church by
education. Education is the enemy
of superstition. Universal
education does away with
the classes born of the tyranny of
ecclesiasticism—
classes founded upon cunning, greed, and brute
strength. Education also tends to do away with
intellectual
cowardice. The educated man is his
own priest, his own pope, his own
church.
When cunning collects tolls from fear, the church
prospers.
Germany is another Christian nation. Bismarck is
celebrated for his Christian virtues.
Only a little while ago,
Bismarck, when a bill was
under consideration for ameliorating the
condition
of the Jews, stated publicly that Germany was a
Christian nation, that her business was to extend
and protect the
religion of Jesus Christ, and that
being a Christian nation, no laws
should be passed
330
ameliorating the condition of
the Jews. Certainly a
remark like this could not have been made in
any
other than a Christian nation. There is no freedom
of the
press, there is no freedom of speech, in Ger-
many. The Chancellor
has gone so far as to declare
that the king is not responsible to the
people. Ger-
many must be a Christian nation. The king gets his
right to govern, not from his subjects, but from God.
He relies upon
the New Testament. He is satisfied
that "the powers that be in
Germany are ordained
"of God." He is satisfied that treason against
the
German throne is treason against Jehovah. There
are millions
of Freethinkers in Germany. They are
not in the majority, otherwise
there would be more
liberty in that country. Germany is not an
infidel
nation, or speech would be free, and every man
would be
allowed to express his honest thoughts.
Wherever I see Liberty
in chains, wherever the
expression of opinion is a crime, I know that
that
country is not infidel; I know that the people are not
ruled by reason. I also know that the greatest men
of Germany—her
Freethinkers, her scientists, her
writers, her philosophers, are, for
the most part, in-
fidel. Yet Germany is called a Christian nation,
and
ought to be so called until her citizens are free.
331
France is also claimed as a Christian country. This
is not
entirely true. France once was thoroughly
Catholic, completely
Christian. At the time of the
massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the
French were
Christians. Christian France made exiles of the
Huguenots. Christian France for years and years
was the property of
the Jesuits. Christian France
was ignorant, cruel, orthodox and
infamous. When
France was Christian, witnesses were cross-examined
with instruments of torture.
Now France is not entirely under
Catholic control,
and yet she is by far the most prosperous nation in
Europe. I saw, only the other day, a letter from a
Protestant bishop,
in which he states that there are
only about a million Protestants in
France, and only
four or five millions of Catholics, and admits, in a
very melancholy way, that thirty-four or thirty-five
millions are
Freethinkers. The bishop is probably
mistaken in his figures, but
France is the best housed,
the best fed, the best clad country in
Europe.
Only a little while ago, France was overrun, trampled
into the very earth, by the victorious hosts of Ger-
many, and France
purchased her peace with the
savings of centuries. And yet France is
now rich and
prosperous and free, and Germany poor, discontented
332
and enslaved. Hundreds and thousands of Germans,
unable to find liberty at home, are coming to the
United States.
I admit that England is a Christian country. Any
doubts upon
this point can be dispelled by reading
her history—her career
in India, what she has done
in China, her treatment of Ireland, of
the American
Colonies, her attitude during our Civil war; all these
things show conclusively that England is a Christian
nation.
Religion has filled Great Britain with war. The
history of the
Catholics, of the Episcopalians, of
Cromwell—all the burnings,
the maimings, the brand-
ings, the imprisonments, the confiscations,
the civil
wars, the bigotry, the crime—show conclusively that
Great Britain has enjoyed to the full the blessings of
"our most holy
religion."
Of course, Mr. Talmage claims the United States
as a Christian country. The truth is, our country is
not as Christian
as it once was. When heretics were
hanged in New England, when the
laws of Virginia
and Maryland provided that the tongue of any man
who denied the doctrine of the Trinity should be
bored with hot
iron,, and that for the second offence
he should suffer death, I
admit that this country was
333
Christian. When we
engaged in the slave trade,
when our flag protected piracy and murder
in every
sea, there is not the slightest doubt that the United
States was a Christian country. When we believed
in slavery, and when
we deliberately stole the labor
of four millions of people; when we
sold women
and babes, and when the people of the North
enacted a
law by virtue of which every Northern
man was bound to turn hound and
pursue a human
being who was endeavoring to regain his liberty, I
admit that the United States was a Christian nation.
I admit that all
these things were upheld by the Bible
—that the slave trader
was justified by the Old Testa-
ment, that the bloodhound was a kind
of missionary
in disguise, that the auction block was an altar, the
slave pen a kind of church, and that the whipping-
post was
considered almost as sacred as the cross.
At that time, our country
was a Christian nation.
I heard Frederick Douglass say that he
lectured
against slavery for twenty years before the doors
of a
single church were opened to him. In New
England, hundreds of
ministers were driven from
their pulpits because they preached
against the
crime of human slavery. At that time, this country
was a Christian nation.
334
Only a few years ago,
any man speaking in favor
of the rights of man, endeavoring to break
a chain
from a human limb, was in danger of being mobbed
by the
Christians of this country. I admit that Dela-
ware is still a
Christian State. I heard a story about
that State the other day.
About fifty years ago, an old Revolutionary soldier
applied for
a pension. He was asked his age, and he
replied that he was fifty
years old. He was told that
if that was his age, he could not have
been in the
Revolutionary War, and consequently was not en-
titled to any pension. He insisted, however, that he
was only fifty
years old. Again they told him that
there must be some mistake. He
was so wrinkled,
so bowed, had so many marks of age, that he must
certainly be more than fifty years old. "Well," said
the old man, "if
I must explain, I will: I lived forty
"years in Delaware; but I never
counted that time,
"and I hope God won't."
The fact is, we
have grown less and less Christian
every year from 1620 until now,
and the fact is that
we have grown more and more civilized, more and
more charitable, nearer and nearer just.
Mr. Talmage speaks as
though all the people in
what he calls the civilized world were
Christians. Ad-
335
mitting this to be true, I find
that in these countries
millions of men are educated, trained and
drilled to
kill their fellow Christians. I find Europe covered
with forts to protect Christians from Christians, and
the seas filled
with men-of-war for the purpose of
ravaging the coasts and destroying
the cities of Chris-
tian nations. These countries are filled with
prisons,
with workhouses, with jails and with toiling, ignorant
and suffering millions. I find that Christians have
invented most of
the instruments of death, that
Christians are the greatest soldiers,
fighters, de-
stroyers. I find that every Christian country is taxed
to its utmost to support these soldiers; that every
Christian nation
is now groaning beneath the grievous
burden of monstrous debt, and
that nearly all these
debts were contracted in waging war. These
bonds,
these millions, these almost incalculable amounts,
were
given to pay for shot and shell, for rifle and
torpedo, for
men-of-war, for forts and arsenals, and
all the devilish enginery of
death. I find that each
of these nations prays to God to assist it as
against
all others; and when one nation has overrun, ravaged
and
pillaged another, it immediately returns thanks
to the Almighty, and
the ravaged and pillaged kneel
and thank God that it is no worse.
336
Mr. Talmage is welcome to all the evidence he can
find in the history of what he is pleased to call the
civilized
nations of the world, tending to show the
inspiration of the Bible.
And right here it may be well enough to say again,
that the
question of inspiration can not be settled by
the votes of the
superstitious millions. It can not be
affected by numbers. It must be
decided by each
human being for himself. If every man in this world,
with one exception, believed the Bible to be the in-
spired word of
God, the man who was the exception
could not lose his right to think,
to investigate, and to
judge for himself.
Question.
You do not think, then, that any of the
arguments brought forward by
Mr. Talmage for the
purpose of establishing the inspiration of the
Bible,
are of any weight whatever?
Answer. I do
not. I do not see how it is possible
to make poorer, weaker or better
arguments than he
has made.
Of course, there can be no
"evidence" of the in-
spiration of the Scriptures. What is
"inspiration"?
Did God use the prophets simply as instruments?
Did he put his thoughts in their minds, and use their
337
hands to make a record? Probably few Christians
will agree as
to what they mean by "inspiration."
The general idea is, that the
minds of the writers of
the books of the Bible were controlled by the
divine
will in such a way that they expressed, independently
of
their own opinions, the thought of God. I believe it
is admitted that
God did not choose the exact words,
and is not responsible for the
punctuation or syntax.
It is hard to give any reason for claiming
more for
the Bible than is claimed by those who wrote it.
There
is no claim of "inspiration" made by the writer
of First and Second
Kings. Not one word about the
author having been "inspired" is found
in the book
of Job, or in Ruth, or in Chronicles, or in the Psalms,
or Ecclesiastes, or in Solomon's Song, and nothing is
said about the
author of the book of Esther having
been "inspired." Christians now
say that Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John were "inspired" to write the
four gospels, and yet neither Mark, nor Luke, nor
John, nor Matthew
claims to have been "inspired."
If they were "inspired," certainly
they should have
stated that fact. The very first thing stated in
each
of the gospels should have been a declaration by the
writer
that he had been "inspired," and that he was
about to write the book
under the guidance of God,
338
and at the conclusion
of each gospel there should
have been a solemn statement that the
writer had
put down nothing of himself, but had in all things
followed the direction and guidance of the divine
will. The church
now endeavors to establish the
inspiration of the Bible by force, by
social ostracism,
and by attacking the reputation of every man who
denies or doubts. In all Christian countries, they
begin with the
child in the cradle. Each infant is
told by its mother, by its
father, or by some of its
relatives, that "the Bible is an inspired
book." This
pretended fact, by repetition "in season and out of
"season," is finally burned and branded into the
brain to such a
degree that the child of average
intelligence never outgrows the
conviction that the
Bible is, in some peculiar sense, an "inspired"
book.
The question has to be settled for each generation.
The
evidence is not sufficient, and the foundation of
Christianity is
perpetually insecure. Beneath this great
religious fabric there is no
rock. For eighteen centu-
ries, hundreds and thousands and millions
of people
have been endeavoring to establish the fact that the
Scriptures are inspired, and since the dawn of science,
since the
first star appeared in the night of the
Middle Ages, until this
moment, the number of
339
people who have doubted
the fact of inspiration
has steadily increased. These doubts have not
been
born of ignorance, they have not been suggested by
the
unthinking. They have forced themselves upon
the thoughtful, upon the
educated, and now the ver-
dict of the intellectual world is, that
the Bible is not
inspired. Notwithstanding the fact that the church
has taken advantage of infancy, has endeavored to
control education,
has filled all primers and spelling-
books and readers and text books
with superstition—
feeding all minds with the miraculous and
super-
natural, the growth toward a belief in the natural
and
toward the rejection of the miraculous has been
steady and sturdy
since the sixteenth century. There
has been, too, a moral growth,
until many passages
in the Bible have become barbarous, inhuman and
infamous. The Bible has remained the same, while
the world has
changed. In the light of physical and
moral discovery, "the inspired
volume" seems in
many respects absurd. If the same progress is made
in the next, as in the last, century, it is very easy to
predict the
place that will then be occupied by the
Bible. By comparing long
periods of time, it is easy
to measure the advance of the human race.
Com-
pare the average sermon of to-day with the average
340
sermon of one hundred years ago. Compare what
ministers teach to-day with the creeds they profess
to believe, and
you will see the immense distance
that even the church has traveled
in the last century.
The Christians tell us that scientific men
have
made mistakes, and that there is very little certainty
in
the domain of human knowledge. This I admit.
The man who thought the
world was flat, and who
had a way of accounting for the movement of
the
heavenly bodies, had what he was pleased to call a
philosophy. He was, in his way, a geologist and an
astronomer. We
admit that he was mistaken; but
if we claimed that the first
geologist and the first
astronomer were inspired, it would not do for
us to
admit that any advance had been made, or that any
errors
of theirs had been corrected. We do not
claim that the first
scientists were inspired. We do
not claim that the last are inspired.
We admit that
all scientific men are fallible. We admit that they do
not know everything. We insist that they know but
little, and that
even in that little which they are sup-
posed to know, there is the
possibility of error. The
first geologist said: "The earth is flat."
Suppose
that the geologists of to-day should insist that that
man was inspired, and then endeavor to show that
341
the word "flat," in the "Hebrew," did not mean
quite flat, but just a
little rounded; what would we
think of their honesty? The first
astronomer in-
sisted that the sun and moon and stars revolved
around this earth—that this little earth was the centre
of the
entire system. Suppose that the astronomers
of to-day should insist
that that astronomer was in-
spired, and should try to explain, and
say that he
simply used the language of the common people, and
when he stated that the sun and moon and stars re-
volved around the
earth, he merely meant that they
"apparently revolved," and that the
earth, in fact,
turned over, would we consider them honest men?
You might as well say that the first painter was in-
spired, or that
the first sculptor had the assistance of
God, as to say that the
first writer, or the first book-
maker, was divinely inspired. It is
more probable
that the modern geologist is inspired than that the an-
cient one was, because the modern geologist is nearer
right. It is
more probable that William Lloyd Gar-
rison was inspired upon the
question of slavery than
that Moses was. It is more probable that the
author
of the Declaration of Independence spoke by divine
authority than that the author of the Pentateuch did.
In other words,
if there can be any evidence of
342
"inspiration,"
it must lie in the fact of doing or
saying the best possible thing
that could have been
done or said at that time or upon that subject.
To make myself clear: The only possible evidence
of
"inspiration" would be perfection—a perfection ex-
celling
anything that man unaided had ever attained.
An "inspired" book
should excel all other books; an
inspired statue should be the best
in this world; an in-
spired painting should be beyond all others. If
the Bible
has been improved in any particular, it was not, in that
particular, ''inspired." If slavery is wrong, the Bible is
not
inspired. If polygamy is vile and loathsome, the
Bible is not
inspired. If wars of extermination are cruel
and heartless, the Bible
is not "inspired." If there is
within that book a contradiction of
any natural fact; if
there is one ignorant falsehood, if there is one
mistake,
then it is not "inspired." I do not mean mistakes that
have grown out of translations; but if there was in
the original
manuscript one mistake, then it is not
"inspired." I do not demand a
miracle; I do not
demand a knowledge of the future; I simply demand
an absolute knowledge of the past. I demand an ab-
solute knowledge
of the then present; I demand a
knowledge of the constitution of the
human mind—
of the facts in nature, and that is all I demand.
343
Question. If I understand you, you think that
all
political power should come from the people; do you
not
believe in any "special providence," and do you
take the ground that
God does not interest himself
in the affairs of nations and
individuals?
Answer. The Christian idea is that God made
the
world, and made certain laws for the government of
matter
and mind, and that he never interferes except
upon special occasions,
when the ordinary laws fail to
work out the desired end. Their notion
is, that the
Lord now and then stops the horses simply to show
that he is driving. It seems to me that if an infinitely
wise being
made the world, he must have made it
the best possible; and that if
he made laws for the
government of matter and mind, he must have made
the best possible laws. If this is true, not one of
these laws can be
violated without producing a posi-
tive injury. It does not seem
probable that infinite
wisdom would violate a law that infinite
wisdom had
made.
Most ministers insist that God now and
then in-
terferes in the affairs of this world; that he has not
interfered as much lately as he did formerly. When
the world was
comparatively new, it required alto-
gether more tinkering and fixing
than at present.
344
Things are at last in a
reasonably good condition,
and consequently a great amount of
interference is
not necessary. In old times it was found necessary
fre-
quently to raise the dead, to change the nature of fire
and
water, to punish people with plagues and famine,
to destroy cities by
storms of fire and brimstone, to
change women into salt, to cast
hailstones upon
heathen, to interfere with the movements of our
planetary system, to stop the earth not only, but
sometimes to make
it turn the other way, to arrest
the moon, and to make water stand up
like a wall.
Now and then, rivers were divided by striking them
with a coat, and people were taken to heaven in
chariots of fire.
These miracles, in addition to curing
the sick, the halt, the deaf
and blind, were in former
times found necessary, but since the
"apostolic age,"
nothing of the kind has been resorted to except in
Catholic countries. Since the death of the last
apostle, God has
appeared only to members of the
Catholic Church, and all modern
miracles have been
performed for the benefit of Catholicism. There is
no authentic account of the Virgin Mary having ever
appeared to a
Protestant. The bones of Protestant
saints have never cured a
solitary disease. Protest-
ants now say that the testimony of the
Catholics can
345
not be relied upon, and yet, the
authenticity of every
book in the New Testament was established by
Cath-
olic testimony. Some few miracles were performed
in
Scotland, and in fact in England and the United
States, but they were
so small that they are hardly
worth mentioning. Now and then, a man
was struck
dead for taking the name of the Lord in vain. Now
and
then, people were drowned who were found in
boats on Sunday. Whenever
anybody was about to
commit murder, God has not interfered—the
reason
being that he gave man free-will, and expects to hold
him
accountable in another world, and there is no
exception to this
free-will doctrine, but in cases
where men swear or violate the
Sabbath. They are
allowed to commit all other crimes without any in-
terference on the part of the Lord.
My own opinion is, that the
clergy found it neces-
sary to preserve the Sabbath for their own
uses, and
for that reason endeavored to impress the people
with
the enormity of its violation, and for that purpose
gave instances of
people being drowned and suddenly
struck dead for working or amusing
themselves on that
day. The clergy have objected to any other places
of
amusement except their own, being opened on that
day. They
wished to compel people either to go to
346
church
or stay at home. They have also known
that profanity tended to do
away with the feelings
of awe they wished to cultivate, and for that
reason
they have insisted that swearing was one of the most
terrible of crimes, exciting above all others the wrath
of God.
There was a time when people fell dead for having
spoken
disrespectfully to a priest. The priest at that
time pretended to be
the visible representative of
God, and as such, entitled to a degree
of reverence
amounting almost to worship. Several cases are
given in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland where
men were
deprived of speech for having spoken
rudely to a parson.
These stories were calculated to increase the im-
portance of the
clergy and to convince people that
they were under the special care
of the Deity. The
story about the bears devouring the little children
was told in the first place, and has been repeated
since, simply to
protect ministers from the laughter
of children. There ought to be
carved on each side
of every pulpit a bear with fragments of children
in
its mouth, as this animal has done so much to protect
the
dignity of the clergy.
Besides the protection of ministers, the
drowning
347
of breakers of the Sabbath, and
striking a few people
dead for using profane language, I think there
is no
evidence of any providential interference in the affairs
of this world in what may be called modern times.
Ministers have
endeavored to show that great calam-
ities have been brought upon
nations and cities as a
punishment for the wickedness of the people.
They
have insisted that some countries have been visited
with
earthquakes because the people had failed to
discharge their
religious duties; but as earthquakes
happened in uninhabited
countries, and often at sea,
where no one is hurt, most people have
concluded
that they are not sent as punishments. They have
insisted that cities have been burned as a punish-
ment, and to show
the indignation of the Lord, but
at the same time they have admitted
that if the
streets had been wider, the fire departments better
organized, and wooden buildings fewer, the design
of the Lord would
have been frustrated.
After reading the history of the world,
it is some-
what difficult to find which side the Lord is really on.
He has allowed Catholics to overwhelm and de-
stroy Protestants, and
then he has allowed Protestants
to overwhelm and destroy Catholics.
He has allowed
Christianity to triumph over Paganism, and he allowed
348
Mohammedans to drive back the hosts of the cross
from the sepulchre of his son. It is curious that this
God would
allow the slave trade to go on, and yet
punish the violators of the
Sabbath. It is simply
wonderful that he would allow kings to wage
cruel
and remorseless war, to sacrifice millions upon the
altar
of heartless ambition, and at the same time
strike a man dead for
taking his name in vain. It is
wonderful that he allowed slavery to
exist for centu-
ries in the United States; that he allows polygamy
now in Utah; that he cares nothing for liberty in
Russia, nothing for
free speech in Germany, nothing
for the sorrows of the overworked,
underpaid millions
of the world; that he cares nothing for the
innocent
languishing in prisons, nothing for the patriots con-
demned to death, nothing for the heart-broken
widows and orphans,
nothing for the starving, and
yet has ample time to note a sparrow's
fall. If he
would only strike dead the would-be murderers; if
he
would only palsy the hands of husbands' uplifted
to strike their
wives; if he would render speechless
the cursers of children, he
could afford to overlook
the swearers and breakers of his Sabbath.
For one, I am not satisfied with the government
of this world,
and I am going to do what little I can
349
to make
it better. I want more thought and less
fear, more manhood and less
superstition, less prayer
and more help, more education, more reason,
more
intellectual hospitality, and above all, and over all,
more
liberty and kindness.
Question. Do you think that God,
if there be one,
when he saves or damns a man, will take into con-
sideration all the circumstances of the man's life?
Answer.
Suppose that two orphan boys, James
and John, are given homes. James
is taken into a
Christian family and John into an infidel. James
becomes a Christian, and dies in the faith. John be-
comes an
infidel, and dies without faith in Christ.
According to the Christian
religion, as commonly
preached, James will go to heaven, and John to
hell.
Now, suppose that God knew that if James had
been
raised by the infidel family, he would have died
an infidel, and that
if John had been raised by the
Christian family, he would have died a
Christian.
What then? Recollect that the boys did not choose
the
families in which they were placed.
Suppose that a child, cast
away upon an island in
which he found plenty of food, grew to
manhood;
and suppose that after he had reached mature years,
350
the island was visited by a missionary who taught a
false religion; and suppose that this islander was con-
vinced that
he ought to worship a wooden idol; and
suppose, further, that the
worship consisted in sacri-
ficing animals; and suppose the islander,
actuated
only by what he conceived to be his duty and by
thankfulness, sacrificed a toad every night and every
morning upon
the altar of his wooden god; that
when the sky looked black and
threatening he sacri-
ficed two toads; that when feeling unwell he
sacrificed
three; and suppose that in all this he was honest, that
he really believed that the shedding of toad-blood
would soften the
heart of his god toward him? And
suppose that after he had become
fully-convinced
of the truth of his religion, a missionary of the
"true religion" should visit the island, and tell the
history of the
Jews—unfold the whole scheme of
salvation? And suppose that the
islander should
honestly reject the true religion? Suppose he should
say that he had "internal evidence" not only, but
that many miracles
had been performed by his god,
in his behalf; that often when the sky
was black
with storm, he had sacrificed a toad, and in a few
moments the sun was again visible, the heavens blue,
and without a
cloud; that on several occasions, having
351
forgotten at evening to sacrifice his toad, he found
himself unable
to sleep—that his conscience smote
him, he had risen, made the
sacrifice, returned to his
bed, and in a few moments sunk into a
serene and
happy slumber? And suppose, further, that the man
honestly believed that the efficacy of the sacrifice
depended largely
on the size of the toad? Now
suppose that in this belief the man had
died,—what
then?
It must be remembered that God knew
when the
missionary of the false religion went to the island;
and knew that the islander would be convinced of the
truth of the
false religion; and he also knew that the
missionary of the true
religion could not, by any
possibility, convince the islander of the
error of his
way; what then?
If God is infinite, we cannot
speak of him as
making efforts, as being tired. We cannot con-
sistently say that one thing is easy to him, and
another thing is
hard, providing both are possible.
This being so, why did not God
reveal himself to
every human being? Instead of having an inspired
book, why did he not make inspired folks? Instead
of having his
commandments put on tables of stone,
why did he not write them on
each human brain?
352
Why was not the mind of each
man so made that
every religious truth necessary to his salvation was
an axiom?
Do we not know absolutely that man is greatly
influenced by his surroundings? If Mr. Talmage
had been born in
Turkey, is it not probable that
he would now be a whirling Dervish?
If he had
first seen the light in Central Africa, he might now
have been prostrate before some enormous serpent;
if in India, he
might have been a Brahmin, running a
prayer-machine; if in Spain, he
would probably have
been a priest, with his beads and holy water. Had
he been born among the North American Indians,
he would speak of the
"Great Spirit," and solemnly
smoke the the pipe of peace.
Mr. Talmage teaches that it is the duty of children
to perpetuate the
errors of their parents; conse-
quently, the religion of his parents
determined his
theology. It is with him not a question of reason,
but of parents; not a question of argument, but of
filial affection.
He does not wish to be a philoso-
pher, but an obedient son. Suppose
his father had
been a Catholic, and his mother a Protestant,—what
then? Would he show contempt for his mother by
following the path of
his father; or would he show
353
disrespect for his
father, by accepting the religion of
his mother; or would he have
become a Protestant
with Catholic proclivities, or a Catholic with
Protest-
ant leanings? Suppose his parents had both been
infidels—what then?
Is it not better for each one to
decide honestly for
himself? Admitting that your parents were good
and
kind; admitting that they were honest in their views,
why
not have the courage to say, that in your opinion,
father and mother
were both mistaken? No one can
honor his parents by being a
hypocrite, or an intellectu-
al coward. Whoever is absolutely true to
himself, is
true to his parents, and true to the whole world. Who-
ever is untrue to himself, is false to all mankind. Re-
ligion must
be an individual matter. If there is a God,
and if there is a day of
judgment, the church that a man
belongs to will not be tried, but the
man will be tried.
It is a fact that the religion of most
people was made
for them by others; that they have accepted certain
dogmas, not because they have examined them, but
because they were
told that they were true. Most of
the people in the United States,
had they been born in
Turkey, would now be Mohammedans, and most of
the Turks, had they been born in Spain, would now
be Catholics.
354
It is almost, if not quite, impossible for a man to
rise entirely above the ideas, views, doctrines and re-
ligions of
his tribe or country. No one expects to
find philosophers in Central
Africa, or scientists
among the Fejees. No one expects to find
philoso-
phers or scientists in any country where the church
has
absolute control.
If there is an infinitely good and wise God,
of
course he will take into consideration the surround-
ings of
every human being. He understands the
philosophy of environment, and
of heredity. He
knows exactly the influence of the mother, of all
associates, of all associations. He will also take into
consideration
the amount, quality and form of each
brain, and whether the brain was
healthy or diseased.
He will take into consideration the strength of
the
passions, the weakness of the judgment. He will
know exactly
the force of all temptation—what was
resisted. He will take an
account of every effort
made in the right direction, and will
understand
all the winds and waves and quicksands and shores
and
shallows in, upon and around the sea of every
life.
My own
opinion is, that if such a being exists, and
all these things are
taken into consideration, we will
355
be absolutely
amazed to see how small the difference
is between the "good" and the
"bad." Certainly
there is no such difference as would justify a being
of infinite wisdom and benevolence in rewarding one
with eternal joy
and punishing the other with eternal
pain.
Question.
What are the principal reasons that
have satisfied you that the Bible
is not an inspired
book?
Answer. The great evils
that have afflicted this
world are:
First. Human
slavery—where men have bought
and sold their fellow-men—sold
babes from mothers,
and have practiced) every conceivable cruelty
upon
the helpless.
Second. Polygamy—an
institution that destroys
the home, that treats woman as a simple
chattel, that
does away with the sanctity of marriage, and with all
that is sacred in love.
Third. Wars of conquest and
extermination—
by which nations have been made the food of the
sword.
Fourth. The idea entertained by each nation that
all other nations are destitute of rights—in other
356
words, patriotism founded upon egotism, prejudice,
and love of
plunder.
Fifth. Religious persecution.
Sixth.
The divine right of kings—an idea that
rests upon the
inequality of human rights, and insists
that people should be
governed without their con-
sent; that the right of one man to govern
another
comes from God, and not from the consent of the
governed. This is caste—one of the most odious
forms of
slavery.
Seventh. A belief in malicious supernatural be-
ings—devils, witches, and wizards.
Eighth. A
belief in an infinite being who or-
dered, commanded, established and
approved all
these evils.
Ninth. The idea that one
man can be good for
another, or bad for another—that is to say,
that one
can be rewarded for the goodness of another, or
justly
punished for the sins of another.
Tenth. The dogma that
a finite being can commit
an infinite sin, and thereby incur the
eternal dis-
pleasure of an infinitely good being, and be justly
subjected to eternal torment.
My principal objection to the
Bible is that it sus-
tains all of these ten evils—that it is
the advocate of
357
human slavery, the friend of
polygamy; that within
its pages I find the command to wage wars of
ex-
termination; that I find also that the Jews were
taught to
hate foreigners—to consider all human
beings as inferior to
themselves; I also find persecu-
tion commanded as a religious duty;
that kings were
seated upon their thrones by the direct act of God,
and that to rebel against a king was rebellion against
God. I object
to the Bible also because I find within
its pages the infamous spirit
of caste—I see the sons
of Levi set apart as the perpetual
beggars and
governors of a people; because I find the air filled
with demons seeking to injure and betray the sons
of men; because
this book is the fountain of modern
superstition, the bulwark of
tyranny and the fortress
of caste. This book also subverts the idea
of justice
by threatening infinite punishment for the sins of a
finite being.
At the same time, I admit—as I always have
ad-
mitted—that there are good passages in the Bible—
good laws, good teachings, with now and then a true
line of history.
But when it is asserted that every
word was written by inspiration—that
a being of in-
finite wisdom and goodness is its author,—then
I raise the standard of revolt.
358
Question.
What do you think of the declaration
of Mr. Talmage that the Bible
will be read in heaven
throughout all the endless ages of eternity?
Answer. Of course I know but very little as to
what is
or will be done in heaven. My knowledge
of that country is somewhat
limited, and it may be
possible that the angels will spend most of
their time
in turning over the sacred leaves of the Old Testa-
ment. I can not positively deny the statement of the
Reverend Mr.
Talmage as I have but very little idea
as to how the angels manage to
kill time.
The Reverend Mr. Spurgeon stated in a sermon
that some people wondered what they would do
through all eternity in
heaven. He said that, as for
himself, for the first hundred thousand
years he
would look at the wound in one of the Savior's
feet,
and for the next hundred thousand years he
would look at the wound in
his other foot, and
for the next hundred thousand years he would
look at the wound in one of his hands, and for
the next hundred
thousand years he would look at
the wound in the other hand, and for
the next
hundred thousand years he would look at the wound
in
his side.
Surely, nothing could be more delightful than this
359
A man capable of being happy in such employment,
could of course take great delight in reading even
the genealogies of
the Old Testament. It is very
easy to see what a glow of joy would
naturally over-
spread the face of an angel while reading the history
of the Jewish wars, how the seraphim and cherubim
would clasp their
rosy palms in ecstasy over the fate
of Korah and his company, and
what laughter would
wake the echoes of the New Jerusalem as some one
told again the story of the children and the bears;
and what happy
groups, with folded pinions, would
smilingly listen to the 109th
Psalm.
[Illustration: 371]
An orthodox "state of
mind"
THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.
As Mr.
Talmage delivered the series of sermons
referred to in these
interviews, for the purpose
of furnishing arguments to the young, so
that they
might not be misled by the sophistry of modern
infi-delity, I have thought it best to set forth,
for use in Sunday
schools, the pith and marrow of
what he has been pleased to say, in
the form of
A SHORTER CATECHISM.
Question. Who made you?
Answer. Jehovah,
the original Presbyterian.
Question. What else did he
make?
Answer. He made the world and all things.
Question. Did he make the world out of nothing?
Answer.
No.
Question. What did he make it out of?
Answer.
Out of his "omnipotence." Many infidels
have pretended that if God
made the universe, and if
there was nothing until he did make it, he
had nothing
to make it out of. Of course this is perfectly absurd
when we remember that he always had his "omnipo-
tence and that is,
undoubtedly, the material used.
364
Question.
Did he create his own "omnipotence"?
Answer. Certainly
not, he was always omnipo-
tent.
Question. Then if
he always had "omnipotence,"
he did not "create" the material of
which the uni-
verse is made; he simply took a portion of his
"omnipotence" and changed it to "universe"?
Answer.
Certainly, that is the way I under-
stand it.
Question.
Is he still omnipotent, and has he as
much "omnipotence" now as he
ever had?
Answer. Well, I suppose he has.
Question.
How long did it take God to make the
universe?
Answer.
Six "good-whiles."
Question. How long is a "good-while"?
Answer. That will depend upon the future dis-
coveries
of geologists. "Good-whiles" are of such
a nature that they can be
pulled out, or pushed up;
and it is utterly impossible for any
infidel, or scien-
tific geologist, to make any period that a
"good-while"
won't fit.
Question. What do you
understand by "the
"morning and evening" of a "good-while"?
Answer. Of course the words "morning and
365
"evening" are used figuratively, and mean simply
the beginning
and the ending, of each "good-while."
Question. On what
day did God make vegetation?
Answer. On the third day.
Question. Was that before the sun was made?
Answer.
Yes; a "good-while" before.
Question. How did vegetation
grow without sun-
light?
Answer. My own opinion is,
that it was either
"nourished by the glare of volcanoes in the moon
or "it may have gotten sufficient light from rivers
"of molten
granite;" or, "sufficient light might have
"been emitted by the
crystallization of rocks." It
has been suggested that light might
have been fur-
nished by fire-flies and phosphorescent bugs and
worms, but this I regard as going too far.
Question. Do
you think that light emitted by
rocks would be sufficient to produce
trees?
Answer. Yes, with the assistance of the "Aurora
"Borealis, or even the Aurora Australis;" but with
both, most
assuredly.
Question. If the light of which you speak was
sufficient, why was the sun made?
Answer. To keep time
with.
Question. What did God make man of?
366
Answer. He made man of dust and "omnipo-
"tence."
Question. Did he make a woman at the same
time that he
made a man?
Answer. No; he thought at one time to avoid
the necessity of making a woman, and he caused all
the animals to
pass before Adam, to see what he
would call them, and to see whether
a fit companion
could be found for him. Among them all, not one
suited Adam, and Jehovah immediately saw that he
would have to make
an help-meet on purpose.
Question. What was woman made
of?
Answer. She was made out of "man's side, out of
his right side," and some more "omnipotence." Infi-
dels say that she
was made out of a rib, or a bone, but
that is because they do not
understand Hebrew.
Question. What was the object of
making woman
out of man's side?
Answer. So that a
young man would think more
of a neighbor's girl than of his own uncle
or grand-
father.
Question. What did God do with
Adam and Eve
after he got them done?
Answer. He put
them into a garden to see what
they would do.
367
Question. Do we know where the Garden of Eden
was, and
have we ever found any place where a
"river parted and became into
four heads"?
Answer. We are not certain where this
garden
was, and the river that parted into four heads cannot
at
present be found. Infidels have had a great deal
to say about these
four rivers, but they will wish
they had even one, one of these days.
Question. What happened to Adam and Eve in
the garden?
Answer. They were tempted by a snake who was
an
exceedingly good talker, and who probably came
in walking on the end
of his tail. This supposition
is based upon the fact that, as a
punishment, he was
condemned to crawl on his belly. Before that time,
of course, he walked upright.
Question. What happened
then?
Answer. Our first parents gave way, ate of the
forbidden fruit, and in consequence, disease and
death entered the
world. Had it not been for this,
there would have been no death and
no disease.
Suicide would have been impossible, and a man
could
have been blown into a thousand atoms by
dynamite, and the pieces
would immediately have
come together again. Fire would have refused
to
368
burn and water to drown; there could have
been no
hunger, no thirst; all things would have been equally
healthy.
Question. Do you mean to say that there would
have been no death in the world, either of animals,
insects, or
persons?
Answer. Of course.
Question.
Do you also think that all briers and
thorns sprang from the same
source, and that had
the apple not been eaten, no bush in the world
would have had a thorn, and brambles and thistles
would have been
unknown?
Answer. Certainly.
Question.
Would there have been no poisonous
plants, no poisonous reptiles?
Answer. No, sir; there would have been none;
there would
have been no evil in the world if Adam
and Eve had not partaken of
the forbidden fruit.
Question. Was the snake who tempted
them to
eat, evil?
Answer. Certainly. '
Question. Was he in the world before the for-
bidden fruit was
eaten?
Answer. Of course he was; he tempted them to
eat it
369
Question. How, then, do you
account for the fact
that, before the forbidden fruit was eaten, an
evil
serpent was in the world?
Answer. Perhaps
apples had been eaten in other
worlds.
Question. Is
it not wonderful that such awful con-
sequences flowed from so small
an act?
Answer. It is not for you to reason about it;
you
should simply remember that God is omnipotent.
There is but
one way to answer these things, and
that is to admit their truth.
Nothing so puts the
Infinite out of temper as to see a human being
impudent enough to rely upon his reason. The
moment we rely upon our
reason, we abandon God,
and try to take care of ourselves. Whoever
relies
entirely upon God, has no need of reason, and
reason has
no need of him.
Question. Were our first parents under
the im-
mediate protection of an infinite God?
Answer.
They were.
Question. Why did he not protect them? Why
did he not warn them of this snake? Why did he
not put them on their
guard? Why did he not
make them so sharp, intellectually, that they
could
not be deceived? Why did he not destroy that
370
snake; or how did he come to make him; what did
he make him
for?
Answer. You must remember that, although God
made Adam and Eve perfectly good, still he was very
anxious to test
them. He also gave them the power
of choice, knowing at the same time
exactly what they
would choose, and knowing that he had made them
so that they must choose in a certain way. A being
of infinite wisdom
tries experiments. Knowing ex-
actly what will happen, he wishes to
see if it will.
Question. What punishment did God
inflict upon
Adam and Eve for the sin of having eaten the for-
bidden fruit?
Answer. He pronounced a curse upon the
woman,
saying that in sorrow she should bring forth children,
and that her husband should rule over her; that she,
having tempted
her husband, was made his slave;
and through her, all married women
have been de-
prived of their natural liberty. On account of the
sin of Adam and Eve, God cursed the ground, saying
that it should
bring forth thorns and thistles, and
that man should eat his bread in
sorrow, and that he
should eat the herb of the field.
Question.
Did he turn them out of the garden
because of their sin?
371
Answer. No. The reason God gave for turning
them out of the garden was: "Behold the man is
"become as one of us,
to know good and evil; and
"now, lest he put forth his hand and take
of the
"tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore, the
"Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden
"to till the ground
from whence he was taken."
Question. If the man had
eaten of the tree of life,
would he have lived forever?
Answer.
Certainly.
Question. Was he turned out to prevent his
eating?
Answer. He was.
Question. Then
the Old Testament tells us how we
lost immortality, not that we are
immortal, does it?
Answer. Yes; it tells us how we lost
it.
Question. Was God afraid that Adam and Eve
might get back into the garden, and eat of the fruit
of the tree of
life?
Answer. I suppose he was, as he placed "cher-
"ubim and a flaming sword which turned every
"way to guard the tree
of life."
Question. Has any one ever seen any of these
cherubim?
Answer. Not that I know of.
372
Question. Where is the flaming sword now?
Answer.
Some angel has it in heaven.
Question. Do you understand
that God made
coats of skins, and clothed Adam and Eve when
he
turned them out of the garden?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Do you really believe that the infinite
God
killed some animals, took their skins from them,
cut out and sewed up
clothes for Adam and Eve?
Answer. The Bible says so; we
know that he
had patterns for clothes, because he showed some
to
Moses on Mount Sinai.
Question. About how long did God
continue
to pay particular attention to his children in this
world?
Answer. For about fifteen hundred years; and
some of the people lived to be nearly a thousand
years of age.
Question. Did this God establish any schools or
institutions of learning? Did he establish any church?
Did he ordain
any ministers, or did he have any re-
vivals?
Answer.
No; he allowed the world to go on
pretty much in its own way. He did
not even keep
his own boys at home. They came down and made
373
love to the daughters of men, and finally the world
got exceedingly bad.
Question. What did God do then?
Answer. He made up his mind that he would drown
them.
You see they were all totally depraved,—in
every joint and
sinew of their bodies, in every drop
of their blood, and in every
thought of their brains.
Question. Did he drown them
all?
Answer. No, he saved eight, to start with again.
Question. Were these eight persons totally de-
praved?
Answer. Yes.
Question. Why did he not kill
them, and start
over again with a perfect pair? Would it not have
been better to have had his flood at first, before he
made anybody,
and drowned the snake?
Answer. "God's way are not our
ways;" and
besides, you must remember that "a thousand years
"are as one day" with God.
Question. How did God destroy
the people?
Answer. By water; it rained forty days and
forty
nights, and "the fountains of the great deep were
"broken
up."
Question. How deep was the water?
Answer.
About five miles.
374
Question. How much did
it rain each day?
Answer. About eight hundred feet;
though the
better opinion now is, that it was a local flood. In-
fidels have raised objections and pressed them to that
degree that
most orthodox people admit that the
flood was rather local.
Question. If it was a local flood, why did they put
birds of the air into the ark? Certainly, birds could
have avoided a
local flood?
Answer. If you take this away from us, what
do
you propose to give us in its place? Some of the
best people
of the world have believed this story.
Kind husbands, loving mothers,
and earnest patriots
have believed it, and that is sufficient.
Question. At the time God made these people,
did he know
that he would have to drown them all?
Answer. Of course
he did.
Question. Did he know when he made them that
they would all be failures?
Answer. Of course.
Question. Why, then, did he make them?
Answer.
He made them for his own glory, and
no man should disgrace his
parents by denying it.
Question. Were the people after
the flood just as
bad as they were before?
375
Answer. About the same.
Question. Did they try to
circumvent God?
Answer. They did.
Question.
How?
Answer. They got together for the purpose of build-
ing a tower, the top of which should reach to heaven,
so that they
could laugh at any future floods, and go
to heaven at any time they
desired.
Question. Did God hear about this?
Answer. He did.
Question. What did he say?
Answer. He said: "Go to; let us go down," and
see what
the people are doing; I am satisfied they
will succeed.
Question.
How were the people prevented from
succeeding?
Answer.
God confounded their language, so that
the mason on top could not cry
"mort'!" to the
hod-carrier below; he could not think of the word
to use, to save his life, and the building stopped.
Question.
If it had not been for the confusion of
tongues at Babel, do you
really think that all the
people in the world would have spoken just
the same
language, and would have pronounced every word
precisely the same?
376
Answer. Of course.
Question. If it had not been, then, for the con-
fusion
of languages, spelling books, grammars and
dictionaries would have
been useless?
Answer. I suppose so.
Question.
Do any two people in the whole world
speak the same language, now?
Answer. Of course they don't, and this is one of
the
great evidences that God introduced confusion
into the languages.
Every error in grammar, every
mistake in spelling, every blunder in
pronunciation,
proves the truth of the Babel story.
Question.
This being so, this miracle is the best
attested of all?
Answer. I suppose it is.
Question. Do you not
think that a confusion of
tongues would bring men together instead of
separa-
ting them? Would not a man unable to converse
with his
fellow feel weak instead of strong; and
would not people whose
language had been con-
founded cling together for mutual support?
Answer. According to nature, yes; according to
theology,
no; and these questions must be answered
according to theology. And
right here, it may be
well enough to state, that in theology the
unnatural
377
is the probable, and the impossible is
what has always
happened. If theology were simply natural, anybody
could be a theologian.
Question. Did God ever make any
other special
efforts to convert the people, or to reform the world?
Answer. Yes, he destroyed the cities of Sodom
and
Gomorrah with a storm of fire and brimstone.
Question.
Do you suppose it was really brim-
stone?
Answer.
Undoubtedly.
Question. Do you think this brimstone came
from
the clouds?
Answer. Let me tell you that you
have no right
to examine the Bible in the light of what people are
pleased to call "science." The natural has nothing
to do with the
supernatural. Naturally there would
be no brimstone in the clouds,
but supernaturally
there might be. God could make brimstone out of
his "omnipotence." We do not know really what
brimstone is, and
nobody knows exactly how brim-
stone is made. As a matter of fact,
all the brimstone
in the world might have fallen at that time.
Question. Do you think that Lot's wife was
changed into
salt?
Answer. Of course she was. A miracle was per-
378
formed. A few centuries ago, the statue of salt made
by changing Lot's wife into that article, was standing.
Christian
travelers have seen it.
Question. Why do you think she
was changed
into salt?
Answer. For the purpose of
keeping the event
fresh in the minds of men.
Question.
God having failed to keep people in-
nocent in a garden; having
failed to govern them
outside of a garden; having failed to reform
them by
water; having failed to produce any good result by a
confusion of tongues; having failed to reform them
with fire and
brimstone, what did he then do?
Answer. He concluded
that he had no time to
waste on them all, but that he would have to
select
one tribe, and turn his entire attention to just a few
folks.
Question. Whom did he select?
Answer.
A man by the name of Abram.
Question. What kind of man
was Abram?
Answer. If you wish to know, read the twelfth
chapter of Genesis; and if you still have any doubts
as to his
character, read the twentieth chapter of the
same book, and you will
see that he was a man who
made merchandise of his wife's body. He had
had
379
such good fortune in Egypt, that he tried
the experi-
ment again on Abimelech.
Question. Did
Abraham show any gratitude?
Answer. Yes; he offered to
sacrifice his son, to
show his confidence in Jehovah.
Question.
What became of Abraham and his
people?
Answer. God
took such care of them, that in
about two hundred and fifteen years
they were all
slaves in the land of Egypt.
Question.
How long did they remain in slavery?
Answer. Two hundred
and fifteen years.
Question. Were they the same people
that God
had promised to take care of?
Answer. They
were.
Question. Was God at that time, in favor of
slavery?
Answer. Not at that time. He was angry at the
Egyptians for enslaving the Jews, but he afterwards
authorized the
Jews to enslave other people.
Question. What means did
he take to liberate
the Jews?
Answer. He sent his
agents to Pharaoh, and de-
manded their freedom; and upon Pharaoh s
refusing,
he afflicted the people, who had nothing to do with
380
it, with various plagues,—killed children, and
tor-
mented and tortured beasts.
Question. Was such
conduct Godlike?
Answer. Certainly. If you have anything
against
your neighbor, it is perfectly proper to torture his
horse, or torment his dog. Nothing can be nobler
than this. You see
it is much better to injure his
animals than to injure him. To punish
animals for
the sins of their owners must be just, or God would
not have done it. Pharaoh insisted on keeping the
people in slavery,
and therefore God covered the
bodies of oxen and cows with boils. He
also bruised
them to death with hailstones. From this we infer,
that "the loving kindness of God is over all his works."
Question.
Do you consider such treatment of ani-
mals consistent with divine
mercy?
Answer. Certainly. You know that under the
Mosaic dispensation, when a man did a wrong, he
could settle with God
by killing an ox, or a sheep,
or some doves. If the man failed to
kill them, of
course God would kill them. It was upon this prin-
ciple that he destroyed the animals of the Egyptians.
They had
sinned, and he merely took his pay.
Question. How was it
possible, under the old dis-
pensation, to please a being of infinite
kindness?
381
Answer. All you had to do was
to take an innocent
animal, bring it to the altar, cut its throat,
and sprinkle
the altar with its blood. Certain parts of it were to be
given to the butcher as his share, and the rest was to
be burnt on
the altar. When God saw an animal thus
butchered, and smelt the warm
blood mingled with
the odor of burning flesh, he was pacified, and
the
smile of forgiveness shed its light upon his face.
Of
course, infidels laugh at these things; but what
can you expect of
men who have not been "born
"again"? "The carnal mind is enmity with
God."
Question. What else did God do in order to in-
duce
Pharaoh to liberate the Jews?
Answer. He had his agents
throw down a cane
in the presence of Pharaoh and thereupon Jehovah
changed this cane into a serpent.
Question. Did this
convince Pharaoh?
Answer. No; he sent for his own
magicians.
Question. What did they do?
Answer.
They threw down some canes and they
also were changed into serpents.
Question. Did Jehovah change the canes of the
Egyptian
magicians into snakes?
Answer. I suppose he did, as he
is the only one
capable of performing such a miracle.
382
Question. If the rod of Aaron was changed into
a serpent
in order to convince Pharaoh that God had
sent Aaron and Moses, why
did God change the
sticks of the Egyptian magicians into serpents—why
did he discredit his own agents, and render worth-
less their only
credentials?
Answer. Well, we cannot explain the conduct
of
Jehovah; we are perfectly satisfied that it was for
the best.
Even in this age of the world God allows
infidels to overwhelm his
chosen people with argu-
ments; he allows them to discover facts that
his
ministers can not answer, and yet we are satisfied
that in
the end God will give the victory to us. All
these things are tests
of faith. It is upon this prin-
ciple that God allows geology to
laugh at Genesis,
that he permits astronomy apparently to contradict
his holy word.
Question. What did God do with these
people
after Pharaoh allowed them to go?
Answer.
Finding that they were not fit to settle
a new country, owing to the
fact that when hungry
they longed for food, and sometimes when their
lips
were cracked with thirst insisted on having water,
God in
his infinite mercy had them marched round
and round, back and forth,
through a barren wilder-
383
ness, until all, with
the exception of two persons,
died.
Question. Why
did he do this?
Answer. Because he had promised these
people
that he would take them "to a land flowing with
"milk and
honey."
Question. Was God always patient and kind and
merciful toward his children while they were in the
wilderness?
Answer. Yes, he always was merciful and kind
and
patient. Infidels have taken the ground that he
visited them with
plagues and disease and famine;
that he had them bitten by serpents,
and now and
then allowed the ground to swallow a few thousands
of them, and in other ways saw to it that they were
kept as
comfortable and happy as was consistent with
good government; but all
these things were for their
good; and the fact is, infidels have no
real sense of
justice.
Question. How did God happen
to treat the Is-
raelites in this way, when he had promised Abraham
that he would take care of his progeny, and when he
had promised the
same to the poor wretches while
they were slaves in Egypt?
Answer. Because God is unchangeable in his na-
384
ture, and wished to convince them that every being
should be
perfectly faithful to his promise.
Question. Was God
driven to madness by the
conduct of his chosen people?
Answer.
Almost.
Question. Did he know exactly what they would
do when he chose them?
Answer. Exactly.
Question.
Were the Jews guilty of idolatry?
Answer. They were.
They worshiped other gods
—gods made of wood and stone.
Question. Is it not wonderful that they were not
convinced of the power of God, by the many mira-
cles wrought in
Egypt and in the wilderness?
Answer. Yes, it is very
wonderful; but the Jews,
who must have seen bread rained from heaven;
who
saw water gush from the rocks and follow them up hill
and
down; who noticed that their clothes did not
wear out, and did not
even get shiny at the knees,
while the elbows defied the ravages of
time, and
their shoes remained perfect for forty years; it is
wonderful that when they saw the ground open
and swallow their
comrades; when they saw God
talking face to face with Moses as a man
talks with
his friend; after they saw the cloud by day and the
385
pillar of fire by night,—it is absolutely
astonishing
that they had more faith in a golden calf that they
made themselves, than in Jehovah.
Question. How is it
that the Jews had no confi-
dence in these miracles?
Answer.
Because they were there and saw them.
Question. Do you
think that it is necessary for
us to believe all the miracles of the
Old Testament
in order to be saved?
Answer. The Old
Testament is the foundation of
the New. If the Old Testament is not
inspired, then
the New is of no value. If the Old Testament is
inspired, all the miracles are true, and we cannot
believe that God
would allow any errors, or false
statements, to creep into an
inspired volume, and to
be perpetuated through all these years.
Question. Should we believe the miracles, whether
they
are reasonable or not?
Answer. Certainly; if they were
reasonable, they
would not be miracles. It is their unreasonableness
that appeals to our credulity and our faith. It is im-
possible to
have theological faith in anything that
can be demonstrated. It is
the office of faith to
believe, not only without evidence, but in
spite of
evidence. It is impossible for the carnal mind to
386
believe that Samsons muscle depended upon the
length
of his hair. "God has made the wisdom of
"this world foolishness."
Neither can the uncon-
verted believe that Elijah stopped at a hotel
kept by
ravens. Neither can they believe that a barrel would
in
and of itself produce meal, or that an earthen pot
could create oil.
But to a Christian, in order that a
widow might feed a preacher, the
truth of these
stories is perfectly apparent.
Question.
How should we regard the wonderful
stories of the Old Testament?
Answer. They should be looked upon as "types"
and
"symbols." They all have a spiritual signifi-
cance. The reason I
believe the story of Jonah is,
that Jonah is a type of Christ.
Question. Do you believe the story of Jonah to
be a true
account of a literal fact?
Answer. Certainly. You must
remember that
Jonah was not swallowed by a whale. God "pre-
"pared a great fish" for that occasion. Neither is it by
any means
certain that Jonah was in the belly of
this whale. "He probably
stayed in his mouth."
Even if he was in his stomach, it was very easy
for him to defy the ordinary action of gastric juice
by rapidly
walking up and down..
387
Question. Do you
think that Jonah was really in
the whale's stomach?
Answer.
My own opinion is that he stayed in his
mouth. The only objection to
this theory is, that it
is more reasonable than the other and
requires less
faith. Nothing could be easier than for God to make
a fish large enough to furnish ample room for one
passenger in his
mouth. I throw out this suggestion
simply that you may be able to
answer the objections
of infidels who are always laughing at this
story.
Question. Do you really believe that Elijah went
to heaven in a chariot of fire, drawn by horses of
fire?
Answer. Of course he did.
Question. What was this
miracle performed for?
Answer. To convince the people of
the power of
God.
Question. Who saw the miracle?
Answer. Nobody but Elisha.
Question. Was he
convinced before that time?
Answer. Oh yes; he was one
of God's prophets.
Question. Suppose that in these days
two men
should leave a town together, and after a while one
of
them should come back having on the clothes of
the other, and should
account for the fact that he had
388
his friend's
clothes by saying that while they were
going along the road together
a chariot of fire came
down from heaven drawn by fiery steeds, and
there-
upon his friend got into the carriage, threw him his
clothes, and departed,—would you believe it?
Answer.
Of course things like that don't happen
in these days; God does not
have to rely on wonders
now.
Question. Do you mean
that he performs no
miracles at the present day?
Answer.
We cannot say that he does not perform
miracles now, but we are not
in position to call atten-
tion to any particular one. Of course he
supervises
the affairs of nations and men and does whatever in
his judgment is necessary.
Question. Do you think that
Samson's strength
depended on the length of his hair?
Answer.
The Bible so states, and the Bible is true.
A physiologist might say
that a man could not use
the muscle in his hair for lifting purposes,
but these
same physiologists could not tell you how you move
a
finger, nor how you lift a feather; still, actuated by
the pride of
intellect, they insist that the length of a
man's hair could not
determine his strength. God
says it did; the physiologist says that
it did not; we
389
can not hesitate whom to believe.
For the purpose
of avoiding eternal agony I am willing to believe
anything; I am willing to say that strength depends
upon the length
of hair, or faith upon the length of
ears. I am perfectly willing to
believe that a man
caught three hundred foxes, and put fire brands
be-
tween their tails; that he slew thousands with a bone,
and
that he made a bee hive out of a lion. I will
believe, if necessary,
that when this man's hair was
short he hardly had strength enough to
stand, and
that when it was long, he could carry away the gates
of a city, or overthrow a temple filled with people.
If the infidel
is right, I will lose nothing by believing,
but if he is wrong, I
shall gain an eternity of joy.
If God did not intend that we should
believe these
stories, he never would have told them, and why
should a man put his soul in peril by trying to dis-
prove one of the
statements of the Lord?
Question. Suppose it should turn
out that some
of these miracles depend upon mistranslations of the
original Hebrew, should we still believe them?
Answer.
The safe side is the best side. It is
far better to err on the side
of belief, than on the
side of infidelity. God does not threaten
anybody
with eternal punishment for believing too much.
390
Danger lies on the side of investigation, on the
side
of thought. The perfectly idiotic are absolutely
safe. As they
diverge from that point,—as they rise
in the intellectual
scale, as the brain develops, as the
faculties enlarge, the danger
increases. I know that
some biblical students now take the ground
that
Samson caught no foxes,—that he only took sheaves
of
wheat that had been already cut and bound, set
them on fire, and
threw them into the grain still
standing. If this is what he did, of
course there is
nothing miraculous about it, and the value of the
story is lost. So, others contend that Elijah was not
fed by the
ravens, but by the Arabs. They tell us
that the Hebrew word standing
for "Arab" also
stands for "bird," and that the word really means
"migratory—going from place to place—homeless."
But I
prefer the old version. It certainly will do no
harm to believe that
ravens brought bread and flesh
to a prophet of God. Where they got
their bread
and flesh is none of my business; how they knew
where the prophet was, and recognized him; or how
God talks to
ravens, or how he gave them directions,
I have no right to inquire. I
leave these questions
to the scientists, the blasphemers, and
thinkers.
There are many people in the church anxious to
391
get the miracles out of the Bible, and thousands,
I
have no doubt, would be greatly gratified to learn
that there is, in
fact, nothing miraculous in Scripture;
but when you take away the
miraculous, you take
away the supernatural; when you take away the
supernatural, you destroy the ministry; and when
you take away the
ministry, hundreds of thousands
of men will be left without
employment.
Question. Is it not wonderful that the
Egyptians
were not converted by the miracles wrought in their
country?
Answer. Yes, they all would have been, if God
had not purposely hardened their hearts to prevent
it. Jehovah always
took great delight in furnishing
the evidence, and then hardening the
man's heart so
that he would not believe it. After all the miracles
that had been performed in Egypt,—the most won-
derful that
were ever done in any country, the
Egyptians were as unbelieving as
at first; they pur-
sued the Israelites, knowing that they were
protected
by an infinite God, and failing to overwhelm them,
came back and worshiped their own false gods just as
firmly as
before. All of which shows the unreason-
ableness of a Pagan, and the
natural depravity of
human nature.
392
Question.
How did it happen that the Canaanites
were never convinced that the
Jews were assisted by
Jehovah?
Answer. They must
have been an exceedingly
brave people to contend so many years with
the
chosen people of God. Notwithstanding all their
cities were
burned time and time again; notwith-
standing all the men, women and
children were put
to the edge of the sword; notwithstanding the
taking
of all their cattle and sheep, they went right on
fighting just as valiantly and desperately as ever.
Each one lost his
life many times, and was just as
ready for the next conflict. My own
opinion is, that
God kept them alive by raising them from the dead
after each battle, for the purpose of punishing the
Jews. God used
his enemies as instruments for the
civilization of the Jewish people.
He did not wish
to convert them, because they would give him much
more trouble as Jews than they did as Canaanites.
He had all the Jews
he could conveniently take care
of. He found it much easier to kill a
hundred
Canaanites than to civilize one Jew.
Question.
How do you account for the fact that
the heathen were not surprised
at the stopping of the
sun and moon?
393
Answer.
They were so ignorant that they had
not the slightest conception of
the real cause of
the phenomenon. Had they known the size of
the
earth, and the relation it sustained to the other
heavenly bodies;
had they known the magnitude of
the sun, and the motion of the moon,
they would,
in all probability, have been as greatly astonished as
the Jews were; but being densely ignorant of as-
tronomy, it must
have produced upon them not the
slightest impression. But we must
remember that
the sun and moon were not stopped for the purpose
of converting these people, but to give Joshua more
time to kill
them. As soon as we see clearly the
purpose of Jehovah, we instantly
perceive how ad-
mirable were the means adopted.
Question.
Do you not consider the treatment
of the Canaanites to have been
cruel and ferocious?
Answer. To a totally depraved man,
it does look
cruel; to a being without any good in him,—to one
who has inherited the rascality of many generations,
the murder of
innocent women and little children
does seem horrible; to one who is
"contaminated in
"all his parts," by original sin,—who was
"conceived
"in sin, and brought forth in iniquity," the assassina-
tion of men, and the violation of captive maidens,
394
do not seem consistent with infinite goodness. But
when one has
been "born again," when "the love
"of God has been shed abroad in his
heart," when
he loves all mankind, when he "overcomes evil with
"good," when he "prays for those who despite-
"fully use him and
persecute him,"—to such a man,
the extermination of the
Canaanites, the violation
of women, the slaughter of babes, and the
destruc-
tion of countless thousands, is the highest evidence
of
the goodness, the mercy, and the long-suffering
of God. When a man
has been "born again," all
the passages of the Old Testament that
appear so
horrible and so unjust to one in his natural state,
become the dearest, the most consoling, and the
most beautiful of
truths. The real Christian reads
the accounts of these ancient
battles with the greatest
possible satisfaction. To one who really
loves his
enemies, the groans of men, the shrieks of women,
and
the cries of babes, make music sweeter than the
zephyr's breath.
Question. In your judgment, why did God destroy
the
Canaanites?
Answer. To prevent their contaminating his
chosen people. He knew that if the Jews were
allowed to live with
such neighbors, they would
395
finally become as bad
as the Canaanites themselves.
He wished to civilize his chosen
people, and it was
therefore necessary for him to destroy the
heathen.
Question. Did God succeed in civilizing the
Jews
after he had "removed" the Canaanites?
Answer.
Well, not entirely. He had to allow the
heathen he had not destroyed
to overrun the whole
land and make captives of the Jews. This was
done
for the good of his chosen people.
Question.
Did he then succeed in civilizing them?
Answer. Not quite.
Question. Did he ever quite succeed in civilizing
them?
Answer. Well, we must admit that the experi-
ment never
was a conspicuous success. The Jews
were chosen by the Almighty 430
years before he
appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai. He was their
direct Governor. He attended personally to their
religion and
politics, and gave up a great part of his
valuable time for about two
thousand years, to the
management of their affairs; and yet, such was
the
condition of the Jewish people, after they had had all
these
advantages, that when there arose among them
a perfectly kind, just,
generous and honest man, these
people, with whom God had been
laboring for so
396
many centuries, deliberately put
to death that good
and loving man.
Question. Do you
think that God really endeav-
ored to civilize the Jews?
Answer. This is an exceedingly hard question.
If he had really
tried to do it, of course he could
have done it. We must not think of
limiting the
power of the infinite. But you must remember that
if he had succeeded in civilizing the Jews, if he had
educated them
up to the plane of intellectual liberty,
and made them just and kind
and merciful, like him-
self, they would not have crucified Christ,
and you
can see at once the awful condition in which we
would
all be to-day. No atonement could have
been made; and if no atonement
had been made,
then, according to the Christian system, the whole
world would have been lost. We must admit that
there was no time in
the history of the Jews from
Sinai to Jerusalem, that they would not
have put a
man like Christ to death.
Question. So
you think that, after all, it was not
God's intention that the Jews
should become civilized?
Answer. We do not know. We can
only say
that "God's ways are not our ways." It may be
that God
took them in his special charge, for the
397
purpose
of keeping them bad enough to make the
necessary sacrifice. That may
have been the divine
plan. In any event, it is safer to believe the
explana-
tion that is the most unreasonable.
Question.
Do you think that Christ knew the
Jews would crucify him?
Answer. Certainly.
Question. Do you think that
when he chose
Judas he knew that he would betray him?
Answer.
Certainly.
Question. Did he know when Judas went to the
chief priest and made the bargain for the delivery
of Christ?
Answer. Certainly.
Question. Why did he
allow himself to be be-
trayed, if he knew the plot?
Answer.
Infidelity is a very good doctrine to live
by, but you should read
the last words of Paine and
Voltaire.
Question. If
Christ knew that Judas would betray
him, why did he choose him?
Answer. Nothing can exceed the atrocities of the
French
Revolution—when they carried a woman
through the streets and
worshiped her as the goddess
of Reason.
398
Question.
Would not the mission of Christ have
been a failure had no one
betrayed him?
Answer. Thomas Paine was a drunkard, and
re-
canted on his death-bed, and died a blaspheming
infidel
besides.
Question. Is it not clear that an atonement was
necessary; and is it not equally clear that the atone-
ment could not
have been made unless somebody
had betrayed Christ; and unless the
Jews had been
wicked and orthodox enough to crucify him?
Answer. Of course the atonement had to be
made. It was a part
of the "divine plan" that Christ
should be betrayed, and that the
Jews should be
wicked enough to kill him. Otherwise, the world
would have been lost.
Question. Suppose Judas had
understood the
divine plan, what ought he to have done? Should
he have betrayed Christ, or let somebody else do it;
or should he
have allowed the world to perish, in-
cluding his own soul?
Answer. If you take the Bible away from the
world, "how
would it be possible to have witnesses
"sworn in courts;" how would
it be possible to ad-
minister justice?
Question.
If Christ had not been betrayed and
399
crucified,
is it true that his own mother would be in
perdition to-day?
Answer. Most assuredly. There was but one
way by which
she could be saved, and that was by
the death of her son—through
the blood of the
atonement. She was totally depraved through the
sin of Adam, and deserved eternal death. Even her
love for the infant
Christ was, in the sight of God,—
that is to say, of her babe,—wickedness.
It can not
be repeated too often that there is only one way to
be saved, and that is, to believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Question. Could Christ have prevented the Jews
from
crucifying him?
Answer. He could.
Question.
If he could have saved his life and did
not, was he not guilty of
suicide?
Answer. No one can understand these questions
who has not read the prophecies of Daniel, and has
not a clear
conception of what is meant by "the full-
"ness of time."
Question. What became of all the Canaanites, the
Egyptians,
the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans and
Chinese? What became of the
billions who died
before the promise was made to Abraham; of the
400
billions and billions who never heard of the Bible,
who never heard the name, even, of Jesus Christ—
never knew of
"the scheme of salvation"? What
became of the millions and billions
who lived in this
hemisphere, and of whose existence Jehovah himself
seemed perfectly ignorant?
Answer. They were undoubtedly
lost. God
having made them, had a right to do with them as
he
pleased. They are probably all in hell to-day, and
the fact that they
are damned, only adds to the joy
of the redeemed. It is by contrast
that we are able
to perceive the infinite kindness with which God has
treated us.
Question. Is it not possible that something
can
be done for a human soul in another world as well as
in
this?
Answer. No; this is the only world in which
God even attempts to reform anybody. In the
other world, nothing is
done for the purpose of
making anybody better. Here in this world,
where
man lives but a few days, is the only opportunity
for
moral improvement. A minister can do a thou-
sand times more for a
soul than its creator; and this
country is much better adapted to
moral growth than
heaven itself. A person who lived on this earth a
401
few years, and died without having been converted,
has no hope in another world. The moment he arrives
at the judgment
seat, nothing remains but to damn
him. Neither God, nor the Holy
Ghost, nor Jesus
Christ, can have the least possible influence with
him there.
Question. When God created each human being,
did he know exactly what would be his eternal fate?
Answer.
Most assuredly he did.
Question. Did he know that
hundreds and millions
and billions would suffer eternal pain?
Answer. Certainly. But he gave them freedom
of choice
between good and evil.
Question. Did he know exactly how
they would
use that freedom?
Answer. Yes.
Question. Did he know that billions would use
it wrong?
Answer. Yes.
Question. Was it optional with
him whether he
should make such people or not?
Answer.
Certainly.
Question. Had these people any option as to
whether they would be made or not?
Answer, No.
402
Question. Would it not have been far better to
leave them unconscious dust?
Answer. These questions
show how foolish it is
to judge God according to a human standard.
What
to us seems just and merciful, God may regard in an
exactly
opposite light; and we may hereafter be
developed to such a degree
that we will regard the
agonies of the damned as the highest possible
evi-
dence of the goodness and mercy of God.
Question.
How do you account for the fact that
God did not make himself known
except to Abra-
ham and his descendants? Why did he fail to
reveal himself to the other nations—nations that,
compared with
the Jews, were learned, cultivated
and powerful? Would you regard a
revelation now
made to the Esquimaux as intended for us; and
would it be a revelation of which we would be
obliged to take notice?
Answer. Of course, God could have revealed him-
self,
not only to all the great nations, but to each
individual. He could
have had the Ten Command-
ments engraved on every heart and brain; or
he
could have raised up prophets in every land; but
he chose,
rather, to allow countless millions of his
children to wander in the
darkness and blackness of
403
Nature; chose, rather,
that they should redden their
hands in each other's blood; chose,
rather, that they
should live without light, and die without hope;
chose, rather, that they should suffer, not only in this
world, but
forever in the next. Of course we have
no right to find fault with
the choice of God.
Question. Now you can tell a sinner
to "believe
"on the Lord Jesus Christ;" what could a sinner have
been told in Egypt, three thousand years ago; and
in what language
would you have addressed a Hindu
in the days of Buddha—the
"divine scheme" at that
time being a secret in the divine breast?
Answer. It is not for us to think upon these
questions.
The moment we examine the Christian
system, we begin to doubt. In a
little while, we shall
be infidels, and shall lose the respect of
those who
refuse to think. It is better to go with the majority.
These doctrines are too sacred to be touched. You
should be satisfied
with the religion of your father
and your mother. "You want some book
on the
"centre-table," in the parlor; it is extremely handy
to
have a Family Record; and what book, other than
the Bible, could a
mother give a son as he leaves the
old homestead?
Question.
Is it not wonderful that all the writers
404
of the
four gospels do not give an account of the
ascension of Jesus Christ?
Answer. This question has been answered long
ago, time
and time again.
Question. Perhaps it has, but would it
not be
well enough to answer it once more? Some may
not have
seen the answer?
Answer. Show me the hospitals that
infidels
have built; show me the asylums that infidels
have
founded.
Question. I know you have given the usual an-
swer; but after all, is it not singular that a miracle
so wonderful
as the bodily ascension of a man, should
not have been mentioned by
all the writers of that
man's life? Is it not wonderful that some of
them
said that he did ascend, and others that he agreed to
stay
with his disciples always?
Answer. People unacquainted
with the Hebrew,
can have no conception of these things. A story
in plain English, does not sound as it does in Hebrew.
Miracles seem
altogether more credible, when told in
a dead language.
Question.
What, in your judgment, became of
the dead who were raised by Christ?
Is it not
singular that they were never mentioned afterward?
405
Would not a man who had been raised from the
dead naturally be an object of considerable interest,
especially to
his friends and acquaintances? And
is it not also wonderful that
Christ, after having
wrought so many miracles, cured so many lame and
halt and blind, fed so many thousands miraculously,
and after having
entered Jerusalem in triumph as a
conqueror and king, had to be
pointed out by one
of his own disciples who was bribed for the
purpose?
Answer. Of course, all these things are exceed-
ingly wonderful, and if found in any other book,
would be absolutely
incredible; but we have no
right to apply the same kind of reasoning
to the
Bible that we apply to the Koran or to the sacred
books
of the Hindus. For the ordinary affairs of
this world, God has given
us reason; but in the
examination of religious questions, we should
de-
pend upon credulity and faith.
Question. If
Christ came to offer himself a sacri-
fice, for the purpose of making
atonement for the
sins of such as might believe on him, why did he
not make this fact known to all of his disciples?
Answer.
He did. This was, and is, the gospel.
Question. How is
it that Matthew says nothing
about "salvation by faith," but simply
says that God
406
will be merciful to the merciful,
that he will forgive
the forgiving, and says not one word about the
necessity of believing anything?
Answer. But you will
remember that Mark says,
in the last chapter of his gospel, that
"whoso be-
"lieveth not shall be damned."
Question.
Do you admit that Matthew says
nothing on the subject?
Answer.
Yes, I suppose I must.
Question. Is not that passage in
Mark generally
admitted to be an interpolation?
Answer.
Some biblical scholars say that it is.
Question. Is that
portion of the last chapter of
Mark found in the Syriac version of
the Bible?
Answer. It is not.
Question.
If it was necessary to believe on Jesus
Christ, in order to be saved,
how is it that Matthew
failed to say so?
Answer.
"There are more copies of the Bible
"printed to-day, than of any
other book in the world,
"and it is printed in more languages than
any other
"book."
Question. Do you consider it
necessary to be
"regenerated"—to be "born again"—in order
to be
saved?
407
Answer. Certainly.
Question. Did Matthew say anything on the sub-
ject of
"regeneration"?
Answer. No.
Question.
Did Mark?
Answer. No.
Question. Did
Luke?
Answer. No.
Question. Is Saint
John the only one who speaks
of the necessity of being "born again"?
Answer. He is.
Question. Do you think that
Matthew, Mark and
Luke knew anything about the necessity of "regen-
"eration"?
Answer. Of course they did.
Question.
Why did they fail to speak of it?
Answer. There is no
civilization without the Bible.
The moment you throw away the sacred
Scriptures,
you are all at sea—you are without an anchor and
without a compass.
Question. You will remember that,
according to
Mark, Christ said to his disciples: "Go ye into all
"the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
Did he refer to
the gospel set forth by Mark?
Answer. Of course he did.
408
Question. Well, in the gospel set forth by
Mark,
there is not a word about "regeneration," and no
word
about the necessity of believing anything—ex-
cept in an
interpolated passage. Would it not seem
from this, that
"regeneration" and a "belief in the
"Lord Jesus Christ," are no part
of the gospel?
Answer. Nothing can exceed in horror the
last
moments of the infidel; nothing can be more ter-
rible than
the death of the doubter. When the
glories of this world fade from
the vision; when am-
bition becomes an empty name; when wealth turns
to dust in the palsied hand of death, of what use is
philosophy then?
Who cares then for the pride of
intellect? In that dread moment, man
needs some-
thing to rely on, whether it is true or not.
Question. Would it not have been more con-
vincing if Christ,
after his resurrection, had shown
himself to his enemies as well as
to his friends?
Would it not have greatly strengthened the evidence
in the case, if he had visited Pilate; had presented
himself before
Caiaphas, the high priest; if he had
again entered the temple, and
again walked the
streets of Jerusalem?
Answer. If
the evidence had been complete and
overwhelming, there would have
been no praise-
409
worthiness in belief; even
publicans and sinners
would have believed, if the evidence had been
suffi-
cient. The amount of evidence required is the test
of the
true Christian spirit.
Question. Would it not also have
been better
had the ascension taken place in the presence of
unbelieving thousands; it seems such a pity to have
wasted such a
demonstration upon those already
convinced?
Answer.
These questions are the natural fruit of
the carnal mind, and can be
accounted for only by
the doctrine of total depravity. Nothing has
given
the church more trouble than just such questions.
Unholy
curiosity, a disposition to pry into the divine
mysteries, a desire
to know, to investigate, to explain
—in short, to understand,
are all evidences of a re-
probate mind.
Question.
How can we account for the fact that
Matthew alone speaks of the wise
men of the East
coming with gifts to the infant Christ; that he alone
speaks of the little babes being killed by Herod? Is
it possible that
the other writers never heard of these
things?
Answer.
Nobody can get any good out of the
Bible by reading it in a critical
spirit. The contra-
410
dictions and discrepancies
are only apparent, and melt
away before the light of faith. That
which in other
books would be absolute and palpable contradiction,
is, in the Bible, when spiritually discerned, a perfect
and beautiful
harmony. My own opinion is, that
seeming contradictions are in the
Bible for the pur-
pose of testing and strengthening the faith of
Chris-
tians, and for the further purpose of ensnaring infidels,
"that they might believe a lie and be damned."
Question. Is it
possible that a good God would
take pains to deceive his children?
Answer. The Bible is filled with instances of that
kind,
and all orthodox ministers now know that
fossil animals—that
is, representations of animals in
stone, were placed in the rocks on
purpose to mis-
lead men like Darwin and Humboldt, Huxley and
Tyndall. It is also now known that God, for the
purpose of misleading
the so-called men of science,
had hairy elephants preserved in ice,
made stomachs
for them, and allowed twigs of trees to be found in
these stomachs, when, as a matter of fact, no such
elephants ever
lived or ever died. These men who
are endeavoring to overturn the
Scriptures with the
lever of science will find that they have been
de-
ceived. Through all eternity they will regret their
411
philosophy. They will wish, in the next world, that
they had thrown away geology and physiology and
all other "ologies"
except theology. The time is
coming when Jehovah will "mock at their
fears and
"laugh at their calamity."
Question. If
Joseph was not the father of Christ,
why was his genealogy given to
show that Christ
was of the blood of David; why would not the
genealogy of any other Jew have done as well?
Answer.
That objection was raised and answered
hundreds of years ago.
Question. If they wanted to show that Christ was of
the
blood of David, why did they not give the gene-
alogy of his mother
if Joseph was not his father?
Answer. That objection was
answered hundreds
of years ago.
Question. How was
it answered?
Answer. When Voltaire was dying, he sent
for a
priest.
Question. How does it happen that the
two gene-
alogies given do not agree?
Answer.
Perhaps they were written by different
persons.
Question.
Were both these persons inspired by
the same God?
412
Answer. Of course.
Question. Why were the
miracles recorded in the
New Testament performed?
Answer.
The miracles were the evidence relied
on to prove the supernatural
origin and the divine
mission of Jesus Christ.
Question.
Aside from the miracles, is there any
evidence to show the
supernatural origin or character
of Jesus Christ?
Answer.
Some have considered that his moral
precepts are sufficient, of
themselves, to show that
he was divine.
Question.
Had all of his moral precepts been
taught before he lived?
Answer. The same things had been said, but they
did not have
the same meaning.
Question. Does the fact that Buddha
taught the
same tend to show that he was of divine origin?
Answer. Certainly not. The rules of evidence
applicable to the
Bible are not applicable to other
books. We examine other books in
the light of
reason; the Bible is the only exception. So, we
should not judge of Christ as we do of any other
man.
Question.
Do you think that Christ wrought
413
many of his
miracles because he was good, charitable,
and filled with pity?
Answer. Certainly
Question. Has he as much
power now as he had
when on earth?
Answer. Most
assuredly.
Question. Is he as charitable and pitiful
now, as
he was then?
Answer. Yes.
Question.
Why does he not now cure the lame
and the halt and the blind?
Answer. It is well known that, when Julian the
Apostate
was dying, catching some of his own blood
in his hand and throwing it
into the air he exclaimed:
"Galileean, thou hast conquered!"
Question. Do you consider it our duty to love our
neighbor?
Answer. Certainly.
Question.
Is virtue the same in all worlds?
Answer. Most
assuredly.
Question. Are we under obligation to render
good
for evil, and to "pray for those who despitefully use us"?
Answer. Yes.
Question. Will Christians in
heaven love their
neighbors?
414
Answer.
Y es; if their neighbors are not in hell.
Question. Do
good Christians pity sinners in this
world?
Answer.
Yes.
Question. Why?
Answer. Because
they regard them as being in
great danger of the eternal wrath of
God.
Question. After these sinners have died, and
been sent to hell, will the Christians in heaven then
pity them?
Answer. No. Angels have no pity.
Question.
If we are under obligation to love our
enemies, is not God under
obligation to love his?
If we forgive our enemies, ought not God to
forgive
his? If we forgive those who injure us, ought not
God to
forgive those who have not injured him?
Answer. God made
us, and he has therefore the
right to do with us as he pleases.
Justice demands
that he should damn all of us, and the few that he
will save will be saved through mercy and without
the slightest
respect to anything they may have done
themselves. Such is the
justice of God, that those
in hell will have no right to complain,
and those in
heaven will have no right to be there. Hell is justice,
and salvation is charity.
415
Question. Do
you consider it possible for a law to
be jusdy satisfied by the
punishment of an innocent
person?
Answer. Such is
the scheme of the atonement.
As man is held responsible for the sin
of Adam, so
he will be credited with the virtues of Christ; and
you can readily see that one is exactly as reasonable
as the other.
Question. Suppose a man honestly reads the New
Testament, and honestly concludes that it is not an
inspired book;
suppose he honestly makes up his
mind that the miracles are not true;
that the devil
never really carried Christ to the pinnacle of the
temple; that devils were really never cast out of a
man and allowed
to take refuge in swine;—I say,
suppose that he is honestly
convinced that these
things are not true, what ought he to say?
Answer. He ought to say nothing.
Question.
Suppose that the same man should read
the Koran, and come to the
conclusion that it is not
an inspired book; what ought he to say?
Answer. He ought to say that it is not inspired;
his
fellow-men are entitled to his honest opinion, and
it is his duty to
do what he can do to destroy a per-
nicious superstition.
416
Question. Suppose then, that a reader of the Bible,
having become convinced that it is not inspired—
honestly
convinced—says nothing—keeps his con-
clusion absolutely
to himself, and suppose he dies in
that belief, can he be saved?
Answer. Certainly not.
Question. Has the
honesty of his belief anything
to do with his future condition?
Answer. Nothing whatever.,
Question.
Suppose that he tried to believe, that
he hated to disagree with his
friends, and with his
parents, but that in spite of himself he was
forced to
the conclusion that the Bible is not the inspired word
of God, would he then deserve eternal punishment?
Answer.
Certainly he would.
Question. Can a man control his
belief?
Answer. He cannot—except as to the Bible.
Question. Do you consider it just in God to
create a man
who cannot believe the Bible, and then
damn him because he does not?
Answer. Such is my belief.
Question. Is it
your candid opinion that a man
who does not believe the Bible should
keep his
belief a secret from his fellow-men?
Answer.
It is.
417
Question. How do I know that you
believe the
Bible? You have told me that if you did not be-
lieve it, you would not tell me?
Answer. There is no way
for you to ascertain,
except by taking my word for it.
Question.
What will be the fate of a man who
does not believe it, and yet
pretends to believe it?
Answer. He will be damned.
Question. Then hypocrisy will not save him?
Answer.
No.
Question. And if he does not believe it, and ad-
mits that he does not believe it, then his honesty will
not save him?
Answer. No. Honesty on the wrong side is no
better than
hypocrisy on the right side.
Question. Do we know who
wrote the gospels?
Answer. Yes; we do.
Question.
Are we absolutely sure who wrote
them?
Answer. Of
course; we have the evidence as it
has come to us through the
Catholic Church.
Question. Can we rely upon the Catholic
Church
now?
Answer. No; assuredly no! But we have
the
testimony of Polycarp and Irenæus and Clement,
418
and others of the early fathers, together with that of
the Christian historian, Eusebius.
Question. What do we
really know about Polycarp?
Answer. We know that he
suffered martyrdom un-
der Marcus Aurelius, and that for quite a time
the fire
refused to burn his body, the flames arching over him,
leaving him in a kind of fiery tent; and we also know
that from his
body came a fragrance like frankincense,
and that the Pagans were so
exasperated at seeing
the miracle, that one of them thrust a sword
through
the body of Polycarp; that the blood flowed out and
extinguished the flames and that out of the wound
flew the soul of
the martyr in the form of a dove.
Question. Is that all
we know about Polycarp?
Answer. Yes, with the exception
of a few more
like incidents.
Question. Do we know
that Polycarp ever met
St. John?
Answer. Yes;
Eusebius says so.
Question. Are we absolutely certain
that he ever
lived?
Answer. Yes, or Eusebius could
not have written
about him.
Question. Do we know
anything of the character
of Eusebius?
419
Answer.
Yes; we know that he was untruthful
only when he wished to do good.
But God can use
even the dishonest. Other books have to be sub-
stantiated by truthful men, but such is the power of
God, that he can
establish the inspiration of the Bible
by the most untruthful
witnesses. If God's witnesses
were honest, anybody could believe, and
what be-
comes of faith, one of the greatest virtues?
Question.
Is the New Testament now the same as
it was in the days of the early
fathers?
Answer. Certainly not. Many books now thrown
out, and not esteemed of divine origin, were esteemed
divine by
Polycarp and Irenæus and Clement and
many of the early
churches. These books are now
called "apocryphal."
Question.
Have you not the same witnesses in
favor of their authenticity, that
you have in favor of
the gospels?
Answer. Precisely
the same. Except that they
were thrown out.
Question.
Why were they thrown out?
Answer. Because the Catholic
Church did not es-
teem them inspired.
Question.
Did the Catholics decide for us which
are the true gospels and which
are the true epistles?
420
Answer. Yes. The
Catholic Church was then the
only church, and consequently must have
been the
true church.
Question. How did the
Catholic Church select the
true books?
Answer.
Councils were called, and votes were
taken, very much as we now pass
resolutions in
political meetings.
Question. Was
the Catholic Church infallible then?
Answer. It was
then, but it is not now.
Question. If the Catholic
Church at that time
had thrown out the book of Revelation, would it
now be our duty to believe that book to have been
inspired?
Answer. No, I suppose not.
Question. Is it
not true that some of these books
were adopted by exceedingly small
majorities?
Answer. It is.
Question.
If the Epistle to the Hebrews and to
the Romans, and the book of
Revelation had been
thrown out, could a man now be saved who honestly
believes the rest of the books?
Answer. This is
doubtful.
Question. Were the men who picked out the in-
spired books inspired?
421
Answer. We cannot
tell, but the probability is
that they were.
Question.
Do we know that they picked out the
right ones?
Answer.
Well, not exactly, but we believe that
they did.
Question.
Are we certain that some of the books
that were thrown out were not
inspired?
Answer. Well, the only way to tell is to read
them carefully.
Question. If upon reading these
apocryphal books
a man concludes that they are not inspired, will he
be
damned for that reason?
Answer. No. Certainly
not.
Question. If he concludes that some of them are
inspired, and believes them, will he then be damned
for that belief?
Answer. Oh, no! Nobody is ever damned for
believing too
much.
Question. Does the fact that the books now com-
prising the New Testament were picked out by the
Catholic Church
prevent their being examined now
by an honest man, as they were
examined at the time
they were picked out?
422
Answer. No; not if the man comes to the con-
clusion that they
are inspired.
Question. Does the fact that the Catholic
Church
picked them out and declared them to be inspired,
render
it a crime to examine them precisely as you
would examine the books
that the Catholic Church
threw out and declared were not inspired?
Answer. I think it does.
Question. At the
time the council was held in which
it was determined which of the
books of the New
Testament are inspired, a respectable minority voted
against some that were finally decided to be inspired.
If they were
honest in the vote they gave, and died
without changing their
opinions, are they now in hell?
Answer. Well, they ought
to be.
Question. If those who voted to leave the book
of Revelation out of the canon, and the gospel of
Saint John out of
the canon, believed honestly that
these were not inspired books, how
should they have
voted?
Answer. Well, I suppose a
man ought to vote as
he honestly believes—except in matters of
religion.
Question. If the Catholic Church was not
infal-
lible, is the question still open as to what books are,
and what are not, inspired?
423
Answer. I
suppose the question is still open—
but it would be dangerous
to decide it.
Question. If, then, I examine all the
books again,
and come to the conclusion that some that were
thrown out were inspired, and some that were ac-
cepted were not
inspired, ought I to say so?
Answer. Not if it is
contrary to the faith of your
father, or calculated to interfere with
your own po-
litical prospects.
Question. Is it as
great a sin to admit into the
Bible books that are uninspired as to
reject those
that are inspired?
Answer. Well, it is
a crime to reject an inspired
book, no matter how unsatisfactory the
evidence is
for its inspiration, but it is not a crime to receive an
uninspired book. God damns nobody for believing
too much. An excess
of credulity is simply to err in
the direction of salvation.
Question. Suppose a man disbelieves in the inspira-
tion
of the New Testament—believes it to be entirely
the work of
uninspired men; and suppose he also be-
lieves—but not from any
evidence obtained in the New
Testament—that Jesus Christ was
the son of God, and
that he made atonement for his soul, can he then
be
saved without a belief in the inspiration of the Bible?
424
Answer. This has not yet been decided by
our
church, and I do not wish to venture an
opinion.
Question.
Suppose a man denies the inspiration
of the Scriptures; suppose that
he also denies the
divinity of Jesus Christ; and suppose, further,
that
he acts precisely as Christ is said to have acted;
suppose
he loves his enemies, prays for those who
despitefully use him, and
does all the good he pos-
sibly can, is it your opinion that such a
man will be
saved?
Answer. No, sir. There is "none
other name
"given under heaven and among men," whereby a
sinner
can be saved but the name of Christ.
Question. Then it
is your opinion that God
would save a murderer who believed in
Christ, and
would damn another man, exactly like Christ, who
failed to believe in him?
Answer. Yes; because we have
the blessed
promise that, out of Christ, "our God is a consuming
"fire."
Question. Suppose a man read the Bible care-
fully and honestly, and was not quite convinced that
it was true, and
that while examining the subject, he
died; what then?
425
Answer. I do not believe that God would allow
him to
examine the matter in another world, or to
make up his mind in
heaven. Of course, he would
eternally perish.
Question.
Could Christ now furnish evidence
enough to convince every human
being of the truth
of the Bible?
Answer. Of course
he could, because he is in-
finite.
Question. Are
any miracles performed now?
Answer. Oh, no!
Question. Have we any testimony, except human
testimony, to
substantiate any miracle?
Answer. Only human testimony.
Question. Do all men give the same force to the
same
evidence?
Answer. By no means.
Question.
Have all honest men who have exam-
ined the Bible believed it to be
inspired?
Answer. Of course they have. Infidels are not
honest.
Question. Could any additional evidence have
been furnished?
Answer. With perfect ease.
Question.
Would God allow a soul to suffer
426
eternal agony
rather than furnish evidence of the
truth of his Bible?
Answer.
God has furnished plenty of evidence,
and altogether more than was
really necessary. We
should read the Bible in a believing spirit.
Question. Are all parts of the inspired books
equally
true?
Answer. Necessarily.
Question.
According to Saint Matthew, God
promises to forgive all who will
forgive others; not
one word is said about believing in Christ, or
believ-
ing in the miracles, or in any Bible; did Matthew tell
the truth?
Answer. The Bible must be taken as a whole;
and if other conditions are added somewhere else,
then you must
comply with those other conditions.
Matthew may not have stated all
the conditions.
Question. I find in another part of the
New
Testament, that a young man came to Christ and
asked him
what was necessary for him to do in order
that he might inherit
eternal life. Christ did not tell
him that he must believe the Bible,
or that he must
believe in him, or that he must keep the Sabbath-
day; was Christ honest with that young man?
Answer.
Well, I suppose he was.
427
Question. You
will also recollect that Zaccheus
said to Christ, that where he had
wronged any man
he had made restitution, and further, that half his
goods he had given to the poor; and you will re-
member that Christ
said to Zaccheus: "This day
"hath salvation come to thy house." Why
did not
Christ tell Zaccheus that he "must be born again;"
that
he must "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ"?
Answer. Of
course there are mysteries in our
holy religion that only those who
have been "born
"again" can understand. You must remember that
"the carnal mind is enmity with God."
Question. Is it
not strange that Christ, in his Ser-
mon on the Mount, did not speak
of "regeneration,"
or of the "scheme of salvation"?
Answer.
Well, it may be.
Question. Can a man be saved now by
living
exactly in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount?
Answer. He can not.
Question. Would then a man,
by following the
course of conduct prescribed by Christ in the Sermon
on the Mount, lose his soul?
Answer. He most certainly
would, because there
is not one word in the Sermon on the Mount about
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ; not one word
428
about believing in the Bible; not one word about the
"atonement;" not
one word about "regeneration."
So that, if the Presbyterian Church is
right, it is abso-
lutely certain that a man might follow the
teachings
of the Sermon on the Mount, and live in accordance
with its every word, and yet deserve and receive the
eternal
condemnation of God. But we must remem-
ber that the Sermon on the
Mount was preached be-
fore Christianity existed. Christ was talking
to Jews.
Question. Did Christ write anything himself, in
the New Testament?
Answer. Not a word.
Question.
Did he tell any of his disciples to write
any of his words?
Answer. There is no account of it, if he did.
Question.
Do we know whether any of the dis-
ciples wrote anything?
Answer. Of course they did.
Question. How do you
know?
Answer. Because the gospels bear their names.
Question. Are you satisfied that Christ was abso-
lutely
God?
Answer. Of course he was. We believe that
Christ and God and the Holy Ghost are all the same,
that the three
form one, and that each one is three.
429
Question.
Was Christ the God of the universe at
the time of his birth?
Answer. He certainly was.
Question. Was he
the infinite God, creator
and controller of the entire universe,
before he was
born?
Answer. Of course he was. This
is the mystery
of "God manifest in the flesh." The infidels have
pretended that he was like any other child, and was
in fact supported
by Nature instead of being the
supporter of Nature. They have
insisted that like
other children, he had to be cared for by his
mother.
Of course he appeared to be cared for by his mother.
It
was a part of the plan that in all respects he should
appear to be
like other children.
Question. Did he know just as much
before he
was born as after?
Answer. If he was God
of course he did.
Question. How do you account for the
fact that
Saint Luke tells us, in the last verse of the second
chapter of his gospel, that "Jesus increased in wis-
"dom and
stature"?
Answer. That I presume is a figure of speech;
because, if he was God, he certainly could not have
increased in
wisdom. The physical part of him could
430
increase
in stature, but the intellectual part must have
been infinite all the
time.
Question. Do you think that Luke was mistaken?
Answer. No; I believe what Luke said. If it
appears
untrue, or impossible, then I know that it is
figurative or
symbolical.
Question. Did I understand you to say that
Christ
was actually God?
Answer. Of course he was.
Question. Then why did Luke say in the same
verse of the
same chapter that "Jesus increased in
"favor with God"?
Answer.
I dare you to go into a room by your-
self and read the fourteenth
chapter of Saint John!
Question. Is it necessary to
understand the Bible
in order to be saved?
Answer.
Certainly not; it is only necessary that
you believe it.
Question. Is it necessary to believe all the
miracles?
Answer. It may not be necessary, but as it is im-
possible to tell which ones can safely be left out, you
had better
believe them all.
Question. Then you regard belief as
the safe
way?
431
Answer. Of course it
is better to be fooled in this
world than to be damned in the next.
Question. Do you think that there are any cruel-
ties on
God's part recorded in the Bible?
Answer. At first
flush, many things done by God
himself, as well as by his prophets,
appear to be
cruel; but if we examine them closely, we will find
them to be exactly the opposite.
Question. How do you
explain the story of Elisha
and the children,—where the two
she-bears destroyed
forty-two children on account of their impudence?
Answer. This miracle, in my judgment, estab-
lishes two
things: 1. That children should be polite
to ministers, and 2. That
God is kind to animals—
"giving them their meat in due season."
These
bears have been great educators—they are the
foundation of the respect entertained by the young
for theologians.
No child ever sees a minister now
without thinking of a bear.
Question. What do you think of the story of
Daniel—you
no doubt remember it? Some men
told the king that Daniel was praying
contrary to
law, and thereupon Daniel was cast into a den of
lions; but the lions could not touch him, their
mouths having been
shut by angels. The next
432
morning, the king,
finding that Daniel was still
intact, had him taken out; and then,
for the purpose
of gratifying Daniels God, the king had all the men
who had made the complaint against Daniel, and
their wives and their
little children, brought and cast
into the lions' den. According to
the account, the
lions were so hungry that they caught these wives
and children as they dropped, and broke all their
bones in pieces
before they had even touched the
ground. Is it not wonderful that God
failed to pro-
tect these innocent wives and children?
Answer.
These wives and children were heathen;
they were totally depraved.
And besides, they were
used as witnesses. The fact that they were
devoured
with such quickness shows that the lions were
hungry.
Had it not been for this, infidels would
have accounted for the
safety of Daniel by saying
that the lions had been fed.
Question.
Do you believe that Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego were cast "into a
burning fiery furnace
"heated one seven times hotter than it was wont
to
"be heated," and that they had on "their coats, their
"hosen
and their hats," and that when they came
out "not a hair of their
heads was singed, nor was
"the smell of fire upon their garments"?
433
Answer. The evidence of this miracle is
exceed-
ingly satisfactory. It resulted in the conversion of
Nebuchadnezzar.
Question. How do you know he was
converted?
Answer. Because immediately after the miracle
the king issued a decree that "every people, nation
"and language
that spoke anything amiss against
"the God of Shadrach and Company,
should be cut
"in pieces." This decree shows that he had become
a true disciple and worshiper of Jehovah.
Question. If
God in those days preserved from
the fury of the fire men who were
true to him and
would not deny his name, why is it that he has failed
to protect thousands of martyrs since that time?
Answer.
This is one of the divine mysteries.
God has in many instances
allowed his enemies to
kill his friends. I suppose this was allowed
for the
good of his enemies, that the heroism of the mar-
tyrs
might convert them.
Question. Do you believe all the
miracles?
Answer. I believe them all, because I believe
the
Bible to be inspired.
Question. What makes you
think it is inspired?
Answer. I have never seen anybody
who knew
it was not; besides, my father and mother believed it.
434
Question. Have you any other reasons for be-
lieving it to be inspired?
Answer. Yes; there are more
copies of the Bible
printed than of any other book; and it is printed
in
more languages. And besides, it would be impossible
to get
along without it.
Question. Why could we not get along
without it?
Answer. We would have nothing to swear wit-
nesses by; no book in which to keep the family
record; nothing for
the centre-table, and nothing for
a mother to give her son. No nation
can be civilized
without the Bible.
Question. Did
God always know that a Bible was
necessary to civilize a country?
Answer. Certainly he did.
Question. Why did
he not give a Bible to
the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Greeks and the
Romans?
Answer. It is astonishing what perfect fools in-
fidels are.
Question. Why do you call infidels "fools"?
Answer. Because I find in the fifth chapter of the
gospel according to Matthew the following: "Who-
"soever shall say
'Thou fool!' shall be in danger of
"hell fire."
435
Question. Have I the right to read the Bible?
Answer.
Yes. You not only have the right, but
it is your duty.
Question.
In reading the Bible the words make
certain impressions on my mind.
These impressions
depend upon my brain,—upon my intelligence.
Is
not this true?
Answer. Of course, when you read
the Bible, im-
pressions are made upon your mind.
Question.
Can I control these impressions?
Answer. I do not think
you can, as long as you
remain in a sinful state.
Question.
How am I to get out of this sinful state?
Answer. You
must believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and you must read the Bible in
a prayerful
spirit and with a believing heart.
Question.
Suppose that doubts force themselves
upon my mind?
Answer.
Then you will know that you are a sin-
ner, and that you are
depraved.
Question. If I have the right to read the
Bible,
have I the right to try to understand it?
Answer.
Most assuredly.
Question. Do you admit that I have the
right to
reason about it and to investigate it?
436
Answer. Yes; I admit that. Of course you can-
not help
reasoning about what you read.
Question. Does the right
to read a book include
the right to give your opinion as to the truth
of what
the book contains?
Answer. Of course,—if
the book is not inspired.
Infidels hate the Bible because it is
inspired, and
Christians know that it is inspired because infidels
say that it is not.
Question. Have I the right to decide
for myself
whether or not the book is inspired?
Answer.
You have no right to deny the truth of
God's Holy Word.
Question.
Is God the author of all books?
Answer. Certainly not.
Question. Have I the right to say that God did
not write
the Koran?
Answer. Yes.
Question. Why?
Answer. Because the Koran was written by an
impostor.
Question. How do you know?
Answer. My
reason tells me so.
Question. Have you the right to be
guided by
your reason?
437
Answer. I
must be.
Question. Have you the same right to follow
your
reason after reading the Bible?
Answer. No.
The Bible is the standard of reason.
The Bible is not to be judged or
corrected by your
reason. Your reason is to be weighed and measured
by the Bible. The Bible is different from other
books and must not be
read in the same critical spirit,
nor judged by the same standard.
Question. What did God give us reason for?
Answer.
So that we might investigate other
religions, and examine other
so-called sacred books.
Question. If a man honestly
thinks that the Bible
is not inspired, what should he say?
Answer. He should admit that he is mistaken.
Question.
When he thinks he is right?
Answer. Yes. The Bible is
different from other
books. It is the master of reason. You read the
Bible, not to see if that is wrong, but to see
whether your reason is
right. It is the only book
about which a man has no right to reason.
He must
believe. The Bible is addressed, not to the reason,
but
to the ears: "He that hath ears to hear, let
"him hear."
Question. Do you think we have the right to tell
438
what the Bible means—what ideas God intended to
convey,
or has conveyed to us, through the medium
of the Bible?
Answer.
Well, I suppose you have that right.
Yes, that must be your duty. You
certainly ought
to tell others what God has said to you.
Question. Do all men get the same ideas from
the Bible?
Answer. No.
Question. How do you account
for that?
Answer. Because all men are not alike; they
differ in intellect, in education, and in experience.
Question.
Who has the right to decide as to the
real ideas that God intended to
convey?
Answer. I am a Protestant, and believe in the
right of private judgment. Whoever does not is a
Catholic. Each man
must be his own judge, but God
will hold him responsible.
Question. Does God believe in the right of private
judgment?
Answer. Of course he does.
Question. Is he
willing that I should exercise my
judgment in deciding whether the
Bible is inspired or
not?
Answer. No. He believes
in the exercise of
439
private judgment only in the
examination and rejec-
tion of other books than the Bible.
Question. Is he a Catholic?
Answer. I cannot
answer blasphemy! Let me
tell you that God will "laugh at your
calamity, and
"will mock when your fear cometh." You will be
accursed.
Question. Why do you curse infidels?
Answer. Because I am a Christian.
Question.
Did not Christ say that we ought to
"bless those who curse us," and
that we should
"love our enemies"?
Answer. Yes, but
he cursed the Pharisees and
called them "hypocrites" and "vipers."
Question. How do you account for that?
Answer.
It simply shows the difference between
theory and practice.
Question. What do you consider the best way to
answer
infidels.
Answer. The old way is the best. You should
say that their arguments are ancient, and have been
answered over and
over again. If this does not
satisfy your hearers, then you should
attack the
character of the infidel—then that of his parents—
then that of his children.
440
Question.
Suppose that the infidel is a good man,
how will you answer him then?
Answer. But an infidel cannot be a good man.
Even if he
is, it is better that he should lose his
reputation, than that
thousands should lose their
souls. We know that all infidels are vile
and infa-
mous. We may not have the evidence, but we know
that
it exists.
Question. How should infidels be treated?
Should
Christians try to convert them?
Answer.
Christians should have nothing to do
with infidels. It is not safe
even to converse with
them. They are always talking about reason, and
facts, and experience. They are filled with sophistry
and should be
avoided.
Question. Should Christians pray for the con-
version of infidels?
Answer. Yes; but such prayers
should be made
in public and the name of the infidel should be given
and his vile and hideous heart portrayed so that the
young may be
warned.
Question. Whom do you regard as infidels?
Answer. The scientists—the geologists, the as-
tronomers, the naturalists, the philosophers. No one
can overestimate
the evil that has been wrought
441
by Laplace,
Humboldt, Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel,
Renan, Emerson, Strauss, Bikhner,
Tyndall, and
their wretched followers. These men pretended to
know more than Moses and the prophets. They
were "dogs baying at the
moon." They were
"wolves" and "fools." They tried to "assassinate
"God," and worse than all, they actually laughed
at the clergy,
Question. Do you think they did, and are doing
great
harm?
Answer. Certainly. Of what use are all the
sciences, if you lose your own soul? People in hell
will care nothing
about education. The rich man
said nothing about science, he wanted
water.
Neither will they care about books and theories
in
heaven. If a man is perfectly happy, it makes
no difference how
ignorant he is.
Question. But how can he answer these
scientists?
Answer. Well, my advice is to let their
argu-
ments alone. Of course, you will deny all their
facts; but
the most effective way is to attack their
character.
Question.
But suppose they are good men,—
what then?
Answer.
The better they are, the worse they are.
442
We
cannot admit that the infidel is really good. He
may appear to be
good, and it is our duty to strip
the mask of appearance from the
face of unbelief. If
a man is not a Christian, he is totally
depraved, and
why should we hesitate to make a misstatement
about a man whom God is going to make miserable
forever?
Question. Are we not commanded to love our
enemies?
Answer. Yes, but not the enemies of God.
Question.
Do you fear the final triumph of infi-
delity?
Answer.
No. We have no fear. We believe
that the Bible can be revised often
enough to agree
with anything that may really be necessary to the
preservation of the church. We can always rely
upon revision. Let me
tell you that the Bible is the
most peculiar of books. At the time
God inspired his
holy prophets to write it, he knew exactly what the
discoveries and demonstrations of the future would
be, and he wrote
his Bible in such a way that the
words could always be interpreted in
accordance with
the intelligence of each age, and so that the words
used are capable of several meanings, so that, no
matter what may
hereafter be discovered, the Bible
443
will be found
to agree with it,—for the reason that
the knowledge of Hebrew
will grow in the exact
proportion that discoveries are made in other
depart-
ments of knowledge. You will therefore see, that all
efforts of infidelity to destroy the Bible will simply
result in
giving a better translation.
Question. What do you
consider is the strongest
argument in favor of the inspiration of the
Scrip-
tures?
Answer. The dying words of
Christians.
Question. What do you consider the strongest
argument against the truth of infidelity?
Answer. The
dying words of infidels. You know
how terrible were the death-bed
scenes of Hume,
Voltaire, Paine and Hobbes, as described by hundreds
of persons who were not present; while all Christians
have died with
the utmost serenity, and with their
last words have testified to the
sustaining power of
faith in the goodness of God.
Question.
What were the last words of Jesus
Christ?
Answer.
"My God, my God, why hast thou for-
"saken me?"
A
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
"To argue with
a man who has renounced the use and
authority of reason, is like
administering
medicine to the dead."—Thomas Paine.
Peoria, October 8, 1877.
To the Editor of the N Y.
Observer:
Sir: Last June in San Francisco, I offered a
thousand dollars in gold—not as a wager, but as a
gift—to
any one who would substantiate the absurd
story that Thomas Paine
died in agony and fear,
frightened by the clanking chains of devils.
I also
offered the same amount to any minister who would
prove
that Voltaire did not pass away as serenely as
the coming of the
dawn. Afterward I was informed
that you had accepted the offer, and
had called upon
me to deposit the money. Acting upon this inform-
ation, I sent you the following letter:
Peoria, Ill., August
31st, 1877.
To the Editor of the New York Observer:
I have been informed that you accepted, in your
paper, an offer made
by me to any clergyman in
San Francisco. That offer was, that I would
pay
448
one thousand dollars in gold to any minister
in that
city who would prove that Thomas Paine died in
terror
because of religious opinions he had ex-
pressed, or that Voltaire
did not pass away serenely
as the coming of the dawn.
For
many years religious journals and ministers
have been circulating
certain pretended accounts of
the frightful agonies endured by Paine
and Voltaire
when dying; that these great men at the moment of
death were terrified because they had given their
honest opinions
upon the subject of religion to their
fellow-men. The imagination of
the religious world
has been taxed to the utmost in inventing absurd
and infamous accounts of the last moments of these
intellectual
giants. Every Sunday school paper,
thousands of idiotic tracts, and
countless stupidities
called sermons, have been filled with these
calumnies.
Paine and Voltaire both believed in God—both
hoped for immortality—both believed in special
providence. But
both denied the inspiration of the
Scriptures—both denied the
divinity of Jesus Christ.
While theologians most cheerfully admit
that most
murderers die without fear, they deny the possibility
of any man who has expressed his disbelief in the
inspiration of the
Bible dying except in an agony of
terror. These stories are used in
revivals and in
449
Sunday schools, and have long
been considered of
great value.
I am anxious that these
slanders shall cease. I
am desirous of seeing justice done, even at
this late
day, to the dead.
For the purpose of
ascertaining the evidence upon
which these death-bed accounts really
rest, I make
to you the following proposition:—
First.—As to Thomas Paine: I will deposit with
the First
National Bank of Peoria, Illinois, one thou-
sand dollars in gold,
upon the following conditions:
This money shall be subject to your
order when
you shall, in the manner hereinafter provided, sub-
stantiate that Thomas Paine admitted the Bible to be
an inspired
book, or that he recanted his Infidel
opinions—or that he died
regretting that he had dis-
believed the Bible—or that he died
calling upon
Jesus Christ in any religious sense whatever.
In order that a tribunal may be created to try this
question, you may
select one man, I will select
another, and the two thus chosen shall
select a third,
and any two of the three may decide the matter.
As there will be certain costs and expenditures on
both sides,
such costs and expenditures shall be paid
by the defeated party.
In addition to the one thousand dollars in gold, I
450
will deposit a bond with good and sufficient security
in the
sum of two thousand dollars, conditioned for
the payment of all costs
in case I am defeated. I
shall require of you a like bond.
From the date of accepting this offer you may
have ninety days to
collect and present your testi-
mony, giving me notice of time and
place of taking
depositions. I shall have a like time to take evi-
dence upon my side, giving you like notice, and you
shall then have
thirty days to take further testimony
in reply to what I may offer.
The case shall then
be argued before the persons chosen; and their
decisions shall be final as to us.
If the arbitrator chosen by
me shall die, I shall
have the right to choose another. You shall
have
the same right. If the third one, chosen by our two,
shall
die, the two shall choose another; and all va-
cancies, from whatever
cause, shall be filled upon the
same principle.
The
arbitrators shall sit when and where a major-
ity shall determine,
and shall have full power to pass
upon all questions arising as to
competency of
evidence, and upon all subjects.
Second.—As
to Voltaire: I make the same prop-
osition, if you will substantiate
that Voltaire died
expressing remorse or showing in any way that he
451
was in mental agony because he had attacked Catholi-
cism—or because he had denied the inspiration of the
Bible—or
because he had denied the divinity of Christ.
I make these
propositions because I want you
to stop slandering the dead.
If the propositions do not suit you in any particu-
lar, please
state your objections, and I will modify
them in any way consistent
with the object in view.
If Paine and Voltaire died filled with
childish and
silly fear, I want to know it, and I want the world to
know it. On the other hand, if the believers in
superstition have
made and circulated these cruel
slanders concerning the mighty dead,
I want the
world to know that.
As soon as you notify me of
the acceptance of
these propositions I will send you the certificate
of
the bank that the money has been deposited upon
the foregoing
conditions, together with copies of
bonds for costs. Yours truly,
R. G. Ingersoll.
In your paper of September 27, 1877, you
acknowl-
edge the receipt of the foregoing letter, and after
giving an outline of its contents, say: "As not one
of the
affirmations, in the form stated in this letter,
was contained in the
offer we made, we have no
occasion to substantiate them. But we are
prepared
452
to produce the evidence of the truth of
our own
statement, and even to go further; to show not only
that
Tom Paine 'died a drunken, cowardly, and
beastly death,' but that for
many years previous, and
up to that event he lived a drunken and
beastly life."
In order to refresh your memory as to what you
had published, I call your attention to the following,
which appeared
in the N. Y. Observer, July 19, 1877:
"Put Down the Money.
"Col. Bob Ingersoll, in a speech full of ribaldry
and blasphemy, made
in San Francisco recently, said:
"I will give $1,000 in gold coin to
any clergyman
who can substantiate that the death of Voltaire was
not as peaceful as the dawn; and of Tom Paine whom
they assert died
in fear and agony, frightened by the
clanking chains of devils—in
fact frightened to death
by God. I will give $1,000 likewise to any
one who
can substantiate this 'absurd story'—a story without
a word of truth in it."
"We have published the testimony, and
the wit-
nesses are on hand to prove that Tom Paine died a
drunken, cowardly and beastly death. Let the Colo-
nel deposit the
money with any honest man, and the
absurd story, as he terms it,
shall be shown to be an
ower true tale. But he wont do it. His talk
is Infi-
del 'buncombe' and nothing more."
453
On the 31st of August I sent you my letter, and
on the 27th of
September you say in your paper:
"As not one of the affirmations in
the form stated
in this letter was contained in the offer we made, we
have no occasion to substantiate them."
What were the
affirmations contained in the offer
you made? I had offered a
thousand dollars in gold
to any one who would substantiate "the
absurd story"
that Thomas Paine died in fear and agony,frightened
by the clanking chains of devils—in fact, frightened to
death
by God.
In response to this offer you said: "Let the Colo-
nel deposit the money with an honest man and the
'absurd story' as he
terms it, shall be shown to be
an 'ower true tale.' But he won't do
it. His talk
is infidel 'buncombe' and nothing more."
Did
you not offer to prove that Paine died in fear
and agony, frightened
by the clanking chains of
devils? Did you not ask me to deposit the
money
that you might prove the "absurd story" to be an
"ower
true tale" and obtain the money? Did you
not in your paper of the
twenty-seventh of September
in effect deny that you had offered to
prove this
"absurd story"? As soon as I offered to deposit
the
gold and give bonds besides to cover costs, did
you not publish a
falsehood?
454
You have eaten your own words, and,
for my
part, I would rather have dined with Ezekiel than
with
you.
You have not met the issue. You have know-
ingly
avoided it. The question was not as to the
personal habits of Paine.
The real question was
and is, whether Paine was filled with fear and
horror
at the time of his death on account of his religious
opinions. That is the question. You avoid this.
In effect, you
abandon that charge and make others.
To you belongs the honor
of having made the
most cruel and infamous charges against Thomas
Paine that have ever been made. Of what you
have said you cannot
prove the truth of one word.
You say that Thomas Paine died a
drunken,
cowardly and beastly death.
I pronounce this
charge to be a cowardly and
beastly falsehood.
Have you
any evidence that he was in a drunken
condition when he died?
What did he say or do of a cowardly character
just before, or
at about the time of his death?
In what way was his death
cowardly? You must
answer these questions, and give your proof, or
all
honest men will hold you in abhorrence. You have
made these
charges. The man against whom you
Vindication of thomas paine.
455
make them is dead. He cannot answer you. I
can.
He cannot compel you to produce your testi-
mony, or admit by your
silence that you have
cruelly slandered the defenceless dead. I can
and I
will. You say that his death was cowardly. In
what
respect? Was it cowardly in him to hold the
Thirty-Nine Articles in
contempt? Was it cowardly
not to call on your Lord? Was it cowardly
not to
be afraid? You say that his death was beastly.
Again I
ask, in what respect? Was it beastly to
submit to the inevitable with
tranquillity? Was it
beastly to look with composure upon the approach
of death? Was it beastly to die without a com-
plaint, without a
murmur—to pass from life without
a fear?
Did Thomas
Paine Recant?
Mr. Paine had prophesied that fanatics would
crawl and cringe around him during his last mo-
ments. He believed
that they would put a lie in
the mouth of Death.
When the
shadow of the coming dissolution was
upon him, two clergymen, Messrs.
Milledollar and
Cunningham, called to annoy the dying man. Mr.
Cunningham had the politeness to say, "You have
now a full view of
death you cannot live long, and
whosoever does not believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ
456
will asuredly be damned." Mr.
Paine replied, "Let
me have none of your popish stuff. Get away with
you. Good morning."
On another occasion a Methodist minister
ob-
truded himself when Willet Hicks was present.
This minister
declared to Mr. Paine "that unless he
repented of his unbelief he
would be damned."
Paine, although at the door of death, rose in his
bed
and indignantly requested the clergyman to leave
his room.
On another occasion, two brothers by
the name of Pigott, sought to
convert him. He was
displeased and requested their departure. After-
ward Thomas Nixon and Captain Daniel Pelton
visited him for the
express purpose of ascertaining
whether he had, in any manner,
changed his relig-
ious opinions. They were assured by the dying
man that he still held the principles he had expressed
in his
writings.
Afterward, these gentlemen hearing that William
Cobbett was about to write a life of Paine, sent him
the following
note:
New York, April 24, 1818.
"Sir: We have been
informed that you have a de-
sign to write a history of the life and
writings of
Thomas Paine. If you have been furnished with
materials in respect to his religious opinions, or
457
rather of his recantation of his former opinions before
his
death, all you have heard of his recanting is false.
Being aware that
such reports would be raised after
his death by fanatics who infested
his house at the
time it was expected he would die, we, the subscrib-
ers, intimate acquaintances of Thomas Paine since
the year 1776, went
to his house. He was sitting
up in a chair, and apparently in full
vigor and use of
all his mental faculties. We interrogated him upon
his religious opinions, and if he had changed his
mind, or repented
of anything he had said or wrote
on that subject. He answered, "Not
at all," and
appeared rather offended at our supposition that any
change should take place in his mind. We took
down in writing the
questions put to him and his
answers thereto before a number of
persons then in
his room, among whom were his doctor, Mrs.
Bonneville, etc. paper is mislaid and cannot
be found at present, but
the above is the substance
which can be attested by many living
witnesses."
Thomas Nixon.
Daniel Pelton.
Mr. Jarvis, the artist, saw Mr. Paine one or two
days before his
death. To Mr. Jarvis he expressed
his belief in his written opinions
upon the subject of
religion. B. F. Haskin, an attorney of the city
of
458
New York, also visited him and inquired as to
his
religious opinions. Paine was then upon the thresh-
old of
death, but he did not tremble. He was not a
coward. He expressed his
firm and unshaken belief
in the religious ideas he had given to the
world.
Dr. Manley was with him when he spoke his last
words. Dr. Manley asked the dying man if he did
not wish to believe
that Jesus was the Son of God,
and the dying philosopher answered: "I
have no
wish to believe on that subject." Amasa Woodsworth
sat up with Thomas Paine the night before his
death. In 1839 Gilbert
Vale hearing that Mr.
Woodsworth was living in or near Boston,
visited
him for the purpose of getting his statement. The
statement was published in the Beacon of June 5,
1839, while
thousands who had been acquainted with
Mr. Paine were living.
The following is the article referred to.
"We have just
returned from Boston. One ob-
ject of our visit to that city, was to
see a Mr. Amasa
Woodsworth, an engineer, now retired in a hand-
some cottage and garden at East Cambridge, Boston.
This gentleman
owned the house occupied by Paine
at his death—while he lived
next door. As an act
of kindness Mr. Woodsworth visited Mr. Paine
every
day for six weeks before his death. He frequently
459
sat up with him, and did so on the last two nights of
his life. He was always there with Dr. Manley, the
physician, and
assisted in removing Mr. Paine while
his bed was prepared. He was
present when Dr.
Manley asked Mr. Paine "if he wished to believe
that Jesus Christ was the Son of God," and he de-
scribes Mr. Paine's
answer as animated. He says
that lying on his back he used some
action and with
much emphasis, replied, "I have no wish to believe
on that subject." He lived some time after this, but
was not known to
speak, for he died tranquilly. He
accounts for the insinuating style
of Dr. Manley's
letter, by stating that that gentleman just after its
publication joined a church. He informs us that he
has openly
reproved the doctor for the falsity con-
tained in the spirit of that
letter, boldly declaring be-
fore Dr. Manley, who is yet living, that
nothing
which he saw justified the insinuations. Mr. Woods-
worth assures us that he neither heard nor saw any-
thing to justify
the belief of any mental change in
the opinions of Mr. Paine previous
to his death; but
that being very ill and in pain chiefly arising
from
the skin being removed in some parts by long lying,
he was
generally too uneasy to enjoy conversation
on abstract subjects.
This, then, is the best evidence
that can be procured on this
subject, and we publish
460
it while the
contravening parties are yet alive, and
with the authority of Mr.
Woodsworth.
Gilbert Vale.
A few weeks ago I received
the following letter
which confirms the statement of Mr. Vale:
Near Stockton, Cal., Green-
wood Cottage, July 9, 1877.
Col. Ingersoll: In 1842 I talked with a gentle-
man in Boston.
I have forgotten his name; but he was
then an engineer of the
Charleston navy yard. I am
thus particular so that you can find his
name on the
books. He told me that he nursed Thomas Paine
in his
last illness, and closed his eyes when dead. I
asked him if he
recanted and called upon God to
save him. He replied, "No. He died as
he had
taught. He had a sore upon his side and when we
turned
him it was very painful and he would cry out
'O God!' or something
like that." "But," said
the narrator, "that was nothing, for he
believed in a
God." I told him that I had often heard it asserted
from the pulpit that Mr. Paine had recanted in his
last moments. The
gentleman said that it was not
true, and he appeared to be an
intelligent, truthful
man. With respect, I remain, etc.
Philip Graves, M. D.
461
The next witness is Willet
Hicks, a Quaker
preacher. He says that during the last illness of
Mr. Paine he visited him almost daily, and that
Paine died firmly
convinced of the truth of the relig-
ious opinions he had given to
his fellow-men. It
was to this same Willet Hicks that Paine applied
for
permission to be buried in the cemetery of the
Quakers.
Permission was refused. This refusal
settles the question of
recantation. If he had re-
canted, of course there could have been no
objection
to his body being buried by the side of the best
hypocrites on the earth.
If Paine recanted why should he be
denied "a
little earth for charity"? Had he recanted, it
would
have been regarded as a vast and splendid
triumph for the gospel. It
would with much noise
and pomp and ostentation have been heralded
about the world.
I received the following letter to-day. The
writer is well know in this city, and is a man of
high character:
Peoria, Oct. 8th, 1877.
Robert G. Ingersoll, Esteemed
Friend: My
parents were Friends (Quakers). My father died
when I
was very young. The elderly and middle-
aged Friends visited at my
mother's house. We
462
lived in the city of New
York. Among the number
I distinctly remember Elias Hicks, Willet
Hicks,
and a Mr.-Day, who was a bookseller in Pearl
street. There were many others, whose names I
do not now remember.
The subject of the recanta-
tion by Thomas Paine of his views about
the Bible
in his last illness, or at any other time, was dis-
cussed by them in my presence at different times.
I learned from them
that some of them had attended
upon Thomas Paine in his last sickness
and minis-
tered to his wants up to the time of his death.
And
upon the question of whether he did recant
there was but one
expression. They all said that
he did not recant in any manner. I
often heard
them say they wished he had recanted. In fact,
according to them, the nearer he approached death
the more positive
he appeared to be in his con-
victions.
These
conversations were from 1820 to 1822. I
was at that time from ten to
twelve years old, but
these conversations impressed themselves upon
me
because many thoughtless people then blamed the
Society of
Friends for their kindness to that "arch
Infidel," Thomas Paine..
Truly yours,
A. C. Hankinson.
463
A
few days ago I received the following letter:
Albany, New York, Sept.
27, 1877.
Dear Sir: It is over twenty years ago that pro-
fessionally I made the acquaintance of John Hogeboom,
a Justice
of the Peace of the county of
Rensselaer, New York. He was then over
seventy
years of age and had the reputation of being a man
of
candor and integrity. He was a great admirer of
Paine. He told me
that he was personally ac-
quainted with him, and used to see him
frequently
during the last years of his life in the city of New
York, where Hogeboom then resided. I asked him
if there was any truth
in the charge that Paine was
in the habit of getting drunk. He said
that it was
utterly false; that he never heard of such a thing
during the life-time of Mr. Paine, and did not believe
any one else
did. I asked him about the recantation
of his religious opinions on
his death-bed, and the
revolting death-bed scenes that the world had
heard
so much about. He said there was no truth in
them, that he
had received his information from
persons who attended Paine in his
last illness, "and
that he passed peacefully away, as we may say, in
the sunshine of a great soul."...
Yours truly,
W. J.
Hilton,
464
The witnesses by whom I substantiate the
fact
that Thomas Paine did not recant, and that he died
holding
the religious opinions he had published, are:
First—Thomas
Nixon, Captain Daniel Pelton,
B. F. Haskin. These gentlemen visited
him during
his last illness for the purpose of ascertaining whether
he had in any respect changed his views upon relig-
ion. He told them
that he had not.
Second—James Cheetham. This man was the
most malicious enemy Mr. Paine had, and yet he
admits that "Thomas
Paine died placidly, and al-
most without a struggle." (See Life of
Thomas
Paine, by James Cheetham).
Third—The
ministers, Milledollar and Cunning-
ham. These gentlemen told Mr.
Paine that if he
died without believing in the Lord Jesus Christ he
would be damned, and Paine replied, "Let me have
none of your popish
stuff. Good morning." (See
Sherwin's Life of Paine, p. 220).
Fourth—Mrs. Hedden. She told these same
preachers when
they attempted to obtrude them-
selves upon Mr. Paine again, that the
attempt to
convert Mr. Paine was useless—"that if God did not
change his mind no human power could."
Fifth—Andrew A.
Dean. This man lived upon
Paine's farm at New Rochelle, and
corresponded
465
with him upon religious subjects.
(See Paine's
Theological Works, p. 308.)
Sixth—Mr.
Jarvis, the artist with whom Paine
lived. He gives an account of an
old lady coming
to Paine and telling him that God Almighty had
sent her to tell him that unless he repented and be-
lieved in the
blessed Savior, he would be damned.
Paine replied that God would not
send such a foolish
old woman with such an impertinent message. (See
Clio Rickman's Life of Paine.)
Seventh—Wm. Carver, with
whom Paine boarded.
Mr. Carver said again and again that Paine did
not
recant. He knew him well, and had every opportun-
ity of
knowing. (See Life of Paine by Gilbert Vale.)
Eighth—Dr.
Manley, who attended him in his last
sickness, and to whom Paine
spoke his last words.
Dr. Manley asked him if he did not wish to
believe in
Jesus Christ, and he replied, "I have no wish to
believe on that subject."
Ninth—Willet Hicks and Elias
Hicks, who were
with him frequently during his last sickness, and
both of whom tried to persuade him to recant. Ac-
cording to their
testimony, Mr. Paine died as he had
lived—a believer in God,
and a friend of man.
Willet Hicks was offered money to say something
false against Thomas Paine. He was even offered
466
money to remain silent and allow others to slander
the dead. Mr.
Hicks, speaking of Thomas Paine,
said: "He was a good man—an
honest man."
(Vale's Life of Paine.)
Tenth—Amasa
Woodsworth, who was with him
every day for some six weeks immediately
preceding
his death, and sat up with him the last two nights of
his life. This man declares that Paine did not recant
and that he
died tranquilly. The evidence of Mr.
Woodsworth is conclusive.
Eleventh—Thomas Paine himself. The will of
Thomas Paine,
written by himself, commences as
follows:
"The last will
and testament of me, the subscriber,
Thomas Paine, reposing
confidence in my creator
God, and in no other being, for I know of no
other,
nor believe in any other;" and closes in these words;
"I
have lived an honest and useful life to mankind;
my time has been
spent in doing good, and I die in
perfect composure and resignation
to the will of my
creator God."
Twelfth—If Thomas
Paine recanted, why do you
pursue him? If he recanted, he died
substantially
in your belief, for what reason then do you denounce
his death as cowardly? If upon his death-bed he
renounced the
opinions he had published, the busi-
467
ness of
defaming him should be done by Infidels, not
by Christians.
I ask you if it is honest to throw away the testi-
mony of his
friends—the evidence of fair and honor-
able men—and take
the putrid words of avowed and
malignant enemies?
When
Thomas Paine was dying, he was infested
by fanatics—by the
snaky spies of bigotry. In the
shadows of death were the unclean
birds of prey
waiting to tear with beak and claw the corpse of him
who wrote the "Rights of Man." And there lurk-
ing and crouching in
the darkness were the jackals
and hyenas of superstition ready to
violate his grave.
These birds of prey—these unclean
beasts are the
witnesses produced and relied upon by you.
One by one the instruments of torture have been
wrenched from the
cruel clutch of the church, until
within the armory of orthodoxy
there remains but
one weapon—Slander.
Against the
witnesses that I have produced you
can bring just two—Mary
Roscoe and Mary Hins-
dale. The first is referred to in the memoir of
Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant in his
house. Grellet
tells what happened between this
girl and Paine. According to this
account Paine
asked her if she had ever read any of his writings,
468
and on being told that she had read very little of
them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding
that from such an
one as she he expected a correct
answer.
Let us examine
this falsehood. Why would Paine
expect a correct answer about his
writings from one
who had read very little of them? Does not such a
statement devour itself? This young lady further
said that the "Age
of Reason" was put in her hands
and that the more she read in it the
more dark and
distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into
the fire. Whereupon Mr. Paine remarked, "I wish
all had done as you
did, for if the devil ever had any
agency in any work, he had it in
my writing that book."
The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a
servant
in the family of Willet Hicks. She, like Mary Ros-
coe,
was sent to carry some delicacy to Mr. Paine.
To this young lady
Paine, according to her account,
said precisely the same that he did
to Mary Roscoe,
and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.
My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary
Hinsdale are one and the
same person, or the same
story has been by mistake put in the mouth
of both.
It is not possible that the same conversation should
have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe,
and between him and
Mary Hinsdale.
469
Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet
Hicks and he
pronounced her story a pious fraud and fabrication.
He said that Thomas Paine never said any such
thing to Mary Hinsdale.
(See Vale's Life of
Paine.)
Another thing about this
witness. A woman by
the name of Mary Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker,
died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother about that
time and told him that
his sister had recanted, and
wanted her to say so at her funeral.
This turned
out to be false.
It has been claimed that Mary
Hinsdale made her
statement to Charles Collins. Long after the
alleged
occurrence Gilbert Vale, one of the biographers of
Paine, had a conversation with Collins concerning
Mary Hinsdale. Vale
asked him what he thought
of her. He replied that some of the Friends
be-
lieved that she used opiates, and that they did not
give
credit to her statements. He also said that he
believed what the
Friends said, but thought that
when a young woman, she might have
told the
truth.
In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York.
He began collecting materials for a life of Thomas
Paine. In this he
became acquainted with Mary
Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett
gave a
470
full account of what happened in a letter
addressed
to the Norwich Mercury in 1819. From this ac-
count it
seems that Charles Collins told Cobbett that
Paine had recanted.
Cobbett called for the testi-
mony, and told Mr. Collins that he must
give time,
place, and the circumstances. He finally brought a
statement that he stated had been made by Mary
Hinsdale. Armed with
this document Cobbett, in
October of that year, called upon the said
Mary
Hinsdale, at No. 10 Anthony street, New York, and
showed
her the statement. Upon being questioned
by Mr. Cobbett she said,
"That it was so long ago
that she could not speak positively to any
part of the
matter—that she would not say that any part of the
paper was true—that she had never seen the paper
—and
that she had never given Charles Collins
authority to say anything
about the matter in her
name." And so in the month of October, in the
year of grace 1818, in the mist and fog of forgetful-
ness
disappeared forever one Mary Hinsdale—the
last and only witness
against the intellectual honesty
of Thomas Paine.
Did
Thomas Paine live the life of a drunken beast,
and did he die a
drunken, cowardly and beastly death?
Upon you rests the
burden of substantiating these
infamous charges.
471
You have, I suppose, produced the best evidence
in your
possession, and that evidence I will now pro-
ceed to examine. Your
first witness is Grant Thor-
burn. He makes three charges against
Thomas
Paine, 1st. That his wife obtained a divorce from
him in
England for cruelty and neglect. 2d. That
he was a defaulter and fled
from England to Amer-
ica. 3d. That he was a drunkard.
These three charges stand upon the same evidence
—the word of
Grant Thorburn. If they are not all
true Mr. Thorburn stands
impeached.
The charge that Mrs. Paine obtained a divorce on
account of the cruelty and neglect of her husband is
utterly false.
There is no such record in the world,
and never was. Paine and his
wife separated by
mutual consent. Each respected the other. They
remained friends. This charge is without any foun-
dation in fact. I
challenge the Christian world to
produce the record of this decree of
divorce. Accord-
ing to Mr. Thorburn it was granted in England. In
that country public records are kept of all such de-
crees. Have the
kindness to produce this decree
showing that it was given on account
of cruelty or
admit that Mr. Thorburn was mistaken.
Thomas
Paine was a just man. Although sepa-
rated from his wife, he always
spoke of her with
472
tenderness and respect, and
frequently sent her
money without letting her know the source from
whence it came. Was this the conduct of a drunken
beast?
The second charge, that Paine was a defaulter in
England and fled to
America, is equally false. He
did not flee from England. He came to
America,
not as a fugitive, but as a free man. He came with
a
letter of introduction signed by another Infidel,
Benjamin Franklin.
He came as a soldier of Free-
dom—an apostle of Liberty.
In this second charge there is not one word of truth.
He
held a small office in England. If he was a
defaulter the records of
that country will show that
fact.
Mr. Thorburn, unless the
record can be produced
to substantiate him, stands convicted of at
least two
mistakes.
Now, as to the third: He says that in
1802 Paine
was an "old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated
and
half asleep."
Can any one believe this to be a true account of
the personal appearance of Mr. Paine in 1802? He
had just returned
from France. He had been wel-
comed home by Thomas Jefferson, who had
said that
he was entitled to the hospitality of every American.
473
In 1802 Mr. Paine was honored with a public din-
ner in the city of New York. He was called upon
and treated with
kindness and respect by such men
as DeWitt Clinton.
In
1806 Mr. Paine wrote a letter to Andrew A.
Dean upon the subject of
religion. Read that letter
and then say that the writer of it was an
"old rem-
nant of mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep."
Search the files of the New York Observer from the
first issue to the
last, and you will find nothing supe-
rior to this letter.
In 1803 Mr. Paine wrote a letter of considerable
length, and of great
force, to his friend Samuel
Adams. Such letters are not written by
drunken
beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by
drunkards. It was about the same time that he
wrote his "Remarks on
Robert Hall's Sermons."
These "Remarks" were not written by a
drunken
beast, but by a clear-headed and thoughtful man.
In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of
England, and a
treatise on gunboats, full of valuable
maritime information:—in
1805, a treatise on yellow
fever, suggesting modes of prevention. In
short, he
was an industrious and thoughtful man. He sympa-
thized with the poor and oppressed of all lands. He
looked upon
monarchy as a species of physical
474
slavery. He
had the goodness to attack that form
of government. He regarded the
religion of his day
as a kind of mental slavery. He had the courage
to
give his reasons for his opinion. His reasons filled
the
churches with hatred. Instead of answering his
arguments they
attacked him. Men who were not
fit to blacken his shoes, blackened
his character.
There is too much religious cant in the
statement
of Mr. Thorburn. He exhibited too much anxiety
to tell
what Grant Thorburn said to Thomas Paine.
He names Thomas Jefferson
as one of the disreputa-
ble men who welcomed Paine with open arms.
The
testimony of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson
as a
disreputable person, as to the character of any-
body, is utterly
without value. In my judgment, the
testimony of Mr. Thorburn should
be thrown aside
as wholly unworthy of belief.
Your next
witness is the Rev. J. D. Wickham, D.
D., who tells what an elder in
his church said. This
elder said that Paine passed his last days on
his farm
at New Rochelle with a solitary female attendant.
This
is not true. He did not pass his last days at
New Rochelle.
Consequently this pious elder did
not see him during his last days at
that place. Upon
this elder we prove an alibi. Mr. Paine passed his
last days in the city of New York, in a house upon
475
Columbia street. The story of the Rev. J. D. Wick-
ham, D.D.,
is simply false.
The next competent false witness is the Rev.
Charles Hawley, D.D., who proceeds to state that
the story of the
Rev. J. D. Wickham, D.D., is cor-
roborated by older citizens of New
Rochelle. The
names of these ancient residents are withheld. Ac-
cording to these unknown witnesses, the account
given by the deceased
elder was entirely correct.
But as the particulars of Mr. Paine's
conduct "were
too loathsome to be described in print," we are left
entirely in the dark as to what he really did.
While at New
Rochelle Mr. Paine lived with Mr.
Purdy—with Mr. Dean—with
Captain Pelton, and
with Mr. Staple. It is worthy of note that all of
these gentlemen give the lie direct to the statements
of "older
residents" and ancient citizens spoken of
by the Rev. Charles Hawley,
D.D., and leave him
with his "loathsome particulars" existing only in
his
own mind.
The next gentleman you bring upon the stand
is
W. H. Ladd, who quotes from the memoirs of
Stephen Grellet.
This gentleman also has the mis-
fortune to be dead. According to his
account, Mr.
Paine made his recantation to a servant girl of his
by the name of Mary Roscoe. To this girl, accord-
476
ing to the account, Mr. Paine uttered the wish that
all who
read his book had burned it. I believe there
is a mistake in the name
of this girl. Her name was
probably Mary Hinsdale, as it was once
claimed that
Paine made the same remark to her, but this point
I
shall notice hereafter. These are your witnesses,
and the only ones
you bring forward, to support
your charge that Thomas Paine lived a
drunken and
beastly life and died a drunken, cowardly and beastly
death. All these calumnies are found in a life of
Paine by a Mr.
Cheetham, the convicted libeler
already referred to. Mr. Cheetham was
an enemy
of the man whose life he pretended to write.
In
order to show you the estimation in which Mr.
Cheetham was held by
Mr. Paine, I will give you a
copy of a letter that throws light upon
this point:
October 28, 1807.
"Mr. Cheetham: Unless
you make a public apol-
ogy for the abuse and falsehood in your paper
of
Tuesday, October 27th, respecting me, I will prose-
cute you
for lying."
Thomas Paine.
In another letter,
speaking of this same man, Mr.
Paine says: "If an unprincipled bully
cannot be re-
formed, he can be punished." "Cheetham has been
so
long in the habit of giving false information, that
truth is to him
like a foreign language."
477
Mr. Cheetham wrote the
life of Paine to gratify
his malice and to support religion. He was
prose-
cuted for libel—was convicted and fined.
Yet
the life of Paine written by this man is referred
to by the Christian
world as the highest authority.
As to the personal habits of
Mr. Paine, we have
the testimony of William Carver, with whom he
lived; of Mr. Jarvis, the artist, with whom he lived;
of Mr. Staple,
with whom he lived; of Mr. Purdy,
who was a tenant of Paine's; of Mr.
Burger, with
whom he was intimate; of Thomas Nixon and
Captain
Daniel Pelton, both of whom knew him
well; of Amasa Woodsworth, who
was with him
when he died; of John Fellows, who boarded at the
same house; of James Wilburn, with whom he
boarded; of B. F. Haskin,
a lawyer, who was well
acquainted with him and called upon him during
his
last illness; of Walter Morton, a friend; of Clio
Rickman,
who had known him for many years; of
Willet and Elias Hicks, Quakers,
who knew him in-
timately and well; of Judge Herttell, H. Margary,
Elihu Palmer, and many others. All these testified
to the fact that
Mr. Paine was a temperate man. In
those days nearly everybody used
spirituous liquors.
Paine was not an exception; but he did not drink
to
excess. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel where
478
Paine stopped, in a note to Caleb Bingham, declared
that Paine
drank less than any boarder he had.
Against all this evidence
you produce the story of
Grant Thorburn—the story of the Rev.
J. D. Wick-
ham that an elder in his church told him that Paine
was a drunkard, corroborated by the Rev. Charles
Hawley, and an
extract from Lossing's history to
the same effect. The evidence is
overwhelmingly
against you. Will you have the fairness to admit it?
Your witnesses are merely the repeaters of the false-
hoods of James
Cheetham, the convicted libeler.
After all, drinking is not as
bad as lying. An
honest drunkard is better than a calumniator of the
dead. "A remnant of old mortality, drunk, bloated
and half asleep" is
better than a perfectly sober
defender of human slavery.
To become drunk is a virtue compared with steal-
ing a babe from the
breast of its mother.
Drunkenness is one of the beatitudes,
compared
with editing a religious paper devoted to the defence
of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine insti-
tution.
Do you really think that Paine was a drunken
beast when he
wrote "Common Sense"—a pamphlet
that aroused three millions of
people, as people were
never aroused by a pamphlet before? Was he a
479
drunken beast when he wrote the "Crisis"? Was
it
to a drunken beast that the following letter was
addressed:
Rocky Hill, September 10, 1783.
"I have learned since I
have been at this place,
that you are at Bordentown.—Whether
for the sake
of retirement or economy I know not. Be it for
either or both, or whatever it may, if you will come
to this place
and partake with me I shall be exceed-
ingly happy to see you at it.
Your presence may
remind Congress of your past services to this
country;
and if it is in my power to impress them, command
my
best exertions with freedom, as they will be
rendered cheerfully by
one who entertains a lively
sense of the importance of your works,
and who with
much pleasure subscribes himself,
"Your
Sincere Friend,
"George Washington."
Did any of your
ancestors ever receive a letter
like that?
Do you think
that Paine was a drunken beast
when the following letter was received
by him?
"You express a wish in your letter to return to
America in a national ship; Mr. Dawson, who brings
over the treaty,
and who will present you with this
letter, is charged with orders to
the captain of the
480
Maryland to receive and
accommodate you back, if you
can be ready to depart at such a short
warning. You
will in general find us returned to sentiments worthy
of former times; in these it will be your glory to have
steadily
labored and with as much effect as any man
living. That you may
live long to continue your
useful labors, and reap the reward in the
thankfulness
of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept the
assur-
ances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment."
Thomas Jefferson.
Did any of your ancestors ever receive
a letter
like that?
"It has been very generally propagated
through
the continent that I wrote the pamphlet 'Common
Sense.'
I could not have written anything in so
manly and striking a style."—John
Adams.
"A few more such flaming arguments as were
exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the
sound doctrine and
unanswerable reasoning con-
tained in the pamphlet 'Common Sense,'
will not
leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of
a
separation."—George Washington.
"It is not necessary for
me to tell you how
much all your countrymen—I speak of the
great
mass of the people—are interested in your welfare.
481
They have not forgotten the history of their own
Revolution and the difficult scenes through which
they passed; nor do
they review its several stages
without reviving in their bosoms a due
sensibility of
the merits of those who served them in that great
and arduous conflict. The crime of ingratitude has
not yet stained,
and I trust never will stain, our
national character. You are
considered by them as
not only having rendered important services in
our
own Revolution, but as being on a more extensive
scale the
friend of human rights, and a distinguished
and able defender of
public liberty. To the welfare
of Thomas Paine the Americans are not,
nor can
they be indifferent.".. James Monroe.
Did any of
your ancestors ever receive a letter
like that?
"No writer
has exceeded Paine in ease and famil-
iarity of style, in perspicuity
of expression, happiness
of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming
lan-
guage."'—Thomas Jefferson.
Was ever a letter
like that written about an editor
of the New York Observer?
Was it in consideration of the services of a
drunken beast that
the Legislature of Pennsylvania
presented Thomas Paine with five
hundred pounds
sterling?
482
Did the State of
New York feel indebted to a
drunken beast, and confer upon Thomas
Paine an
estate of several hundred acres?
"I believe in
the equality of man, and I believe
that religious duties consist in
doing justice, loving
mercy, and endeavoring to make our
fellow-creat-
ures happy."
"My own mind is my own church."
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he
be mentally
faithful to himself."
"Any system of religion that shocks the
mind of
a child cannot be a true system."
"The Word of God
is the creation which we
behold."
"The age of ignorance
commenced with the
Christian system."
"It is with a pious
fraud as with a bad action—it
begets a calamitous necessity of
going on."
"To read the Bible without horror, we must undo
everything that is tender, sympathizing and benev-
olent in the heart
of man."
"The man does not exist who can say I have per-
secuted him, or that I have in any case returned evil
for evil."
"Of all tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in
religion is
the worst."
483
"My own opinion is, that those whose
lives have
been spent in doing good and endeavoring to make
their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter."
"The belief in
a cruel god makes a cruel man."
"The intellectual part of religion is
a private affair
between every man and his Maker, and in which no
third party has any right to interfere. The practical
part consists
in our doing good to each other."
"No man ought to make a
living by religion. One
person cannot act religion for another—every
person
must perform it for himself."
"One good
schoolmaster is of more use than a
hundred priests."
"Let
us propagate morality unfettered by super-
stition."
"God
is the power, or first cause, Nature is the
law, and matter is the
subject acted upon."
"I believe in one God and no more, and I
hope
for happiness beyond this life."
"The key of heaven
is not in the keeping of any
sect nor ought the road to it to be
obstructed
by any."
"My religion, and the whole of it, is
the fear and
love of the Deity and universal philanthropy."
"I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I
have a good
state of health and a happy mind. I
484
take care of
both, by nourishing the first with tem-
perance and the latter with
abundance."
"He lives immured within the Bastile of a
word."
How perfectly that sentence describes you! The
Bastile in which you are immured is the word
"Calvinism."
"Man has no property in man."
What a splendid motto that would
have made for
the New York Observer in the olden time!
"The world is my country; to do good, my
religion."
I ask you again whether these splendid utterances
came from the lips
of a drunken beast?
Did Thomas Paine die in
destitution and want?
The charge has been made, over and
over again,
that Thomas Paine died in want and destitution—
that he was an abandoned pauper—an outcast with-
out friends
and without money. This charge is just
as false as the rest.
Upon his return to this country in 1802, he was
worth $30,000,
according to his own statement made
at that time in the following
letter addressed to Clio
Rickman:
"My Dear Friend: Mr.
Monroe, who is appointed
minister extraordinary to France, takes
charge of
485
this, to be delivered to Mr. Este,
banker in Paris, to
be forwarded to you.
"I arrived at
Baltimore the 30th of October, and
you can have no idea of the
agitation which my
arrival occasioned. From New Hampshire to
Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles) every newspaper
was filled with
applause or abuse.
"My property in this country has been taken
care
of by my friends, and is now worth six thousand
pounds
sterling; which put in the funds will bring
me £400 sterling a
year.
"Remember me in affection and friendship to your
wife and family, and in the circle of your friends."
Thomas
Paine.
A man in those days worth thirty thousand dol-
lars
was not a pauper. That amount would bring an
income of at least two
thousand dollars per annum.
Two thousand dollars then would be fully
equal to
five thousand dollars now.
On the 12th of July,
1809, the year in which he
died, Mr. Paine made his will. From this
instru-
ment we learn that he was the owner of a valuable
farm
within twenty miles of New York. He also
was the owner of thirty
shares in the New York
Phoenix Insurance Company, worth upwards of
fif-
teen hundred dollars. Besides this, some personal
486
property and ready money. By his will he gave to
Walter Morton,
and Thomas Addis Emmett, brother
of Robert Emmett, two hundred
dollars each, and
one hundred to the widow of Elihu Palmer.
Is it possible that this will was made by a pauper
—by a
destitute outcast—by a man who suffered for
the ordinary
necessaries of life?
But suppose, for the sake of the argument,
that he
was poor and that he died a beggar, does that tend
to
show that the Bible is an inspired book and that
Calvin did not burn
Servetus? Do you really regard
poverty as a crime? If Paine had died
a millionaire,
would you have accepted his religious opinions? If
Paine had drank nothing but cold water would you
have repudiated the
five cardinal points of Calvin-
ism? Does an argument depend for its
force upon
the pecuniary condition of the person making it?
As a
matter of fact, most reformers—most men and
women of genius,
have been acquainted with poverty.
Beneath a covering of rags have
been found some of
the tenderest and bravest hearts.
Owing
to the attitude of the churches for the last
fifteen hundred years,
truth-telling has not been a
very lucrative business. As a rule,
hypocrisy has
worn the robes, and honesty the rags. That day is
passing away. You cannot now answer the argu-
487
ments of a man by pointing at holes in his coat.
Thomas Paine
attacked the church when it was
powerful—when it had what was
called honors to
bestow—when it was the keeper of the public
con-
science—when it was strong and cruel. The church
waited till he was dead then attacked his reputation
and his clothes.
Once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. The
lion was dead.
Conclusion.
From the persistence with which the orthodox
have charged for the last sixty-eight years that
Thomas Paine
recanted, and that when dying he
was filled with remorse and fear;
from the malignity
of the attacks upon his personal character, I had
con-
cluded that there must be some evidence of some
kind to
support these charges. Even with my ideas
of the average honor of
believers in superstition—
the disciples of fear—I did
not quite believe that all
these infamies rested solely upon poorly
attested
lies. I had charity enough to suppose that some-
thing
had been said or done by Thomas Paine capa-
ble of being tortured
into a foundation for these
calumnies. And I was foolish enough to
think that
even you would be willing to fairly examine the pre-
tended evidence said to sustain these charges, and
488
give your honest conclusion to the world. I sup-
posed that
you, being acquainted with the history of
your country, felt under a
certain obligation to
Thomas Paine for the splendid services rendered
by
him in the darkest days of the Revolution. It was
only
reasonable to suppose that you were aware that
in the midnight of
Valley Forge the "Crisis," by
Thomas Paine, was the first star that
glittered in the
wide horizon of despair. I took it for granted that
you knew of the bold stand taken and the brave
words spoken by Thomas
Paine, in the French Con-
vention, against the death of the king. I
thought it
probable that you, being an editor, had read the
"Rights of Man;" that you knew that Thomas
Paine was a champion of
human liberty; that he was
one of the founders and fathers of this
Republic; that
he was one of the foremost men of his age; that he
had never written a word in favor of injustice; that
he was a
despiser of slavery; that he abhorred tyr-
anny in all its forms;
that he was in the widest and
highest sense a friend of his race;
that his head was
as clear as his heart was good, and that he had the
courage to speak his honest thought. Under these
circumstances I had
hoped that you would for the
moment forget your religious prejudices
and submit
to the enlightened judgment of the world the evi-
489
dence you had, or could obtain, affecting in any way
the character of so great and so generous a man. This
you have
refused to do. In my judgment, you have
mistaken the temper of even
your own readers. A
large majority of the religious people of this
country
have, to a considerable extent, outgrown the preju-
dices of their fathers. They are willing to know the
truth and the
whole truth, about the life and death of
Thomas Paine. They will not
thank you for having
presented them the moss-covered, the maimed and
dis-
torted traditions of ignorance, prejudice, and credulity.
By this course you will convince them not of the
wickedness of Paine,
but of your own unfairness.
What crime had Thomas Paine
committed that he
should have feared to die? The only answer you
can give is, that he denied the inspiration of the
Scriptures. If
this is a crime, the civilized world is
filled with criminals. The
pioneers of human thought
—the intellectual leaders of the
world—the foremost
men in every science—the kings of
literature and
art—those who stand in the front rank of
investiga-
tion—the men who are civilizing, elevating,
instruct-
ing, and refining mankind, are to-day unbelievers in
the dogma of inspiration. Upon this question, the
intellect of
Christendom agrees with the conclusions
reached by the genius of
Thomas Paine. Centuries
490
ago a noise was made for
the purpose of frightening
mankind. Orthodoxy is the echo of that
noise.
The man who now regards the Old Testament as
in any
sense a sacred or inspired book is, in my judg-
ment, an intellectual
and moral deformity. There is
in it so much that is cruel, ignorant,
and ferocious
that it is to me a matter of amazement that it was
ever thought to be the work of a most merciful deity.
Upon the
question of inspiration Thomas Paine
gave his honest opinion. Can it
be that to give an
honest opinion causes one to die in terror and de-
spair? Have you in your writings been actuated by
the fear of such a
consequence? Why should it be
taken for granted that Thomas Paine,
who devoted
his life to the sacred cause of freedom, should have
been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of
conscience,
while editors of Presbyterian papers who
defended slavery as a divine
institution, and cheer-
fully justified the stealing of babes from
the breasts of
mothers, are supposed to have passed smilingly from
earth to the embraces of angels? Why should you
think that the heroic
author of the "Rights of Man"
should shudderingly dread to leave this
"bank and
shoal of time," while Calvin, dripping with the blood
of Servetus, was anxious to be judged of God? Is
it possible that the
persecutors—the instigators of
491
the
massacre of St. Bartholomew—the inventors and
users of
thumb-screws, and iron boots, and racks—
the burners and
tearers of human flesh—the stealers,
whippers and enslavers of
men—the buyers and
beaters of babes and mothers—the
founders of
inquisitions—the makers of chains, the builders of
dungeons, the slanderers of the living and the calum-
niators of the
dead, all died in the odor of sanctity,
with white, forgiven hands
folded upon the breasts
of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice—the
apostles of humanity—the soldiers of liberty—the
breakers
of fetters—the creators of light—died sur-
rounded with
the fierce fiends of fear?
In your attempt to destroy the
character of Thomas
Paine you have failed, and have succeeded only in
leaving a stain upon your own. You have written
words as cruel,
bitter and heartless as the creed of
Calvin. Hereafter you will stand
in the pillory of
history as a defamer—a calumniator of the
dead.
You will be known as the man who said that Thomas
Paine,
the "Author Hero," lived a drunken, coward-
ly and beastly life, and
died a drunken and beastly
death. These infamous words will be
branded upon
the forehead of your reputation. They will be re-
membered against you when all else you may have
uttered shall have
passed from the memory of men.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
THE
OBSERVER'S SECOND ATTACK
* From the NY. Observer
of Nov. 1, 1877.
TOM PAINE AGAIN.
In the
Observer of September 27th, in response
to numerous calls from
different parts of the country
for information, and in fulfillment of
a promise, we
presented a mass of testimony, chiefly from persons
with whom we had been personally acquainted,
establishing the truth
of our assertions in regard to
the dissolute life and miserable end
of Paine. It was
not a pleasing subject for discussion, and an
apology,
or at least an explanation, is due to our readers for
resuming it, and for occupying so much space, or
any space, in
exhibiting the truth and the proofs in
regard to the character of a
man who had become so
debased by his intemperance, and so vile in his
habits, as to be excluded, for many years before and
up to the time
of his death, from all decent society.
Our reasons for taking
up the subject at all, and
for presenting at this time so much
additional testi-
mony in regard to the facts of the case, are these:
At different periods for the last fifty years, efforts
493
have been made by Infidels to revive and honor the
memory of
one whose friends would honor him most
by suffering his name to sink
into oblivion, if that
were possible. About two years since, Rev. O.
B.
Frothingham, of this city, came to their aid, and
undertook a
sort of championship of Paine, making
in a public discourse this
statement: "No private
character has been more foully calumniated in
the
name of God than that of Thomas Paine." (Mr.
Frothingham, it
will be remembered, is the one who
recently, in a public discourse,
announced the down-
fall of Christianity, although he very kindly
made
the allowance that, "it may be a thousand years
before its
decay will be visible to all eyes." It is
our private opinion that it
will be at least a thousand
and one.) Rev. John W. Chadwick, a
minister of
the same order of unbelief, who signs himself, "Min-
ister of the Second Unitarian Society in Brooklyn,"
has devoted two
discourses to the same end, eulogiz-
ing Paine. In one of these,
which we have before
us in a handsomely printed pamphlet, entitled,
"Method and Value of his (Paine's) Religious
Teachings," he says:
"Christian usage has determ-
ined that an Infidel means one who does
not believe
in Christianity as a supernatural religion; in the
Bible as a Supernatural book; in Jesus as a super-
494
natural person. And in this sense Paine was an
Infidel, and so,
thank God, am I." It is proper to
add that Unitarians generally
decline all responsibil-
ity for the utterances of both of these men,
and that
they compose a denomination, or rather two denom-
inations, of their own.
There is also a certain class of
Infidels who are
not quite prepared to meet the odium that attaches
to the name; they call themselves Christians, but
their sympathies
are all with the enemies of Chris-
tianity, and they are not always
able to conceal it.
They have not the courage of their opinions, like
Mr. Frothingham and Mr. Chadwick, and they work
only sideways toward
the same end. We have been
no little amused since our last article on
this subject
appeared, to read some of the articles that have been
written on the other side, though professedly on no
side, and to
observe how sincerely these men depre-
cate the discussion of the
character of Paine, as an
unprofitable topic. It never appeared to
them un-
profitable when the discussion was on the other side.
Then, too, we have for months past been receiving
letters from
different parts of the country, asking
authentic information on the
subject and stating that
the followers of Paine are making
extraordinary
efforts to circulate his writings against the Christian
495
religion, and in order to give currency to these
writ-
ings they are endeavoring to rescue his name from
the
disgrace into which it sank during the latter
years of his life.
Paine spent several of his last
years in furnishing a commentary upon
his Infidel
principles. This commentary was contained in his
besotted, degraded life and miserable end, but his
friends do not
wish the commentary to go out in
connection with his writings. They
prefer to have
them read without the comments by their author.
Hence this anxiety to free the great apostle of
Infidelity from the
obloquy which his life brought
upon his name; to represent him as a
pure, noble,
virtuous man, and to make it appear that he died a
peaceful, happy death, just like a philosopher.
But what makes
the publication of the facts in the
case still more imperative at
this time is the whole-
sale accusation brought against the Christian
public
by the friends and admirers of Paine. Christian
ministers
as a class, and Christian journals are
expressly accused of
falsifying history, of defaming
"the mighty dead!" (meaning Paine,)
etc. In
the face of all these accusations it cannot be out of
place to state the facts and to fortify the statement
by satisfactory
evidence, as we are abundantly able
to do.
496
The two points on which we proposed to produce
the testimony are, the
character of Paine's life (refer-
ring of course to his last
residence in this country,
for no one has intimated that he had sunk
into such
besotted drunkenness until about the time of his
return to the United States in 1802), and the real
character of his
death as consistent with such a life,
and as marked further by the
cowardliness, which
has been often exhibited by Infidels in the same
circumstances.
It is nothing at all to the purpose to show, as
his
friends are fond of doing, that Paine rendered
important
service to the cause of American Inde-
pendence. This is not the
point under discussion
and is not denied. No one ever called in
question
the valuable service that Benedict Arnold rendered
to
the country in the early part of the Revolutionary
war; but this,
with true Americans, does not suffice
to cast a shade of loveliness
or even to spread a man-
tle of charity over his subsequent career.
Whatever
share Paine had in the personal friendship of the
fathers of the Revolution he forfeited by his subse-
quent life of
beastly drunkenness and degradation,
and on this account as well as
on account of his
blasphemy he was shunned by all decent people.
We wish to make one or two corrections of mis-
497
statements by Paine's advocates, on which a vast
amount of
argument has been simply wasted. We
have never stated in any form,
nor have we ever
supposed, that Paine actually renounced his Infidel-
ity. The accounts agree in stating that he died a
blaspheming
Infidel, and his horrible death we regard
as one of the fruits, the
fitting complement of his
Infidelity. We have never seen anything
that
encouraged the hope that he was not abandoned of
God in his
last hours. But we have no doubt, on
the other hand, that having
become a wreck in body
and mind through his intemperance, abandoned
of
God, deserted by his Infidel companions, and de-
pendent upon
Christian charity for the attentions he
received, miserable beyond
description in his condi-
tion, and seeing nothing to hope for in the
future, he
was afraid to die, and was ready to call upon God
and
upon Christ for mercy, and ready perhaps in the
next minute to
blaspheme. This is what we referred
to in speaking of Paine's death
as cowardly. It is
shown in the testimony we have produced, and still
more fully in that which we now present. The most
wicked men are
ready to call upon God in seasons
of great peril, and sometimes ask
for Christian min-
istrations when in extreme illness; but they are
often ready on any alleviation of distress to turn to
498
their wickedness again, in the expressive language
of
Scripture, "as the sow that was washed to her
wallowing in the mire."
We have never stated or intimated, nor, so far as
we are aware,
has any one of our correspondents
stated, that Paine died in poverty.
It has been
frequently and truthfully stated that Paine was de-
pendent on Christian charity for the attentions he
received in his
last days, and so he was. His Infidel
companions forsook him and
Christian hearts and
hands ministered to his wants, notwithstanding
the
blasphemies of his death-bed.
Nor has one of our
correspondents stated, as
alleged, that Paine died at New Rochelle.
The
Rev. Dr. Wickham, who was a resident of that place
nearly
fifty years ago, and who was perfectly familiar
with the facts of his
life, wrote that Paine spent "his
latter days" on the farm presented
to him by
the State of New York, which was strictly true,
but
made no reference to it as the place of his
death.
Such
misrepresentations serve to show how much
the advocates of Paine
admire "truth."
With these explanations we produce further evi-
dence in regard to the manner of Paine's life and the
character of
his death, both of which we have already
499
characterized in appropriate terms, as the following
testimony will
show.
In regard to Paine's "personal habits," even before
his return to this country, and particularly his aver-
sion to soap
and water, Elkana Watson, a gentleman
of the highest social position,
who resided in France
during a part of the Revolutionary war, and who
was the personal friend of Washington, Franklin,
and other patriots
of the period, makes some inci-
dental statements in his "Men and
Times of the
Revolution." Though eulogizing Paine's efforts in
behalf of American Independence, he describes him
as "coarse and
uncouth in his manners, loathsome
in his appearance, and a disgusting
egotist." On
Paine's arrival at Nantes, the Mayor and other dis-
tinguished citizens called upon him to pay their
respects to the
American patriot. Mr. Watson says:
"He was soon rid of his
respectable visitors, who
left the room with marks of astonishment
and dis-
gust." Mr. W., after much entreaty, and only by
promising him a bundle of newspapers to read while
undergoing the
operation, succeeded in prevailing
on Paine to "stew, for an hour, in
a hot bath." Mr.
W. accompanied Paine to the bath, and "instructed
the keeper, in French, (which Paine did not under-
stand,) gradually
to increase the heat of the water
500
until 'le
Monsieur serait bien bouille (until the gentle-
man shall be well
boiled;) and adds that "he became
so much absorbed in his reading
that he was nearly-
parboiled before leaving the bath, much to his
im-
provement and my satisfaction."
William Carver has
been cited as a witness in be-
half of Paine, and particularly as to
his "personal
habits." In a letter to Paine, dated December 2,
1776, he bears the following testimony:
"A respectable
gentlemen from New Rochelle
called to see me a few days back, and
said that
everybody was tired of you there, and no one would
undertake to board and lodge you. I thought this
was the case, as I
found you at a tavern in a most
miserable situation. You appeared as
if you had
not been shaved for a fortnight, and as to a shirt, it
could not be said that you had one on. It was only
the remains of
one, and this, likewise, appeared not
to have been off your back for
a fortnight, and was
nearly the color of tanned leather; and you had
the
most disagreeable smell possible; just like that of
our poor
beggars in England. Do you remember the
pains I took to clean you?
that I got a tub of warm
water and soap and washed you from head to
foot, and
this I had to do three times before I could get you
clean." (And then follow more disgusting details.)
501
"You say, also, that you found your own liquors
during the time
you boarded with me; but you
should have said, 'I found only a small
part of the
liquor I drank during my stay with you; this part I
purchased of John Fellows, which was a demijohn of
brandy containing
four gallons, and this did not serve
me three weeks.' This can be
proved, and I mean
not to say anything that I cannot prove; for I
hold
truth as a precious jewel. It is a well-known fact,
that
you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my
expense, during the
different times that you have
boarded with me, the demijohn above
mentioned
excepted, and the last fourteen weeks you were sick.
Is not this a supply of liquor for dinner and supper?"
This chosen
witness in behalf of Paine, closes his
letter, which is full of
loathsome descriptions of
Paine's manner of life, as follows:
"Now, sir, I think I have drawn a complete por-
trait of your
character; yet to enter upon every
minutiae would be to give a
history of your life, and
to develop the fallacious mask of hypocrisy
and de-
ception under which you have acted in your political
as
well as moral capacity of life."
(Signed) "William Carver."
Carver had the same opinion of Paine to his dying
day. When an
old man, and an Infidel of the Paine
502
type and
habits, he was visited by the Rev. E. F.
Hatfield, D.D., of this
city, who writes to us of his
interview with Carver, under date of
Sept. 27, 1877:
"I conversed with him nearly an hour. I took
special pains to learn from him all that I could about
Paine, whose
landlord he had been for eighteen
months. He spoke of him as a base
and shameless
drunkard, utterly destitute of moral principle. His
denunciations of the man were perfectly fearful, and
fully confirmed,
in my apprehension, all that had been
written of Paine's immorality
and repulsiveness."
Cheetham's Life of Paine, which was published
the year that he died, and which has passed through
several editions
(we have three of them now before
us) describes a man lost to all
moral sensibility and
to all sense of decency, a habitual drunkard,
and it is
simply incredible that a book should have appeared
so
soon after the death of its subject and should have
been so
frequently republished without being at once
refuted, if the
testimony were not substantially true.
Many years later, when it was
found necessary to
bolster up the reputation of Paine, Cheetham's
Memoirs were called a pack of lies. If only one-
tenth part of what
he publishes circumstantially in
his volume, as facts in regard to
Paine, were true, all
that has been written against him in later
years does
503
not begin to set forth the degraded
character of the
man's life. And with all that has been written on
the subject we see no good reason to doubt the sub-
stantial accuracy
of Cheetham's portrait of the man
whom he knew so well.
Dr. J. W. Francis, well-known as an eminent phy-
sician, of this
city, in his Reminiscences of New York,
says of Paine:
"He
who, in his early days, had been associated
with, and had received
counsel from Franklin, was,
in his old age, deserted by the humblest
menial; he,
whose pen has proved a very sword among nations,
had
shaken empires, and made kings tremble, now
yielded up the mastery to
the most treacherous of
tyrants, King Alcohol."
The
physician who attended Paine during his last
illness was Dr. James R.
Manley, a gentleman of the
highest character. A letter of his,
written in Octo-
ber of the year that Paine died, fully corroborates
the account of his state as recorded by Stephen
Grellet in his
Memoirs, which we have already
printed. He writes:
"New
York, October 2, 1809: I was called upon
by accident to visit Mr.
Paine, on the 25th of Feb-
ruary last, and found him indisposed with
fever, and
very apprehensive of an attack of apoplexy, as he
504
stated that he had that disease before, and at this
time felt a great degree of vertigo, and was unable
to help himself
as he had hitherto done, on account
of an intense pain above the
eyes. On inquiry of
the attendants I was told that three or four days
previously he had concluded to dispense with his
usual quantity of
accustomed stimulus and that he
had on that day resumed it. To the
want of his
usual drink they attributed his illness, and it is highly
probable that the usual quantity operating upon a
state of system
more excited from the above priva-
tions, was the cause of the
symptoms of which he
then complained.... And here let me be per-
mitted to observe (lest blame might attach to those
whose business it
was to pay any particular attention
to his cleanliness of person)
that it was absolutely
impossible to effect that purpose. Cleanliness
ap-
peared to make no part of his comfort; he seemed
to have a
singular aversion to soap and water; he
would never ask to be washed,
and when he was he
would always make objections; and it was not un-
usual to wash and to dress him clean very much
against his
inclinations. In this deplorable state,
with confirmed dropsy,
attended with frequent cough,
vomiting and hiccough, he continued
growing from
bad to worse till the morning of the 8th of June,
505
when he died. Though I may remark that during
the last three weeks of his life his situation was such
that his
decease was confidently expected every day,
his ulcers having assumed
a gangrenous appearance,
being excessively fetid, and discolored
blisters hav-
ing taken place on the soles of his feet without any
ostensible cause, which baffled the usual attempts to
arrest their
progress; and when we consider his
former habits, his advanced age,
the feebleness of his
constitution, his constant habit of using
ardent spirits
ad libitum till the commencement of his last illness,
so far from wondering that he died so soon, we are
constrained to
ask, How did he live so long? Con-
cerning his conduct during his
disease I have not
much to remark, though the little I have may be
somewhat interesting. Mr. Paine professed to be
above the fear of
death, and a great part of his con-
versation was principally
directed to give the impres-
sion that he was perfectly willing to
leave this world,
and yet some parts of his conduct were with
difficulty
reconcilable with his belief. In the first stages of his
illness he was satisfied to be left alone during the
day, but he
required some person to be with him at
night, urging as his reason
that he was afraid that
he should die when unattended, and at this
period
his deportment and his principle seemed to be con-
506
sistent; so much so that a stranger would judge from
some of the remarks he would make that he was an
Infidel. I recollect
being with him at night, watch-
ing; he was very apprehensive of a
speedy dissolu-
tion, and suffered great distress of body, and
perhaps
of mind (for he was waiting the event of an applica-
tion to the Society of Friends for permission that his
corpse might
be deposited in their grave-ground, and
had reason to believe that
the request might be
refused), when he remarked in these words, 'I
think
I can say what they made Jesus Christ to say—"My
God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" He
went on to observe on the
want of that respect which
he conceived he merited, when I observed
to him
that I thought his corpse should be matter of least
concern to him; that those whom he would leave
behind him would see
that he was properly interred,
and, further, that it would be of
little consequence to
me where I was deposited provided I was buried;
upon which he answered that he had nothing else to
talk about, and
that he would as lief talk of his death
as of anything, but that he
was not so indifferent
about his corpse as I appeared to be.
"During the latter part of his life, though his con-
versation
was equivocal, his conduct was singular;
he could not be left alone
night or day; he not only
507
required to have some
person with him, but he must
see that he or she was there, and would
not allow
his curtain to be closed at any time; and if, as it
would sometimes unavoidably happen, he was left
alone, he would
scream and halloo until some person
came to him. When relief from
pain would admit,
he seemed thoughtful and contemplative, his eyes
being generally closed, and his hands folded upon
his breast,
although he never slept without the assist-
ance of an anodyne. There
was something remark-
able in his conduct about this period (which
comprises
about two weeks immediately preceding his death),
particularly when we reflect that Thomas Paine was
the author of the
'Age of Reason.' He would call
out during his paroxysms of distress,
without inter-
mission, 'O Lord help me! God help me! Jesus
Christ help me! Lord help me!' etc., repeating the
same expressions
without the least variation, in a
tone of voice that would alarm the
house. It was
this conduct which induced me to think that he had
abandoned his former opinions, and I was more
inclined to that belief
when I understood from his
nurse (who is a very serious and, I
believe, pious
woman), that he would occasionally inquire, when he
saw her engaged with a book, what she was reading,
and, being
answered, and at the same time asked
508
whether she
should read aloud, he assented, and
would appear to give particular
attention.
"I took occasion during the nights of the fifth
and sixth of June to test the strength of his opinions
respecting
revelation. I purposely made him a very
late visit; it was a time
which seemed to suit exactly
with my errand; it was midnight, he was
in great
distress, constantly exclaiming in the words above
mentioned, when, after a considerable preface, I
addressed him in the
following manner, the nurse
being present: 'Mr. Paine, your opinions,
by a large
portion of the community, have been treated with
deference, you have never been in the habit of mix-
ing in your
conversation words of coarse meaning;
you have never indulged in the
practice of profane
swearing; you must be sensible that we are ac-
quainted with your religious opinions as they are
given to the world.
What must we think of your
present conduct? Why do you call upon
Jesus
Christ to help you? Do you believe that he can
help you?
Do you believe in the divinity of Jesus
Christ? Come, now, answer me
honestly. I want
an answer from the lips of a dying man, for I verily
believe that you will not live twenty-four hours.' I
waited some time
at the end of every question; he
did not answer, but ceased to
exclaim in the above
509
manner. Again I addressed
him; 'Mr. Paine, you
have not answered my questions; will you answer
them? Allow me to ask again, do you believe? or
let me qualify the
question, do you wish to believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God?' After a pause
of some minutes, he answered, 'I have no wish to
believe on that subject.' I then left him, and knew
not whether he
afterward spoke to any person on
any subject, though he lived, as I
before observed,
till the morning of the 8th. Such conduct, under
usual circumstances, I conceive absolutely unaccount-
able, though,
with diffidence, I would remark, not so
much so in the present
instance; for though the first
necessary and general result of
conviction be a sin-
cere wish to atone for evil committed, yet it
may be
a question worthy of able consideration whether
excessive
pride of opinion, consummate vanity, and
inordinate self-love might
not prevent or retard that
otherwise natural consequence. For my own
part,
I believe that had not Thomas Paine been such a
distinguished Infidel he would have left less equivo-
cal evidences
of a change of opinion. Concerning
the persons who visited Mr. Paine
in his distress as
his personal friends, I heard very little, though
I may
observe that their number was small, and of that
number
there were not wanting those who endeavor-
510
ed to
support him in his deistical opinions, and to
encourage him to 'die
like a man,' to 'hold fast his
integrity,' lest Christians, or, as
they were pleased to
term them, hypocrites, might take advantage of
his
weakness, and furnish themselves with a weapon by
which they
might hope to destroy their glorious sys-
tem of morals. Numbers
visited him from motives
of benevolence and Christian charity,
endeavoring to
effect a change of mind in respect to his religious
sentiments. The labor of such was apparently lost,
and they pretty
generally received such treatment
from him as none but good men would
risk a second
time, though some of those persons called frequently."
The following testimony will be new to most of
our readers. It is
from a letter written by Bishop
Fenwick (Roman Catholic Bishop of
Boston), con-
taining a full account of a visit which he paid to
Paine in his last illness. It was printed in the United
States
Catholic Magazine for 1846; in the Catholic
Herald of
Philadelphia, October 15, 1846; in a sup-
plement to the Hartford
Courant, October 23, 1847;
and in Littell's Living Age for
January 22, 1848,
from which we copy. Bishop Fenwick writes:
"A short time before Paine died I was sent for by
him. He was
prompted to this by a poor Catholic
woman who went to see him in his
sickness, and
511
who told him, among other things,
that in his
wretched condition if anybody could do him any
good
it would be a Roman Catholic priest. This
woman was an American
convert (formerly a Shak-
ing Quakeress) whom I had received into the
church
but a few weeks before. She was the bearer of this
message to me from Paine. I stated this circum-
stance to F.
Kohlmann, at breakfast, and requested
him to accompany me. After some
solicitation on
my part he agreed to do so? at which I was greatly
rejoiced, because I was at the time quite young and
inexperienced in
the ministry, and was glad to have
his assistance, as I knew, from
the great reputation
of Paine, that I should have to do with one of
the
most impious as well as infamous of men. We
shortly after
set out for the house at Greenwich
where Paine lodged, and on the way
agreed on a
mode of proceeding with him.
"We arrived at
the house; a decent-looking elderly
woman (probably his housekeeper,)
came to the
door and inquired whether we were the Catholic
priests, for said she, 'Mr. Paine has been so much
annoyed of late by
other denominations calling upon
him that he has left express orders
with me to admit
no one to-day but the clergymen of the Catholic
Church. Upon assuring her that we were Catholic
512
clergymen she opened the door and showed us into
the parlor. She then
left the room and shortly after
returned to inform us that Paine was
asleep, and, at
the same time, expressed a wish that we would not
disturb him, 'for,' said she, 'he is always in a bad
humor when
roused out of his sleep. It is better we
wait a little till he be
awake.' We accordingly sat
down and resolved to await a more
favorable moment.
'Gentlemen,' said the lady, after having taken her
seat also, 'I really wish you may succeed with Mr.
Paine, for he is
laboring under great distress of mind
ever since he was informed by
his physicians that he
cannot possibly live and must die shortly. He
sent
for you to-day because he was told that if any one
could do
him good you might. Possibly he may
think you know of some remedy
which his physicians
are ignorant of. He is truly to be pitied. His
cries
when he is left alone are heart-rending. 'O Lord
help me!'
he will exclaim during his paroxysms of
distress—'God help me—Jesus
Christ help me!'
repeating the same expressions without the least
variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the
house. Sometimes
he will say, 'O God, what have
I done to suffer so much!' then,
shortly after, 'But
there is no God,' and again a little after, 'Yet
if
there should be, what would become of me hereafter.'
513
Thus he will continue for some time, when on a sud-
den he will scream, as if in terror and agony, and
call out for me by
name. On one of these occasions,
which are very frequent, I went to
him and inquired
what he wanted. 'Stay with me,' he replied, 'for
God's sake, for I cannot bear to be left alone.' I
then observed that
I could not always be with him,
as I had much to attend to in the
house. 'Then,' said
he, 'send even a child to stay with me, for it is
a
hell to be alone.' 'I never saw,' she concluded, 'a
more
unhappy, a more forsaken man. It seems he
cannot reconcile himself to
die.'
"Such was the conversation of the woman who
had
received us, and who probably had been employ-
ed to nurse and take
care of him during his illness.
She was a Protestant, yet seemed very
desirous that
we should afford him some relief in his state of
abandonment, bordering on complete despair. Hav-
ing remained thus
some time in the parlor, we at
length heard a noise in the adjoining
passage-way,
which induced us to believe that Mr. Paine, who was
sick in that room, had awoke. We accordingly pro-
posed to proceed
thither, which was assented to by
the woman, and she opened the door
for us. On
entering, we found him just getting out of his
slumber. A more wretched being in appearance I
514
never beheld. He was lying in a bed sufficiently
decent of itself,
but at present besmeared with filth;
his look was that of a man
greatly tortured in mind;
his eyes haggard, his countenance
forbidding, and
his whole appearance that of one whose better days
had been one continued scene of debauch. His only
nourishment at this
time, as we were informed, was
nothing more than milk punch, in which
he indulged
to the full extent of his weak state. He had par-
taken, undoubtedly, but very recently of it, as the
sides and corners
of his mouth exhibited very un-
equivocal traces of it, as well as of
blood, which had
also followed in the track and left its mark on the
pillow. His face, to a certain extent, had also been
besmeared with
it."
Immediately upon their making known the object
of
their visit, Paine interrupted the speaker by say-
ing: "That's
enough, sir; that's enough," and again
interrupting him, "I see what
you would be about.
I wish to hear no more from you, sir. My mind is
made up on that subject. I look upon the whole of
the Christian
scheme to be a tissue of absurdities
and lies, and Jesus Christ to be
nothing more than a
cunning knave and impostor." He drove them out
of the room, exclaiming: Away with you and your
God, too; leave the
room instantly; all that you
515
have uttered are
lies—filthy lies; and if I had a
little more time I would prove
it, as I did about
your impostor, Jesus Christ."
This, we
think, will suffice. We have a mass of
letters containing statements
confirmatory of what
we have published in regard to the life and
death of
Paine, but nothing more can be required.
INGERSOLL'S
SECOND REPLY.
Peoria, Nov. 2d, 1877.
To
the Editor of the New York Observer:
You ought to have honesty
enough to admit that
you did, in your paper of July 19th, offer to
prove
that the absurd story that Thomas Paine died in
terror and
agony on account of the religious opinions
he had expressed, was
true. You ought to have
fairness enough to admit that you called upon
me
to deposit one thousand dollars with an honest man,
that you
might, by proving that Thomas Paine did
die in terror, obtain the
money.
You ought to have honor enough to admit that
you
challenged me and that you commenced the
controversy concerning
Thomas Paine.
You ought to have goodness enough to admit
that you were mistaken in the charges you made.
You ought to
have manhood enough to do what
you falsely asserted that Thomas Paine
did:—you
ought to recant. You ought to admit publicly that
you slandered the dead; that you falsified history;
that you defamed
the defenceless; that you deliber-
517
ately denied
what you had published in your own
paper. There is an old saying to
the effect that
open confession is good for the soul. To you is
presented a splendid opportunity of testing the truth
of this saying.
Nothing has astonished me more than your lack
of common honesty
exhibited in this controversy. In
your last, you quote from Dr. J. W.
Francis. Why
did you leave out that portion in which Dr. Francis
says that Cheetham with settled malignity wrote the
life of Paine?
Why did you leave out that part in
which Dr. Francis says that
Cheetham in the same
way slandered Alexander Hamilton and De Witt
Clinton? Is it your business to suppress the truth?
Why did you
not publish the entire letter of Bishop
Fenwick? Was it because it
proved beyond all
cavil that Thomas Paine did not recant? Was it
because in the light of that letter Mary Roscoe,
Mary Hinsdale and
Grant Thorburn appeared un-
worthy of belief? Dr. J. W. Francis says
in the
same article from which you quoted, "Paine clung to
his Infidelity until the last moment of his life!' Why
did you
not publish that? It was the first line im-
mediately above what you
did quote. You must
have seen it. Why did you suppress it? A lawyer,
doing a thing of this character, is denominated a
518
shyster. I do not know the appropriate word to
designate a
theologian guilty of such an act.
You brought forward three
witnesses, pretending
to have personal knowledge about the life and
death
of Thomas Paine: Grant Thorburn, Mary Roscoe
and Mary
Hinsdale. In my reply I took the ground
that Mary Roscoe and Mary
Hinsdale must have
been the same person. I thought it impossible that
Paine should have had a conversation with Mary
Roscoe, and then one
precisely like it with Mary
Hinsdale. Acting upon this conviction, I
proceeded
to show that the conversation never could have hap-
pened, that it was absurdly false to say that Paine
asked the opinion
of a girl as to his works who had
never read but little of them. I
then showed by the
testimony of William Cobbett, that he visited Mary
Hinsdale in 1819, taking with him a statement con-
cerning the
recantation of Paine, given him by Mr.
Collins, and that upon being
shown this statement
she said that "it was so long ago that she could
not
speak positively to any part of the matter—that she
would not say any part of the paper was true." At
that time she knew
nothing, and remembered noth-
ing. I also showed that she was a kind
of standing
witness to prove that others recanted. Willett Hicks
denounced her as unworthy of belief.
519
To-day the
following from the New York World
was received, showing that I
was right in my
conjecture:
Tom Paine's Death-Bed.
To the Editor of the World:
Sir: I see by your
paper that Bob Ingersoll dis-
credits Mary Hinsdale's story of the
scenes which
occurred at the death-bed of Thomas Paine. No
one
who knew that good lady would for one moment
doubt her veracity or
question her testimony. Both
she and her husband were Quaker
preachers, and
well known and respected inhabitants of New York
City, Ingersoll is right in his conjecture that Mary
Roscoe and
Mary Hinsdale was the same person. Her
maiden name was Roscoe,
and she married Henry
Hinsdale. My mother was a Roscoe, a niece of
Mary Roscoe, and lived with her for some time. I
have heard her
relate the story of Tom Paine's dying
remorse, as told her by her
aunt, who was a witness
to it. She says (in a letter I have just
received from
her), "he (Tom Paine) suffered fearfully from remorse,
and renounced his Infidel principles, calling on God
to forgive him,
and wishing his pamphlets and books
to be burned, saying he could not
die in peace until
it was done." (Rev.) A. W. Cornell.
Harpersville, New York.
520
You will notice that the
testimony of Mary Hins-
dale has been drawing interest since 1809,
and has
materially increased. If Paine "suffered fearfully
from
remorse, renounced his Infidel opinions and
called on God to forgive
him," it is hardly generous
for the Christian world to fasten the
fangs of malice
in the flesh of his reputation.
So Mary
Roscoe was Mary Hinsdale, and as
Mary Hinsdale has been shown by her
own admis-
sion to Mr. Cobbett to have known nothing of the
matter; and as Mary Hinsdale was not, according to
Willet Hicks,
worthy of belief—as she told a false-
hood of the same kind
about Mary Lockwood, and
was, according to Mr. Collins, addicted to
the use of
opium—this disposes of her and her testimony.
There remains upon the stand Grant Thorburn.
Concerning this
witness, I received, yesterday, from
the eminent biographer and
essayist, James Parton,
the following epistle:
Newburyport, Mass.
Col. R. G. Ingersoll:
Touching
Grant Thorburn, I personally know him
to have been a dishonest man.
At the age of ninety-
two he copied, with trembling hand, a piece
from a
newspaper and brought it to the office of the Home
Journal, as his own. It was I who received it and
521
detected the deliberate forgery. If you are ever go-
ing to
continue this subject, I will give you the exact
facts.
Fervently yours,
James Parton.
After this, you are
welcome to what remains of
Grant Thorburn.
There is one
thing that I have noticed during this
controversy regarding Thomas
Paine. In no instance
that I now call to mind has any Christian
writer
spoken respectfully of Mr. Paine. All have taken
particular pains to call him "Tom" Paine. Is it not
a little strange
that religion should make men so
coarse and ill-mannered?
I have often wondered what these same gentle-
men would say if I
should speak of the men eminent
in the annals of Christianity in the
same way. What
would they say if I should write about "Tim"
Dwight, old "Ad" Clark, "Tom" Scott, "Jim"
McKnight, "Bill" Hamilton,
"Dick" Whately, "Bill"
Paley, and "Jack" Calvin?
They
would say of me then, just what I think of
them now.
Even if we have religion, do not let us try to get
along
without good manners. Rudeness is exceed-
ingly unbecoming, even in a
saint. Persons who
522
forgive their enemies ought,
to say the least, to
treat with politeness those who have never
injured
them.
It is exceedingly gratifying to me that I
have com-
pelled you to say that "Paine died a blaspheming
Infidel." Hereafter it is to be hoped nothing will be
heard about his
having recanted. As an answer to
such slander his friends can
confidently quote the
following from the New York Observer of
November
ist, 1877:
"WE HAVE NEVER STATED IN ANY FORM, NOR
HAVE WE EVER SUPPOSED THAT PAINE ACTUALLY RE-
NOUNCED HIS INFIDELITY.
THE ACCOUNTS AGREE IN
STATING THAT HE DIED A BLASPHEMING INFIDEL."
This for all coming time will refute the slanders of
the
churches yet to be.
Right here allow me to ask: If you never
supposed
that Paine renounced his Infidelity, why did you try
to
prove by Mary Hinsdale that which you believed
to be untrue?
From the bottom of my heart I thank myself for
having compelled
you to admit that Thomas Paine
did not recant.
For the
purpose of verifying your own admission
concerning the death of Mr.
Paine, permit me to call
your attention to the following affidavit:
523
Wabash, Indiana, October 27, 1877.
Col. R.
G. Ingersoll:
Dear Sir: The following statement of facts is at
your disposal. In the year 1833 Willet Hicks made
a visit to Indiana
and stayed over night at my father's
house, four miles east of
Richmond. In the morn-
ing at breakfast my mother asked Willet Hicks
the
following questions:
"Was thee with Thomas Paine
during his last
sickness?"
Mr. Hicks said: "I was with him
every day dur-
ing the latter part of his last sickness."
"Did he express any regret in regard to writing
the 'Age of Reason,'
as the published accounts say
he did—those accounts that have
the credit of ema-
nating from his Catholic housekeeper?"
Mr. Hicks replied: "He did not in any way by
word or action."
"Did he call on God or Jesus Christ, asking either
of them to
forgive his sins, or did he curse them or
either of them?"
Mr. Hicks answered: "He did not. He died as
easy as any one I ever
saw die, and I have seen
many die in my time." William B Barnes.
Subscribed and sworn to before me Oct. 27, 1877.
Warren
Bigler, Notary Public.
524
You say in your last that
"Thomas Paine was
abandoned of God." So far as this controversy is
concerned, it seems to me that in that sentence you
have most
graphically described your own condi-
tion.
Wishing you
success in all honest undertakings, I
remain,
Yours truly,
Robert G. Ingersoll.
"ARGUMENTS CANNOT BE ANSWERED WITH INSULTS. KINDNESS IS STRENGTH; ANGER BLOWS OUT THE LAMP OF THE MIND. IN THE EXAMINATION OF A GREAT AND IMPORTANT QUESTION, EVERY ONE SHOULD BE SERENE, SLOW-PULSED AND CALM."
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; INGERSOLL'S OPENING PAPER
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY JEREMIAH S. BLACK.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.
A REPLY TO THE REV. HENRY M. FIELD, D.D.
A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE.
THE CHURCH ITS OWN WITNESS, By Cardinal Manning.
ROME OR REASON: A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
(1881.)
I. Col. Ingersoll's Opening Paper—Statement of the Fundamental Truths
of Christianity—Reasons for Thinking that Portions of the Old Testament
are the Product of a Barbarous People—Passages upholding
Slavery, Polygamy, War, and Religious Persecution not Evidences of
Inspiration—If the Words are not Inspired, What Is?—Commands of
Jehovah compared with the Precepts of Pagans and Stoics—Epictetus,
Cicero, Zeno, Seneca, Brahma—II. The New Testament—Why were
Four Gospels Necessary?—Salvation by Belief—The Doctrine of
the Atonement—The Jewish System Culminating in the Sacrifice of
Christ—Except for the Crucifixion of her Son, the Virgin Mary would be
among the Lost—What Christ must have Known would Follow the Acceptance
of His Teachings—The Wars of Sects, the Inquisition, the Fields of
Death—Why did he not Forbid it All?—The Little that he Revealed—The
Dogma of Eternal Punishment—Upon Love's Breast the Church has Placed
the Eternal Asp—III. The "Inspired" Writers—Why did not God furnish
Every Nation with a Bible?
II. Judge Black's Reply—His Duty that of a Policeman—The Church not
in Danger—Classes who Break out into Articulate Blasphemy—The
Sciolist—Personal Remarks about Col. Ingersoll—Chief-Justice Gibson of
Pennsylvania Quoted—We have no Jurisdiction or Capacity to Rejudge the
Justice of God—The Moral Code of the Bible—Civil Government of the
Jews—No Standard of Justice without Belief in a God—Punishments for
Blasphemy and Idolatry Defended—Wars of Conquest—Allusion to Col.
Ingersoll's War Record—Slavery among the Jews—Polygamy Discouraged by
the Mosaic Constitution—Jesus of Nazareth and the Establishment of
his Religion—Acceptance of Christianity and Adjudication upon its
Divinity—The Evangelists and their Depositions—The Fundamental Truths
of Christianity—Persecution and Triumph of the Church—Ingersoll's
Propositions Compressed and the Compressions Answered—Salvation as a
Reward of Belief—Punishment of Unbelief—The Second Birth, Atonement,
Redemption, Non-resistance, Excessive Punishment of Sinners, Christ and
Persecution, Christianity and Freedom of Thought, Sufficiency of the
Gospel, Miracles, Moral Effect of Christianity.
III. Col. Ingersoll's Rejoinder—How this Discussion Came About—Natural
Law—The Design Argument—The Right to Rejudge the Justice even of a
God—Violation of the Commandments by Jehovah—Religious Intolerance
of the Old Testament—Judge Black's Justification of Wars of
Extermination—His Defence of Slavery—Polygamy not "Discouraged" by the
Old Testament—Position of Woman under the Jewish System and under that
of the Ancients—a "Policeman's" View of God—Slavery under Jehovah
and in Egypt—The Admission that Jehovah gave no Commandment against
Polygamy—The Learned and Wise Crawl back in Cribs—Alleged Harmony of
Old and New Testaments—On the Assertion that the Spread of Christianity
Proves the Supernatural Origin of the Gospel—The Argument applicable to
All Religions—Communications from Angels ana Gods—Authenticity of
the Statements of the Evangelists—Three Important Manuscripts—Rise
of Mormonism—Ascension of Christ—The Great Public Events alleged
as Fundamental Truths of Christianity—Judge Black's System
of "Compression"—"A Metaphysical Question"—Right and
Wrong—Justice—Christianity and Freedom of Thought—Heaven and
Hell—Production of God and the Devil—Inspiration of the Bible
dependent on the Credulity of the Reader—Doubt of Miracles—The
World before Christ's Advent—Respect for the Man Christ—The Dark
Ages—Institutions of Mercy—Civil Law.
THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.
(1887.)
An Open Letter to Robert G. Ingersoll—Superstitions—Basis of
Religion—Napoleon's Question about the Stars—The Idea of God—Crushing
out Hope—Atonement, Regeneration, and Future Retribution—Socrates and
Jesus—The Language of Col. Ingersoll characterized as too Sweeping—The
Sabbath—But a Step from Sneering at Religion to Sneering at Morality.
A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D. D.—Honest Differences of
Opinion—Charles Darwin—Dr. Field's Distinction between Superstition
and Religion—The Presbyterian God an Infinite Torquemada—Napoleon's
Sensitiveness to the Divine Influence—The Preference of Agassiz—The
Mysterious as an Explanation—The Certainty that God is not what he
is Thought to Be—Self-preservation the Fibre of Society—Did
the Assassination of Lincoln Illustrate the Justice of God's
Judgments?—Immortality—Hope and the Presbyterian Creed—To a Mother
at the Grave of Her Son—Theological Teaching of Forgiveness—On
Eternal Retribution—Jesus and Mohammed—Attacking the Religion of
Others—Ananias and Sapphira—The Pilgrims and Freedom to Worship—The
Orthodox Sabbath—Natural Restraints on Conduct—Religion and
Morality—The Efficacy of Prayer—Respect for Belief of Father and
Mother—The "Power behind Nature"—Survival of the Fittest—The Saddest
Fact—"Sober Second Thought."
A Last Word to Robert G. Ingersoll, by Dr. Field—God not a
Presbyterian—Why Col. Ingersoll's Attacks on Religion are Resented—God
is more Merciful than Man—Theories about the Future Life—Retribution
a Necessary Part of the Divine Law—The Case of Robinson
Crusoe—Irresistible Proof of Design—Col. Ingersoll's View of
Immortality—An Almighty Friend.
Letter to Dr. Field—The Presbyterian God—What the Presbyterians
Claim—The "Incurably Bad"—Responsibility for not seeing Things
Clearly—Good Deeds should Follow even Atheists—No Credit in
Belief—Design Argument that Devours Itself—Belief as a Foundation
of Social Order—No Consolation in Orthodox Religion—The "Almighty
Friend" and the Slave Mother—a Hindu Prayer—Calvinism—Christ not the
Supreme Benefactor of the Race.
COLONEL INGERSOLL ON CHRISTIANITY.
(1888.)
Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field by the Hon. Wm. E.
Gladstone—External Triumph and Prosperity of the Church—A Truth Half
Stated—Col. Ingersoll's Tumultuous Method and lack of Reverential
Calm—Jephthah's Sacrifice—Hebrews xii Expounded—The Case of
Abraham—Darwinism and the Scriptures—Why God demands Sacrifices of
Man—Problems admitted to be Insoluble—Relation of human Genius
to Human Greatness—Shakespeare and Others—Christ and the Family
Relation—Inaccuracy of Reference in the Reply—Ananias and
Sapphira—The Idea of Immortality—Immunity of Error in Belief from
Moral Responsibility—On Dishonesty in the Formation of Opinion—A
Plausibility of the Shallowest kind—The System of Thuggism—Persecution
for Opinion's Sake—Riding an Unbroken Horse.
Col. Ingersoll to Mr. Gladstone—On the "Impaired" State of the human
Constitution—Unbelief not Due to Degeneracy—Objections to the
Scheme of Redemption—Does Man Deserve only Punishment?—"Reverential
Calm"—The Deity of the Ancient Jews—Jephthah and Abraham—Relation
between Darwinism and the Inspiration of the Scriptures—Sacrifices to
the Infinite—What is Common Sense?—An Argument that will Defend every
Superstition—The Greatness of Shakespeare—The Absolute Indissolubility
of Marriage—Is the Religion of Christ for this Age?—As to Ananias and
Sapphira—Immortality and People of Low Intellectual Development—Can
we Control our Thought?—Dishonest Opinions Cannot be Formed—Some
Compensations for Riding an "Unbroken Horse."
(1888.)
"The Church Its Own Witness," by Cardinal Manning—Evidence
that Christianity is of Divine Origin—The Universality of the
Church—Natural Causes not Sufficient to Account for the Catholic
Church—-The World in which Christianity Arose—Birth of Christ—From
St Peter to Leo XIII.—The First Effect of Christianity—Domestic
Life's Second Visible Effect—Redemption of Woman from traditional
Degradation—Change Wrought by Christianity upon the Social, Political
and International Relations of the World—Proof that Christianity is of
Divine Origin and Presence—St. John and the Christian Fathers—Sanctity
of the Church not Affected by Human Sins.
A Reply to Cardinal Manning—I. Success not a Demonstration of either
Divine Origin or Supernatural Aid—Cardinal Manning's Argument
More Forcible in the Mouth of a Mohammedan—Why Churches Rise and
Flourish—Mormonism—Alleged Universality of the Catholic Church—Its
"inexhaustible Fruitfulness" in Good Things—The Inquisition and
Persecution—Not Invincible—Its Sword used by Spain—Its Unity not
Unbroken—The State of the World when Christianity was Established—The
Vicar of Christ—A Selection from Draper's "History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe"—Some infamous Popes—Part II. How the Pope
Speaks—Religions Older than Catholicism and having the Same Rites
and Sacraments—Is Intellectual Stagnation a Demonstration of Divine
Origin?—Integration and Disintegration—The Condition of the World 300
Years Ago—The Creed of Catholicism—The "One true God" with a Knowledge
of whom Catholicism has "filled the World"—Did the Catholic Church
overthrow Idolatry?—Marriage—Celibacy—Human Passions—The Cardinal's
Explanation of Jehovah's abandonment of the Children of Men for
four thousand Years—Catholicism tested by Paganism—Canon Law
and Convictions had Under It—Rival Popes—Importance of a Greek
"Inflection"—The Cardinal Witnesses.
(1889.)
Preface by the Editor of the North American Review—Introduction, by the
Rev. S. W. Dike, LL. D.—A Catholic View by Cardinal Gibbons—Divorce
as Regarded by the Episcopal Church, by Bishop, Henry C. Potter—Four
Questions Answered, by Robert G. Ingersoll.
Reply to Cardinal Gibbons—Indissolubility of Marriage a Reaction
from Polygamy—Biblical Marriage—Polygamy Simultaneous and
Successive—Marriage and Divorce in the Light of Experience—Reply
to Bishop Potter—Reply to Mr. Gladstone—Justice Bradley—Senator
Dolph—The argument Continued in Colloquial Form—Dialogue between
Cardinal Gibbons and a Maltreated Wife—She Asks the Advice of Mr.
Gladstone—The Priest who Violated his Vow—Absurdity of the Divorce
laws of Some States.
REPLY TO DR. LYMAN ABBOTT.
(1890)
Dr. Abbott's Equivocations—Crimes Punishable by Death under Mosaic
and English Law—Severity of Moses Accounted for by Dr. Abbott—The
Necessity for the Acceptance of Christianity—Christians should be
Glad to Know that the Bible is only the Work of Man and that the New
Testament Life of Christ is Untrue—All the Good Commandments, Known
to the World thousands of Years before Moses—Human Happiness of
More Consequence than the Truth about God—The Appeal to Great
Names—Gladstone not the Greatest Statesman—What the Agnostic Says—The
Magnificent Mistakes of Genesis—The Story of Joseph—Abraham as a
"self-Exile for Conscience's Sake."
REPLY TO ARCHDEACON FARRAR.
(1890.)
Revelation as an Appeal to Man's "Spirit"—What is Spirit and what is
"Spiritual Intuition"?—The Archdeacon in Conflict with St. Paul—II.
The Obligation to Believe without Evidence—III. Ignorant Credulity—IV.
A Definition of Orthodoxy—V. Fear not necessarily Cowardice—Prejudice
is Honest—The Ola has the Advantage in an Argument—St.
Augustine—Jerome—the Appeal to Charlemagne—Roger Bacon—Lord Bacon
a Defender of the Copernican System—The Difficulty of finding out
what Great Men Believed—Names Irrelevantly Cited—Bancroft on the
Hessians—Original Manuscripts of the Bible—VI. An Infinite Personality
a Contradiction in Terms—VII. A Beginningless Being—VIII. The
Cruelties of Nature not to be Harmonized with the Goodness of a
Deity—Sayings from the Indian—Origen, St. Augustine, Dante, Aquinas.
IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?
(1890.)
A Reply to the Dean of St. Paul—Growing Confidence in the Power of
Kindness—Crimes against Soldiers and Sailors—Misfortunes Punished
as Crimes—The Dean's Voice Raised in Favor of the Brutalities of the
Past—Beating of Children—Of Wives—Dictum of Solomon.
By Robert G. Ingersoll
In the presence of eternity the mountains are as transient as the clouds.
A PROFOUND change has taken place in the world of thought. The pews are trying to set themselves somewhat above the pulpit. The layman discusses theology with the minister, and smiles. Christians excuse themselves for belonging to the church, by denying a part of the creed. The idea is abroad that they who know the most of nature believe the least about theology. The sciences are regarded as infidels, and facts as scoffers. Thousands of most excellent people avoid churches, and, with few exceptions, only those attend prayer-meetings who wish to be alone. The pulpit is losing because the people are growing.
Of course it is still claimed that we are a Christian people, indebted to something called Christianity for all the progress we have made. There is still a vast difference of opinion as to what Christianity really is, although many warring sects have been discussing that question, with fire and sword, through centuries of creed and crime. Every new sect has been denounced at its birth as illegitimate, as a something born out of orthodox wedlock, and that should have been allowed to perish on the steps where it was found. Of the relative merits of the various denominations, it is sufficient to say that each claims to be right. Among the evangelical churches there is a substantial agreement upon what they consider the fundamental truths of the gospel. These fundamental truths, as I understand them, are:
That there is a personal God, the creator of the material universe; that he made man of the dust, and woman from part of the man; that the man and woman were tempted by the devil; that they were turned out of the Garden of Eden; that, about fifteen hundred years afterward, God's patience having been exhausted by the wickedness of mankind, he drowned his children with the exception of eight persons; that afterward he selected from their descendants Abraham, and through him the Jewish people; that he gave laws to these people, and tried to govern them in all things; that he made known his will in many ways; that he wrought a vast number of miracles; that he inspired men to write the Bible; that, in the fullness of time, it having been found impossible to reform mankind, this God came upon earth as a child born of the Virgin Mary; that he lived in Palestine; that he preached for about three years, going from place to place, occasionally raising the dead, curing the blind and the halt; that he was crucified—for the crime of blasphemy, as the Jews supposed, but that, as a matter of fact, he was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of all who might have faith in him; that he was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, where he now is, making intercession for his followers; that he will forgive the sins of all who believe on him, and that those who do not believe will be consigned to the dungeons of eternal pain. These—it may be with the addition of the sacraments of Baptism and the Last Supper—constitute what is generally known as the Christian religion.
It is most cheerfully admitted that a vast number of people not only believe these things, but hold them in exceeding reverence, and imagine them to be of the utmost importance to mankind. They regard the Bible as the only light that God has given for the guidance of his children; that it is the one star in nature's sky—the foundation of all morality, of all law, of all order, and of all individual and national progress. They regard it as the only means we have for ascertaining the will of God, the origin of man, and the destiny of the soul.
It is needless to inquire into the causes that have led so many people to believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. In my opinion, they were and are mistaken, and the mistake has hindered, in countless ways, the civilization of man. The Bible has been the fortress and defence of nearly every crime. No civilized country could re-enact its laws, and in many respects its moral code is abhorrent to every good and tender man. It is admitted that many of its precepts are pure, that many of its laws are wise and just, and that many of its statements are absolutely true.
Without desiring to hurt the feeling? of anybody, I propose to give a few reasons for thinking that a few passages, at least, in the Old Testament are the product of a barbarous people.
In all civilized countries it is not only admitted, but it is passionately asserted, that slavery is and always was a hideous crime; that a war of conquest is simply murder; that polygamy is the enslavement of woman, the degradation of man, and the destruction of home; that nothing is more infamous than the slaughter of decrepit men, of helpless women, and of prattling babes; that captured maidens should not be given to soldiers; that wives should not be stoned to death on account of their religious opinions, and that the death penalty ought not to be inflicted for a violation of the Sabbath. We know that there was a time, in the history of almost every nation, when slavery, polygamy, and wars of extermination were regarded as divine institutions; when women were looked upon as beasts of burden, and when, among some people, it was considered the duty of the husband to murder the wife for differing with him on the subject of religion. Nations that entertain these views to-day are regarded as savage, and, probably, with the exception of the South Sea Islanders, the Feejees, some citizens of Delaware, and a few tribes in Central Africa, no human beings can be found degraded enough to agree upon these subjects with the Jehovah of the ancient Jews. The only evidence we have, or can have, that a nation has ceased to be savage is the fact that it has abandoned these doctrines. To every one, except the theologian, it is perfectly easy to account for the mistakes, atrocities, and crimes of the past, by saying that civilization is a slow and painful growth; that the moral perceptions are cultivated through ages of tyranny, of want, of crime, and of heroism; that it requires centuries for man to put out the eyes of self and hold in lofty and in equal poise the scales of justice; that conscience is born of suffering; that mercy is the child of the imagination—of the power to put oneself in the sufferer's place, and that man advances only as he becomes acquainted with his surroundings, with the mutual obligations of life, and learns to take advantage of the forces of nature.
But the believer in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled to declare that there was a time when slavery was right—when men could buy, and women could sell, their babes. He is compelled to insist that there was a time when polygamy was the highest form of virtue; when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of mercy; when religious toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having expressed an honest thought. He must maintain that Jehovah is just as bad now as he was four thousand years ago, or that he was just as good then as he is now, but that human conditions have so changed that slavery, polygamy, religious persecutions, and wars of conquest are now perfectly devilish. Once they were right—once they were commanded by God himself; now, they are prohibited. There has been such a change in the conditions of man that, at the present time, the devil is in favor of slavery, polygamy, religious persecution, and wars of conquest. That is to say, the devil entertains the same opinion to-day that Jehovah held four thousand years ago, but in the meantime Jehovah has remained exactly the same—changeless and incapable of change.
We find that other nations beside the Jews had similar laws and ideas; that they believed in and practiced slavery and polygamy, murdered women and children, and exterminated their neighbors to the extent of their power. It is not claimed that they received a revelation. It is admitted that they had no knowledge of the true God. And yet, by a strange coincidence, they practised the same crimes, of their own motion, that the Jews did by the command of Jehovah. From this it would seem that man can do wrong without a special revelation.
It will hardly be claimed, at this day, that the passages in the Bible upholding slavery, polygamy, war and religious persecution are evidences of the inspiration of that book. Suppose that there had been nothing in the Old Testament upholding these crimes, would any modern Christian suspect that it was not inspired, on account of the omission? Suppose that there had been nothing in the Old Testament but laws in favor of these crimes, would any intelligent Christian now contend that it was the work of the true God? If the devil had inspired a book, will some believer in the doctrine of inspiration tell us in what respect, on the subjects of slavery, polygamy, war, and liberty, it would have differed from some parts of the Old Testament? Suppose that we should now discover a Hindu book of equal antiquity with the Old Testament, containing a defence of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution, would we regard it as evidence that the writers were inspired by an infinitely wise and merciful God? As most other nations at that time practiced these crimes, and as the Jews would have practiced them all, even if left to themselves, one can hardly see the necessity of any inspired commands upon these subjects. Is there a believer in the Bible who does not wish that God, amid the thunders and lightnings of Sinai, had distinctly said to Moses that man should not own his fellow-man; that women should not sell their babes; that men should be allowed to think and investigate for themselves, and that the sword should never be unsheathed to shed the blood of honest men? Is there a believer in the world, who would not be delighted to find that every one of these infamous passages are interpolations, and that the skirts of God were never reddened by the blood of maiden, wife, or babe? Is there a believer who does not regret that God commanded a husband to stone his wife to death for suggesting the worship of the sun or moon? Surely, the light of experience is enough to tell us that slavery is wrong, that polygamy is infamous, and that murder is not a virtue. No one will now contend that it was worth God's while to impart the information to Moses, or to Joshua, or to anybody else, that the Jewish people might purchase slaves of the heathen, or that it was their duty to exterminate the natives of the Holy Land. The deists have contended that the Old Testament is too cruel and barbarous to be the work of a wise and loving God. To this, the theologians have replied, that nature is just as cruel; that the earthquake, the volcano, the pestilence and storm, are just as savage as the Jewish God; and to my mind this is a perfect answer.
Suppose that we knew that after "inspired" men had finished the Bible, the devil got possession of it, and wrote a few passages; what part of the sacred Scriptures would Christians now pick out as being probably his work? Which of the following passages would naturally be selected as having been written by the devil—"Love thy neighbor as thyself," or "Kill all the males among the little ones, and kill every woman; but all the women children keep alive for yourselves."?
It may be that the best way to illustrate what I have said of the Old Testament is to compare some of the supposed teachings of Jehovah with those of persons who never read an "inspired" line, and who lived and died without having received the light of revelation. Nothing can be more suggestive than a comparison of the ideas of Jehovah—the inspired words of the one claimed to be the infinite God, as recorded in the Bible—with those that have been expressed by men who, all admit, received no help from heaven.
In all ages of which any record has been preserved, there have been those who gave their ideas of justice, charity, liberty, love and law. Now, if the Bible is really the work of God, it should contain the grandest and sublimest truths. It should, in all respects, excel the works of man. Within that book should be found the best and loftiest definitions of justice; the truest conceptions of human liberty; the clearest outlines of duty; the tenderest, the highest, and the noblest thoughts,—not that the human mind has produced, but that the human mind is capable of receiving. Upon every page should be found the luminous evidence of its divine origin. Unless it contains grander and more wonderful things than man has written, we are not only justified in saying, but we are compelled to say, that it was written by no being superior to man. It may be said that it is unfair to call attention to certain bad things in the Bible, while the good are not so much as mentioned. To this it may be replied that a divine being would not put bad things in a book. Certainly a being of infinite intelligence, power, and goodness could never fall below the ideal of "depraved and barbarous" man. It will not do, after we find that the Bible upholds what we now call crimes, to say that it is not verbally inspired. If the words are not inspired, what is? It may be said that the thoughts are inspired. But this would include only the thoughts expressed without words. If ideas are inspired, they must be contained in and expressed only by inspired words; that is to say, the arrangement of the words, with relation to each other, must have been inspired. For the purpose of this perfect arrangement, the writers, according to the Christian world, were inspired. Were some sculptor inspired of God to make a statue perfect in its every part, we would not say that the marble was inspired, but the statue—the relation of part to part, the married harmony of form and function. The language, the words, take the place of the marble, and it is the arrangement of these words that Christians claim to be inspired. If there is one uninspired word,—that is, one word in the wrong place, or a word that ought not to be there,—to that extent the Bible is an uninspired book. The moment it is admitted that some words are not, in their arrangement as to other words, inspired, then, unless with absolute certainty these words can be pointed out, a doubt is cast on all the words the book contains. If it was worth God's while to make a revelation to man at all, it was certainly worth his while to see that it was correctly made. He would not have allowed the ideas and mistakes of pretended prophets and designing priests to become so mingled with the original text that it is impossible to tell where he ceased and where the priests and prophets began. Neither will it do to say that God adapted his revelation to the prejudices of mankind. Of course it was necessary for an infinite being to adapt his revelation to the intellectual capacity of man; but why should God confirm a barbarian in his prejudices? Why should he fortify a heathen in his crimes? If a revelation is of any importance whatever, it is to eradicate prejudices from the human mind. It should be a lever with which to raise the human race. Theologians Have exhausted their ingenuity in finding excuses for God. It seems to me that they would be better employed in finding excuses for men. They tell us that the Jews were so cruel and ignorant that God was compelled to justify, or nearly to justify, many of their crimes, in order to have any influence with them whatever. They tell us that if he had declared slavery and polygamy to be criminal, the Jews would have refused to receive the Ten Commandments. They insist that, under the circumstances, God did the best he could; that his real intention was to lead them along slowly, step by step, so that, in a few hundred years, they would be induced to admit that it was hardly fair to steal a babe from its mother's breast. It has always seemed reasonable that an infinite God ought to have been able to make man grand enough to know, even without a special revelation, that it is not altogether right to steal the labor, or the wife, or the child, of another. When the whole question is thoroughly examined, the world will find that Jehovah had the prejudices, the hatreds, and superstitions of his day.
If there is anything of value, it is liberty. Liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of life. Without it the world is a prison and the universe an infinite dungeon.
If the Bible is really inspired, Jehovah commanded the Jewish people to buy the children of the strangers that sojourned among them, and ordered that the children thus bought should be an inheritance for the children of the Jews, and that they should be bondmen and bondwomen forever. Yet Epictetus, a man to whom no revelation was made, a man whose soul followed only the light of nature, and who had never heard of the Jewish God, was great enough to say: "Will you not remember that your servants are by nature your brothers, the children of God? In saying that you have bought them, you look down on the earth, and into the pit, on the wretched law of men long since dead, but you see not the laws of the gods."
We find that Jehovah, speaking to his chosen people, assured them that their bondmen and their bondmaids must be "of the heathen that were round about them." "Of them," said Jehovah, "shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." And yet Cicero, a pagan, Cicero, who had never been enlightened by reading the Old Testament, had the moral grandeur to declare: "They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens, but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever."
If the Bible is inspired, Jehovah, God of all worlds, actually said: "And if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished; notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." And yet Zeno, founder of the Stoics, centuries before Christ was born, insisted that no man could be the owner of another, and that the title was bad, whether the slave had become so by conquest, or by purchase. Jehovah ordered a Jewish general to make war, and gave, among others, this command: "When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." And yet Epictetus, whom we have already quoted, gave this marvelous rule for the guidance of human conduct: "Live with thy inferiors as thou would'st have thy superiors live with thee."
Is it possible, after all, that a being of infinite goodness and wisdom said: "I will heap mischief upon them: I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs"; while Seneca, an uninspired Roman, said: "The wise man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. He will spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on account of their ignorance. His clemency will not fall short of justice, but will fulfill it perfectly."
Can we believe that God ever said of any one: "Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children." If he ever said these words, surely he had never heard this line, this strain of music, from the Hindu: "Sweet is the lute to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children."
Jehovah, "from the clouds and darkness of Sinai," said to the Jews: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.... Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." Contrast this with the words put by the Hindu into the mouth of Brahma:
"I am the same to all mankind. They who honestly serve other gods, involuntarily worship me. I am he who partaketh of all worship, and I am the reward of all worshipers."
Compare these passages. The first, a dungeon where crawl the things begot of jealous slime; the other, great as the domed firmament inlaid with suns.
II.
WAIVING the contradictory statements in the various books of the New Testament; leaving out of the question the history of the manuscripts; saying nothing about the errors in translation and the interpolations made by the fathers; and admitting, for the time being, that the books were all written at the times claimed, and by the persons whose names they bear, the questions of inspiration, probability, and absurdity still remain.
As a rule, where several persons testify to the same transaction, while agreeing in the main points, they will disagree upon many minor things, and such disagreement upon minor matters is generally considered as evidence that the witnesses have not agreed among themselves upon the story they should tell. These differences in statement we account for from the facts that all did not see alike, that all did not have the same opportunity for seeing, and that all had not equally good memories. But when we claim that the witnesses were inspired, we must admit that he who inspired them did know exactly what occurred, and consequently there should be no contradiction, even in the minutest detail. The accounts should be not only substantially, but they should be actually, the same. It is impossible to account for any differences, or any contradictions, except from the weaknesses of human nature, and these weaknesses cannot be predicated of divine wisdom. Why should there be more than one correct account of anything? Why were four gospels necessary? One inspired record of all that happened ought to be enough.
One great objection to the Old Testament is the cruelty said to have been commanded by God, but all the cruelties recounted in the Old Testament ceased with death. The vengeance of Jehovah stopped at the portal of the tomb. He never threatened to avenge himself upon the dead; and not one word, from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse of Malachi, contains the slightest intimation that God will punish in another world. It was reserved for the New Testament to make known the frightful doctrine of eternal pain. It was the teacher of universal benevolence who rent the veil between time and eternity, and fixed the horrified gaze of man on the lurid gulfs of hell. Within the breast of non-resistance was coiled the worm that never dies.
One great objection to the New Testament is that it bases salvation upon belief. This, at least, is true of the Gospel according to John, and of many of the Epistles. I admit that Matthew never heard of the atonement, and died utterly ignorant of the scheme of salvation. I also admit that Mark never dreamed that it was necessary for a man to be born again; that he knew nothing of the mysterious doctrine of regeneration, and that he never even suspected that it was necessary to believe anything. In the sixteenth chapter of Mark, we are told that "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned"; but this passage has been shown to be an interpolation, and, consequently, not a solitary word is found in the Gospel according to Mark upon the subject of salvation by faith. The same is also true of the Gospel of Luke. It says not one word as to the necessity of believing on Jesus Christ, not one word as to the atonement, not one word upon the scheme of salvation, and not the slightest hint that it is necessary to believe anything here in order to be happy hereafter.
And I here take occasion to say, that with most of the teachings of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke I most heartily agree. The miraculous parts must, of course, be thrown aside. I admit that the necessity of belief, the atonement, and the scheme of salvation are all set forth in the Gospel of John,—a gospel, in my opinion, not written until long after the others.
According to the prevailing Christian belief, the Christian religion rests upon the doctrine of the atonement. If this doctrine is without foundation, if it is repugnant to justice and mercy, the fabric falls. We are told that the first man committed a crime for which all his posterity are responsible,—in other words, that we are accountable, and can be justly punished for a sin we never in fact committed. This absurdity was the father of another, namely, that a man can be rewarded for a good action done by another. God, according to the modern theologians, made a law, with the penalty of eternal death for its infraction. All men, they say, have broken that law. In the economy of heaven, this law had to be vindicated. This could be done by damning the whole human race. Through what is known as the atonement, the salvation of a few was made possible. They insist that the law—whatever that is—demanded the extreme penalty, that justice called for its victims, and that even mercy ceased to plead. Under these circumstances, God, by allowing the innocent to suffer, satisfactorily settled with the law, and allowed a few of the guilty to escape. The law was satisfied with this arrangement. To carry out this scheme, God was born as a babe into this world. "He grew in stature and increased in knowledge." At the age of thirty-three, after having lived a life filled with kindness, charity and nobility, after having practiced every virtue, he was sacrificed as an atonement for man. It is claimed that he actually took our place, and bore our sins and our guilt; that in this way the justice of God was satisfied, and that the blood of Christ was an atonement, an expiation, for the sins of all who might believe on him.
Under the Mosaic dispensation, there was no remission of sin except through the shedding of blood. If a man committed certain sins, he must bring to the priest a lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a pair of turtle-doves. The priest would lay his hands upon the animal, and the sin of the man would be transferred. Then the animal would be killed in the place of the real sinner, and the blood thus shed and sprinkled upon the altar would be an atonement. In this way Jehovah was satisfied. The greater the crime, the greater the sacrifice—the more blood, the greater the atonement. There was always a certain ratio between the value of the animal and the enormity of the sin. The most minute directions were given about the killing of these animals, and about the sprinkling of their blood. Every priest became a butcher, and every sanctuary a slaughter-house. Nothing could be more utterly shocking to a refined and loving soul. Nothing could have been better calculated to harden the heart than this continual shedding of innocent blood. This terrible system is supposed to have culminated in the sacrifice of Christ. His blood took the place of all other. It is necessary to shed no more. The law at last is satisfied, satiated, surfeited. The idea that God wants blood is at the bottom of the atonement, and rests upon the most fearful savagery. How can sin be transferred from men to animals, and how can the shedding of the blood of animals atone for the sins of men?
The church says that the sinner is in debt to God, and that the obligation is discharged by the Savior. The best that can possibly be said of such a transaction is, that the debt is transferred, not paid. The truth is, that a sinner is in debt to the person he has injured. If a man injures his neighbor, it is not enough for him to get the forgiveness of God, but he must have the forgiveness of his neighbor. If a man puts his hand in the fire and God forgives him, his hand will smart exactly the same. You must, after all, reap what you sow. No god can give you wheat when you sow tares, and no devil can give you tares when you sow wheat.
There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences. The life of Christ is worth its example, its moral force, its heroism of benevolence.
To make innocence suffer is the greatest sin; how then is it possible to make the suffering of the innocent a justification for the criminal? Why should a man be willing to let the innocent suffer for him? Does not the willingness show that he is utterly unworthy of the sacrifice? Certainly, no man would be fit for heaven who would consent that an innocent person should suffer for his sin. What would we think of a man who would allow another to die for a crime that he himself had committed? What would we think of a law that allowed the innocent to take the place of the guilty? Is it possible to vindicate a just law by inflicting punishment on the innocent? Would not that be a second violation instead of a vindication?
If there was no general atonement until the crucifixion of Christ, what became of the countless millions who died before that time? And it must be remembered that the blood shed by the Jews was not for other nations. Jehovah hated foreigners. The Gentiles were left without forgiveness What has become of the millions who have died since, without having heard of the atonement? What becomes of those who have heard but have not believed? It seems to me that the doctrine of the atonement is absurd, unjust, and immoral. Can a law be satisfied by the execution of the wrong person? When a man commits a crime, the law demands his punishment, not that of a substitute; and there can be no law, human or divine, that can be satisfied by the punishment of a substitute. Can there be a law that demands that the guilty be rewarded? And yet, to reward the guilty is far nearer justice than to punish the innocent.
According to the orthodox theology, there would have been no heaven had no atonement been made. All the children of men would have been cast into hell forever. The old men bowed with grief, the smiling mothers, the sweet babes, the loving maidens, the brave, the tender, and the just, would have been given over to eternal pain. Man, it is claimed, can make no atonement for himself. If he commits one sin, and with that exception lives a life of perfect virtue, still that one sin would remain unexpiated, unatoned, and for that one sin he would be forever lost. To be saved by the goodness of another, to be a redeemed debtor forever, has in it something repugnant to manhood.
We must also remember that Jehovah took special charge of the Jewish people; and we have always been taught that he did so for the purpose of civilizing them. If he had succeeded in civilizing the Jews, he would have made the damnation of the entire human race a certainty; because, if the Jews had been a civilized people when Christ appeared,—a people whose hearts had not been hardened by the laws and teachings of Jehovah,—they would not have crucified him, and, as a consequence, the world would have been lost. If the Jews had believed in religious freedom,—in the right of thought and speech,—not a human soul could ever have been saved. If, when Christ was on his way to Calvary, some brave, heroic soul had rescued him from the holy mob, he would not only have been eternally damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the salvation of any human being, and, except for the crucifixion of her son, the Virgin Mary, if the church is right, would be to-day among the lost.
In countless ways the Christian world has endeavored, for nearly two thousand years, to explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an admission that it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. Is it not immoral to teach that man can sin, that he can harden his heart and pollute his soul, and that, by repenting and believing something that he does not comprehend, he can avoid the consequences of his crimes? Has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin? Should men be taught that sin gives happiness here; that they ought to bear the evils of a virtuous life in this world for the sake of joy in the next; that they can repent between the last sin and the last breath; that after repentance every stain of the soul is washed away by the innocent blood of another; that the serpent of regret will not hiss in the ear of memory; that the saved will not even pity the victims of their own crimes; that the goodness of another can be transferred to them; and that sins forgiven cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned against?
Another objection is that a certain belief is necessary to save the soul. It is often asserted that to believe is the only safe way. If you wish to be safe, be honest. Nothing can be safer than that. No matter what his belief may be, no man, even in the hour of death, can regret having been honest. It never can be necessary to throw away your reason to save your soul. A soul without reason is scarcely worth saving. There is no more degrading doctrine than that of mental non-resistance. The soul has a right to defend its castle—the brain, and he who waives that right becomes a serf and slave. Neither can I admit that a man, by doing me an injury, can place me under obligation to do him a service. To render benefits for injuries is to ignore all distinctions between actions. He who treats his friends and enemies alike has neither love nor justice. The idea of non-resistance never occurred to a man with power to protect himself. This doctrine was the child of weakness, born when resistance was impossible. To allow a crime to be committed when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime yourself. And yet, under the banner of non-resistance, the church has shed the blood of millions, and in the folds of her sacred vestments have gleamed the daggers of assassination. With her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy, and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. For a thousand years larceny held the scales of justice, while beggars scorned the princely sons of toil, and ignorant fear denounced the liberty of thought.
If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future. Before him, like a panorama, moved the history yet to be. He knew exactly how his words would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that the fires of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that brave men would languish in dungeons, in darkness, filled with pain; that the church would use instruments of torture, that his followers would appeal to whip and chain. He must have seen the horizon of the future red with the flames of the auto da fe. He knew all the creeds that would spring like poison fungi from every text. He saw the sects waging war against each other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building dungeons for their fellow-men. He saw them using instruments of pain. He heard the groans, saw the faces white with agony, the tears, the blood—heard the shrieks and sobs of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. He knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be born of teachings attributed to him. He saw all the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. He knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these burnings, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross. He knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh, that cradles would be robbed, and women's breasts unbabed for gold, and yet he died with voiceless lips. Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world, that man should not persecute, for opinion's sake, his fellow-man? Why did he not cry, You shall not persecute in my name; you shall not burn and torment those who differ from you in creed? Why did he not plainly say, I am the Son of God? Why did he not explain the doctrine of the Trinity? Why did he not tell the manner of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why did he not say something positive, definite, and satisfactory about another world? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven to the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt?
He came, they tell us, to make a revelation, and what did he reveal? "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? That was in the Old Testament. "Love God with all thy heart"? That was in the Old Testament. "Return good for evil"? That was said by Buddha seven hundred years before he was born. "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you"? This was the doctrine of Lao-tsze. Did he come to give a rule of action? Zoroaster had done this long before: "Whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it." Did he come to teach us of another world? The immortality of the soul had been taught by Hindus, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans hundreds of years before he was born. Long before, the world had been told by Socrates that: "One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we may have suffered from him." And Cicero had said:
"Let us not listen to those who think that we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly: nothing is more praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive."
Is there anything nearer perfect than this from Confucius: "For benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of revenge"?
The dogma of eternal punishment rests upon passages in the New Testament. This infamous belief subverts every idea of justice. Around the angel of immortality the church has coiled this serpent. A finite being can neither commit an infinite sin, nor a sin against the infinite. A being of infinite goodness and wisdom has no right, according to the human standard of justice, to create any being destined to suffer eternal pain. A being of infinite wisdom would not create a failure, and surely a man destined to everlasting agony is not a success.
How long, according to the universal benevolence of the New Testament, can a man be reasonably punished in the next world for failing to believe something unreasonable in this? Can it be possible that any punishment can endure forever? Suppose that every flake of snow that ever fell was a figure nine, and that the first flake was multiplied by the second, and that product by the third, and so on to the last flake. And then suppose that this total should be multiplied by every drop of rain that ever fell, calling each drop a figure nine; and that total by each blade of grass that ever helped to weave a carpet for the earth, calling each blade a figure nine; and that again by every grain of sand on every shore, so that the grand total would make a line of nines so long that it would require millions upon millions of years for light, traveling at the rate of one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles per second, to reach the end. And suppose, further, that each unit in this almost infinite total stood for billions of ages—still that vast and almost endless time, measured by all the years beyond, is as one flake, one drop, one leaf, one blade, one grain, compared with all the flakes and drops and leaves and blades and grains. Upon love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp. And yet, in the same book in which is taught this most infamous of doctrines, we are assured that "The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works."
III.
SO FAR as we know, man is the author of all books. If a book had been found on the earth by the first man, he might have regarded it as the work of God; but as men were here a good while before any books were found, and as man has produced a great many books, the probability is that the Bible is no exception.
Most nations, at the time the Old Testament was written, believed in slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution; and it is not wonderful that the book contained nothing contrary to such belief. The fact that it was in exact accord with the morality of its time proves that it was not the product of any being superior to man. "The inspired writers" upheld or established slavery, countenanced polygamy, commanded wars of extermination, and ordered the slaughter of women and babes. In these respects they were precisely like the uninspired savages by whom they were surrounded. They also taught and commanded religious persecution as a duty, and visited the most trivial offences with the punishment of death. In these particulars they were in exact accord with their barbarian neighbors. They were utterly ignorant of geology and astronomy, and knew no more of what had happened than of what would happen; and, so far as accuracy is concerned, their history and prophecy were about equal; in other words, they were just as ignorant as those who lived and died in nature's night.
Does any Christian believe that if God were to write a book now, he would uphold the crimes commanded in the Old Testament? Has Jehovah improved? Has infinite mercy-become more merciful? Has infinite wisdom intellectually-advanced? Will any one claim that the passages upholding slavery have liberated mankind; that we are indebted for our modern homes to the texts that made polygamy a virtue; or that religious liberty found its soil, its light, and rain in the infamous verse wherein the husband is commanded to stone to death the wife for worshiping an unknown god?
The usual answer to these objections is that no country has ever been civilized without the Bible.
The Jews were the only people to whom Jehovah made his will directly known,—the only people who had the Old Testament. Other nations were utterly neglected by their Creator. Yet, such was the effect of the Old Testament on the Jews, that they crucified a kind, loving, and perfectly innocent man. They could not have done much worse without a Bible. In the crucifixion of Christ, they followed the teachings of his Father. If, as it is now alleged by the theologians, no nation can be civilized without a Bible, certainly God must have known the fact six thousand years ago, as well as the theologians know it now. Why did he not furnish every nation with a Bible?
As to the Old Testament, I insist that all the bad passages were written by men; that those passages were not inspired. I insist that a being of infinite goodness never commanded man to enslave his fellow-man, never told a mother to sell her babe, never established polygamy, never ordered one nation to exterminate another, and never told a husband to kill his wife because she suggested the worshiping of some other God.
I also insist that the Old Testament would be a much better book with all of these passages left out; and, whatever may be said of the rest, the passages to which attention has been drawn can with vastly more propriety be attributed to a devil than to a god.
Take from the New Testament all passages upholding the idea that belief is necessary to salvation; that Christ was offered as an atonement for the sins of the world; that the punishment of the human soul will go on forever; that heaven is the reward of faith, and hell the penalty of honest investigation; take from it all miraculous stories,—and I admit that all the good passages are true. If they are true, it makes no difference whether they are inspired or not. Inspiration is only necessary to give authority to that which is repugnant to human reason. Only that which never happened needs to be substantiated by miracles. The universe is natural.
The church must cease to insist that the passages upholding the institutions of savage men were inspired of God. The dogma of the atonement must be abandoned. Good deeds must take the place of faith. The savagery of eternal punishment must be renounced. Credulity is not a virtue, and investigation is not a crime. Miracles are the children of mendacity. Nothing can be more wonderful than the majestic, unbroken, sublime, and eternal procession of causes and effects.
Reason must be the final arbiter. "Inspired" books attested by miracles cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. A religion that does not command the respect of the greatest minds will, in a little while, excite the mockery of all. Every civilized man believes in the liberty of thought. Is it possible that God is intolerant? Is an act infamous in man one of the virtues of the Deity? Could there be progress in heaven without intellectual liberty? Is the freedom of the future to exist only in perdition? Is it not, after all, barely possible that a man acting like Christ can be saved? Is a man to be eternally rewarded for believing according to evidence, without evidence, or against evidence? Are we to be saved because we are good, or because another was virtuous? Is credulity to be winged and crowned, while honest doubt is chained and damned?
Do not misunderstand me. My position is that the cruel passages in the Old Testament are not inspired; that slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution always have been, are, and forever will be, abhorred and cursed by the honest, the virtuous, and the loving; that the innocent cannot justly suffer for the guilty, and that vicarious vice and vicarious virtue are equally absurd; that eternal punishment is eternal revenge; that only the natural can happen; that miracles prove the dishonesty of the few and the credulity of the many; and that, according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, salvation does not depend upon belief, nor the atonement, nor a "second birth," but that these gospels are in exact harmony with the declaration of the great Persian: "Taking the first footstep with the good thought, the second with the good word, and the third with the good deed, I entered paradise."
The dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought, nor satisfy the hunger of the heart. While dusty faiths, embalmed and sepulchered in ancient texts, remain the same, the sympathies of men enlarge; the brain no longer kills its young; the happy lips give liberty to honest thoughts; the mental firmament expands and lifts; the broken clouds drift by; the hideous dreams, the foul, misshapen children of the monstrous night, dissolve and fade.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
"Gratiano speaks of an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice: his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them they are not worth the search."—Merchant of Venice.
THE request to answer the foregoing paper comes to me, not in the form but with the effect of a challenge, which I cannot decline without seeming to acknowledge that the religion of the civilized world is an absurd superstition, propagated by impostors, professed by hypocrites, and believed only by credulous dupes.
But why should I, an unlearned and unauthorized layman, be placed in such a predicament? The explanation is easy enough. This is no business of the priests. Their prescribed duty is to preach the word, in the full assurance that it will commend itself to all good and honest hearts by its own manifest veracity and the singular purity of its precepts. They cannot afford to turn away from their proper work, and leave willing hearers uninstructed, while they wrangle in vain with a predetermined opponent. They were warned to expect slander, indignity, and insult, and these are among the evils which they must not resist.
It will be seen that I am assuming no clerical function. I am not out on the forlorn hope of converting Mr. Ingersoll. I am no preacher exhorting a sinner to leave the seat of the scornful and come up to the bench of the penitents. My duty is more analogous to that of the policeman who would silence a rude disturber of the congregation by telling him that his clamor is false and his conduct an offence against public decency.
Nor is the Church in any danger which calls for the special vigilance of its servants. Mr. Ingersoll thinks that the rock-founded faith of Christendom is giving way before his assaults, but he is grossly mistaken. The first sentence of his essay is a preposterous blunder. It is not true that "a profound change has taken place in the world of thought," unless a more rapid spread of the Gospel and a more faithful observance of its moral principles can be called so. Its truths are everywhere proclaimed with the power of sincere conviction, and accepted with devout reverence by uncounted multitudes of all classes. Solemn temples rise to its honor in the great cities; from every hill-top in the country you see the church-spire pointing toward heaven, and on Sunday all the paths that lead to it are crowded with worshipers. In nearly all families, parents teach their children that Christ is God, and his system of morality absolutely perfect. This belief lies so deep in the popular heart that, if every written record of it were destroyed to-day, the memory of millions could reproduce it to-morrow. Its earnestness is proved by its works. Wherever it goes it manifests itself in deeds of practical benevolence. It builds, not churches alone, but almshouses, hospitals, and asylums. It shelters the poor, feeds the hungry, visits the sick, consoles the afflicted, provides for the fatherless, comforts the heart of the widow, instructs the ignorant, reforms the vicious, and saves to the uttermost them that are ready to perish. To the common observer, it does not look as if Christianity was making itself ready to be swallowed up by Infidelity. Thus far, at least, the promise has been kept that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
There is, to be sure, a change in the party hostile to religion—not "a profound change," but a change entirely superficial—which consists, not in thought, but merely in modes of expression and methods of attack. The bad classes of society always hated the doctrine and discipline which reproached their wickedness and frightened them by threats of punishment in another world. Aforetime they showed their contempt of divine authority only by their actions; but now, under new leadership, their enmity against God breaks out into articulate blasphemy. They assemble themselves together, they hear with passionate admiration the bold harangue which ridicules and defies the Maker of the universe; fiercely they rage against the Highest, and loudly they laugh, alike at the justice that condemns, and the mercy that offers to pardon them. The orator who relieves them by assurances of impunity, and tells them that no supreme authority has made any law to control them, is applauded to the echo and paid a high price for his congenial labor; he pockets their money, and flatters himself that he is a great power, profoundly moving "the world of thought."
There is another totally false notion expressed in the opening paragraph, namely, that "they who know most of nature believe the least about theology." The truth is exactly the other way. The more clearly one sees "the grand procession of causes and effects," the more awful his reverence becomes for the author of the "sublime and unbroken" law which Flinks them together. Not self-conceit and rebellious pride, but unspeakable humility, and a deep sense of the measureless distance between the Creator and the creature, fills the mind of him who looks with a rational spirit upon the works of the All-wise One. The heart of Newton repeats the solemn confession of David: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him?" At the same time, the lamentable fact must be admitted that "a little learning is a dangerous thing" to some persons. The sciolist with a mere smattering of physical knowledge is apt to mistake himself for a philosopher, and swelling with his own importance, he gives out, like Simon Magus, "that himself is some great one." His vanity becomes inflamed more and more, until he begins to think he knows all things. He takes every occasion to show his accomplishments by finding fault with the works of creation* and Providence; and this is an exercise in which he cannot long continue without learning to disbelieve in any Being greater than himself. It was to such a person, and not to the unpretending simpleton, that Solomon applied his often quoted aphorism: "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." These are what Paul refers to as "vain babblings and the opposition of science, falsely so called;" but they are perfectly powerless to stop or turn aside the great current of human thought on the subject of Christian theology. That majestic stream, supplied from a thousand unfailing fountains, rolls on and will roll forever.
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.
Mr. Ingersoll is not, as some have estimated him, the most formidable enemy that Christianity has encountered since the time of Julian the Apostate. But he stands at the head of living infidels, "by merit raised to that bad eminence." His mental organization has the peculiar defects which fit him for such a place. He is all imagination and no discretion. He rises sometimes into a region of wild poetry, where he can color everything to suit himself. His motto well expresses the character of his argumentation—"mountains are as unstable as clouds:" a fancy is as good as a fact, and a high-sounding period is rather better than a logical demonstration. His inordinate self-confidence makes him at once ferocious and fearless. He was a practical politician before he "took the stump" against Christianity, and at all times he has proved his capacity to "split the ears of the groundlings," and make the unskillful laugh. The article before us is the least objectionable of all his productions. Its style is higher, and better suited to the weight of the theme. Here the violence of his fierce invective is moderated; his scurrility gives place to an attempt at sophistry less shocking if not more true; and his coarse jokes are either excluded altogether, or else veiled in the decent obscurity of general terms. Such a paper from such a man, at a time like the present, is not wholly unworthy of a grave contradiction.
He makes certain charges which we answer by an explicit denial, and thus an issue is made, upon which, as a pleader would say, we "put ourselves upon the country." He avers that a certain "something called Christianity" is a false faith imposed on the world without evidence; that the facts it pretends to rest on are mere inventions; that its doctrines are pernicious; that its requirements are unreasonable, and that its sanctions are cruel. I deny all this, and assert, on the contrary, that its doctrines are divinely revealed; its fundamental facts incontestably proved; its morality perfectly free from all taint of error, and its influence most beneficent upon society in general, and upon all individuals who accept it and make it their rule of action.
How shall this be determined? Not by what we call divine revelation, for that would be begging the question; not by sentiment, taste, or temper, for these are as likely to be false as true; but by inductive reasoning from evidence, of which the value is to be measured according to those rules of logic which enlightened and just men everywhere have adopted to guide them in the search for truth. We can appeal only to that rational love of justice, and that detestation of falsehood, which fair-minded persons of good intelligence bring to the consideration of other important subjects when it becomes their duty to decide upon them. In short, I want a decision upon sound judicial principles.
Gibson, the great Chief-Justice of Pennsylvania, once said to certain skeptical friends of his: "Give Christianity a common-law trial; submit the evidence pro and con to an impartial jury under the direction of a competent court, and the verdict will assuredly be in its favor." This deliverance, coming from the most illustrious judge of his time, not at all given to expressions of sentimental piety, and quite incapable of speaking on any subject for mere effect, staggered the unbelief of those who heard it. I did not know him then, except by his great reputation for ability and integrity, but my thoughts were strongly influenced by his authority, and I learned to set a still higher value upon all his opinions, when, in after life, I was honored with his close and intimate friendship.
Let Christianity have a trial on Mr. Ingersoll's indictment, and give us a decision secundum allegata et probata. I will confine myself strictly to the record; that is to say, I will meet the accusations contained in this paper, and not those made elsewhere by him or others.
His first specification against Christianity is the belief of its disciples "that there is a personal God, the creator of the material universe." If God made the world it was a most stupendous miracle, and all miracles, according to Mr. Ingersoll's idea are "the children of mendacity." To admit the one great miracle of creation would be an admission that other miracles are at least probable, and that would ruin his whole case. But you cannot catch the leviathan of atheism with a hook. The universe, he says, is natural—it came into being of its own accord; it made its own laws at the start, and afterward improved itself considerably by spontaneous evolution. It would be a mere waste of time and space to enumerate the proofs which show that the universe was created by a pre-existent and self-conscious Being, of power and wisdom to us inconceivable. Conviction of the fact (miraculous though it be) forces itself on every one whose mental faculties are healthy and tolerably well balanced. The notion that all things owe their origin and their harmonious arrangement to the fortuitous concurrence of atoms is a kind of lunacy which very few men in these days are afflicted with. I hope I may safely assume it as certain that all, or nearly all, who read this page will have sense and reason enough to see for themselves that the plan of the universe could not have been designed without a Designer or executed without a Maker.
But Mr. Ingersoll asserts that, at all events, this material world had not a good and beneficent creator; it is a bad, savage, cruel piece of work, with its pestilences, storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes; and man, with his liability to sickness, suffering, and death, is not a success, but, on the contrary, a failure. To defend the Creator of the world against an arraignment so foul as this would be almost as unbecoming as to make the accusation. We have neither jurisdiction nor capacity to rejudge the justice of God. Why man is made to fill this particular place in the scale of creation—a little lower than the angels, yet far above the brutes; not passionless and pure, like the former, nor mere machines, like the latter; able to stand, yet free to fall; knowing the right, and accountable for going wrong; gifted with reason, and impelled by self-love to exercise the faculty—these are questions on which we may have our speculative opinions, but knowledge is out of our reach. Meantime, we do not discredit our mental independence by taking it for granted that the Supreme Being has done all things well. Our ignorance of the whole scheme makes us poor critics upon the small part that comes within our limited perceptions. Seeming defects in the structure of the world may be its most perfect ornament—all apparent harshness the tenderest of mercies.
"All discord, harmony not understood,
All partial evil, universal good."
But worse errors are imputed to God as moral ruler of the world than those charged against him as creator. He made man badly, but governed him worse; if the Jehovah of the Old Testament was not merely an imaginary being, then, according to Mr. Ingersoll, he was a prejudiced, barbarous, criminal tyrant. We will see what ground he lays, if any, for these outrageous assertions.
Mainly, principally, first and most important of all, is the unqualified assertion that the "moral code" which Jehovah gave to his people "is in many respects abhorrent to every good and tender man." Does Mr. Ingersoll know what he is talking about? The moral code of the Bible consists of certain immutable rules to govern the conduct of all men, at all times and all places, in their private and personal relations with one another. It is entirely separate and apart from the civil polity, the religious forms, the sanitary provisions, the police regulations, and the system of international law laid down for the special and exclusive observance of the Jewish people. This is a distinction which every intelligent man knows how to make. Has Mr. Ingersoll fallen into the egregious blunder of confounding these things? or, understanding the true sense of his words, is he rash and shameless enough to assert that the moral code of the Bible excites the abhorrence of good men? In fact, and in truth, this moral code, which he reviles, instead of being abhorred, is entitled to, and has received, the profoundest respect of all honest and sensible persons. The second table of the Decalogue is a perfect compendium of those duties which every man owes to himself, his family, and his neighbor. In a few simple words, which he can commit to memory almost in a minute, it teaches him to purify his heart from covetousness; to live decently, to injure nobody in reputation, person, or property, and to give every one his own. By the poets, the prophets, and the sages of Israel, these great elements are expanded into a volume of minuter rules, so clear, so impressive, and yet so solemn and so lofty, that no pre-existing system of philosophy can compare with it for a moment. If this vain mortal is not blind with passion, he will see, upon reflection, that he has attacked the Old Testament precisely where it is most impregnable.
Dismissing his groundless charge against the moral code, we come to his strictures on the civil government of the Jews, which he says was so bad and unjust that the Lawgiver by whom it was established must have been as savagely cruel as the Creator that made storms and pestilences; and the work of both was more worthy of a devil than a God. His language is recklessly bad, very defective in method, and altogether lacking in precision. But, apart from the ribaldry of it, which I do not feel myself bound to notice, I find four objections to the Jewish constitution—not more than four—which are definite enough to admit of an answer. These relate to the provisions of the Mosaic law on the subjects of (1) Blasphemy and Idolatry; (2) War; (3) Slavery; (4) Polygamy. In these respects he pronounces the Jewish system not only unwise but criminally unjust.
Here let me call attention to the difficulty of reasoning about justice with a man who has no acknowledged standard of right and wrong. What is justice? That which accords with law; and the supreme law is the will of God. But I am dealing with an adversary who does not admit that there is a God. Then for him there is no standard at all; one thing is as right as another, and all things are equally wrong. Without a sovereign ruler there is no law, and where there is no law there can be no transgression. It is the misfortune of the atheistic theory that it makes the moral world an anarchy; it refers all ethical questions to that confused tribunal where chaos sits as umpire and "by decision more embroils the fray." But through the whole of this cloudy paper there runs a vein of presumptuous egotism which says as plainly as words can speak it that the author holds himself to be the ultimate judge of all good and evil; what he approves is right, and what he dislikes is certainly wrong. Of course I concede nothing to a claim like that. I will not admit that the Jewish constitution is a thing to be condemned merely because he curses it. I appeal from his profane malediction to the conscience of men who have a rule to judge by. Such persons will readily see that his specific objections to the statesmanship which established the civil government of the Hebrew people are extremely shallow, and do not furnish the shade of an excuse for the indecency of his general abuse.
First. He regards the punishments inflicted for blasphemy and idolatry as being immoderately cruel. Considering them merely as religious offences,—as sins against God alone,—I agree that civil laws should notice them not at all. But sometimes they affect very injuriously certain social rights which it is the duty of the state to protect. Wantonly to shock the religious feelings of your neighbor is a grievous wrong. To utter blasphemy or obscenity in the presence of a Christian woman is hardly better than to strike her in the face. Still, neither policy nor justice requires them to be ranked among the highest crimes in a government constituted like ours. But things were wholly different under the Jewish theocracy, where God was the personal head of the state. There blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance; idolatry was an overt act of treason; to worship the gods of the hostile heathen was deserting to the public enemy, and giving him aid and comfort. These are crimes which every independent community has always punished with the utmost rigor. In our own very recent history, they were repressed at the cost of more lives than Judea ever contained at any one time.
Mr. Ingersoll not only ignores these considerations, but he goes the length of calling God a religious persecutor and a tyrant because he does not encourage and reward the service and devotion paid by his enemies to the false gods of the pagan world. He professes to believe that all kinds of worship are equally meritorious, and should meet the same acceptance from the true God. It is almost incredible that such drivel as this should be uttered by anybody. But Mr. Ingersoll not only expresses the thought plainly—he urges it with the most extravagant figures of his florid rhetoric. He quotes the first commandment, in which Jehovah claims for himself the exclusive worship of His people, and cites, in contrast, the promise put in the mouth of Brahma, that he will appropriate the worship of all gods to himself, and reward all worshipers alike. These passages being compared, he declares the first "a dungeon, where crawl the things begot of jealous slime;" the other, "great as the domed firmament, inlaid with suns." Why is the living God, whom Christians believe to be the Lord of liberty and Father of lights, denounced as the keeper of a loathsome dungeon? Because he refuses to encourage and reward the worship of Mammon and Moloch, of Belial and Baal; of Bacchus, with its drunken orgies, and Venus, with its wanton obscenities; the bestial religion which degraded the soul of Egypt and the "dark idolatries of alienated Judah," polluted with the moral filth of all the nations round about.
Let the reader decide whether this man, entertaining such sentiments and opinions, is fit to be a teacher, or at all likely to lead us in the way we should go.
Second. Under the constitution which God provided for the Jews, they had, like every other nation, the war-making power. They could not have lived a day without it. The right to exist implied the right to repel, with all their strength, the opposing force which threatened their destruction. It is true, also, that in the exercise of this power they did not observe those rules of courtesy and humanity which have been adopted in modern times by civilized belligerents. Why? Because their enemies, being mere savages, did not understand and would not practise, any rule whatever; and the Jews were bound ex necessitate rei—not merely justified by the lex talionis—to do as their enemies did. In your treatment of hostile barbarians, you not only may lawfully, but must necessarily, adopt their mode of warfare. If they come to conquer you, they may be conquered by you; if they give no quarter, they are entitled to none; if the death of your whole population be their purpose, you may defeat it by exterminating theirs. This sufficiently answers the silly talk of atheists and semi-atheists about the warlike wickedness of the Jews.
But Mr. Ingersoll positively, and with the emphasis of supreme and all-sufficient authority, declares that "a war of conquest is simply murder." He sustains this proposition by no argument founded in principle. He puts sentiment in place of law, and denounces aggressive fighting because it is offensive to his "tender and refined soul;" the atrocity of it is therefore proportioned to the sensibilities of his own heart. He proves war a desperately wicked thing by continually vaunting his own love for small children. Babes—sweet babes—the prattle of babes—are the subjects of his most pathetic eloquence, and his idea of music is embodied in the commonplace expression of a Hindu, that the lute is sweet only to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children. All this is very amiable in him, and the more so, perhaps, as these objects of his affection are the young ones of a race in his opinion miscreated by an evil-working chance. But his philoprogenitiveness proves nothing against Jew or Gentile, seeing that all have it in an equal degree, and those feel it most who make the least parade of it. Certainly it gives him no authority to malign the God who implanted it alike in the hearts of us all. But I admit that his benevolence becomes peculiar and ultra when it extends to beasts as well as babes. He is struck with horror by the sacrificial solemnities of the Jewish religion. "The killing of those animals was," he says, "a terrible system," a "shedding of innocent blood," "shocking to a refined and sensitive soul." There is such a depth of tenderness in this feeling, and such a splendor of refinement, that I give up without a struggle to the superiority of a man who merely professes it. A carnivorous American, full of beef and mutton, who mourns with indignant sorrow because bulls and goats were killed in Judea three thousand years ago, has reached the climax of sentimental goodness, and should be permitted to dictate on all questions of peace and war. Let Grotius, Vattel, and Pufendorf, as well as Moses and the prophets, hide their diminished heads.
But to show how inefficacious, for all practical purposes, a mere sentiment is when substituted for a principle, it is only necessary to recollect that Mr. Ingersoll is himself a warrior who staid not behind the mighty men of his tribe when they gathered themselves together for a war of conquest. He took the lead of a regiment as eager as himself to spoil the Philistines, "and out he went a-coloneling." How many Amale-kites, and Hittites, and Amorites he put to the edge of the sword, how many wives he widowed, or how many mothers he "unbabed" cannot now be told. I do not even know how many droves of innocent oxen he condemned to the slaughter.
But it is certain that his refined and tender soul took great pleasure in the terror, conflagration, blood, and tears with which the war was attended, and in all the hard oppressions which the conquered people were made to suffer afterwards. I do not say that the war was either better or worse for his participation and approval. But if his own conduct (for which he professes neither penitence nor shame) was right, it was right on grounds which make it an inexcusable outrage to call the children of Israel savage criminals for carrying on wars of aggression to save the life of their government. These inconsistencies are the necessary consequence of having no rule of action and no guide for the conscience. When a man throws away the golden metewand of the law which God has provided, and takes the elastic cord of feeling for his measure of righteousness, you cannot tell from day to day what he will think or do.
Third. But Jehovah permitted his chosen people to hold the captives they took in war or purchased from the heathen as servants for life. This was slavery, and Mr. Ingersoll declares that "in all civilized countries it is not only admitted, but it is passionately asserted, that slavery is, and always was, a hideous crime," therefore he concludes that Jehovah was a criminal. This would be a non sequitur, even if the premises were true. But the premises are false; civilized countries have admitted no such thing. That slavery is a crime, under all circumstances and at all times, is a doctrine first started by the adherents of a political faction in this country, less than forty years ago. They denounced God and Christ for not agreeing with them, in terms very similar to those used here by Mr. Ingersoll. But they did not constitute the civilized world; nor were they, if the truth must be told, a very respectable portion of it. Politically, they were successful; I need not say by what means, or with what effect upon the morals of the country. Doubtless Mr. Ingersoll gets a great advantage by invoking their passions and their interests to his aid, and he knows how to use it. I can only say that, whether American Abolitionism was right or wrong under the circumstances in which we were placed, my faith and my reason both assure me that the infallible God proceeded upon good grounds when he authorized slavery in Judea. Subordination of inferiors to superiors is the groundwork of human society. All improvement of our race, in this world and the next, must come from obedience to some master better and wiser than ourselves. There can be no question that, when a Jew took a neighboring savage for his bond-servant, incorporated him into his family, tamed him, taught him to work, and gave him a knowledge of the true God, he conferred upon him a most beneficent boon.
Fourth. Polygamy is another of his objections to the Mosaic constitution. Strange to say, it is not there. It is neither commanded nor prohibited; it is only discouraged. If Mr. Ingersoll were a statesman instead of a mere politician, he would see good and sufficient reasons for the forbearance to legislate directly upon the subject. It would be improper for me to set them forth here. He knows, probably, that the influence of the Christian Church alone, and without the aid of state enactments, has extirpated this bad feature of Asiatic manners wherever its doctrines were carried. As the Christian faith prevails in any community, in that proportion precisely marriage is consecrated to its true purpose, and all intercourse between the sexes refined and purified. Mr. Ingersoll got his own devotion to the principle of monogamy—his own respect for the highest type of female character—his own belief in the virtue of fidelity to one good wife—from the example and precept of his Christian parents. I speak confidently, because these are sentiments which do not grow in the heart of the natural man without being planted. Why, then, does he throw polygamy into the face of the religion which abhors it? Because he is nothing if not political. The Mormons believe in polygamy, and the Mormons are unpopular. They are guilty of having not only many wives but much property, and if a war could be hissed up against them, its fruits might be more "gaynefull pilladge than wee doe now conceyve of." It is a cunning maneuver, this, of strengthening atheism by enlisting anti-Mormon rapacity against the God of the Christians. I can only protest against the use he would make of these and other political interests. It is not argument; it is mere stump oratory.
I think I have repelled all of Mr. Ingersoll's accusations against the Old Testament that are worth noticing, and I might stop here. But I will not close upon him without letting him see, at least, some part of the case on the other side.
I do not enumerate in detail the positive proofs which support the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible, though they are at hand in great abundance, because the evidence in support of the new dispensation will establish the verity of the old—the two being so connected together that if one is true the other cannot be false.
When Jesus of Nazareth announced himself to be Christ, the Son of God, in Judea, many thousand persons who heard his words and saw his works believed in his divinity without hesitation. Since the morning of the creation, nothing has occurred so wonderful as the rapidity with which this religion spread itself abroad. Men who were in the noon of life when Jesus was put to death as a malefactor lived to see him worshiped as God by organized bodies of believers in every province of the Roman empire. In a few more years it took complete possession of the general mind, supplanted all other religions, and wrought a radical change in human society. It did this in the face of obstacles which, according to every human calculation, were insurmountable. It was antagonized by all the evil propensities, the sensual wickedness, and the vulgar crimes of the multitude, as well as the polished vices of the luxurious classes; and was most violently opposed even by those sentiments and habits of thought which were esteemed virtuous, such as patriotism and military heroism. It encountered not only the ignorance and superstition, but the learning and philosophy, the poetry, eloquence, and art of the time. Barbarism and civilization were alike its deadly enemies. The priesthood of every established religion and the authority of every government were arrayed against it. All these, combined together and roused to ferocious hostility, were overcome, not by the enticing words of man's wisdom, but by the simple presentation of a pure and peaceful doctrine, preached by obscure strangers at the daily peril of their lives. Is it Mr. Ingersoll's idea that this happened by chance, like the creation of the world? If not, there are but two other ways to account for it; either the evidence by which the Apostles were able to prove the supernatural origin of the gospel was overwhelming and irresistible, or else its propagation was provided for and carried on by the direct aid of the Divine Being himself. Between these two, infidelity may make its own choice.
Just here another dilemma presents its horns to our adversary. If Christianity was a human fabrication, its authors must have been either good men or bad. It is a moral impossibility—a mere contradiction in terms—to say that good, honest, and true men practised a gross and willful deception upon the world. It is equally incredible that any combination of knaves, however base, would fraudulently concoct a religious system to denounce themselves, and to invoke the curse of God upon their own conduct. Men that love lies, love not such lies as that. Is there any way out of this difficulty, except by confessing that Christianity is what it purports to be—a divine revelation?
The acceptance of Christianity by a large portion of the generation contemporary with its Founder and his apostles was, under the circumstances, an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal intelligence could pronounce. The record of that judgment has come down to us, accompanied by the depositions of the principal witnesses. In the course of eighteen centuries many efforts have been made to open the judgment or set it aside on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to support it. But on every rehearing the wisdom and virtue of mankind have re-affirmed it. And now comes Mr. Ingersoll, to try the experiment of another bold, bitter, and fierce reargument. I will present some of the considerations which would compel me, if I were a judge or juror in the cause, to decide it just as it was decided originally.
First. There is no good reason to doubt that the statements of the evangelists, as we have them now, are genuine. The multiplication of copies was a sufficient guarantee against any material alteration of the text. Mr. Ingersoll speaks of interpolations made by the fathers of the Church. All he knows and all he has ever heard on that subject is that some of the innumerable transcripts contained errors which were discovered and corrected. That simply proves the present integrity of the documents.
Second. I call these statements depositions, because they are entitled to that kind of credence which we give to declarations made under oath—but in a much higher degree, for they are more than sworn to. They were made in the immediate prospect of death. Perhaps this would not affect the conscience of an atheist,—neither would an oath,—but these people manifestly believed in a judgment after death, before a God of truth, whose displeasure they feared above all things.
Third. The witnesses could not have been mistaken. The nature of the facts precluded the possibility of any delusion about them. For every averment they had "the sensible and true avouch of their own eyes" and ears. Besides, they were plain-thinking, sober, unimaginative men, who, unlike Mr. Ingersoll, always, under all circumstances, and especially in the presence of eternity, recognized the difference between mountains and clouds. It is inconceivable how any fact could be proven by evidence more conclusive than the statement of such persons, publicly given and steadfastly persisted in through every kind of persecution, imprisonment and torture to the last agonies of a lingering death.
Fourth. Apart from these terrible tests, the more ordinary claims to credibility are not wanting. They were men of unimpeachable character. The most virulent enemies of the cause they spoke and died for have never suggested a reason for doubting their personal honesty. But there is affirmative proof that they and their fellow-disciples were held by those who knew them in the highest estimation for truthfulness. Wherever they made their report it was not only believed, but believed with a faith so implicit that thousands were ready at once to seal it with their blood.
Fifth. The tone and temper of their narrative impress us with a sentiment of profound respect. It is an artless, unimpassioned, simple story. No argument, no rhetoric, no epithets, no praises of friends, no denunciation of enemies, no attempts at concealment. How strongly these qualities commend the testimony of a witness to the confidence of judge and jury is well known to all who have any experience in such matters.
Sixth. The statements made by the evangelists are alike upon every important point, but are different in form and expression, some of them including details which the others omit. These variations make it perfectly certain that there could have been no previous concert between the witnesses, and that each spoke independently of the others, according to his own conscience and from his own knowledge. In considering the testimony of several witnesses to the same transaction, their substantial agreement upon the main facts, with circumstantial differences in the detail, is always regarded as the great characteristic of truth and honesty. There is no rule of evidence more universally adopted than this—none better sustained by general experience, or more immovably fixed in the good sense of mankind. Mr. Ingersoll, himself, admits the rule and concedes its soundness. The logical consequence of that admission is that we are bound to take this evidence as incontestably true. But mark the infatuated perversity with which he seeks to evade it. He says that when we claim that the witnesses were inspired, the rule does not apply, because the witnesses then speak what is known to him who inspired them, and all must speak exactly the same, even to the minutest detail. Mr. Ingersoll's notion of an inspired witness is that he is no witness at all, but an irresponsible medium who unconsciously and involuntarily raps out or writes down whatever he is prompted to say. But this is a false assumption, not countenanced or even suggested by anything contained in the Scriptures. The apostles and evangelists are expressly declared to be witnesses, in the proper sense of the word, called and sent to testify the truth according to their knowledge. If they had all told the same story in the same way, without variation, and accounted for its uniformity by declaring that they were inspired, and had spoken without knowing whether their words were true or false, where would have been their claim to credibility? But they testified what they knew; and here comes an infidel critic impugning their testimony because the impress of truth is stamped upon its face.
Seventh. It does not appear that the statements of the evangelists were ever denied by any person who pretended to know the facts. Many there were in that age and afterward who resisted the belief that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and only Saviour of man; but his wonderful works, the miraculous purity of his life, the unapproachable loftiness of his doctrines, his trial and condemnation by a judge who pronounced him innocent, his patient suffering, his death on the cross, and resurrection from the grave,—of these not the faintest contradiction was attempted, if we except the false and feeble story which the elders and chief priests bribed the guard at the tomb to put in circulation.
Eighth. What we call the fundamental truths of Christianity consist of great public events which are sufficiently established by history without special proof. The value of mere historical evidence increases according to the importance of the facts in question, their general notoriety, and the magnitude of their visible consequences. Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, and changed the destiny of Europe and America. Nobody would think of calling a witness or even citing an official report to prove it. Julius Caesar was assassinated. We do not need to prove that fact like an ordinary murder. He was master of the world, and his death was followed by a war with the conspirators, the battle at Philippi, the quarrel of the victorious triumvirs, Actium, and the permanent establishment of imperial government under Augustus. The life and character, the death and resurrection, of Jesus are just as visibly connected with events which even an infidel must admit to be of equal importance. The Church rose and armed herself in righteousness for conflict with the powers of darkness; innumerable multitudes of the best and wisest rallied to her standard and died in her cause; her enemies employed the coarse and vulgar machinery of human government against her, and her professors were brutally murdered in large numbers, her triumph was complete; the gods of Greece and Rome crumbled on their altars; the world was revolutionized and human society was transformed. The course of these events, and a thousand others, which reach down to the present hour, received its first propulsion from the transcendent fact of Christ's crucifixion. Moreover, we find the memorial monuments of the original truth planted all along the way. The sacraments of baptism and the supper constantly point us back to the author and finisher of our faith. The mere historical evidence is for these reasons much stronger than what we have for other occurrences which are regarded as undeniable. When to this is added the cumulative evidence given directly and positively by eye-witnesses of irreproachable character, and wholly uncontradicted, the proof becomes so strong that the disbelief we hear of seems like a kind of insanity.
"It is the very error of the moon,
Which comes more near the earth than she was wont,
And makes men mad!"
From the facts established by this evidence, it follows irresistibly that the Gospel has come to us from God. That silences all reasoning about the wisdom and justice of its doctrines, since it is impossible, even to imagine that wrong can be done or commanded by that Sovereign Being whose will alone is the ultimate standard of all justice.
But Mr. Ingersoll is still dissatisfied. He raises objections as false, fleeting, and baseless as clouds, and insists that they are as stable as the mountains, whose everlasting foundations are laid by the hand of the Almighty. I will compress his propositions into plain words printed in italics, and, taking a look at his misty creations, let them roll away and vanish into air, one after another.
Christianity offers eternal salvation as the reward of belief alone. This is a misrepresentation simple and naked. No such doctrine is propounded in the Scriptures, or in the creed of any Christian church. On the contrary, it is distinctly taught that faith avails nothing without repentance, reformation, and newness of life.
The mere failure to believe it is punished in hell. I have never known any Christian man or woman to assert this. It is universally agreed that children too young to understand it do not need to believe it. And this exemption extends to adults who have never seen the evidence, or, from weakness of intellect, are incapable of weighing it. Lunatics and idiots are not in the least danger, and for aught I know, this category may, by a stretch of God's mercy, include minds constitutionally sound, but with faculties so perverted by education, habit, or passion that they are incapable of reasoning. I sincerely hope that, upon this or some other principle, Mr. Ingersoll may escape the hell he talks about so much. But there is no direct promise to save him in spite of himself. The plan of redemption contains no express covenant to pardon one who rejects it with scorn and hatred. Our hope for him rests upon the infinite compassion of that gracious Being who prayed on the cross for the insulting enemies who nailed him there.
The mystery of the second birth is incomprehensible. Christ established a new kingdom in the world, but not of it. Subjects were admitted to the privileges and protection of its government by a process equivalent to naturalization. To be born again, or regenerated is to be naturalized. The words all mean the same thing. Does Mr. Ingersoll want to disgrace his own intellect by pretending that he cannot see this simple analogy?
The doctrine of the atonement is absurd, unjust, and immoral. The plan of salvation, or any plan for the rescue of sinners from the legal operation of divine justice, could have been framed only in the councils of the Omniscient. Necessarily its heights and depths are not easily fathomed by finite intelligence. But the greatest, ablest, wisest, and most virtuous men that ever lived have given it their profoundest consideration, and found it to be not only authorized by revelation, but theoretically conformed to their best and highest conceptions of infinite goodness. Nevertheless, here is a rash and superficial man, without training or habits of reflection, who, upon a mere glance, declares that it "must be abandoned," because it seems to him "absurd, unjust, and immoral." I would not abridge his freedom of thought or speech, and the argumentum ad verecundiam would be lost upon him. Otherwise I might suggest that, when he finds all authority, human and divine, against him, he had better speak in a tone less arrogant.
He does not comprehend how justice and mercy can be blended together in the plan of redemption, and therefore it cannot be true. A thing is not necessarily false because he does not understand it: he cannot annihilate a principle or a fact by ignoring it. There are many truths in heaven and earth which no man can see through; for instance, the union of man's soul with his body, is not only an unknowable but an unimaginable mystery. Is it therefore false that a connection does exist between matter and spirit?
How, he asks, can the sufferings of an innocent person satisfy justice for the sins of the guilty? This raises a metaphysical question, which it is not necessary or possible for me to discuss here. As matter of fact, Christ died that sinners might be reconciled to God, and in that sense he died for them; that is, to furnish them with the means of averting divine justice, which their crimes had provoked..
What, he again asks, would we think of a man who allowed another to die for a crime which he himself had committed? I answer that a man who, by any contrivance, causes his own offence to be visited upon the head of an innocent person is unspeakably depraved. But are Christians guilty of this baseness because they accept the blessings of an institution which their great benefactor died to establish? Loyalty to the King who has erected a most beneficent government for us at the cost of his life—fidelity to the Master who bought us with his blood—is not the fraudulent substitution of an innocent person in place of a criminal.
The doctrine of non-resistance, forgiveness of injuries, reconciliation with enemies, as taught in the New Testament, is the child of weakness, degrading and unjust. This is the whole substance of a long, rambling diatribe, as incoherent as a sick man's dream. Christianity does not forbid the necessary defense of civil society, or the proper vindication of personal rights. But to cherish animosity, to thirst for mere revenge, to hoard up wrongs, real or fancied, and lie in wait for the chance of paying them back; to be impatient, unforgiving, malicious, and cruel to all who have crossed us—these diabolical propensities are checked and curbed by the authority and spirit of the Christian religion, and the application of it has converted men from low savages into refined and civilized beings.
The punishment of sinners in eternal hell is excessive. The future of the soul is a subject on which we have very dark views. In our present state, the mind takes no idea except what is conveyed to it through the bodily senses. All our conceptions of the spiritual world are derived from some analogy to material things, and this analogy must necessarily be very remote, because the nature of the subjects compared is so diverse that a close similarity cannot be even supposed. No revelation has lifted the veil between time and eternity; but in shadowy figures we are warned that a very marked distinction will be made between the good and the bad in the next world. Speculative opinions concerning the punishment of the wicked, its nature and duration, vary with the temper and the imaginations of men. Doubtless we are many of us in error; but how can Mr. Ingersoll enlighten us? Acknowledge ing no standard of right and wrong in this world, he can have no theory of rewards and punishments in the next. The deeds done in the body, whether good or evil, are all morally alike in his eyes, and if there be in heaven a congregation of the just, he sees no reason why the worst rogue should not be a member of it. It is supposed, however, that man has a soul as well as a body, and that both are subject to certain laws, which cannot be violated without incurring the proper penalty—or consequence, if he likes that word better.
If Christ was God, he knew that his followers would persecute and murder men for their opinions; yet he did not forbid it. There is but one way to deal with this accusation, and that is to contradict it flatly. Nothing can be conceived more striking than the prohibition, not only of persecution, but of all the passions which lead or incite to it. No follower of Christ indulges in malice even to his enemy without violating the plainest rule of his faith. He cannot love God and hate his brother: if he says he can, St. John pronounces him a liar. The broadest benevolence, universal philanthropy, inexhaustible charity, are inculcated in every line of the New Testament. It is plain that Mr. Ingersoll never read a chapter of it; otherwise he would not have ventured upon this palpable falsification of its doctrines. Who told him that the devilish spirit of persecution was authorized, or encouraged, or not forbidden, by the Gospel? The person, whoever it was, who imposed upon his trusting ignorance should be given up to the just reprobation of his fellow-citizens.
Christians in modern times carry on wars of detraction and slander against one another. The discussions of theological subjects by men who believe in the fundamental doctrines of Christ are singularly free from harshness and abuse. Of course I cannot speak with absolute certainty, but I believe most confidently that there is not in all the religious polemics of this century as much slanderous invective as can be found in any ten lines of Mr. Ingersoll's writings. Of course I do not include political preachers among my models of charity and forbearance. They are a mendacious set, but Christianity is no more responsible for their misconduct than it is for the treachery of Judas Iscariot or the wrongs done to Paul by Alexander the coppersmith.
But, says he, Christians have been guilty of wanton and wicked Persecution. It is true that some persons, professing Christianity, have violated the fundamental principles of their faith by inflicting violent injuries and bloody wrongs upon their fellow-men. But the perpetrators of these outrages were in fact not Christians: they were either hypocrites from the beginning or else base apostates—infidels or something worse—hireling wolves, whose gospel was their maw. Not one of them ever pretended to find a warrant for his conduct in any precept of Christ or any doctrine of his Church. All the wrongs of this nature which history records have been the work of politicians, aided often by priests and ministers who were willing to deny their Lord and desert to the enemy, for the sake of their temporal interests. Take the cases most commonly cited and see if this be not a true account of them. The auto da fé of Spain and Portugal, the burnings at Smithfield, and the whipping of women in Massachusetts, were the outcome of a cruel, false, and antichristian policy. Coligny and his adherents were killed by an order of Charles IX., at the instance of the Guises, who headed a hostile faction, and merely for reasons of state. Louis XIV. revoked the edict of Nantes, and banished the Waldenses under pain of confiscation and death; but this was done on the declared ground that the victims were not safe subjects. The brutal atrocities of Cromwell and the outrages of the Orange lodges against the Irish Catholics were not persecutions by religious people, but movements as purely political as those of the Know-Nothings, Plug-Uglys, and Blood-Tubs of this country. If the Gospel should be blamed for these acts in opposition to its principles, why not also charge it with the cruelties of Nero, or the present persecution of the Jesuits by the infidel republic of France?
Christianity is opposed to freedom of thought. The kingdom of Christ is based upon certain principles, to which it requires the assent of every one who would enter therein. If you are unwilling to own his authority and conform your moral conduct to his laws, you cannot expect that he will admit you to the privileges of his government. But naturalization is not forced upon you if you prefer to be an alien. The Gospel makes the strongest and tenderest appeal to the heart, reason, and conscience of man—entreats him to take thought for his own highest interest, and by all its moral influence provokes him to good works; but he is not constrained by any kind of duress to leave the service or relinquish the wages of sin. Is there anything that savors of tyranny in this? A man of ordinary judgment will say, no. But Mr. Ingersoll thinks it as oppressive as the refusal of Jehovah to reward the worship of demons.
The gospel of Christ does not satisfy the hunger of the heart. That depends upon what kind of a heart it is. If it hungers after righteousness, it will surely be filled. It is probable, also, that if it hungers for the filthy food of a godless philosophy it will get what its appetite demands. That was an expressive phrase which Carlyle used when he called modern infidelity "the gospel of dirt." Those who are greedy to swallow it will doubless be supplied satisfactorily.
Accounts of miracles are always false. Are miracles impossible? No one will say so who opens his eyes to the miracles of creation with which we are surrounded on every hand. You cannot even show that they are a priori improbable. God would be likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures who were required to obey it; he would authenticate in some way the right of prophets and apostles to speak in his name; supernatural power was the broad seal which he affixed to their commission. From this it follows that the improbability of a miracle is no greater than the original improbability of a revelation, and that is not improbable at all. Therefore, if the miracles of the New Testament are proved by sufficient evidence, we believe them as we believe any other established fact. They become deniable only when it is shown that the great miracle of making the world was never performed. Accordingly Mr. Ingersoll abolishes creation first, and thus clears the way to his dogmatic conclusion that all miracles are "the children of mendacity."
Christianity is pernicious in its moral effect, darkens the mind, narrows the soul, arrests the progress of human society, and hinders civilization. Mr. Ingersoll, as a zealous apostle of "the gospel of dirt," must be expected to throw a good deal of mud. But this is too much: it injures himself instead of defiling the object of his assault. When I answer that all we have of virtue, justice, intellectual liberty, moral elevation, refinement, benevolence, and true wisdom came to us from that source which he reviles as the fountain of evil, I am not merely putting one assertion against the other; for I have the advantage, which he has not, of speaking what every tolerably well-informed man knows to be true. Reflect what kind of a world this was when the disciples of Christ undertook to reform it, and compare it with the condition in which their teachings have put it. In its mighty metropolis, the center of its intellectual and political power, the best men were addicted to vices so debasing that I could not even allude to them without soiling the paper I write upon. All manner of unprincipled wickedness was practiced in the private life of the whole population without concealment or shame, and the magistrates were thoroughly and universally corrupt. Benevolence in any shape was altogether unknown. The helpless and the weak got neither justice nor mercy. There was no relief for the poor, no succor for the sick, no refuge for the unfortunate. In all pagandom there was not a hospital, asylum, almshouse, or organized charity of any sort. The indifference to human life was literally frightful. The order of a successful leader to assassinate his opponents was always obeyed by his followers with the utmost alacrity and pleasure. It was a special amusement of the populace to witness the shows at which men were compelled to kill one another, to be torn in pieces by wild beasts, or otherwise "butchered, to make a Roman holiday." In every province paganism enacted the same cold-blooded cruelties; oppression and robbery ruled supreme; murder went rampaging and red over all the earth. The Church came, and her light penetrated this moral darkness like a new sun. She covered the globe with institutions of mercy, and thousands upon thousands of her disciples devoted themselves exclusively to works of charity at the sacrifice of every earthly interest. Her earliest adherents were killed without remorse—beheaded, crucified, sawn asunder, thrown to the beasts, or covered with pitch, piled up in great heaps, and slowly burnt to death. But her faith was made perfect through suffering, and the law of love rose in triumph from the ashes of her martyrs. This religion has come down to us through the ages, attended all the way by righteousness, justice, temperance, mercy, transparent truthfulness, exulting hope, and white-winged charity. Never was its influence for good more plainly perceptible than now. It has not converted, purified, and reformed all men, for its first principle is the freedom of the human will, and there are those who choose to reject it. But to the mass of mankind, directly and indirectly, it has brought uncounted benefits and blessings. Abolish it—take away the restraints which it imposes on evil passions—silence the admonitions of its preachers—let all Christians cease their labors of charity—blot out from history the records of its heroic benevolence—repeal the laws it has enacted and the institutions it has built up—let its moral principles be abandoned and all its miracles of light be extinguished—what would we come to? I need not answer this question: the experiment has been partially tried. The French nation formally renounced Christianity, denied the existence of the Supreme Being, and so satisfied the hunger of the infidel heart for a time. What followed? Universal depravity, garments rolled in blood, fantastic crimes unimagined before, which startled the earth with their sublime atrocity. The American people have and ought to have no special desire to follow that terrible example of guilt and misery.
It is impossible to discuss this subject within the limits of a review. No doubt the effort to be short has made me obscure. If Mr. Ingersoll thinks himself wronged, or his doctrines misconstrued, let him not lay my fault at the door of the Church, or cast his censure on the clergy.
"Adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum."
J. S. Black.
III.
"Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do, in order to become acceptable to God, is mere superstition and religious folly." Kant.
"Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do, in order to become acceptable to God, is mere superstition and religious folly." Kant.
SEVERAL months ago, The North American Review asked me to write an article, saying that it would be published if some one would furnish a reply. I wrote the article that appeared in the August number, and by me it was entitled "Is All of the Bible Inspired?" Not until the article was written did I know who was expected to answer. I make this explanation for the purpose of dissipating the impression that Mr. Black had been challenged by me. To have struck his shield with my lance might have given birth to the impression that I was somewhat doubtful as to the correctness of my position. I naturally expected an answer from some professional theologian, and was surprised to find that a reply had been written by a "policeman," who imagined that he had answered my arguments by simply telling me that my statements were false. It is somewhat unfortunate that in a discussion like this any one should resort to the slightest personal detraction. The theme is great enough to engage the highest faculties of the human mind, and in the investigation of such a subject vituperation is singularly and vulgarly out of place. Arguments cannot be answered with insults. It is unfortunate that the intellectual arena should be entered by a "policeman," who has more confidence in concussion than discussion. Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice. Candor is the courage of the soul. Leaving the objectionable portions of Mr. Black's reply, feeling that so grand a subject should not be blown and tainted with malicious words, I proceed to answer as best I may the arguments he has urged.
I am made to say that "the universe is natural"; that "it came into being of its own accord"; that "it made its own laws at the start, and afterward improved itself considerably by spontaneous evolution."
I did say that "the universe is natural," but I did not say that "it came into being of its own accord"; neither did I say that "it made its own laws and afterward improved itself." The universe, according to my idea, is, always was, and forever will be. It did not "come into being," it is the one eternal being,—the only thing that ever did, does, or can exist. It did not "make its own laws." We know nothing of what we call the laws of nature except as we gather the idea of law from the uniformity of phenomena springing from like conditions. To make myself clear: Water always runs down-hill. The theist says that this happens because there is behind the phenomenon an active law. As a matter of fact, law is this side of the phenomenon. Law does not cause the phenomenon, but the phenomenon causes the idea of law in our minds; and this idea is produced from the fact that under like circumstances the same phenomenon always happens. Mr. Black probably thinks that the difference in the weight of rocks and clouds was created by law; that parallel lines fail to unite only because it is illegal that diameter and circumference could have been so made that it would be a greater distance across than around a circle; that a straight line could enclose a triangle if not prevented by law, and that a little legislation could make it possible for two bodies to occupy the same space at the same time. It seems to me that law cannot be the cause of phenomena, but is an effect produced in our minds by their succession and resemblance. To put a God back of the universe, compels us to admit that there was a time when nothing existed except this God; that this God had lived from eternity in an infinite vacuum, and in absolute idleness. The mind of every thoughtful man is forced to one of these two conclusions: either that the universe is self-existent, or that it was created by a self-existent being. To my mind, there are far more difficulties in the second hypothesis than in the first.
Of course, upon a question like this, nothing can be absolutely known. We live on an atom called Earth, and what we know of the infinite is almost infinitely limited; but, little as we know, all have an equal right to give their honest thought. Life is a shadowy, strange, and winding road on which we travel for a little way—a few short steps—-just from the cradle, with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet way-side inn, where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is—Good-night.
I know as little as any one else about the "plan" of the universe; and as to the "design," I know just as little. It will not do to say that the universe was designed, and therefore there must be a designer. There must first be proof that it was "designed." It will not do to say that the universe has a "plan," and then assert that there must have been an infinite maker. The idea that a design must have a beginning and that a designer need not, is a simple expression of human ignorance. We find a watch, and we say: "So curious and wonderful a thing must have had a maker." We find the watch-maker, and we say: "So curious and wonderful a thing as man must have had a maker." We find God, and we then say: "He is so wonderful that he must not have had a maker." In other words, all things a little wonderful must have been created, but it is possible for something to be so wonderful that it always existed. One would suppose that just as the wonder increased the necessity for a creator increased, because it is the wonder of the thing that suggests the idea of creation. Is it possible that a designer exists from all eternity without design? Was there no design in having an infinite designer? For me, it is hard to see the plan or design in earthquakes and pestilences. It is somewhat difficult to discern the design or the benevolence in so making the world that billions of animals live only on the agonies of others. The justice of God is not visible to me in the history of this world. When I think of the suffering and death, of the poverty and crime, of the cruelty and malice, of the heartlessness of this "design" and "plan," where beak and claw and tooth tear and rend the quivering flesh of weakness and despair, I cannot convince myself that it is the result of infinite wisdom, benevolence, and justice.
Most Christians have seen and recognized this difficulty, and have endeavored to avoid it by giving God an opportunity in another world to rectify the seeming mistakes of this. Mr. Black, however, avoids the entire question by saying: "We have neither jurisdiction nor capacity to rejudge the justice of God." In other words, we have no right to think upon this subject, no right to examine the questions most vitally affecting human kind. We are simply to accept the ignorant statements of barbarian dead. This question cannot be settled by saying that "it would be a mere waste of time and space to enumerate the proofs which show that the Universe was created by a preexistent and self-conscious Being." The time and space should have been "wasted," and the proofs should have been enumerated. These "proofs" are what the wisest and greatest are trying to find. Logic is not satisfied with assertion. It cares nothing for the opinions of the "great,"—nothing for the prejudices of the many, and least of all for the superstitions of the dead. In the world of Science, a fact is a legal tender. Assertions and miracles are base and spurious coins. We have the right to rejudge the justice even of a god. No one should throw away his reason—the fruit of all experience. It is the intellectual capital of the soul, the only light, the only guide, and without it the brain becomes the palace of an idiot king, attended by a retinue of thieves and hypocrites.
Of course it is admitted that most of the Ten Commandments are wise and just. In passing, it may be well enough to say, that the commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth," was the absolute death of Art, and that not until after the destruction of Jerusalem was there a Hebrew painter or sculptor. Surely a commandment is not inspired that drives from the earth the living canvas and the breathing stone—leaves all walls bare and all the niches desolate. In the tenth commandment we find woman placed on an exact equality with other property, which, to say the least of it, has never tended to the amelioration of her condition.
A very curious thing about these commandments is that their supposed author violated nearly every one. From Sinai, according to the account, he said: "Thou shalt not kill," and yet he ordered the murder of millions; "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and yet he gave captured maidens to gratify the lust of captors; "Thou shalt not steal," and yet he gave to Jewish marauders the flocks and herds of others; "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his wife," and yet he allowed his chosen people to destroy the homes of neighbors and to steal their wives; "Honor thy father and thy mother," and yet this same God had thousands of fathers butchered, and with the sword of war killed children yet unborn; "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," and yet he sent abroad "lying spirits" to deceive his own prophets, and in a hundred ways paid tribute to deceit. So far as we know, Jehovah kept only one of these commandments—he worshiped no other god.
The religious intolerance of the Old Testament is justified upon the ground that "blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance," that "idolatry was an act of overt treason," and that "to worship the gods of the hostile heathen was deserting to the public enemy, and giving him aid and comfort." According to Mr. Black, we should all have liberty of conscience except when directly governed by God. In that country where God is king, liberty cannot exist. In this position, I admit that he is upheld and fortified by the "sacred" text. Within the Old Testament there is no such thing as religious toleration. Within that volume can be found no mercy for an unbeliever. For all who think for themselves, there are threatenings, curses, and anathemas. Think of an infinite being who is so cruel, so unjust, that he will not allow one of his own children the liberty of thought! Think of an infinite God acting as the direct governor of a people, and yet not able to command their love! Think of the author of all mercy imbruing his hands in the blood of helpless men, women, and children, simply because he did not furnish them with intelligence enough to understand his law! An earthly father who cannot govern by affection is not fit to be a father; what, then, shall we say of an infinite being who resorts to violence, to pestilence, to disease, and famine, in the vain effort to obtain even the respect of a savage? Read this passage, red from the heart of cruelty:
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers,... thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shalt thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him, but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people; and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die."
This is the religious liberty of the Bible. If you had lived in Palestine, and if the wife of your bosom, dearer to you than your own soul, had said: "I like the religion of India better than that of Palestine," it would have been your duty to kill her.
"Your eye must not pity her, your hand must be first upon her, and afterwards the hand of all the people." If she had said: "Let us worship the sun—the sun that clothes the earth in garments of green—the sun, the great fireside of the world—the sun that covers the hills and valleys with flowers—that gave me your face, and made it possible for me to look into the eyes of my babe—let us worship the sun," it was your duty to kill her. You must throw the first stone, and when against her bosom—a bosom filled with love for you—you had thrown the jagged and cruel rock, and had seen the red stream of her life oozing from the dumb lips of death, you could then look up and receive the congratulations of the God whose commandment you had obeyed. Is it possible that a being of infinite mercy ordered a husband to kill his wife for the crime of having expressed an opinion on the subject of religion? Has there been found upon the records of the savage world anything more perfectly fiendish than this commandment of Jehovah? This is justified on the ground that "blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance, and idolatry an act of overt treason." We can understand how a human king stands in need of the service of his people. We can understand how the desertion of any of his soldiers weakens his army; but were the king infinite in power, his strength would still remain the same, and under no conceivable circumstances could the enemy triumph.
I insist that, if there is an infinitely good and wise God, he beholds with pity the misfortunes of his children. I insist that such a God would know the mists, the clouds, the darkness enveloping the human mind. He would know how few stars are visible in the intellectual sky. His pity, not his wrath, would be excited by the efforts of his blind children, groping in the night to find the cause of things, and endeavoring, through their tears, to see some dawn of hope. Filled with awe by their surroundings, by fear of the unknown, he would know that when, kneeling, they poured out their gratitude to some unseen power, even to a visible idol, it was, in fact, intended for him. An infinitely good being, had he the power, would answer the reasonable prayer of an honest savage, even when addressed to wood and stone.
The atrocities of the Old Testament, the threatenings, maledictions, and curses of the "inspired book," are defended on the ground that the Jews had a right to treat their enemies as their enemies treated them; and in this connection is this remarkable statement: "In your treatment of hostile barbarians you not only may lawfully, you must necessarily, adopt their mode of warfare. If they come to conquer you, they may be conquered by you; if they give no quarter, they are entitled to none; if the death of your whole population be their purpose, you may defeat it by exterminating theirs."
For a man who is a "Christian policeman," and has taken upon himself to defend the Christian religion; for one who follows the Master who said that when smitten on one cheek you must turn the other, and who again and again enforced the idea that you must overcome evil with good, it is hardly consistent to declare that a civilized nation must of necessity adopt the warfare of savages. Is it possible that in fighting, for instance, the Indians of America, if they scalp our soldiers we should scalp theirs? If they ravish, murder, and mutilate our wives, must we treat theirs in the same manner? If they kill the babes in our cradles, must we brain theirs? If they take our captives, bind them to the trees, and if their squaws fill their quivering flesh with sharpened fagots and set them on fire, that they may die clothed with flame, must our wives, our mothers, and our daughters follow the fiendish example? Is this the conclusion of the most enlightened Christianity? Will the pulpits of the United States adopt the arguments of this "policeman"? Is this the last and most beautiful blossom of the Sermon on the Mount? Is this the echo of "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do"?
Mr. Black justifies the wars of extermination and conquest because the American people fought for the integrity of their own country; fought to do away with the infamous institution of slavery; fought to preserve the jewels of liberty and justice for themselves and for their children. Is it possible that his mind is so clouded by political and religious prejudice, by the recollections of an unfortunate administration, that he sees no difference between a war of extermination and one of self-preservation? that he sees no choice between the murder of helpless age, of weeping women and of sleeping babes, and the defence of liberty and nationality?
The soldiers of the Republic did not wage a war of extermination. They did not seek to enslave their fellow-men. They did not murder trembling age. They did not sheathe their swords in women's breasts. They gave the old men bread, and let the mothers rock their babes in peace. They fought to save the world's great hope—to free a race and put the humblest hut beneath the canopy of liberty and law.
Claiming neither praise nor dispraise for the part taken by me in the Civil war, for the purposes of this argument, it is sufficient to say that I am perfectly willing that my record, poor and barren as it is, should be compared with his.
Never for an instant did I suppose that any respectable American citizen could be found willing at this day to defend the institution of slavery; and never was I more astonished than when I found Mr. Black denying that civilized countries passionately assert that slavery is and always was a hideous crime. I was amazed when he declared that "the doctrine that slavery is a crime under all circumstances and at all times was first started by the adherents of a political faction in this country less than forty years ago." He tells us that "they denounced God and Christ for not agreeing with them," but that "they did not constitute the civilized world; nor were they, if the truth must be told, a very respectable portion of it. Politically they were successful; I need not say by what means, or with what effect upon the morals of the country."
Slavery held both branches of Congress, filled the chair of the Executive, sat upon the Supreme Bench, had in its hands all rewards, all offices; knelt in the pew, occupied the pulpit, stole human beings in the name of God, robbed the trundle-bed for love of Christ; incited mobs, led ignorance, ruled colleges, sat in the chairs of professors, dominated the public press, closed the lips of free speech, and polluted with its leprous hand every source and spring of power. The abolitionists attacked this monster. They were the bravest, grandest men of their country and their century. Denounced by thieves, hated by hypocrites, mobbed by cowards, slandered by priests, shunned by politicians, abhorred by the seekers of office,—these men "of whom the world was not worthy," in spite of all opposition, in spite of poverty and want, conquered innumerable obstacles, never faltering for one moment, never dismayed—accepting defeat with a smile born of infinite hope—knowing that they were right—insisted and persisted until every chain was broken, until slave-pens became schoolhouses, and three millions of slaves became free men, women, and children. They did not measure with "the golden metewand of God," but with "the elastic cord of human feeling." They were men the latchets of whose shoes no believer in human slavery was ever worthy to unloose. And yet we are told by this modern defender of the slavery of Jehovah that they were not even respectable; and this slander is justified because the writer is assured "that the infallible God proceeded upon good grounds when he authorized slavery in Judea."
Not satisfied with having slavery in this world, Mr. Black assures us that it will last through all eternity, and that forever and forever inferiors must be subordinated to superiors. Who is the superior man? According to Mr. Black, he is superior who lives upon the unpaid labor of the inferior. With me, the superior man is the one who uses his superiority in bettering the condition of the inferior. The superior man is strength for the weak, eyes for the blind, brains for the simple; he is the one who helps carry the burden that nature has put upon the inferior. Any man who helps another to gain and retain his liberty is superior to any infallible God who authorized slavery in Judea. For my part, I would rather be the slave than the master. It is better to be robbed than to be a robber. I had rather be stolen from than to be a thief.
According to Mr. Black, there will be slavery in heaven, and fast by the throne of God will be the auction-block, and the streets of the New Jerusalem will be adorned with the whipping post, while the music of the harp will be supplemented by the crack of the driver's whip. If some good Republican would catch Mr. Black, "incorporate him into his family, tame him, teach him to think, and give him a knowledge of the true principles of human liberty and government, he would confer upon him a most beneficent boon."
Slavery includes all other crimes. It is the joint product of the kidnapper, pirate, thief, murderer, and hypocrite. It degrades labor and corrupts leisure. To lacerate the naked back, to sell wives, to steal babes, to breed bloodhounds, to debauch your own soul—this is slavery. This is what Jehovah "authorized in Judea." This is what Mr. Black believes in still. He "measures with the golden metewand of God." I abhor slavery. With me, liberty is not merely a means—it is an end. Without that word, all other words are empty sounds.
Mr. Black is too late with his protest against the freedom of his fellow-man. Liberty is making the tour of the world. Russia has emancipated her serfs; the slave trade is prosecuted only by thieves and pirates; Spain feels upon her cheek the burning blush of shame; Brazil with proud and happy eyes is looking for the dawn of freedom's day; the people of the South rejoice that slavery is no more, and every good and honest man (excepting Mr. Black), of every land and clime, hopes that the limbs of men will never feel again the weary weight of chains.
We are informed by Mr. Black that polygamy is neither commanded nor prohibited in the Old Testament—that it is only "discouraged." It seems to me that a little legislation on that subject might have tended to its "discouragement." But where is the legislation? In the moral code, which Mr. Black assures us "consists of certain immutable rules to govern the conduct of all men at all times and at all places in their private and personal relations with others," not one word is found on the subject of polygamy. There is nothing "discouraging" in the Ten Commandments, nor in the records of any conversation Jehovah is claimed to have had with Moses upon Sinai. The life of Abraham, the story of Jacob and Laban, the duty of a brother to be the husband of the widow of his deceased brother, the life of David, taken in connection with the practice of one who is claimed to have been the wisest of men—all these things are probably relied on to show that polygamy was at least "discouraged." Certainly, Jehovah had time to instruct Moses as to the infamy of polygamy. He could have spared a few moments from a description of the patterns of tongs and basins, for a subject so important as this. A few words in favor of the one wife and the one husband—in favor of the virtuous and loving home—might have taken the place of instructions as to cutting the garments of priests and fashioning candlesticks and ouches of gold. If he had left out simply the order that rams' skins should be dyed red, and in its place had said, "A man shall have but one wife, and the wife but one husband," how much better would it have been.
All the languages of the world are not sufficient to express the filth of polygamy. It makes man a beast, and woman a slave. It destroys the fireside and makes virtue an outcast. It takes us back to the barbarism of animals, and leaves the heart a den in which crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of most loathsome lust. And yet Mr. Black insists that we owe to the Bible the present elevation of woman. Where will he find in the Old Testament the rights of wife, and mother, and daughter defined? Even in the New Testament she is told to "learn in silence, with all subjection;" that she "is not suffered to teach, nor to usurp any authority over the man, but to be in silence." She is told that "the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." In other words, there is the same difference between the wife and husband that there is between the husband and Christ.
The reasons given for this infamous doctrine are that "Adam was first formed, and then Eve;" that "Adam was not deceived," but that "the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." These childish reasons are the only ones given by the inspired writers. We are also told that "a man, indeed, ought to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God;" but that "the woman is the glory of the man," and this is justified from the fact, and the remarkable fact, set forth in the very next verse—that "the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man." And the same gallant apostle says: "Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man;" "Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be subject to their own husbands in everything." These are the passages that have liberated woman!
According to the Old Testament, woman had to ask pardon, and had to be purified, for the crime of having borne sons and daughters. If in this world there is a figure of perfect purity, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her child. The doctrine that woman is the slave, or serf, of man—whether it comes from heaven or from hell, from God or a demon, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem or from the very Sodom of perdition—is savagery, pure and simple.
In no country in the world had women less liberty than in the Holy Land, and no monarch held in less esteem the rights of wives and mothers than Jehovah of the Jews. The position of woman was far better in Egypt than in Palestine. Before the pyramids were built, the sacred songs of Isis were sung by women, and women with pure hands had offered sacrifices to the gods. Before Moses was born, women had sat upon the Egyptian throne. Upon ancient tombs the husband and wife are represented as seated in the same chair. In Persia women were priests, and in some of the oldest civilizations "they were reverenced on earth, and worshiped afterward as goddesses in heaven." At the advent of Christianity, in all pagan countries women officiated at the sacred altars. They guarded the eternal fire. They kept the sacred books. From their lips came the oracles of fate. Under the domination of the Christian Church, woman became the merest slave for at least a thousand years. It was claimed that through woman the race had fallen, and that her loving kiss had poisoned all the springs of life. Christian priests asserted that but for her crime the world would have been an Eden still. The ancient fathers exhausted their eloquence in the denunciation of woman, and repeated again and again the slander of St. Paul. The condition of woman has improved just in proportion that man has lost confidence in the inspiration of the Bible.
For the purpose of defending the character of his infallible God, Mr. Black is forced to defend religious intolerance, wars of extermination, human slavery, and almost polygamy. He admits that God established slavery; that he commanded his chosen people to buy the children of the heathen; that heathen fathers and mothers did right to sell their girls and boys; that God ordered the Jews to wage wars of extermination and conquest; that it was right to kill the old and young; that God forged manacles for the human brain; that he commanded husbands to murder their wives for suggesting the worship of the sun or moon; and that every cruel, savage passage in the Old Testament was inspired by him. Such is a "policeman's" view of God.
Will Mr. Black have the kindness to state a few of his objections to the devil?
Mr. Black should have answered my arguments, instead of calling me "blasphemous" and "scurrilous." In the discussion of these questions I have nothing to do with the reputation of my opponent. His character throws no light on the subject, and is to me a matter of perfect indifference. Neither will it do for one who enters the lists as the champion of revealed religion to say that "we have no right to rejudge the justice of God."
Such a statement is a white flag. The warrior eludes the combat when he cries out that it is a "metaphysical question." He deserts the field and throws down his arms when he admits that "no revelation has lifted the veil between time and eternity." Again I ask, why were the Jewish people as wicked, cruel, and ignorant with a revelation from God, as other nations were without? Why were the worshipers of false deities as brave, as kind, and generous as those who knew the only true and living God?
How do you explain the fact that while Jehovah was waging wars of extermination, establishing slavery, and persecuting for opinion's sake, heathen philosophers were teaching that all men are brothers, equally entitled to liberty and life? You insist that Jehovah believed in slavery and yet punished the Egyptians for enslaving the Jews. Was your God once an abolitionist? Did he at that time "denounce Christ for not agreeing with him"? If slavery was a crime in Egypt, was it a virtue in Palestine? Did God treat the Canaanites better than Pharaoh did the Jews? Was it right for Jehovah to kill the children of the people because of Pharaoh's sin? Should the peasant be punished for the king's crime? Do you not know that the worst thing that can be said of Nero, Caligula, and Commodus is that they resembled the Jehovah of the Jews? Will you tell me why God failed to give his Bible to the whole world? Why did he not give the Scriptures to the Hindu, the Greek, and Roman? Why did he fail to enlighten the worshipers of "Mammon" and Moloch, of Belial and Baal, of Bacchus and Venus? After all, was not Bacchus as good as Jehovah? Is it not better to drink wine than to shed blood? Was there anything in the worship of Venus worse than giving captured maidens to satisfy the victor's lust? Did "Mammon" or Moloch do anything more infamous than to establish slavery? Did they order their soldiers to kill men, women, and children, and to save alive nothing that had breath? Do not answer these questions by saying that "no veil has been lifted between time and eternity," and that "we have no right to rejudge the justice of God."
If Jehovah was in fact God, he knew the end from the beginning. He knew that his Bible would be a breastwork behind which tyranny and hypocrisy would crouch; that it would be quoted by tyrants; that it would be the defence of robbers, called kings, and of hypocrites called priests. He knew that he had taught the Jewish people but little of importance. He knew that he found them free and left them captives. He knew that he had never fulfilled the promises made to them. He knew that while other nations had advanced in art and science, his chosen people were savage still. He promised them the world, and gave them a desert. He promised them liberty, and he made them slaves. He promised them victory, and he gave them defeat. He said they should be kings, and he made them serfs. He promised them universal empire, and gave them exile. When one finishes the Old Testament, he is compelled to say: Nothing can add to to the misery of a nation whose king is Jehovah!
And here I take occasion to thank Mr. Black for having admitted that Jehovah gave no commandment against the practice of polygamy, that he established slavery, waged wars of extermination, and persecuted for opinion's sake even unto death. Most theologians endeavor to putty, patch, and paint the wretched record of inspired crime, but Mr. Black has been bold enough and honest enough to admit the truth. In this age of fact and demonstration it is refreshing to find a man who believes so thoroughly in the monstrous and miraculous, the impossible and immoral—who still clings lovingly to the legends of the bib and rattle—who through the bitter experiences of a wicked world has kept the credulity of the cradle, and finds comfort and joy in thinking about the Garden of Eden, the subtle serpent, the flood, and Babel's tower, stopped by the jargon of a thousand tongues—who reads with happy eyes the story of the burning brimstone storm that fell upon the cities of the plain, and smilingly explains the transformation of the retrospective Mrs. Lot—who laughs at Egypt's plagues and Pharaoh's whelmed and drowning hosts—eats manna with the wandering Jews, warms himself at the burning bush, sees Korah's company by the hungry earth devoured, claps his wrinkled hands with glee above the heathens' butchered babes, and longingly looks back to the patriarchal days of concubines and slaves. How touching when the learned and wise crawl back in cribs and ask to hear the rhymes and fables once again! How charming in these hard and scientific times to see old age in Superstition's lap, with eager lips upon her withered breast!
Mr. Black comes to the conclusion that the Hebrew Bible is in exact harmony with the New Testament, and that the two are "connected together;" and "that if one is true the other cannot be false."
If this is so, then he must admit that if one is false the other cannot be true; and it hardly seems possible to me that there is a right-minded, sane man, except Mr. Black, who now believes that a God of infinite kindness and justice ever commanded one nation to exterminate another; ever ordered his soldiers to destroy men, women, and babes; ever established the institution of human slavery; ever regarded the auction-block as an altar, or a bloodhound as an apostle.
Mr. Black contends (after having answered my indictment against the Old Testament by admitting the allegations to be true) that the rapidity with which Christianity spread "proves the supernatural origin of the Gospel, or that it was propagated by the direct aid of the Divine Being himself."
Let us see. In his efforts to show that the "infallible God established slavery in Judea," he takes occasion to say that "the doctrine that slavery is a crime under all circumstances was first started by the adherents of a political faction in this, country less than forty years ago;" that "they denounced God and Christ for not agreeing with them;" but that "they did not constitute the civilized world; nor were they, if the truth must be told, a very respectable portion of it." Let it be remembered that this was only forty years ago; and yet, according to Mr. Black, a few disreputable men changed the ideas of nearly fifty millions of people, changed the Constitution of the United States, liberated a race from slavery, clothed three millions of people with political rights, took possession of the Government, managed its affairs for more than twenty years, and have compelled the admiration of the civilized world. Is it Mr. Black's idea that this happened by chance? If not, then according to him, there are but two ways to account for it; either the rapidity with which Republicanism spread proves its supernatural origin, "or else its propagation was provided for and carried on by the direct aid of the Divine Being himself." Between these two, Mr. Black may make his choice. He will at once see that the rapid rise and spread of any doctrine does not even tend to show that it was divinely revealed.
This argument is applicable to all religions. Mohammedans can use it as well as Christians. Mohammed was a poor man, a driver of camels. He was without education, without influence, and without wealth, and yet in a few years he consolidated thousands of tribes, and made millions of men confess that there is "one God, and Mohammed is his prophet." His success was a thousand times greater during his life than that of Christ. He was not crucified; he was a conqueror. "Of all men, he exercised the greatest influence upon the human race." Never in the world's history did a religion spread with the rapidity of his. It burst like a storm over the fairest portions of the globe. If Mr. Black is right in his position that rapidity is secured only by the direct aid of the Divine Being, then Mohammed was most certainly the prophet of God. As to wars of extermination and slavery, Mohammed agreed with Mr. Black, and upon polygamy, with Jehovah. As to religious toleration, he was great enough to say that "men holding to any form of faith might be saved, provided they were virtuous." In this, he was far in advance both of Jehovah and Mr. Black.
It will not do to take the ground that the rapid rise and spread of a religion demonstrates its divine character. Years before Gautama died, his religion was established, and his disciples were numbered by millions. His doctrines were not enforced by the sword, but by an appeal to the hopes, the fears, and the reason of mankind; and more than one-third of the human race are to-day the followers of Gautama. His religion has outlived all that existed in his time; and according to Dr. Draper, "there is no other country in the world except India that has the religion to-day it had at the birth of Jesus Christ." Gautama believed in the equality of all men; abhorred the spirit of caste, and proclaimed justice, mercy, and education for all.
Imagine a Mohammedan answering an infidel; would he not use the argument of Mr Black, simply substituting Mohammed for Christ, just as effectually as it has been used against me? There was a time when India was the foremost nation of the world. Would not your argument, Mr. Black, have been just as good in the mouth of a Brahmin then, as it is in yours now? Egypt, the mysterious mother of mankind, with her pyramids built thirty-four hundred years before Christ, was once the first in all the earth, and gave to us our Trinity, and our symbol of the cross. Could not a priest of Isis and Osiris have used your arguments to prove that his religion was divine, and could he not have closed by saying: "From the facts established by this evidence it follows irresistibly that our religion came to us from God"? Do you not see that your argument proves too much, and that it is equally applicable to all the religions of the world?
Again, it is urged that "the acceptance of Christianity by a large portion of the generation contemporary with its founder and his apostles was, under the circumstances, an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal intelligence could pronounce." If this is true, then "the acceptance of Buddhism by a large portion of the generation contemporary with its founder was an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal intelligence could pronounce." The same could be said of Mohammedanism, and, in fact, of every religion that has ever benefited or cursed this world. This argument, when reduced to its simplest form, is this: All that succeeds is inspired.
The old argument that if Christianity is a human fabrication its authors must have been either good men or bad men, takes it for granted that there are but two classes of persons—the good and the bad. There is at least one other class—the mistaken, and both of the other classes may belong to this. Thousands of most excellent people have been deceived, and the history of the world is filled with instances where men have honestly supposed that they had received communications from angels and gods.
In thousands of instances these pretended communications contained the purest and highest thoughts, together with the most important truths; yet it will not do to say that these accounts are true; neither can they be proved by saying that the men who claimed to be inspired were good. What we must say is, that being good men, they were mistaken; and it is the charitable mantle of a mistake that I throw over Mr. Black, when I find him defending the institution of slavery. He seems to think it utterly incredible that any "combination of knaves, however base, would fraudulently concoct a religious system to denounce themselves, and to invoke the curse of God upon their own conduct." How did religions other than Christianity and Judaism arise? Were they all "concocted by a combination of knaves"? The religion of Gautama is filled with most beautiful and tender thoughts, with most excellent laws, and hundreds of sentences urging mankind to deeds of love and self-denial. Was Gautama inspired?
Does not Mr. Black know that thousands of people charged with witchcraft actually confessed in open court their guilt? Does he not know that they admitted that they had spoken face to face with Satan, and had sold their souls for gold and power? Does he not know that these admissions were made in the presence and expectation of death? Does he not know that hundreds of judges, some of them as great as the late lamented Gibson, believed in the existence of an impossible crime?
We are told that "there is no good reason to doubt that the statements of the Evangelists, as we have them now, are genuine." The fact is, no one knows who made the "statements of the Evangelists."
There are three important manuscripts upon which the Christian world relies. "The first appeared in the catalogue of the Vatican, in 1475. This contains the Old Testament. Of the New, it contains the four gospels,—the Acts, the seven Catholic Epistles, nine of the Pauline Epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, as far as the fourteenth verse of the ninth chapter,"—and nothing more. This is known as the Codex Vatican. "The second, the Alexandrine, was presented to King Charles the First, in 1628. It contains the Old and New Testaments, with some exceptions; passages are wanting in Matthew, in John, and in II. Corinthians. It also contains the Epistle of Clemens Romanus, a letter of Athanasius, and the treatise of Eusebius on the Psalms." The last is the Sinaitic Codex, discovered about 1850, at the Convent of St. Catherine's, on Mount Sinai. "It contains the Old and New Testaments, and in addition the entire Epistle of Barnabas, and a portion of the Shepherd of Hermas—two books which, up to the beginning of the fourth century, were looked upon by many as Scripture." In this manuscript, or codex, the gospel of St. Mark concludes with the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter, leaving out the frightful passage: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
In matters of the utmost importance these manuscripts disagree, but even if they all agreed it would not furnish the slightest evidence of their truth. It will not do to call the statements made in the gospels "depositions," until it is absolutely established who made them, and the circumstances under which they were made. Neither can we say that "they were made in the immediate prospect of death," until we know who made them. It is absurd to say that "the witnesses could not have been mistaken, because the nature of the facts precluded the possibility of any delusion about them." Can it be pretended that the witnesses could not have been mistaken about the relation the Holy Ghost is alleged to have sustained to Jesus Christ? Is there no possibility of delusion about a circumstance of that kind? Did the writers of the four gospels have "'the sensible and true avouch of their own eyes' and ears" in that behalf? How was it possible for any one of the four Evangelists to know that Christ was the Son of God, or that he was God? His mother wrote nothing on the subject. Matthew says that an angel of the Lord told Joseph in a dream, but Joseph never wrote an account of this wonderful vision. Luke tells us that the angel had a conversation with Mary, and that Mary told Elizabeth, but Elizabeth never wrote a word. There is no account of Mary or Joseph or Elizabeth or the angel, having had any conversation with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John in which one word was said about the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ. The persons who knew did not write, so that the account is nothing but hearsay. Does Mr. Black pretend that such statements would be admitted as evidence in any court? But how do we know that the disciples of Christ wrote a word of the gospels? How did it happen that Christ wrote nothing? How do we know that the writers of the gospels "were men of unimpeachable character"?
All this is answered by saying "that nothing was said by the most virulent enemies against the personal honesty of the Evangelists." How is this known? If Christ performed the miracles recorded in the New Testament, why would the Jews put to death a man able to raise their dead? Why should they attempt to kill the Master of Death? How did it happen that a man who had done so many miracles was so obscure, so unknown, that one of his disciples had to be bribed to point him out? Is it not strange that the ones he had cured were not his disciples? Can we believe, upon the testimony of those about whose character we know nothing, that Lazarus was raised from the dead? What became of Lazarus? We never hear of him again. It seems to me that he would have been an object of great interest. People would have said: "He is the man who was once dead." Thousands would have inquired of him about the other world; would have asked him where he was when he received the information that he was wanted on the earth. His experience would have been vastly more interesting than everything else in the New Testament. A returned traveler from the shores of Eternity—one who had walked twice through the valley of the shadow—would have been the most interesting of human beings. When he came to die again, people would have said: "He is not afraid; he has had experience; he knows what death is." But, strangely enough, this Lazarus fades into obscurity with "the wise men of the East," and with the dead who came out of their graves on the night of the crucifixion. How is it known that it was claimed, during the life of Christ, that he had wrought a miracle? And if the claim was made, how is it known that it was not denied? Did the Jews believe that Christ was clothed with miraculous power? Would they have dared to crucify a man who had the power to clothe the dead with life? Is it not wonderful that no one at the trial of Christ said one word about the miracles he had wrought? Nothing about the sick he had healed, nor the dead he had raised?
Is it not wonderful that Josephus, the best historian the Hebrews produced, says nothing about the life or death of Christ; nothing about the massacre of the infants by Herod; not one word about the wonderful star that visited the sky at the birth of Christ; nothing about the darkness that fell upon the world for several hours in the midst of day; and failed entirely to mention that hundreds of graves were opened, and that multitudes of Jews arose from the dead, and visited the Holy City? Is it not wonderful that no historian ever mentioned any of these prodigies? and is it not more amazing than all the rest, that Christ himself concealed from Matthew, Mark, and Luke the dogma of the atonement, the necessity of belief, and the mystery of the second birth?
Of course I know that two letters were said to have been written by Pilate to Tiberius, concerning the execution of Christ, but they have been shown to be forgeries. I also know that "various letters were circulated attributed to Jesus Christ," and that one letter is said to have been written by him to Abgarus, king of Edessa; but as there was no king of Edessa at that time, this letter is admitted to have been a forgery. I also admit that a correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul was forged.
Here in our own country, only a few years ago, men claimed to have found golden plates upon which was written a revelation from God. They founded a new religion, and, according to their statement, did many miracles. They were treated as outcasts, and their leader was murdered. These men made their "depositions" "in the immediate prospect of death." They were mobbed, persecuted, derided, and yet they insisted that their prophet had miraculous power, and that he, too, could swing back the hingeless door of death. The followers of these men have increased, in these few years, so that now the murdered prophet has at least two hundred thousand disciples. It will be hard to find a contradiction of these pretended miracles, although this is an age filled with papers, magazines, and books. As a matter of fact, the claims of Joseph Smith were so preposterous that sensible people did not take the pains to write and print denials. When we remember that eighteen hundred years ago there were but few people who could write, and that a manuscript did not become public in any modern sense, it was possible for the gospels to have been written with all the foolish claims in reference to miracles without exciting comment or denial. There is not, in all the contemporaneous literature of the world, a single word about Christ or his apostles. The paragraph in Josephus is admitted to be an interpolation, and the letters, the account of the trial, and several other documents forged by the zeal of the early fathers, are now admitted to be false.
Neither will it do to say that "the statements made by the Evangelists are alike upon every important point." If there is anything of importance in the New Testament, from the theological standpoint, it is the ascension of Jesus Christ. If that happened, it was a miracle great enough to surfeit wonder. Are the statements of the inspired witnesses alike on this important point? Let us see.
Matthew says nothing upon the subject. Either Matthew was not there, had never heard of the ascension,—or, having heard of it, did not believe it, or, having seen it, thought it too unimportant to record. To this wonder of wonders Mark devotes one verse: "So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right-hand of God." Can we believe that this verse was written by one who witnessed the ascension of Jesus Christ; by one who watched his Master slowly rising through the air till distance reft him from his tearful sight? Luke, another of the witnesses, says: "And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." John corroborates Matthew by saying nothing on the subject. Now, we find that the last chapter of Mark, after the eighth verse, is an interpolation; so that Mark really says nothing about the occurrence. Either the ascension of Christ must be given up, or it must be admitted that the witnesses do not agree, and that three of them never heard of that most stupendous event.
Again, if anything could have left its "form and pressure" on the brain, it must have been the last words of Jesus Christ. The last words, according to Matthew, are: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." The last words, according to the inspired witness known as Mark, are: "And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Luke tells us that the last words uttered by Christ, with the exception of a blessing, were: "And behold, I send forth the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." The last words, according to John, were: "Peter, seeing Him, saith to Jesus: Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me."
An account of the ascension is also given in the Acts of the Apostles; and the last words of Christ, according to that inspired witness, are: "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." In this account of the ascension we find that two men stood by the disciples in white apparel, and asked them: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Matthew says nothing of the two men. Mark never saw them. Luke may have forgotten them when writing his gospel, and John may have regarded them as optical illusions.
Luke testifies that Christ ascended on the very day of his resurrection. John deposes that eight days after the resurrection Christ appeared to the disciples and convinced Thomas. In the Acts we are told that Christ remained on earth for forty days after his resurrection. These "depositions" do not agree. Neither do Matthew and Luke agree in their histories of the infancy of Christ. It is impossible for both to be true. One of these "witnesses" must have been mistaken.
The most wonderful miracle recorded in the New Testament, as having been wrought by Christ, is the resurrection of Lazarus. While all the writers of the gospels, in many instances, record the same wonders and the same conversations, is it not remarkable that the greatest miracle is mentioned alone by John?
Two of the witnesses, Matthew and Luke, give the genealogy of Christ. Matthew says that there were forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ. Luke insists that there were forty-two from Christ to David, while Matthew gives the number as twenty-eight. It may be said that this is an old objection. An objection-remains young until it has been answered. Is it not wonderful that Luke and Matthew do not agree on a single name of Christ's ancestors for thirty-seven generations?
There is a difference of opinion among the "witnesses" as to what the gospel of Christ is. If we take the "depositions" of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, then the gospel of Christ amounts simply to this: That God will forgive the forgiving, and that he will be merciful to the merciful. According to three witnesses, Christ knew nothing of the doctrine of the atonement; never heard of the second birth; and did not base salvation, in whole nor in part, on belief. In the "deposition" of John, we find that we must be born again; that we must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; and that an atonement was made for us. If Christ ever said these things to, or in the hearing of, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they forgot to mention them.
To my mind, the failure of the evangelists to agree as tu what is necessary for man to do in order to insure the salvation of his soul, is a demonstration that they were not inspired.
Neither do the witnesses agree as to the last words of Christ when he was crucified. Matthew says that he cried: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Mark agrees with Matthew. Luke testifies that his last words were: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." John states that he cried: "It is finished."
Luke says that Christ said of his murderers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Matthew, Mark, and John do not record these touching words. John says that Christ, on the day of his resurrection, said to his disciples: "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained."
The other disciples do not record this monstrous passage. They did not hear the abdication of God. They were not present when Christ placed in their hands the keys of heaven and hell, and put a world beneath the feet of priests.
It is easy to account for the differences and contradictions in these "depositions" (and there are hundreds of them) by saying that each one told the story as he remembered it, or as he had heard it, or that the accounts have been changed, but it will not do to say that the witnesses were inspired of God. We can account for these contradictions by the infirmities of human nature; but, as I said before, the infirmities of human nature cannot be predicated of a divine being.
Again, I ask, why should there be more than one inspired gospel? Of what use were the other three? There can be only one true account of anything. All other true accounts must simply be copies of that. And I ask again, why should there have been more than one inspired gospel? That which is the test of truth as to ordinary witnesses is a demonstration against their inspiration. It will not do at this late day to say that the miracles worked by Christ demonstrated his divine origin or mission. The wonderful works he did, did not convince the people with whom he lived. In spite of the miracles, he was crucified. He was charged with blasphemy. "Policemen" denounced the "scurrility" of his words, and the absurdity of his doctrines. He was no doubt told that it was "almost a crime to utter blasphemy in the presence of a Jewish woman;" and it may be that he was taunted for throwing away "the golden metewand" of the "infallible God who authorized slavery in Judea," and taking the "elastic cord of human feeling."
Christians tell us that the citizens of Mecca refused to believe on Mohammed because he was an impostor, and that the citizens of Jerusalem refused to believe on Jesus Christ because he was not an impostor.
If Christ had wrought the miracles attributed to him—if he had cured the maimed, the leprous, and the halt—if he had changed the night of blindness into blessed day—if he had wrested from the fleshless hand of avaricious death the stolen jewel of a life, and clothed again with throbbing flesh the pulseless dust, he would have won the love and adoration of mankind. If ever there shall stand upon this earth the king of death, all human knees will touch the ground.
We are further informed that "what we call the fundamental truths of Christianity consist of great public events which are sufficiently established by history without special proof."
Of course, we admit that the Roman Empire existed; that Julius Caesar was assassinated; and we may admit that Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus; but will some one be kind enough to tell us how the assassination of Caesar even tends to prove that Romulus and Remus were suckled by a wolf? We will all admit that, in the sixth century after Christ, Mohammed was born at Mecca; that his victorious hosts vanquished half the Christian world; that the crescent triumphed over the cross upon a thousand fields; that all the Christians of the earth were not able to rescue from the hands of an impostor the empty grave of Christ. We will all admit that the Mohammedans cultivated the arts and sciences; that they gave us our numerals; taught us the higher mathematics; gave us our first ideas of astronomy, and that "science was thrust into the brain of Europe on the point of a Moorish lance;" and yet we will not admit that Mohammed was divinely inspired, nor that he had frequent conversations with the angel Gabriel, nor that after his death his coffin was suspended in mid-air.
A little while ago, in the city of Chicago, a gentleman addressed a number of Sunday-school children. In his address, he stated that some people were wicked enough to deny the story of the deluge; that he was a traveler; that he had been to the top of Mount Ararat, and had brought with him a stone from that sacred locality. The children were then invited to form in procession and walk by the pulpit, for the purpose of seeing this wonderful stone. After they had looked at it, the lecturer said: "Now, children, if you ever hear anybody deny the story of the deluge, or say that the ark did not rest on Mount Ararat, you can tell them that you know better, because you have seen with your own eyes a stone from that very mountain."
The fact that Christ lived in Palestine does not tend to show that he was in any way related to the Holy Ghost; nor does the existence of the Christian religion substantiate the ascension of Jesus Christ. We all admit that Socrates lived in Athens, but we do not admit that he had a familiar spirit. I am satisfied that John Wesley was an Englishman, but I hardly believe that God postponed a rain because Mr. Wesley wanted to preach. All the natural things in the world are not sufficient to establish the supernatural. Mr. Black reasons in this way: There was a hydra-headed monster. We know this, because Hercules killed him. There must have been such a woman as Proserpine, otherwise Pluto could not have carried her away. Christ must have been divine, because the Holy Ghost was his father. And there must have been such a being as the Holy Ghost, because without a father Christ could not have existed. Those who are disposed to deny everything because a part is false, reason exactly the other way. They insist that because there was no hydra-headed monster, Hercules did not exist. The true position, in my judgment, is that the natural is not to be discarded because found in the company of the miraculous, neither should the miraculous be believed because associated with the probable. There was in all probability such a man as Jesus Christ. He may have lived in Jerusalem. He may have been crucified, but that he was the Son of God, or that he was raised from the dead, and ascended bodily to heaven, has never been, and, in the nature of things, can never be, substantiated.
Apparently tired with his efforts to answer what I really said, Mr. Black resorted to the expedient of "compressing" my propositions and putting them in italics. By his system of "compression" he was enabled to squeeze out what I really said, and substitute a few sentences of his own. I did not say that "Christianity offers eternal salvation as the reward of belief alone," but I did say that no salvation is offered without belief. There must be a difference of opinion in the minds of Mr. Black's witnesses on this subject. In one place we are told that a man is "justified by faith without the deeds of the law;" and in another, "to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness;" and the following passages seem to show the necessity of belief:
"He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." "And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die." "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." "Not of works, lest any man should boast." "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." "Whosoever believeth not shall be damned."
I do not understand that the Christians of to-day insist that simple belief will secure the salvation of the soul. I believe it is stated in the Bible that "the very devils believe;" and it would seem from this that belief is not such a meritorious thing, after all. But Christians do insist that without belief no man can be saved; that faith is necessary to salvation, and that there is "none other name under heaven given among men whereby we can be saved," except that of Christ. My doctrine is that there is only one way to be saved, and that is to act in harmony with your surroundings—to live in accordance with the facts of your being. A Being of infinite wisdom has no right to create a person destined to everlasting pain. For the honest infidel, according to the American Evangelical pulpit, there is no heaven. For the upright atheist, there is nothing in another world but punishment. Mr. Black admits that lunatics and idiots are in no danger of hell. This being so, his God should have created only lunatics and idiots. Why should the fatal gift of brain be given to any human being, if such gift renders him liable to eternal hell? Better be a lunatic here and an angel there. Better be an idiot in this world, if you can be a seraph in the next.
As to the doctrine of the atonement, Mr. Black has nothing to offer except the barren statement that it is believed by the wisest and the best. A Mohammedan, speaking in Constantinople, will say the same of the Koran. A Brahmin, in a Hindu temple, will make the same remark, and so will the American Indian, when he endeavors to enforce something upon the young of his tribe. He will say: "The best, the greatest of our tribe have believed in this." This is the argument of the cemetery, the philosophy of epitaphs, the logic of the coffin. Who are the greatest and wisest and most virtuous of mankind? This statement, that it has been believed by the best, is made in connection with an admission that it cannot be fathomed by the wisest. It is not claimed that a thing is necessarily false because it is not understood, but I do claim that it is not necessarily true because it cannot be comprehended. I still insist that "the plan of redemption," as usually preached, is absurd, unjust, and immoral.
For nearly two thousand years Judas Iscariot has been execrated by mankind; and yet, if the doctrine of the atonement is true, upon his treachery hung the plan of salvation. Suppose Judas had known of this plan—known that he was selected by Christ for that very purpose, that Christ was depending on him. And suppose that he also knew that only by betraying Christ could he save either himself or others; what ought Judas to have done? Are you willing to rely upon an argument that justifies the treachery of that wretch?
I insisted upon knowing how the sufferings of an innocent man could satisfy justice for the sins of the guilty. To this, Mr. Black replies as follows: "This raises a metaphysical question, which it is not necessary or possible for me to discuss here." Is this considered an answer? Is it in this way that "my misty creations are made to roll away and vanish into air one after another?" Is this the best that can be done by one of the disciples of the infallible God who butchered babes in Judea? Is it possible for a "policeman" to "silence a rude disturber" in this way? To answer an argument, is it only necessary to say that it "raises a metaphysical question"? Again I say: The life of Christ is worth its example, its moral force, its heroism of benevolence. And again I say: The effort to vindicate a law by inflicting punishment on the innocent is a second violation instead of a vindication.
Mr. Black, under the pretence of "compressing," puts in my mouth the following: "The doctrine of non-resistance, forgiveness of injuries, reconciliation with enemies, as taught in the New Testament, is the child of weakness, degrading and unjust."
This is entirely untrue. What I did say is this: "The idea of non-resistance never occurred to a man who had the power to protect himself. This doctrine was the child of weakness, born when resistance was impossible." I said not one word against the forgiveness of injuries, not one word against the reconciliation of enemies—not one word. I believe in the reconciliation of enemies. I believe in a reasonable forgiveness of injuries. But I do not believe in the doctrine of non-resistance. Mr. Black proceeds to say that Christianity forbids us "to cherish animosity, to thirst for mere revenge, to hoard up wrongs real or fancied, and lie in wait for the chance of paying them back; to be impatient, unforgiving, malicious, and cruel to all who have crossed us." And yet the man who thus describes Christianity tells us that it is not only our right, but our duty, to fight savages as savages fight us; insists that where a nation tries to exterminate us, we have a right to exterminate them. This same man, who tells us that "the diabolical propensities of the human heart are checked and curbed by the spirit of the Christian religion," and that this religion "has converted men from low savages into refined and civilized beings," still insists that the author of the Christian religion established slavery, waged wars of extermination, abhorred the liberty of thought, and practiced the divine virtues of retaliation and revenge. If it is our duty to forgive our enemies, ought not God to forgive his? Is it possible that God will hate his enemies when he tells us that we must love ours? The enemies of God cannot injure him, but ours can injure us. If it is the duty of the injured to forgive, why should the uninjured insist upon having revenge? Why should a being who destroys nations with pestilence and famine expect that his children will be loving and forgiving?
Mr. Black insists that without a belief in God there can be no perception of right and wrong, and that it is impossible for an atheist to have a conscience. Mr. Black, the Christian, the believer in God, upholds wars of extermination. I denounce such wars as murder. He upholds the institution of slavery. I denounce that institution as the basest of crimes. Yet I am told that I have no knowledge of right and wrong; that I measure with "the elastic cord of human feeling," while the believer in slavery and wars of extermination measures with "the golden metewand of God."
What is right and what is wrong? Everything is right that tends to the happiness of mankind, and everything is wrong that increases the sum of human misery. What can increase the happiness of this world more than to do away with every form of slavery, and with all war? What can increase the misery of mankind more than to increase wars and put chains upon more human limbs? What is conscience? If man were incapable of suffering, if man could not feel pain, the word "conscience" never would have passed his lips. The man who puts himself in the place of another, whose imagination has been cultivated to the point of feeling the agonies suffered by another, is the man of conscience. But a man who justifies slavery, who justifies a God when he commands the soldier to rip open the mother and to pierce with the sword of war the child unborn, is controlled and dominated, not by conscience, but by a cruel and remorseless superstition.
Consequences determine the quality of an action. If consequences are good, so is the action. If actions had no consequences, they would be neither good nor bad. Man did not get his knowledge of the consequences of actions from God, but from experience and reason. If man can, by actual experiment, discover the right and wrong of actions, is it not utterly illogical to declare that they who do not believe in God can have no standard of right and wrong? Consequences are the standard by which actions are judged. They are the children that testify as to the real character of their parents. God or no God, larceny is the enemy of industry—industry is the mother of prosperity—prosperity is a good, and therefore larceny is an evil. God or no God, murder is a crime. There has always been a law against larceny, because the laborer wishes to enjoy the fruit of his toil. As long as men object to being killed, murder will be illegal.
According to Mr. Black, the man who does not believe in a supreme being acknowledges no standard of right and wrong in this world, and therefore can have no theory of rewards and punishments in the next. Is it possible that only those who believe in the God who persecuted for opinion's sake have any standard of right and wrong? Were the greatest men of all antiquity without this standard? In the eyes of intelligent men of Greece and Rome, were all deeds, whether good or evil, morally alike? Is it necessary to believe in the existence of an infinite intelligence before you can have any standard of right and wrong? Is it possible that a being cannot be just or virtuous unless he believes in some being infinitely superior to himself? If this doctrine be true, how can God be just or virtuous? Does he believe in some being superior to himself?
It may be said that the Pagans believed in a god, and consequently had a standard of right and wrong. But the Pagans did not believe in the "true" God. They knew nothing of Jehovah. Of course it will not do to believe in the wrong God. In order to know the difference between right and wrong, you must believe in the right God—in the one who established slavery. Can this be avoided by saying that a false god is better than none?
The idea of justice is not the child of superstition—it was not born of ignorance; neither was it nurtured by the passages in the Old Testament upholding slavery, wars of extermination, and religious persecution. Every human being necessarily has a standard of right and wrong; and where that standard has not been polluted by superstition, man abhors slavery, regards a war of extermination as murder, and looks upon religious persecution as a hideous crime. If there is a God, infinite in power and wisdom, above him, poised in eternal calm, is the figure of Justice. At the shrine of Justice the infinite God must bow, and in her impartial scales the actions even of Infinity must be weighed. There is no world, no star, no heaven, no hell, in which gratitude is not a virtue and where slavery is not a crime.
According to the logic of this "reply," all good and evil become mixed and mingled—equally good and equally bad, unless we believe in the existence of the infallible God who ordered husbands to kill their wives. We do not know right from wrong now, unless we are convinced that a being of infinite mercy waged wars of extermination four thousand years ago. We are incapable even of charity, unless we worship the being who ordered the husband to kill his wife for differing with him on the subject of religion.
We know that acts are good or bad only as they effect the actors, and others. We know that from every good act good consequences flow, and that from every bad act there are only evil results. Every virtuous deed is a star in the moral firmament. There is in the moral world, as in the physical, the absolute and perfect relation of cause and effect. For this reason, the atonement becomes an impossibility. Others may suffer by your crime, but their suffering cannot discharge you; it simply increases your guilt and adds to your burden. For this reason happiness is not a reward—it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment—it is a result.
It is insisted that Christianity is not opposed to freedom of thought, but that "it is based on certain principles to which it requires the assent of all." Is this a candid statement? Are we only required to give our assent to certain principles in order to be saved? Are the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, the atonement, and the Trinity, principles? Will it be admitted by the orthodox world that good deeds are sufficient unto salvation—that a man can get into heaven by living in accordance with certain principles? This is a most excellent doctrine, but it is not Christianity. And right here, it may be well enough to state what I mean by Christianity. The morality of the world is not distinctively Christian. Zoroaster, Gautama, Mohammed, Confucius, Christ, and, in fact, all founders of religions, have said to their disciples: You must not steal; You must not murder; You must not bear false witness; You must discharge your obligations. Christianity is the ordinary moral code, plus the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ, his crucifixion, his resurrection, his ascension, the inspiration of the Bible, the doctrine of the atonement, and the necessity of belief. Buddhism is the ordinary moral code, plus the miraculous illumination of Buddha, the performance of certain ceremonies, a belief in the transmigration of the soul, and in the final absorption of the human by the infinite. The religion of Mohammed is the ordinary moral code, plus the belief that Mohammed was the prophet of God, total abstinence from the use of intoxicating drinks, a harem for the faithful here and hereafter, ablutions, prayers, alms, pilgrimages, and fasts.
The morality in Christianity has never opposed the freedom of thought. It has never put, nor tended to put, a chain on a human mind, nor a manacle on a human limb; but the doctrines distinctively Christian—the necessity of believing a certain thing; the idea that eternal punishment awaited him who failed to believe; the idea that the innocent can suffer for the guilty—these things have opposed, and for a thousand years substantially destroyed, the freedom of the human mind. All religions have, with ceremony, magic, and mystery, deformed, darkened, and corrupted the soul. Around the sturdy oaks of morality have grown and clung the parasitic, poisonous vines of the miraculous and monstrous.
I have insisted, and I still insist, that it is impossible for a finite man to commit a crime deserving infinite punishment; and upon this subject Mr. Black admits that "no revelation has lifted the veil between time and eternity;" and, consequently, neither the priest nor the "policeman" knows anything with certainty regarding another world. He simply insists that "in shadowy figures we are warned that a very marked distinction will be made between the good and bad in the next world." There is "a very marked distinction" in this; but there is this rainbow on the darkest human cloud: The worst have hope of reform. All I insist is, if there is another life, the basest soul that finds its way to that dark or radiant shore will have the everlasting chance of doing right. Nothing but the most cruel ignorance, the most heartless superstition, the most ignorant theology, ever imagined that the few days of human life spent here, surrounded by mists and clouds of darkness, blown over life's sea by storms and tempests of passion, fixed for all eternity the condition of the human race. If this doctrine be true, this life is but a net, in which Jehovah catches souls for hell.
The idea that a certain belief is necessary to salvation unsheathed the swords and lighted the fagots of persecution. As long as heaven is the reward of creed instead of deed, just so long will every orthodox church be a bastile, every member a prisoner, and every priest a turnkey.
In the estimation of good orthodox Christians, I am a criminal, because I am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a belief in an eternity of grief and pain. I want to tear, break, and scatter to the winds the God that priests erected in the fields of innocent pleasure—a God made of sticks, called creeds, and of old clothes, called myths. I have tried to take from the coffin its horror, from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by the savages of the past. Is it necessary that heaven should borrow its light from the glare of hell? Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases, and pollutes the soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no perfectly good being can be perfectly happy. Against the heartlessness of this doctrine every grand and generous soul should enter its solemn protest. I want no part in any heaven where the saved, the ransomed, and redeemed drown with merry shouts the cries and sobs of hell—in which happiness forgets misery—where the tears of the lost increase laughter and deepen the dimples of joy. The idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. This idea tends to show that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves—only from mouths filled with cruel fangs—only from hearts of fear and hatred—only from the conscience of hunger and lust—only from the lowest and most debased, could come this most cruel, heartless, and absurd of all dogmas.
Our ancestors knew but little of nature. They were too astonished to investigate. They could not divest themselves of the idea that everything happened with reference to them; that they caused storms and earthquakes; that they brought the tempest and the whirlwind; that on account of something they had done, or omitted to do, the lightning of vengeance leaped from the darkened sky. They made up their minds that at least two vast and powerful beings presided over this world; that one was good and the other bad; that both of these beings wished to get control of the souls of men; that they were relentless enemies, eternal foes; that both welcomed recruits and hated deserters; that one offered rewards in this world, and the other in the next. Man saw cruelty and mercy in nature, because he imagined that phenomena were produced to punish or to reward him. It was supposed that God demanded worship; that he loved to be flattered; that he delighted in sacrifice; that nothing made him happier than to see ignorant faith upon its knees; that above all things he hated and despised doubters and heretics, and regarded investigation as rebellion. Each community felt it a duty to see that the enemies of God were converted or killed. To allow a heretic to live in peace was to invite the wrath of God. Every public evil—every misfortune—was accounted for by something the community had permitted or done. When epidemics appeared, brought by ignorance and welcomed by filth, the heretic was brought out and sacrificed to appease the anger of God. By putting intention behind what man called good, God was produced. By putting intention behind what man called bad, the Devil was created. Leave this "intention" out, and gods and devils fade away. If not a human being existed, the sun would continue to shine, and tempest now and then would devastate the earth; the rain would fall in pleasant showers; violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the sun, the earthquake would devour, birds would sing and daisies bloom and roses blush, and volcanoes fill the heavens with their lurid glare; the procession of the seasons would not be broken, and the stars would shine as serenely as though the world were filled with loving hearts and happy homes. Do not imagine that the doctrine of eternal revenge belongs to Christianity alone. Nearly all religions have had this dogma for a corner-stone. Upon this burning foundation nearly all have built. Over the abyss of pain rose the glittering dome of pleasure. This world was regarded as one of trial. Here, a God of infinite wisdom experimented with man. Between the outstretched paws of the Infinite, the mouse—man—was allowed to play. Here, man had the opportunity of hearing priests and kneeling in temples. Here, he could read, and hear read, the sacred books. Here, he could have the example of the pious and the counsels of the holy. Here, he could build churches and cathedrals. Here, he could burn incense, fast, wear hair-cloth, deny himself all the pleasures of life, confess to priests, construct instruments of torture, bow before pictures and images, and persecute all who had the courage to despise superstition, and the goodness to tell their honest thoughts. After death, if he died out of the church, nothing could be done to make him better. When he should come into the presence of God, nothing was left except to damn him. Priests might convert him here, but God could do nothing there. All of which shows how much more a priest can do for a soul than its creator. Only here, on the earth, where the devil is constantly active, only where his agents attack every soul, is there the slightest hope of moral improvement. Strange! that a world cursed by God, filled with temptations, and thick with fiends, should be the only place where man can repent, the only place where reform is possible!
Masters frightened slaves with the threat of hell, and slaves got a kind of shadowy revenge by whispering back the threat. The imprisoned imagined a hell for their gaolers; the weak built this place for the strong; the arrogant for their rivals; the vanquished for their victors; the priest for the thinker; religion for reason; superstition for science. All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed, and bore fruit in this one word—Hell. For the nourishment of this dogma, cruelty was soil, ignorance was rain, and fear was light.
Why did Mr. Black fail to answer what I said in relation to the doctrine of inspiration? Did he consider that a "metaphysical question"? Let us see what inspiration really is. A man looks at the sea, and the sea says something to him. It makes an impression on his mind. It awakens memory, and this impression depends upon his experience—upon his intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a different brain; he has a different experience. The sea may speak to him of joy, to the other of grief and tears. The sea cannot tell the same thing to any two human beings, because no two human beings have had the same experience. One may think of wreck and ruin, and another, while listening to the "multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: Every drop has visited all the shores of earth; every one has been frozen in the vast and icy North, has fallen in snow, has whirled in storms around the mountain peaks, been kissed to vapor by the sun, worn the seven-hued robe of light, fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs, and laughed in brooks while lovers wooed upon the banks. Everything in nature tells a different story to all eyes that see and to all ears that hear. So, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a violet, the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we have thought, the more we remember, the more the statue, the star, the painting, the violet has to tell. Nature says to me all that I am capable of understanding—gives all that I can receive. As with star, or flower, or sea, so with a book. A thoughtful man reads Shakespeare. What does he get? All that he has the mind to understand. Let another read him, who knows nothing of the drama, nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get? Almost nothing. Shakespeare has a different story for each reader. He is a world in which each recognizes his acquaintances. The impression that nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea and star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. Leaving out for the moment the impressions gained from ancestors, the hereditary fears and drifts and trends—the natural food of thought must be the impressions made upon the brain by coming in contact through the medium of the senses with what we call the outward world. The brain is natural; its food is natural; the result, thought, must be natural. Of the supernatural we have no conception. Thought may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and denominated unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural. It may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. Above the natural, man cannot rise. There can be deformed ideas, as there are deformed persons. There may be religions monstrous and misshapen, but they were naturally produced. The world is to each man according to each man. It takes the world as it really is and that man to make that man's world.
You may ask, And what of all this? I reply, As with everything in nature, so with the Bible. It has a different story for each reader. Is, then, the Bible a different book to every human being who reads it? It is. Can God, through the Bible, make precisely the same revelation to two persons? He cannot. Why? Because the man who reads is not inspired. God should inspire readers as well as writers.
You may reply: God knew that his book would be understood differently by each one, and intended that it should be understood as it is understood by each. If this is so, then my understanding of the Bible is the real revelation to me. If this is so, I have no right to take the understanding of another. I must take the revelation made to me through my understanding, and by that revelation I must stand. Suppose then, that I read this Bible honestly, fairly, and when I get through am compelled to say, "The book is not true." If this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that God has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not true is the revelation made to me, and by which I am bound. If the book and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and brain do not agree? Either God should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his book. The inspiration of the Bible depends on the credulity of him who reads. There was a time when its geology, its astronomy, its natural history, were thought to be inspired; that time has passed. There was a time when its morality satisfied the men who ruled the world of thought; that time has passed.
Mr. Black, continuing his process of compressing my propositions, attributes to me the following statement: "The gospel of Christ does not satisfy the hunger of the heart." I did not say this. What I did say is: "The dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought, nor satisfy the hunger of the heart." In so far as Christ taught any doctrine in opposition to slavery, in favor of intellectual liberty, upholding kindness, enforcing the practice of justice and mercy, I most cheerfully admit that his teachings should be followed. Such teachings do not need the assistance of miracles. They are not in the region of the supernatural. They find their evidence in the glad response of every honest heart that superstition has not touched and stained. The great question under discussion is, whether the immoral, absurd, and infamous can be established by the miraculous. It cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns the assistance of miracle. That which actually happens sets in motion innumerable effects, which, in turn, become causes producing other effects. These are all "witnesses" whose "depositions" continue. What I insist on is, that a miracle cannot be established by human testimony. We have known people to be mistaken. We know that all people will not tell the truth. We have never seen the dead raised. When people assert that they have, we are forced to weigh the probabilities, and the probabilities are on the other side. It will not do to assert that the universe was created, and then say that such creation was miraculous, and, therefore, all miracles are possible. We must be sure of our premises. Who knows that the universe was created? If it was not; if it has existed from eternity; if the present is the necessary child of all the past, then the miraculous is the impossible. Throw away all the miracles of the New Testament, and the good teachings of Christ remain—all that is worth preserving will be there still. Take from what is now known as Christianity the doctrine of the atonement, the fearful dogma of eternal punishment, the absurd idea that a certain belief is necessary to salvation, and with most of the remainder the good and intelligent will most heartily agree.
Mr. Black attributes to me the following expression: "Christianity is pernicious in its moral effect, darkens the mind, narrows the soul, arrests the progress of human society, and hinders civilization." I said no such thing. Strange, that he is only able to answer what I did not say. I endeavored to show that the passages in the Old Testament upholding slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious intolerance had filled the world with blood and crime. I admitted that there are many wise and good things in the Old Testament. I also insisted that the doctrine of the atonement—that is to say, of moral bankruptcy—the idea that a certain belief is necessary to salvation, and the frightful dogma of eternal pain, had narrowed the soul, had darkened the mind, and had arrested the progress of human society. Like other religions, Christianity is a mixture of good and evil. The church has made more orphans than it has fed. It has never built asylums enough to hold the insane of its own making. It has shed more blood than light.
Mr. Black seems to think that miracles are the most natural things imaginable, and wonders that anybody should be insane enough to deny the probability of the impossible. He regards all who doubt the miraculous origin, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, as afflicted with some "error of the moon," and declares that their "disbelief seems like a kind of insanity."
To ask for evidence is not generally regarded as a symptom of a brain diseased. Delusions, illusions, phantoms, hallucinations, apparitions, chimeras, and visions are the common property of the religious and the insane. Persons blessed with sound minds and healthy bodies rely on facts, not fancies—on demonstrations instead of dreams. It seems to me that the most orthodox Christians must admit that many of the miracles recorded in the New Testament are extremely childish. They must see that the miraculous draught of fishes, changing water into wine, fasting for forty days, inducing devils to leave an insane man by allowing them to take possession of swine, walking on the water, and using a fish for a pocket-book, are all unworthy of an infinite being, and are calculated to provoke laughter—to feed suspicion and engender doubt.
Mr. Black takes the ground that if a man believes in the creation of the universe—that being the most stupendous miracle of which the mind can conceive—he has no right to deny anything. He asserts that God created the universe; that creation was a miracle; that "God would be likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures who were required to obey it," and that he would authenticate his revelation by giving his prophets and apostles supernatural power.
After making these assertion, he triumphantly exclaims: "It therefore follows that the improbability of a miracle is no greater than the original improbability of a revelation, and that is not improbable at all."
How does he know that God made the universe? How does he know what God would be likely to do? How does he know that any revelation was made? And how did he ascertain that any of the apostles and prophets were entrusted with supernatural power? It will not do to prove your premises by assertions, and then claim that your conclusions are correct, because they agree with your premises.
If "God would be likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures who were required to obey it," why did he reveal it only to the Jews? According to Mr. Black, God is the only natural thing in the universe.
We should remember that ignorance is the mother of credulity; that the early Christians believed everything but the truth, and that they accepted Paganism, admitted the reality of all the Pagan miracles—taking the ground that they were all forerunners of their own. Pagan miracles were never denied by the Christian world until late in the seventeenth century. Voltaire was the third man of note in Europe who denied the truth of Greek and Roman mythology. "The early Christians cited Pagan oracles predicting in detail the sufferings of Christ. They forged prophecies, and attributed them to the heathen sibyls, and they were accepted as genuine by the entire church."
St. Irenæus assures us that all Christians possessed the power of working miracles; that they prophesied, cast out devils, healed the sick, and even raised the dead. St. Epiphanius asserts that some rivers and fountains were annually transmuted into wine, in attestation of the miracle of Cana, adding that he himself had drunk of these fountains. St. Augustine declares that one was told in a dream where the bones of St. Stephen were buried, that the bones were thus discovered, and brought to Hippo, and that they raised five dead persons to life, and that in two years seventy miracles were performed with these relics. Justin Martyr states that God once sent some angels to guard the human race, that these angels fell in love with the daughters of men, and became the fathers of innumerable devils.
For hundreds of years, miracles were about the only things that happened. They were wrought by thousands of Christians, and testified to by millions. The saints and martyrs, the best and greatest, were the witnesses and workers of wonders. Even heretics, with the assistance of the devil, could suspend the "laws of nature." Must we believe these wonderful accounts because they were written by "good men," by Christians, "who made their statements in the presence and expectation of death"? The truth is that these "good men" were mistaken. They expected the miraculous. They breathed the air of the marvelous. They fed their minds on prodigies, and their imaginations feasted on effects without causes. They were incapable of investigating. Doubts were regarded as "rude disturbers of the congregation." Credulity and sanctity walked hand in hand. Reason was danger. Belief was safety. As the philosophy of the ancients was rendered almost worthless by the credulity of the common people, so the proverbs of Christ, his religion of forgiveness, his creed of kindness, were lost in the mist of miracle and the darkness of superstition.
If Mr. Black is right, there were no virtue, justice, intellectual liberty, moral elevation, refinement, benevolence, or true wisdom, until Christianity was established. He asserts that when Christ came, "benevolence, in any shape, was altogether unknown."
He insists that "the infallible God who authorized slavery in Judea" established a government; that he was the head and king of the Jewish people; that for this reason heresy was treason. Is it possible that God established a government in which benevolence was unknown? How did it happen that he established no asylums for the insane? How do you account for the fact that your God permitted some of his children to become insane? Why did Jehovah fail to establish hospitals and schools? Is it reasonable to believe that a good God would assist his chosen people to exterminate or enslave his other children? Why would your God people a world, knowing that it would be destitute of benevolence for four thousand years? Jehovah should have sent missionaries to the heathen. He ought to have reformed the inhabitants of Canaan. He should have sent teachers, not soldiers—missionaries, not murderers. A God should not exterminate his children; he should reform them.
Mr. Black gives us a terrible picture of the condition of the world at the coming of Christ; but did the God of Judea treat his own children, the Gentiles, better than the Pagans treated theirs? When Rome enslaved mankind—when with her victorious armies she sought to conquer or to exterminate tribes and nations, she but followed the example of Jehovah. Is it true that benevolence came with Christ, and that his coming heralded the birth of pity in the human heart? Does not Mr. Black know that, thousands of years before Christ was born, there were hospitals and asylums for orphans in China? Does he not know that in Egypt, before Moses lived, the insane were treated with kindness and wooed back to natural thought by music's golden voice? Does he not know that in all times, and in all countries, there have been great and loving souls who wrought, and toiled, and suffered, and died that others might enjoy? Is it possible that he knows nothing of the religion of Buddha—a religion based upon equality, charity and forgiveness? Does he not know that, centuries before the birth of the great Peasant of Palestine, another, upon the plains of India, had taught the doctrine of forgiveness; and that, contrary to the tyranny of Jehovah, had given birth to the sublime declaration that all men are by nature free and equal? Does he not know that a religion of absolute trust in God had been taught thousands of years before Jerusalem was built—a religion based upon absolute special providence, carrying its confidence to the extremest edge of human thought, declaring that every evil is a blessing in disguise, and that every step taken by mortal man, whether in the rags of poverty or the royal robes of kings, is the step necessary to be taken by that soul in order to reach perfection and eternal joy? But how is it possible for a man who believes in slavery to have the slightest conception of benevolence, justice or charity? If Mr. Black is right, even Christ believed and taught that man could buy and sell his fellow-man. Will the Christians of America admit this? Do they believe that Christ from heaven's throne mocked when colored mothers, reft of babes, knelt by empty cradles and besought his aid?
For the man Christ—for the reformer who loved his fellow-men—for the man who believed in an Infinite Father, who would shield the innocent and protect the just—for the martyr who expected to be rescued from the cruel cross, and who at last, finding that his hope was dust, cried out in the gathering gloom of death: "My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?"—for that great and suffering man, mistaken though he was, I have the highest admiration and respect. That man did not, as I believe, claim a miraculous origin; he did not pretend to heal the sick nor raise the dead. He claimed simply to be a man, and taught his fellow-men that love is stronger far than hate. His life was written by reverent ignorance. Loving credulity belittled his career with feats of jugglery and magic art, and priests, wishing to persecute and slay, put in his mouth the words of hatred and revenge. The theological Christ is the impossible union of the human and divine—man with the attributes of God, and God with the limitations and weaknesses of man.
After giving a terrible description of the Pagan world, Mr. Black says: "The church came, and her light penetrated the moral darkness like a new sun; she covered the globe with institutions of mercy."
Is this true? Do we not know that when the Roman empire fell, darkness settled on the world? Do we not know that this darkness lasted for a thousand years, and that during all that time the church of Christ held, with bloody hands, the sword of power? These years were the starless midnight of our race. Art died, law was forgotten, toleration ceased to exist, charity fled from the human breast, and justice was unknown. Kings were tyrants, priests were pitiless, and the poor multitude were slaves. In the name of Christ, men made instruments of torture, and the auto da fê took the place of the gladiatorial show. Liberty was in chains, honesty in dungeons, while Christian superstition ruled mankind. Christianity compromised with Paganism. The statues of Jupiter were used to represent Jehovah. Isis and her babe were changed to Mary and the infant Christ. The Trinity of Egypt became the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The simplicity of the early Christians was lost in heathen rites and Pagan pomp. The believers in the blessedness of poverty became rich, avaricious, and grasping, and those who had said, "Sell all, and give to the poor," became the ruthless gatherers of tithes and taxes. In a few years the teachings of Jesus were forgotten. The gospels were interpolated by the designing and ambitious. The church was infinitely corrupt. Crime was crowned, and virtue scourged. The minds of men were saturated with superstition. Miracles, apparitions, angels, and devils had possession of the world. "The nights were filled with incubi and succubi; devils', clad in wondrous forms, and imps in hideous shapes, sought to tempt or fright the soldiers of the cross. The maddened spirits of the air sent hail and storm. Sorcerers wrought sudden death, and witches worked with spell and charm against the common weal." In every town the stake arose. Faith carried fagots to the feet of philosophy. Priests—not "politicians"—fed and fanned the eager flames. The dungeon was the foundation of the cathedral.
Priests sold charms and relics to their flocks to keep away the wolves of hell. Thousands of Christians, failing to find protection in the church, sold their poor souls to Satan for some magic wand. Suspicion sat in every house, families were divided, wives denounced husbands, husbands denounced wives, and children their parents. Every calamity then, as now, increased the power of the church. Pestilence supported the' pulpit, and famine was the right hand of faith. Christendom was insane.
Will Mr. Black be kind enough to state at what time "the church covered the globe with institutions of mercy"? In his reply, he conveys the impression that these institutions were organized in the first century, or at least in the morning of Christianity. How many hospitals for the sick were established by the church during a thousand years? Do we not know that for hundreds of years the Mohammedans erected more hospitals and asylums than the Christians? Christendom was filled with racks and thumbscrews, with stakes and fagots, with chains and dungeons, for centuries before a hospital was built. Priests despised doctors. Prayer was medicine. Physicians interfered with the sale of charms and relics. The church did not cure—it killed. It practiced surgery with the sword. The early Christians did not build asylums for the insane. They charged them with witchcraft, and burnt them. They built asylums, not for the mentally diseased, but for the mentally developed. These asylums were graves.
All the languages of the world have not words of horror enough to paint the agonies of man when the church had power. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Domitian, and Commodus were not as cruel, false, and base as many of the Christians Popes. Opposite the names of these imperial criminals write John the XII., Leo the VIII., Boniface the VII., Benedict the IX., Innocent the III., and Alexander the VI.
Was it under these pontiffs that the "church penetrated the moral darkness like a new sun," and covered the globe with institutions of mercy? Rome was far better when Pagan than when Catholic. It was better to allow gladiators and criminals to fight than to burn honest men. The greatest of the Romans denounced the cruelties of the arena. Seneca condemned the combats even of wild beasts. He was tender enough to say that "we should have a bond of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering." Aurelius compelled the gladiators to fight with blunted swords. Roman lawyers declared that all men are by nature free and equal. Woman, under Pagan rule in Rome, became as free as man. Zeno, long before the birth of Christ, taught that virtue alone establishes a difference between men. We know that the Civil Law is the foundation of our codes. We know that fragments of Greek and Roman art—a few manuscripts saved from Christian destruction, some inventions and discoveries of the Moors—were the seeds of modern civilization. Christianity, for a thousand years, taught memory to forget and reason to believe. Not one step was taken in advance. Over the manuscripts of philosophers and poets, priests with their ignorant tongues thrust out, devoutly scrawled the forgeries of faith. For a thousand years the torch of progress was extinguished in the blood of Christ, and his disciples, moved by ignorant zeal, by insane, cruel creeds, destroyed with flame and sword a hundred millions of their fellow-men. They made this world a hell. But if cathedrals had been universities—if dungeons of the Inquisition had been laboratories—if Christians had believed in character instead of creed—if they had taken from the Bible all the good and thrown away the wicked and absurd—if domes of temples had been observatories—if priests had been philosophers—if missionaries had taught the useful arts—if astrology had been astronomy—if the black art had been chemistry—if superstition had been science—if religion had been humanity—it' would have been a heaven filled with love, with liberty, and joy.
We did not get our freedom from the church. The great truth, that all men are by nature free, was never told on Sinai's barren crags, nor by the lonely shores of Galilee.
The Old Testament filled this world with tyranny and crime, and the New gives us a future filled with pain for nearly all the sons of men. The Old describes the hell of the past, and the New the hell of the future. The Old tells us the frightful things that God has done—the New the cruel things that he will do. These two books give us the sufferings of the past and future—the injustice, the agony, the tears of both worlds. If the Bible is true—if Jehovah is God—if the lot of countless millions is to be eternal pain—better a thousand times that all the constellations of the shoreless vast were eyeless darkness and eternal space. Better that all that is should cease to be. Better that all the seeds and springs of things should fail and wither from great Nature's realm. Better that causes and effects should lose relation and become unmeaning phrases and forgotten sounds. Better that every life should change to breathless death, to voiceless blank, and every world to blind oblivion and to moveless naught.
Mr. Black justifies all the crimes and horrors, excuses all the tortures of all the Christian years, by denouncing the cruelties of the French Revolution. Thinking people will not hasten to admit that an infinitely good being authorized slavery in Judea, because of the atrocities of the French Revolution. They will remember the sufferings of the Huguenots. They will remember the massacre of St. Bartholomew. They will not forget the countless cruelties of priest and king. They will not forget the dungeons of the Bastile. They will know that the Revolution was an effect, and that liberty was not the cause—that atheism was not the cause. Behind the Revolution they will see altar and throne—sword and fagot—palace and cathedral—king and priest—master and slave—tyrant and hypocrite. They will see that the excesses, the cruelties, and crimes were but the natural fruit of seeds the church had sown. But the Revolution was not entirely evil. Upon that cloud of war, black with the myriad miseries of a thousand years, dabbled with blood of king and queen, of patriot and priest, there was this bow: "Beneath the flag of France all men are free." In spite of all the blood and crime, in spite of deeds that seem insanely base, the People placed upon a Nation's brow these stars:—Liberty, Fraternity, Equality—grander words than ever issued from Jehovah's lips.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Dear Sir: I am glad that I know you, even though some of my brethren look upon you as a monster because of your unbelief. I shall never forget the long evening I spent at your house in Washington; and in what I have to say, however it may fail to convince you, I trust you will feel that I have not shown myself unworthy of your courtesy or confidence.
Your conversation, then and at other times, interested me greatly. I recognized at once the elements of your power over large audiences, in your wit and dramatic talent—personating characters and imitating tones of voice and expressions of countenance—and your remarkable use of language, which even in familiar talk often rose to a high degree of eloquence. All this was a keen intellectual stimulus. I was, for the most part, a listener; but as we talked freely of religious matters, I protested against your unbelief as utterly without reason. Yet there was no offence given or taken, and we parted, I trust, with a feeling of mutual respect.
Still further, we found many points of sympathy. I do not hesitate to say that there are many things in which I agree with you, in which I love what you love and hate what you hate. A man's hatreds are not the least important part of him; they are among the best indications of his character. You love truth, and hate lying and hypocrisy—all the petty arts and deceits of the world by which men represent themselves to be other than they are—as well as the pride and arrogance, in which they assume superiority over their fellow-beings. Above all, you hate every form of injustice and oppression. Nothing moves your indignation so much as "man's inhumanity to man," and you mutter "curses, not loud but deep," on the whole race of tyrants and oppressors, whom you would sweep from the face of the earth. And yet, you do not hate oppression more than I; nor love liberty more. Nor will I admit that you have any stronger desire for that intellectual freedom, to the attainment of which you look forward as the last and greatest emancipation of mankind.
Nor have you a greater horror of superstition. Indeed, I might say that you cannot have so great, for the best of all reasons, that you have not seen so much of it; you have not stood on the banks of the Ganges, and seen the Hindoos by tens of thousands rushing madly to throw themselves into the sacred river, even carrying the ashes of their dead to cast them upon the waters. It seems but yesterday that I was sitting on the back of an elephant, looking down on this horrible scene of human degradation. Such superstition overthrows the very foundations of morality. In place of the natural sense of right and wrong, which is written in men's consciences and hearts, it introduces an artificial standard, by which the order of things is totally reversed: right is made wrong, and wrong is made right. It makes that a virtue which is not a virtue, and that a crime which is not a crime. Religion consists in a round of observances that have no relation whatever to natural goodness, but which rather exclude it by being a substitute for it. Penances and pilgrimages take the place of justice and mercy, benevolence and charity. Such a religion, so far from being a purifier, is the greatest corrupter of morals; so that it is no extravagance to say of the Hindoos, who are a gentle race, that they might be virtuous and good if they were not so religious. But this colossal superstition weighs upon their very existence, crushing out even natural virtue. Such a religion is an immeasurable curse.
I hope this language is strong enough to satisfy even your own intense hatred of superstition. You cannot loathe it more than I do. So far we agree perfectly. But unfortunately you do not limit your crusade to the religions of Asia, but turn the same style of argument against the religion of Europe and America, and, indeed, against the religious belief and worship of every country and clime. In this matter you make no distinctions: you would sweep them all away; church and cathedral must go with the temple and the pagoda, as alike manifestations of human credulity, and proofs of the intellectual feebleness and folly of mankind. While under the impression of that memorable evening at your house, I took up some of your public addresses, and experienced a strange revulsion of feeling. I could hardly believe my eyes as I read, so inexpressibly was I shocked. Things which I held sacred you not only rejected with unbelief, but sneered at with contempt. Your words were full of a bitterness so unlike anything I had heard from your lips, that I could not reconcile the two, till I reflected that in Robert Ingersoll (as in the most of us) there were two men, who were not only distinct, but contrary the one to the other—the one gentle and sweet-tempered; the other delighting in war as his native element. Between the two, I have a decided preference for the former. I have no dispute with the quiet and peaceable gentleman, whose kindly spirit makes sunshine in his home; but it is that other man over yonder, who comes forth into the arena like a gladiator, defiant and belligerent, that rouses my antagonism. And yet I do not intend to stand up even against him; but if he will only sit down and listen patiently, and answer in those soft tones of voice which he knows so well how to use, we can have a quiet talk, which will certainly do him no harm, while it relieves my troubled mind.
What then is the basis of this religion which you despise? At the foundation of every form of religious faith and worship, is the idea of God. Here you take your stand; you do not believe in God. Of course you do not deny absolutely the existence of a Creative Power: for that would be to assume a knowledge which no human being can possess. How small is the distance that we can see before us! The candle of our intelligence throws its beams but a little way, beyond which the circle of light is compassed by universal darkness. Upon this no one insists more than yourself. I have heard you discourse upon the insignificance of man in a way to put many preachers to shame. I remember your illustration from the myriads of creatures that live on plants, from which you picked out, to represent human insignificance, an insect too small to be seen by the naked eye, whose world was a leaf, and whose life lasted but a single day! Surely a creature that can only be seen with a microscope, cannot know that a Creator does not exist!
This, I must do you the justice to say, you do not affirm. All that you can say is, that if there be no knowledge on one side, neither is there on the other; that it is only a matter of probability; and that, judging from such evidence as appeals to your senses and your understanding, you do not believe that there is a God. Whether this be a reasonable conclusion or not, it is at least an intelligible state of mind.
Now I am not going to argue against what the Catholics call "invincible ignorance"—an incapacity on account of temperament—for I hold that the belief in God, like the belief in all spiritual things, comes to some minds by a kind of intuition. There are natures so finely strung that they are sensitive to influences which do not touch others. You may say that it is mere poetical rhapsody when Shelley writes:
"The awful shadow of some unseen power,
Floats, though unseen, among us."
But there are natures which are not at all poetical or dreamy, only most simple and pure, which, in moments of spiritual exaltation, are almost conscious of a Presence that is not of this world. But this, which is a matter of experience, will have no weight with those who do not have that experience. For the present, therefore, I would not be swayed one particle by mere sentiment, but look at the question in the cold light of reason alone.
The idea of God is, indeed, the grandest and most awful that can be entertained by the human mind. Its very greatness overpowers us, so that it seems impossible that such a Being should exist. But if it is hard to conceive of Infinity, it is still harder to get any intelligible explanation of the present order of things without admitting the existence of an intelligent Creator and Upholder of all. Galileo, when he swept the sky with his telescope, traced the finger of God in every movement of the heavenly bodies. Napoleon, when the French savants on the voyage to Egypt argued that there was no God, disdained any other answer than to point upward to the stars and ask, "Who made all these?" This is the first question, and it is the last. The farther we go, the more we are forced to one conclusion. No man ever studied nature with a more simple desire to know the truth than Agassiz, and yet the more he explored, the more he was startled as he found himself constantly face to face with the evidences of mind.
Do you say this is "a great mystery," meaning that it is something that we do not know anything about? Of course, it is "a mystery." But do you think to escape mystery by denying the Divine existence? You only exchange one mystery for another. The first of all mysteries is, not that God exists, but that we exist. Here we are. How did we come here? We go back to our ancestors; but that does not take away the difficulty; it only removes it farther off. Once begin to climb the stairway of past generations, and you will find that it is a Jacob's ladder, on which you mount higher and higher until you step into the very presence of the Almighty.
But even if we know that there is a God, what can we know of His character? You say, "God is whatever we conceive Him to be." We frame an image of Deity out of our consciousness—it is simply a reflection of our own personality, cast upon the sky like the image seen in the Alps in certain states of the atmosphere—and then fall down and worship that which we have created, not indeed with our hands, but out of our minds. This may be true to some extent of the gods of mythology, but not of the God of Nature, who is as inflexible as Nature itself. You might as well say that the laws of nature are whatever we imagine them to be. But we do not go far before we find that, instead of being pliant to our will, they are rigid and inexorable, and we dash ourselves against them to our own destruction. So God does not bend to human thought any more than to human will. The more we study Him the more we find that He is not what we imagined him to be; that He is far greater than any image of Him that we could frame.
But, after all, you rejoin that the conception of a Supreme Being is merely an abstract idea, of no practical importance, with no bearing upon human life. I answer, it is of immeasurable importance. Let go the idea of God, and you have let go the highest moral restraint. There is no Ruler above man; he is a law unto himself—a law which is as impotent to produce order, and to hold society together, as man is with his little hands to hold the stars in their courses.
I know how you reason against the Divine existence from the moral disorder of the world. The argument is one that takes strong hold of the imagination, and may be used with tremendous effect. You set forth in colors none too strong the injustice that prevails in the relations of men to one another—the inequalities of society; the haughtiness of the rich and the misery of the poor; you draw lurid pictures of the vice and crime which run riot in the great capitals which are the centres of civilization; and when you have wound up your audience to the highest pitch, you ask, "How can it be that there is a just God in heaven, who looks down upon the earth and sees all this horrible confusion, and yet does not lift His hand to avenge the innocent or punish the guilty?" To this I will make but one answer: Does it convince yourself? I do not mean to imply that you are conscious of insincerity. But an orator is sometimes carried away by his own eloquence, and states things more strongly than he would in his cooler moments. So I venture to ask: With all your tendency to skepticism, do you really believe that there is no moral government of the world—no Power behind nature "making for righteousness?" Are there no retributions in history? When Lincoln stood on the field of Gettysburg, so lately drenched with blood, and, reviewing the carnage of that terrible day, accepted it as the punishment of our national sins, was it a mere theatrical flourish in him to lift his hand to heaven, and exclaim, "Just and true are Thy ways, Lord God Almighty!"
Having settled it to your own satisfaction that there is no God, you proceed in the same easy way to dispose of that other belief which lies at the foundation of all religion—the immortality of the soul. With an air of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience by storm, you confess your ignorance of what, perhaps, others are better acquainted with, when you say, "This world is all that I know anything about, so far as I recollect." This is very wittily put, and some may suppose it contains an argument; but do you really mean to say that you do not know anything except what you "recollect," or what you have seen with your eyes? Perhaps you never saw your grandparents; but have you any more doubt of their existence than of that of your father and mother whom you did see?
Here, as when you speak of the existence of God, you carefully avoid any positive affirmation: you neither affirm nor deny. You are ready for whatever may "turn up." In your jaunty style, if you find yourself hereafter in some new and unexpected situation, you will accept it and make the best of it, and be "as ready as the next man to enter on any remunerative occupation!"
But while airing this pleasant fancy, you plainly regard the hope of another life as a beggar's dream—the momentary illusion of one who, stumbling along life's highway, sets him down by the roadside, footsore and weary, cold and hungry, and falls asleep, and dreams of a time when he shall have riches and plenty. Poor creature! let him dream; it helps him to forget his misery, and may give him a little courage for his rude awaking to the hard reality of life. But it is all a dream, which dissolves in thin air, and floats away and disappears. This illustration I do not take from you, but simply choose to set forth what (as I infer from the sentences above quoted and many like expressions) may describe, not unfairly, your state of mind. Your treatment of the subject is one of trifling. You do not speak of it in a serious way, but lightly and flippantly, as if it were all a matter of fancy and conjecture, and not worthy of sober consideration.
Now, does it never occur to you that there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of your fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another life hangs all that relieves the darkness of their present existence? To many of them life is a burden to carry, and they need all the helps to carry it that can be found in reason, in philosophy, or in religion. But what support does your hollow creed supply? You are a man of warm heart, of the tenderest sympathies. Those who know you best, and love you most, tell me that you cannot bear the sight of suffering even in animals; that your natural sensibility is such that you find no pleasure in sports, in hunting or fishing; to shoot a robin would make you feel like a murderer. If you see a poor man in trouble your first impulse is to help him. You cannot see a child in tears but you want to take up the little fellow in your arms, and make him smile again. And yet, with all your sensibility, you hold the most remorseless and pitiless creed in the world—a creed in which there is not a gleam of mercy or of hope. A mother has lost her only son. She goes to his grave and throws herself upon it, the very picture of woe. One thought only keeps her from despair: it is that beyond this life there is a world where she may once more clasp her boy in her arms. What will you say to that mother? You are silent, and your silence is a sentence of death to her hopes. By that grave you cannot speak; for if you were to open your lips and tell that mother what you really believe, it would be that her son is blotted out of existence, and that she can never look upon his face again. Thus with your iron heel do you trample down and crush the last hope of a broken heart.
When such sorrow comes to you, you feel it as keenly as any man. With your strong domestic attachments one cannot pass out of your little circle without leaving a great void in your heart, and your grief is as eloquent as it is hopeless. No sadder words ever fell from human lips than these, spoken over the coffin of one to whom you were tenderly attached: "Life is but a narrow vale, between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities!" This is a doom of annihilation, which strikes a chill to the stoutest heart. Even you must envy the faith which, as it looks upward, sees those "peaks of two eternities," not "cold and barren," but warm with the glow of the setting sun, which gives promise of a happier to-morrow!
I think I hear you say, "So might it be! Would that I could believe it!" for no one recognizes more the emptiness of life as it is. I do not forget the tone in which you said: "Life is very sad to me; it is very pitiful; there isn't much to it." True indeed! With your belief, or want of belief, there is very little to it; and if this were all, it would be a fair question whether life were worth living. In the name of humanity, let us cling to all that is left us that can bring a ray of hope into its darkness, and thus lighten its otherwise impenetrable gloom.
I observe that you not unfrequently entertain yourself and your audiences by caricaturing certain doctrines of the Christian religion. The "Atonement," as you look upon it, is simply "punishing the wrong man"—letting the guilty escape and putting the innocent to death. This is vindicating justice by permitting injustice. But is there not another side to this? Does not the idea of sacrifice run through human life, and ennoble human character? You see a mother denying herself for her children, foregoing every comfort, enduring every hardship, till at last, worn out by her labor and her privation, she folds her hands upon her breast. May it not be said truly that she gives her life for the life of her children? History is full of sacrifice, and it is the best part of history. I will not speak of "the noble army of martyrs," but of heroes who have died for their country or for liberty—what is it but this element of devotion for the good of others that gives such glory to their immortal names? How then should it be thought a thing without reason that a Deliverer of the race should give His life for the life of the world?
So, too, you find a subject for caricature in the doctrine of "Regeneration." But what is regeneration but a change of character shown in a change of life? Is that so very absurd? Have you never seen a drunkard reformed? Have you never seen a man of impure life, who, after running his evil course, had, like the prodigal, "come to himself"—that is, awakened to his shame, and turning from it, come back to the path of purity, and finally regained a true and noble manhood? Probably you would admit this, but say that the change was the result of reflection, and of the man's own strength of will. The doctrine of regeneration only adds to the will of man the power of God. We believe that man is weak, but that God is mighty; and that when man tries to raise himself, an arm is stretched out to lift him up to a height which he could not attain alone. Sometimes one who has led the worst life, after being plunged into such remorse and despair that he feels as if he were enduring the agonies of hell, turns back and takes another course: he becomes "a new creature," whom his friends can hardly recognize as he "sits clothed and in his right mind." The change is from darkness to light, from death to life; and he who has known but one such case will never say that the language is too strong which describes that man as "born again."
If you think that I pass lightly over these doctrines, not bringing out all the meaning which they bear, I admit it. I am not writing an essay in theology, but would only show, in passing, by your favorite method of illustration, that the principles involved are the same with which you are familiar in everyday life.
But the doctrine which excites your bitterest animosity is that of Future Retribution. The prospect of another life, reaching on into an unknown futurity, you would contemplate with composure were it not for the dark shadow hanging over it. But to live only to suffer; to live when asking to die; to "long for death, and not be able to find it"—is a prospect which arouses the anger of one who would look with calmness upon death as an eternal sleep. The doctrine loses none of its terrors in passing through your hands; for it is one of the means by which you work upon the feelings of your hearers. You pronounce it "the most horrible belief that ever entered the human mind: that the Creator should bring beings into existence to destroy them! This would make Him the most fearful tyrant in the universe—a Moloch devouring his own children!" I shudder when I recall the fierce energy with which you spoke as you said, "Such a God I hate with all the intensity of my being!"
But gently, gently, Sir! We will let this burst of fury pass before we resume the conversation. When you are a little more tranquil, I would modestly suggest that perhaps you are fighting a figment of your imagination. I never heard of any Christian teacher who said that "the Creator brought beings into the world to destroy them!" Is it not better to moderate yourself to exact statements, especially when, with all modifications, the subject is one to awaken a feeling the most solemn and profound?
Now I am not going to enter into a discussion of this doctrine. I will not quote a single text. I only ask you whether it is not a scientific truth that the effect of everything which is of the nature of a cause is eternal. Science has opened our eyes to some very strange facts in nature. The theory of vibrations is carried by the physicists to an alarming extent. They tell us that it is literally and mathematically true that you cannot throw a ball in the air but it shakes the solar system. Thus all things act upon all. What is true in space may be true in time, and the law of physics may hold in the spiritual realm. When the soul of man departs out of the body, being released from the grossness of the flesh, it may enter on a life a thousand times more intense than this: in which it will not need the dull senses as avenues of knowledge, because the spirit itself will be all eye, all ear, all intelligence; while memory, like an electric flash, will in an instant bring the whole of the past into view; and the moral sense will be quickened as never before. Here then we have all the conditions of retribution—a world which, however shadowy it may be seem, is yet as real as the homes and habitations and activities of our present state; with memory trailing the deeds of a lifetime behind it, and conscience, more inexorable than any judge, giving its solemn and final verdict.
With such conditions assumed, let us take a case which would awaken your just indignation—that of a selfish, hardhearted, and cruel man; who sacrifices the interests of everybody to his own; who grinds the faces of the poor, robbing the widow and the orphan of their little all; and who, so far from making restitution, dies with his ill-gotten gains held fast in his clenched hand. How long must the night be to sleep away the memory of such a hideous life? If he wakes, will not the recollection cling to him still? Are there any waters of oblivion that can cleanse his miserable soul? If not—if he cannot forget—surely he cannot forgive himself for the baseness which now he has no opportunity to repair. Here, then, is a retribution which is inseparable from his being, which is a part of his very existence. The undying memory brings the undying pain.
Take another case—alas! too sadly frequent. A man of pleasure betrays a young, innocent, trusting woman by the promise of his love, and then casts her off, leaving her to sink down, down, through every degree of misery and shame, till she is lost in depths, which plummet never sounded, and disappears. Is he not to suffer for this poor creature's ruin? Can he rid himself of it by fleeing beyond "that bourne from whence no traveler returns"? Not unless he can flee from himself: for in the lowest depths of the under-world—a world in which the sun never shines—that image will still pursue him. As he wanders in its gloomy shades a pale form glides by him like an affrighted ghost. The face is the same, beautiful even in its sorrow, but with a look upon it as of one who has already suffered an eternity of woe. In an instant all the past comes back again. He sees the young, unblessed mother wandering in some lonely place, that only the heavens may witness her agony and her despair. There he sees her holding up in her arms the babe that had no right to be born, and calling upon God to judge her betrayer. How far in the future must he travel to forget that look? Is there any escape except by plunging into the gulf of annihilation?
Thus far in this paper I have taken a tone of defence. But I do not admit that the Christian religion needs any apology,—it needs only to be rightly understood to furnish its own complete vindication. Instead of considering its "evidences," which is but going round the outer walls, let us enter the gates of the temple and see what is within. Here we find something better than "towers and bulwarks" in the character of Him who is the Founder of our Religion, and not its Founder only but its very core and being. Christ is Christianity. Not only is He the Great Teacher, but the central subject of what He taught, so that the whole stands or falls with Him.
In our first conversation, I observed that, with all your sharp comments on things sacred, you professed great respect for the ethics of Christianity, and for its author. "Make the Sermon on the Mount your religion," you said, "and there I am with you." Very well! So far, so good. And now, if you will go a little further, you may find still more food for reflection.
All who have made a study of the character and teachings of Christ, even those who utterly deny the supernatural, stand in awe and wonder before the gigantic figure which is here revealed. Renan closes his "Life of Jesus" with this as the result of his long study: "Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will be renewed without ceasing; his story [légende] will draw tears from beautiful eyes without end; his sufferings will touch the finest natures; all the ages will proclaim
THAT AMONG THE SONS OF MEN THERE HAS NOT RISEN A GREATER THAN JESUS;"
while Rousseau closes his immortal eulogy by saying, "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God!"
Here is an argument for Christianity to which I pray you to address yourself. As you do not believe in miracles, and are ready to explain everything by natural causes, I beg you to tell us how came it to pass that a Hebrew peasant, born among the hills of Judea, had a wisdom above that of Socrates or Plato, of Confucius or Buddha? This is the greatest of miracles, that such a Being has lived and died on the earth.
Since this is the chief argument for Religion, does it not become one who undertakes to destroy it to set himself first to this central position, instead of wasting his time on mere outposts? When you next address one of the great audiences that hang upon your words, is it unfair to ask that you lay aside such familiar topics as Miracles or Ghosts, or a reply to Talmage, and tell us what you think of Jesus Christ; whether you look upon Him as an impostor, or merely as a dreamer—a mild and harmless enthusiast; or are you ready to acknowledge that He is entitled to rank among the great teachers of mankind?
But if you are compelled to admit the greatness of Christ, you take your revenge on the Apostles, whom you do not hesitate to say that you "don't think much of." In fact, you set them down in a most peremptory way as "a poor lot." It did seem rather an unpromising "lot," that of a boat-load of fishermen, from which to choose the apostles of a religion—almost as unpromising as it was to take a rail-splitter to be the head of a nation in the greatest crisis of its history! But perhaps in both cases there was a wisdom higher than ours, that chose better than we. It might puzzle even you to give a better definition of religion than this of the Apostle James: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world," or to find among those sages of antiquity, with whose writings you are familiar, a more complete and perfect delineation of that which is the essence of all goodness and virtue, than Paul's description of the charity which "suffereth long and is kind;" or to find in the sayings of Confucius or of Buddha anything more sublime than this aphorism of John: "God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."
And here you must allow me to make a remark, which is not intended as a personal retort, but simply in the interest of that truth which we both profess to seek, and to count worth more than victory. Your language is too sweeping to indicate the careful thinker, who measures his words and weighs them in a balance. Your lectures remind me of the pictures of Gustave Doré, who preferred to paint on a large canvas, with figures as gigantesque as those of Michael Angelo in his Last Judgment. The effect is very powerful, but if he had softened his colors a little,—if there were a few delicate touches, a mingling of light and shade, as when twilight is stealing over the earth,—the landscape would be more true to nature. So, believe me, your words would be more weighty if they were not so strong. But whenever you touch upon religion you seem to lose control of yourself, and a vindictive feeling takes possession of you, which causes you to see things so distorted from their natural appearance that you cannot help running into the broadest caricature. You swing your sentences as the woodman swings his axe. Of course, this "slashing" style is very effective before a popular audience, which does not care for nice distinctions, or for evidence that has to be sifted and weighed; but wants opinions off hand, and likes to have its prejudices and hatreds echoed back in a ringing voice. This carries the crowd, but does not convince the philosophic mind. The truth-seeker cannot cut a road through the forest with sturdy blows; he has a hidden path to trace, and must pick his way with slow and cautious step to find that which is more precious than gold.
But if it were possible for you to sweep away the "evidences of Christianity," you have not swept away Christianity itself; it still lives, not only in tradition, but in the hearts of the people, entwined with all that is sweetest in their domestic life, from which it must be torn out with unsparing hand before it can be exterminated. To begin with, you turn your back upon history. All that men have done and suffered for the sake of religion was folly. The Pilgrims, who crossed the sea to find freedom to worship God in the forests of the New World, were miserable fanatics. There is no more place in the world for heroes and martyrs. He who sacrifices his life for a faith, or an idea, is a fool. The only practical wisdom is to have a sharp eye to the main chance. If you keep on in this work of demolition, you will soon destroy all our ideals. Family life withers under the cold sneer—half pity and half scorn—with which you look down on household worship. Take from our American firesides such scenes as that pictured in the Cotter's Saturday Night, and you have taken from them their most sacred hours and their tenderest memories.
The same destructive spirit which intrudes into our domestic as well as our religious life, would take away the beauty of our villages as well as the sweetness of our homes. In the weary round of a week of toil, there comes an interval of rest; the laborer lays down his burden, and for a few hours breathes a serener air. The Sabbath morning has come:
"Sweet day I so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky."
At the appointed hour the bell rings across the valley, and sends its echoes among the hills; and from all the roads the people come trooping to the village church. Here they gather, old and young, rich and poor; and as they join in the same act of worship, feel that God is the maker of them all? Is there in our national life any influence more elevating than this—one which tends more to bring a community together; to promote neighborly feeling; to refine the manners of the people; to breed true courtesy, and all that makes a Christian village different from a cluster of Indian wigwams—a civilized community different from a tribe of savages?
All this you would destroy: you would abolish the Sabbath, or have it turned into a holiday; you would tear down the old church, so full of tender associations of the living and the dead, or at least have it "razeed," cutting off the tall spire that points upward to heaven; and the interior you would turn into an Assembly room—a place of entertainment, where the young people could have their merry-makings, except perchance in the warm' Summer-time, when they could dance on the village green! So far you would have gained your object. But would that be a more orderly community, more refined or more truly happy?
You may think this a mere sentiment—that we care more for the picturesque than for the true. But there is one result which is fearfully real: the destructive creed, or no creed, which despoils our churches and our homes, attacks society in its first principles by taking away the support of morality. I do not believe that general morality can be upheld without the sanctions of religion. There may be individuals of great natural force of character, who can stand alone—men of superior intellect and strong will. But in general human nature is weak, and virtue is not the spontaneous growth of childish innocence. Men do not become pure and good by instinct. Character, like mind, has to be developed by education; and it needs all the elements of strength which can be given it, from without as well as from within, from the government of man and the government of God. To let go of these restraints is a peril to public morality.
You feel strong in the strength of a robust manhood, well poised in body and mind, and in the centre of a happy home, where loving hearts cling to you like vines round the oak. But many to whom you speak are quite otherwise. You address thousands of young men who have come out of country homes, where they have been brought up in the fear of God, and have heard the morning and evening prayer. They come into a city full of temptations, but are restrained from evil by the thought of father and mother, and reverence for Him who is the Father of us all—a feeling which, though it may not have taken the form of any profession, is yet at the bottom of their hearts, and keeps them from many a wrong and wayward step. A young man, who is thus "guarded and defended" as by unseen angels, some evening when he feels very lonely, is invited to "go and hear Ingersoll," and for a couple of hours listens to your caricatures of religion, with descriptions of the prayers and the psalm-singing, illustrated by devout grimaces and nasal tones, which set the house in roars of laughter, and are received with tumultuous applause. When it is all over, and the young man finds himself again under the flaring lamps of the city streets, he is conscious of a change; the faith of his childhood has been rudely torn from him, and with it "a glory has passed away from the earth;" the Bible which his mother gave him, the morning that he came away, is "a mass of fables;" the sentence which she wished him to hang on the wall, "Thou, God, seest me," has lost its power, for there is no God that sees him, no moral government, no law and no retribution. So he reasons as he walks slowly homeward, meeting the temptations which haunt these streets at night—temptations from which he has hitherto turned with a shudder, but which he now meets with a diminished power of resistance. Have you done that young man any good in taking from him what he held sacred before? Have you not left him morally weakened? From sneering at religion, it is but a step to sneering at morality, and then but one step more to a vicious and profligate career. How are you going to stop this downward tendency? When you have stripped him of former restraints, do you leave him anything in their stead, except indeed a sense of honor, self-respect, and self-interest?—worthy motives, no doubt, but all too feeble to withstand the fearful temptations that assail him. Is the chance of his resistance as good as it was before? Watch him as he goes along that street at midnight! He passes by the places of evil resort, of drinking and gambling—those open mouths of hell; he hears the sound of music and dancing, and for the first time pauses to listen. How long will it be before he will venture in?
With such dangers in his path, it is a grave responsibility to loosen the restraints which hold such a young man to virtue. These gibes and sneers which you utter so lightly, may have a sad echo in a lost character and a wretched life. Many a young man has been thus taunted until he has pushed off from the shore, under the idea of gaining his "liberty," and ventured into the rapids, only to be carried down the stream, and left a wreck in the whirlpool below.
You tell me that your object is to drive fear out of the world. That is a noble ambition; if you succeed, you will be indeed a deliverer. Of course you mean only irrational fears. You would not have men throw off the fear of violating the laws of nature; for that would lead to incalculable misery. You aim only at the terrors born of ignorance and superstition. But how are you going to get rid of these? You trust to the progress of science, which has dispelled so many fears arising from physical phenomena, by showing that calamities ascribed to spiritual agencies are explained by natural causes. But science can only go a certain way, beyond which we come into the sphere of the unknown, where all is dark as before. How can you relieve the fears of others—indeed how can you rid yourself of fear, believing as you do that there is no Power above which can help you in any extremity; that you are the sport of accident, and may be dashed in pieces by the blind agency of nature? If I believed this, I should feel that I was in the grasp of some terrible machinery which was crushing me to atoms, with no possibility of escape.
Not so does Religion leave man here on the earth, helpless and hopeless—in abject terror, as he is in utter darkness as to his fate—but opening the heaven above him, it discovers a Great Intelligence, compassing all things, seeing the end from the beginning, and ordering our little lives so that even the trials that we bear, as they call out the finer elements of character, conduce to our future happiness. God is our Father. We look up into His face with childlike confidence, and find that "His service is perfect freedom." "Love casts out fear." That, I beg to assure you, is the way, and the only way, by which man can be delivered from those fears by which he is all his lifetime subject to bondage.
In your attacks upon Religion you do violence to your own manliness. Knowing you as I do, I feel sure that you do not realize where your blows fall, or whom they wound, or you would not use your weapons so freely. The faiths of men are as sacred as the most delicate manly or womanly sentiments of love and honor. They are dear as the beloved faces that have passed from our sight. I should think myself wanting in respect to the memory of my father and mother if I could speak lightly of the faith in which they lived and died. Surely this must be mere thoughtlessness, for I cannot believe that you find pleasure in giving pain. I have not forgotten the gentle hand that was laid upon your shoulder, and the gentle voice which said, "Uncle Robert wouldn't hurt a fly." And yet you bruise the tenderest sensibilities, and trample down what is most cherished by millions of sisters and daughters and mothers, little heeding that you are sporting with "human creatures' lives."
You are waging a hopeless war—a war in which you are certain only of defeat. The Christian Religion began to be nearly two thousand years before you and I were born, and it will live two thousand years after we are dead. Why is it that it lives on and on, while nations and kingdoms perish? Is not this "the survival of the fittest?" Contend against it with all your wit and eloquence, you will fail, as all have failed before you. You cannot fight against the instincts of humanity. It is as natural for men to look up to a Higher Power as it is to look up to the stars. Tell them that there is no God! You might as well tell them that there is no Sun in heaven, even while on that central light and heat all life on earth depends.
I do not presume to, think that I have convinced you, or changed your opinion; but it is always right to appeal to a man's "sober second thought"—to that better judgment that comes with increasing knowledge and advancing years; and I will not give up hope that you will yet see things more clearly, and recognize the mistake you have made in not distinguishing Religion from Superstition—two things as far apart as "the hither from the utmost pole." Superstition is the greatest enemy of Religion. It is the nightmare of the mind, filling it with all imaginable terrors—a black cloud which broods over half the world. Against this you may well invoke the light of science to scatter its darkness. Whoever helps to sweep it away, is a benefactor of his race. But when this is done, and the moral atmosphere is made pure and sweet, then you as well as we may be conscious of a new Presence coming into the hushed and vacant air, as Religion, daughter of the skies, descends to earth to bring peace and good will to men.
Henry M. Field.
"Doubt is called the beacon of the wise."
My Dear Mr. Field:
I answer your letter because it is manly, candid and generous. It is not often that a minister of the gospel of universal benevolence speaks of an unbeliever except in terms of reproach, contempt and hatred. The meek are often malicious. The statement in your letter, that some of your brethren look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief, tends to show that those who love God are not always the friends of their fellow-men.
Is it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be eternally damned, that they are by nature totally depraved, and that there is no soundness or health in them, can be so arrogantly egotistic as to look upon others as "monsters"? And yet "some of your brethren," who regard unbelievers as infamous, rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of another, and expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy.
The first question that arises between us, is as to the innocence of honest error—as to the right to express an honest thought.
You must know that perfectly honest men differ on many important subjects. Some believe in free trade, others are the advocates of protection. There are honest Democrats and sincere Republicans. How do you account for these differences? Educated men, presidents of colleges, cannot agree upon questions capable of solution—questions that the mind can grasp, concerning which the evidence is open to all and where the facts can be with accuracy ascertained. How do you explain this? If such differences can exist consistently with the good faith of those who differ, can you not conceive of honest people entertaining different views on subjects about which nothing can be positively known?
You do not regard me as a monster. "Some of your brethren" do. How do you account for this difference? Of course, your brethren—their hearts having been softened by the Presbyterian God—are governed by charity and love. They do not regard me as a monster because I have committed an infamous crime, but simply for the reason that I have expressed my honest thoughts.
What should I have done? I have read the Bible with great care, and the conclusion has forced itself upon my mind not only that it is not inspired, but that it is not true. Was it my duty to speak or act contrary to this conclusion? Was it my duty to remain silent? If I had been untrue to myself, if I had joined the majority,—if I had declared the book to be the inspired word of God,—would your brethren still have regarded me as a monster? Has religion had control of the world so long that an honest man seems monstrous?
According to your creed—according to your Bible—the same Being who made the mind of man, who fashioned every brain, and sowed within those wondrous fields the seeds of every thought and deed, inspired the Bible's every word, and gave it as a guide to all the world. Surely the book should satisfy the brain. And yet, there are millions who do not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Some of the greatest and best have held the claim of inspiration in contempt. No Presbyterian ever stood higher in the realm of thought than Humboldt. He was familiar with Nature from sands to stars, and gave his thoughts, his discoveries and conclusions, "more precious than the tested gold," to all mankind. Yet he not only rejected the religion of your brethren, but denied the existence of their God. Certainly, Charles Darwin was one of the greatest and purest of men,—as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass,—desiring only to find amid the mists and clouds of ignorance the star of truth. No man ever exerted a greater influence on the intellectual world. His discoveries, carried to their legitimate conclusion, destroy the creeds and sacred Scriptures of mankind. In the light of "Natural Selection," "The Survival of the Fittest," and "The Origin of Species," even the Christian religion becomes a gross and cruel superstition. Yet Darwin was an honest, thoughtful, brave and generous man.
Compare, I beg of you, these men, Humboldt and Darwin, with the founders of the Presbyterian Church. Read the life of Spinoza, the loving pantheist, and then that of John Calvin, and tell me, candidly, which, in your opinion, was a "monster." Even your brethren do not claim that men are to be eternally punished for having been mistaken as to the truths of geology, astronomy, or mathematics. A man may deny the rotundity and rotation of the earth, laugh at the attraction of gravitation, scout the nebular hypothesis, and hold the multiplication table in abhorrence, and yet join at last the angelic choir. I insist upon the same freedom of thought in all departments of human knowledge. Reason is the supreme and final test.
If God has made a revelation to man, it must have been addressed to his reason. There is no other faculty that could even decipher the address. I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night,—blown and flared by passion's storm,—and yet it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.
You draw a distinction between what you are pleased to call "superstition" and religion. You are shocked at the Hindoo mother when she gives her child to death at the supposed command of her God. What do you think of Abraham, of Jephthah? What is your opinion of Jehovah himself? Is not the sacrifice of a child to a phantom as horrible in Palestine as in India? Why should a God demand a sacrifice from man? Why should the infinite ask anything from the finite? Should the sun beg of the glow-worm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light?
You must remember that the Hindoo mother believes that her child will be forever blest—that it will become the especial care of the God to whom it has been given. This is a sacrifice through a false belief on the part of the mother. She breaks her heart for the love of her babe. But what do you think of the Christian mother who expects to be happy in heaven, with her child a convict in the eternal prison—a prison in which none die, and from which none escape? What do you say of those Christians who believe that they, in heaven, will be so filled with ecstasy that all the loved of earth will be forgotten—that all the sacred relations of life, and all the passions of the heart, will fade and die, so that they will look with stony, un-replying, happy eyes upon the miseries of the lost?
You have laid down a rule by which superstition can be distinguished from religion. It is this: "It makes that a crime which is not a crime, and that a virtue which is not a virtue." Let us test your religion by this rule.
Is it a crime to investigate, to think, to reason, to observe? Is it a crime to be governed by that which to you is evidence, and is it infamous to express your honest thought? There is also another question: Is credulity a virtue? Is the open mouth of ignorant wonder the only entrance to Paradise?
According to your creed, those who believe are to be saved, and those who do not believe are to be eternally lost. When you condemn men to everlasting pain for unbelief—that is to say, for acting in accordance with that which is evidence to them—do you not make that a crime which is not a crime? And when you reward men with an eternity of joy for simply believing that which happens to be in accord with their minds, do you not make that a virtue which is not a virtue? In other words, do you not bring your own religion exactly within your own definition of superstition?
The truth is, that no one can justly be held responsible for his thoughts. The brain thinks without asking our consent. We believe, or we disbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the effect of evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of him who watches. There is no opportunity of being honest or dishonest in the formation of an opinion. The conclusion is entirely independent of desire. We must believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what we wish.
That which must be, has the right to be.
We think in spite of ourselves. The brain thinks as the heart beats, as the eyes see, as the blood pursues its course in the old accustomed ways.
The question then is, not have we the right to think,—that being a necessity,—but have we the right to express our honest thoughts? You certainly have the right to express yours, and you have exercised that right. Some of your brethren, who regard me as a monster, have expressed theirs. The question now is, have I the right to express mine? In other words, have I the right to answer your letter? To make that a crime in me which is a virtue in you, certainly comes within your definition of superstition. To exercise a right yourself which you deny to me is simply the act of a tyrant. Where did you get your right to express your honest thoughts? When, and where, and how did I lose mine?
You would not burn, you would not even imprison me, because I differ with you on a subject about which neither of us knows anything. To you the savagery of the Inquisition is only a proof of the depravity of man. You are far better than your creed. You believe that even the Christian world is outgrowing the frightful feeling that fagot, and dungeon, and thumb-screw are legitimate arguments, calculated to convince those upon whom they are used, that the religion of those who use them was founded by a God of infinite compassion. You will admit that he who now persecutes for opinion's sake is infamous. And yet, the God you worship will, according to your creed, torture through all the endless years the man who entertains an honest doubt. A belief in such a God is the foundation and cause of all religious persecution. You may reply that only the belief in a false God causes believers to be inhuman. But you must admit that the Jews believed in the true God, and you are forced to say that they were so malicious, so cruel, so savage, that they crucified the only Sinless Being who ever lived. This crime was Committed, not in spite of their religion, but in accordance with it. They simply obeyed the command of Jehovah. And the followers of this Sinless Being, who, for all these centuries, have denounced the cruelty of the Jews for crucifying a man on account of his opinion, have destroyed millions and millions of their fellow-men for differing with them. And this same Sinless Being threatens to torture in eternal fire countless myriads for the same offence. Beyond this, inconsistency cannot go. At this point absurdity becomes infinite.
Your creed transfers the Inquisition to another world, making it eternal. Your God becomes, or rather is, an infinite Torquemada, who denies to his countless victims even the mercy of death. And this you call "a consolation."
You insist that at the foundation of every religion is the idea of God. According to your creed, all ideas of God, except those entertained by those of your faith, are absolutely false. You are not called upon to defend the Gods of the nations dead; nor the Gods of heretics. It is your business to defend the God of the Bible—the God of the Presbyterian Church. When in the ranks doing battle for your creed, you must wear the uniform of your church. You dare not say that it is sufficient to insure the salvation of a soul to believe in a god, or in some god. According to your creed, man must believe in your God. All the nations dead believed in gods, and all the worshipers of Zeus, and Jupiter, and Isis, and Osiris, and Brahma prayed and sacrificed in vain. Their petitions were not answered, and their souls were not saved. Surely you do not claim that it is sufficient to believe in any one of the heathen gods.
What right have you to occupy the position of the deists, and to put forth arguments that even Christians have answered? The deist denounced the God of the Bible because of his cruelty, and at the same time lauded the God of Nature. The Christian replied that the God of Nature was as cruel as the God of the Bible. This answer was complete.
I feel that you are entitled to the admission that none have been, that none are, too ignorant, too degraded, to believe in the supernatural; and I freely give you the advantage of this admission. Only a few—and they among the wisest, noblest, and purest of the human race—have regarded all gods as monstrous myths. Yet a belief in "the true God" does not seem to make men charitable or just. For most people, theism is the easiest solution of the universe. They are satisfied with saying that there must be a Being who created and who governs the world. But the universality of a belief does not tend to establish its truth. The belief in the existence of a malignant Devil has been as universal as the belief in a beneficent God, yet few intelligent men will say that the universality of this belief in an infinite demon even tends to prove his existence. In the world of thought, majorities count for nothing. Truth has always dwelt with the few.
Man has filled the world with impossible monsters, and he has been the sport and prey of these phantoms born of ignorance and hope and fear. To appease the wrath of these monsters man has sacrificed his fellow-man. He has shed the blood of wife and child; he has fasted and prayed; he has suffered beyond the power of language to express, and yet he has received nothing from these gods—they have heard no supplication, they have answered no prayer.
You may reply that your God "sends his rain on the just and on the unjust," and that this fact proves that he is merciful to all alike. I answer, that your God sends his pestilence on the just and on the unjust—that his earthquakes devour and his cyclones rend and wreck the loving and the vicious, the honest and the criminal. Do not these facts prove that your God is cruel to all alike? In other words, do they not demonstrate the absolute impartiality of divine negligence?
Do you not believe that any honest man of average intelligence, having absolute control of the rain, could do vastly better than is being done? Certainly there would be no droughts or floods; the crops would not be permitted to wither and die, while rain was being wasted in the sea. Is it conceivable that a good man with power to control the winds would not prevent cyclones? Would you not rather trust a wise and honest man with the lightning?
Why should an infinitely wise and powerful God destroy the good and preserve the vile? Why should he treat all alike here, and in another world make an infinite difference? Why should your God allow his worshipers, his adorers, to be destroyed by his enemies? Why should he allow the honest, the loving, the noble, to perish at the stake? Can you answer these questions? Does it not seem to you that your God must have felt a touch of shame when the poor slave mother—one that had been robbed of her babe—knelt and with clasped hands, in a voice broken with sobs, commenced her prayer with the words "Our Father"?
It gave me pleasure to find that, notwithstanding your creed, you are philosophical enough to say that some men are incapacitated, by reason of temperament, for believing in the existence of God. Now, if a belief in God is necessary to the salvation of the soul, why should God create a soul without this capacity? Why should he create souls that he knew would be lost? You seem to think that it is necessary to be poetical, or dreamy, in order to be religious, and by inference, at least, you deny certain qualities to me that you deem necessary. Do you account for the atheism of Shelley by saying that he was not poetic, and do you quote his lines to prove the existence of the very God whose being he so passionately denied? Is it possible that Napoleon—one of the most infamous of men—had a nature so finely strung that he was sensitive to the divine influences? Are you driven to the necessity of proving the existence of one tyrant by the words of another? Personally, I have but little confidence in a religion that satisfied the heart of a man who, to gratify his ambition, filled half the world with widows and orphans. In regard to Agassiz, it is just to say that he furnished a vast amount of testimony in favor of the truth of the theories of Charles Darwin, and then denied the correctness of these theories—preferring the good opinions of Harvard for a few days to the lasting applause of the intellectual world.
I agree with you that the world is a mystery, not only, but that everything in nature is equally mysterious, and that there is no way of escape from the mystery of life and death. To me, the crystallization of the snow is as mysterious as the constellations. But when you endeavor to explain the mystery of the universe by the mystery of God, you do not even exchange mysteries—you simply make one more.
Nothing can be mysterious enough to become an explanation.
The mystery of man cannot be explained by the mystery of God. That mystery still asks for explanation. The mind is so that it cannot grasp the idea of an infinite personality. That is beyond the circumference. This being so, it is impossible that man can be convinced by any evidence of the existence of that which he cannot in any measure comprehend. Such evidence would be equally incomprehensible with the incomprehensible fact sought to be established by it, and the intellect of man can grasp neither the one nor the other.
You admit that the God of Nature—that is to say, your God—is as inflexible as nature itself. Why should man worship the inflexible? Why should he kneel to the unchangeable? You say that your God "does not bend to human thought any more than to human will," and that "the more we study him, the more we find that he is not what we imagined him to be." So that, after all, the only thing you are really certain of in relation to your God is, that he is not what you think he is. Is it not almost absurd to insist that such a state of mind is necessary to salvation, or that it is a moral restraint, or that it is the foundation of social order?
The most religious nations have been the most immoral, the cruelest and the most unjust. Italy was far worse under the Popes than under the Cæsars. Was there ever a barbarian nation more savage than the Spain of the sixteenth century? Certainly you must know that what you call religion has produced a thousand civil wars, and has severed with the sword all the natural ties that produce "the unity and married calm of States." Theology is the fruitful mother of discord; order is the child of reason. If you will candidly consider this question—if you will for a few moments forget your preconceived opinions—you will instantly see that the instinct of self-preservation holds society together. Religion itself was born of this instinct. People, being ignorant, believed that the Gods were jealous and revengeful. They peopled space with phantoms that demanded worship and delighted in sacrifice and ceremony, phantoms that could be flattered by praise and changed by prayer. These ignorant people wished to preserve themselves. They supposed that they could in this way avoid pestilence and famine, and postpone perhaps the day of death. Do you not see that self-preservation lies at the foundation of worship? Nations, like individuals, defend and protect themselves. Nations, like individuals, have fears, have ideals, and live for the accomplishment of certain ends. Men defend their property because it is of value. Industry is the enemy of theft. Men, as a rule, desire to live, and for that reason murder is a crime. Fraud is hateful to the victim. The majority of mankind work and produce the necessities, the comforts, and the luxuries of life. They wish to retain the fruits of their labor. Government is one of the instrumentalities for the preservation of what man deems of value. This is the foundation of social order, and this holds society together.
Religion has been the enemy of social order, because it directs the attention of man to another world. Religion teaches its votaries to sacrifice this world for the sake of that other. The effect is to weaken the ties that hold families and States together. Of what consequence is anything in this world compared with eternal joy?
You insist that man is not capable of self-government, and that God made the mistake of filling a world with failures—in other words, that man must be governed not by himself, but by your God, and that your God produces order, and establishes and preserves all the nations of the earth. This being so, your God is responsible for the government of this world. Does he preserve order in Russia? Is he accountable for Siberia? Did he establish the institution of slavery? Was he the founder of the Inquisition?
You answer all these questions by calling my attention to "the retributions of history." What are the retributions of history? The honest were burned at the stake; the patriotic, the generous, and the noble were allowed to die in dungeons; whole races were enslaved; millions of mothers were robbed of their babes. What were the retributions of history? They who committed these crimes wore crowns, and they who justified these infamies were adorned with the tiara.
You are mistaken when you say that Lincoln at Gettysburg said: "Just and true are thy judgments, Lord God Almighty." Something like this occurs in his last inaugural, in which he says,—speaking of his hope that the war might soon be ended,—"If it shall continue until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" But admitting that you are correct in the assertion, let me ask you one question: Could one standing over the body of Lincoln, the blood slowly oozing from the madman's wound, have truthfully said: "Just and true are thy judgments, Lord God Almighty"?
Do you really believe that this world is governed by an infinitely wise and good God? Have you convinced even yourself of this? Why should God permit the triumph of injustice? Why should the loving be tortured? Why should the noblest be destroyed? Why should the world be filled with misery, with ignorance, and with want? What reason have you for believing that your God will do better in another world than he has done and is doing in this? Will he be wiser? Will he have more power? Will he be more merciful?
When I say "your God," of course I mean the God described in the Bible and the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. But again I say, that in the nature of things, there can be no evidence of the existence of an infinite being.
An infinite being must be conditionless, and for that reason there is nothing that a finite being can do that can by any possibility affect the well-being of the conditionless. This being so, man can neither owe nor discharge any debt or duty to an infinite being. The infinite cannot want, and man can do nothing for a being who wants nothing. A conditioned being can be made happy, or miserable, by changing conditions, but the conditionless is absolutely independent of cause and effect.
I do not say that a God does not exist, neither do I say that a God does exist; but I say that I do not know—that there can be no evidence to my mind of the existence of such a being, and that my mind is so that it is incapable of even thinking of an infinite personality. I know that in your creed you describe God as "without body, parts, or passions." This, to my mind, is simply a description of an infinite vacuum. I have had no experience with gods. This world is the only one with which I am acquainted, and I was surprised to find in your letter the expression that "perhaps others are better acquainted with that of which I am so ignorant." Did you, by this, intend to say that you know anything of any other state of existence—that you have inhabited some other planet—that you lived before you were born, and that you recollect something of that other world, or of that other state?
Upon the question of immortality you have done me, unintentionally, a great injustice. With regard to that hope, I have never uttered "a flippant or a trivial" word. I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that the idea of immortality, that, like a sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door—the beginning, or end, of a day—the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings—the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life, that brings rapture and love to every one.
The belief in immortality is far older than Christianity. Thousands of years before Christ was born billions of people had lived and died in that hope. Upon countless graves had been laid in love and tears the emblems of another life. The heaven of the New Testament was to be in this world. The dead, after they were raised, were to live here. Not one satisfactory word was said to have been uttered by Christ—nothing philosophic, nothing clear, nothing that adorns, like a bow of promise, the cloud of doubt.
According to the account in the New Testament, Christ was dead for a period of nearly three days. After his resurrection, why did not some one of his disciples ask him where he had been? Why did he not tell them what world he had visited? There was the opportunity to "bring life and immortality to light." And yet he was as silent as the grave that he had left—speechless as the stone that angels had rolled away.
How do you account for this? Was it not infinitely cruel to leave the world in darkness and in doubt, when one word could have filled all time with hope and light?
The hope of immortality is the great oak round which have climbed the poisonous vines of superstition. The vines have not supported the oak—the oak has supported the vines. As long as men live and love and die, this hope will blossom in the human heart.
All I have said upon this subject has been to express my hope and confess my lack of knowledge. Neither by word nor look have I expressed any other feeling than sympathy with those who hope to live again—for those who bend above their dead and dream of life to come. But I have denounced the selfishness and heartlessness of those who expect for themselves an eternity of joy, and for the rest of mankind predict, without a tear, a world of endless pain. Nothing can be more contemptible than such a hope—a hope that can give satisfaction only to the hyenas of the human race.
When I say that I do not know—when I deny the existence of perdition, you reply that "there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures."
You have had the goodness to invite me to a grave over which a mother bends and weeps for her only son. I accept your invitation. We will go together. Do not, I pray you, deal in splendid generalities. Be explicit. Remember that the son for whom the loving mother weeps was not a Christian, not a believer in the inspiration of the Bible nor in the divinity of Jesus Christ. The mother turns to you for consolation, for some star of hope in the midnight of her grief. What must you say? Do not desert the Presbyterian creed. Do not forget the threatenings of Jesus Christ. What must you say? Will you read a portion of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith? Will you read this?
"Although the light of Nature, and the works of creation and Providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave man inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will which is necessary to salvation."
Or, will you read this?
"By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men, thus predestined and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished."
Suppose the mother, lifting her tear-stained face, should say: "My son was good, generous, loving and kind. He gave his life for me. Is there no hope for him?" Would you then put this serpent in her breast?
"Men not professing the Christian religion cannot be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to conform their lives according to the light of Nature. We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin. There is no sin so small but that it deserves damnation. Works done by unregenerate men, although, for the matter of that, they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others, are sinful and cannot please God or make a man meet to receive Christ or God."
And suppose the mother should then sobbingly ask: "What has become of my son? Where is he now?" Would you still read from your Confession of Faith, or from your Catechism—this?
"The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. At the last day the righteous shall come into everlasting life, but the wicked shall be cast into eternal torment and punished with everlasting destruction. The wicked shall be cast into hell, to be punished with unspeakable torment, both of body and soul, with the devil and his angels forever."
If the poor mother still wept, still refused to be comforted, would you thrust this dagger in her heart?
"At the Day of Judgment you, being caught up to Christ in the clouds, shall be seated at his right hand and there openly acknowledged and acquitted, and you shall join with him in the damnation of your son."
If this failed to still the beatings of her aching heart, would you repeat these words which you say came from the loving soul of Christ?
"They who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned; and these shall go away into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
Would you not be compelled, according to your belief, to tell this mother that "there is but one name given under heaven and among men whereby" the souls of men can enter the gates of Paradise? Would you not be compelled to say: "Your son lived in a Christian land. The means of grace were within his reach. He died not having experienced a change of heart, and your son is forever lost. You can meet your son again only by dying in your sins; but if you will give your heart to God you can never clasp him to your breast again."
What could I say? Let me tell you:
"My dear madam, this reverend gentleman knows nothing of another world. He cannot see beyond the tomb. He has simply stated to you the superstitions of ignorance, of cruelty and fear. If there be in this universe a God, he certainly is as good as you are. Why should he have loved your son in life—loved him, according to this reverend gentleman, to that degree that he gave his life for him; and why should that love be changed to hatred the moment your son was dead?
"My dear woman, there are no punishments, there are no rewards—there are consequences; and of one thing you may rest assured, and that is, that every soul, no matter what sphere it may inhabit, will have the everlasting opportunity of doing right.
"If death ends all, and if this handful of dust over which you weep is all there is, you have this consolation: Your son is not within the power of this reverend gentleman's God—that is something. Your son does not suffer. Next to a life of joy is the dreamless sleep of death."
Does it not seem to you infinitely absurd to call orthodox Christianity "a consolation"? Here in this world, where every human being is enshrouded in cloud and mist,—where all lives are filled with mistakes,—where no one claims to be perfect, is it "a consolation" to say that "the smallest sin deserves eternal pain"? Is it possible for the ingenuity of man to extract from the doctrine of hell one drop, one ray, of "consolation"? If that doctrine be true, is not your God an infinite criminal? Why should he have created uncounted billions destined to suffer forever? Why did he not leave them unconscious dust? Compared with this crime, any crime that man can by any possibility commit is a virtue.
Think for a moment of your God,—the keeper of an infinite penitentiary filled with immortal convicts,—your God an eternal turnkey, without the pardoning power. In the presence of this infinite horror, you complacently speak of the atonement,—a scheme that has not yet gathered within its horizon a billionth part of the human race,—an atonement with one-half the world remaining undiscovered for fifteen hundred years after it was made.
If there could be no suffering, there could be no sin. To unjustly cause suffering is the only possible crime. How can a God accept the suffering of the innocent in lieu of the punishment of the guilty?
According to your theory, this infinite being, by his mere will, makes right and wrong. This I do not admit. Right and wrong exist in the nature of things—in the relation they bear to man, and to sentient beings. You have already admitted that "Nature is inflexible, and that a violated law calls for its consequences." I insist that no God can step between an act and its natural effects. If God exists, he has nothing to do with punishment, nothing to do with reward. From certain acts flow certain consequences; these consequences increase or decrease the happiness of man; and the consequences must be borne.
A man who has forfeited his life to the commonwealth may be pardoned, but a man who has violated a condition of his own well-being cannot be pardoned—there is no pardoning power. The laws of the State are made, and, being made, can be changed; but the facts of the universe cannot be changed. The relation of act to consequence cannot be altered. This is above all power, and, consequently, there is no analogy between the laws of the State and the facts in Nature. An infinite God could not change the relation between the diameter and circumference of the circle.
A man having committed a crime may be pardoned, but I deny the right of the State to punish an innocent man in the place of the pardoned—no matter how willing the innocent man may be to suffer the punishment. There is no law in Nature, no fact in Nature, by which the innocent can be justly punished to the end that the guilty may go free. Let it be understood once for all: Nature cannot pardon.
You have recognized this truth. You have asked me what is to become of one who seduces and betrays, of the criminal with the blood of his victim upon his hands? Without the slightest hesitation I answer, whoever commits a crime against another must, to the utmost of his power in this world and in another, if there be one, make full and ample restitution, and in addition must bear the natural consequences of his offence. No man can be perfectly happy, either in this world or in any other, who has by his perfidy broken a loving and confiding heart. No power can step between acts and consequences—no forgiveness, no atonement.
But, my dear friend, you have taught for many years, if you are a Presbyterian, or an evangelical Christian, that a man may seduce and betray, and that the poor victim, driven to insanity, leaping from some wharf at night where ships strain at their anchors in storm and darkness—you have taught that this poor girl may be tormented forever by a God of infinite compassion. This is not all that you have taught. You have said to the seducer, to the betrayer, to the one who would not listen to her wailing cry,—who would not even stretch forth his hand to catch her fluttering garments,—you have said to him: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be happy forever; you shall live in the realm of infinite delight, from which you can, without a shadow falling upon your face, observe the poor girl, your victim, writhing in the agonies of hell." You have taught this. For my part, I do not see how an angel in heaven meeting another angel whom he had robbed on the earth, could feel entirely blissful. I go further. Any decent angel, no matter if sitting at the right hand of God, should he see in hell one of his victims, would leave heaven itself for the purpose of wiping one tear from the cheek of the damned.
You seem to have forgotten your statement in the commencement of your letter, that your God is as inflexible as Nature—that he bends not to human thought nor to human will. You seem to have forgotten the line which you emphasized with italics: "The effect of everything which is of the nature of a cause, is eternal." In the light of this sentence, where do you find a place for forgiveness—for your atonement? Where is a way to escape from the effect of a cause that is eternal? Do you not see that this sentence is a cord with which I easily tie your hands? The scientific part of your letter destroys the theological. You have put "new wine into old bottles," and the predicted result has followed. Will the angels in heaven, the redeemed of earth, lose their memory? Will not all the redeemed rascals remember their rascality? Will not all the redeemed assassins remember the faces of the dead? Will not all the seducers and betrayers remember her sighs, her tears, and the tones of her voice, and will not the conscience of the redeemed be as inexorable as the conscience of the damned?
If memory is to be forever "the warder of the brain," and if the redeemed can never forget the sins they committed, the pain and anguish they caused, then they can never be perfectly happy; and if the lost can never forget the good they did, the kind actions, the loving words, the heroic deeds; and if the memory of good deeds gives the slightest pleasure, then the lost can never be perfectly miserable. Ought not the memory of a good action to live as long as the memory of a bad one? So that the undying memory of the good, in heaven, brings undying pain, and the undying memory of those in hell brings undying pleasure. Do you not see that if men have done good and bad, the future can have neither a perfect heaven nor a perfect hell?
I believe in the manly doctrine that every human being must bear the consequences of his acts, and that no man can be justly saved or damned on account of the goodness or the wickedness of another.
If by atonement you mean the natural effect of self-sacrifice, the effects following a noble and disinterested action; if you mean that the life and death of Christ are worth their effect upon the human race,—which your letter seems to show,—then there is no question between us. If you have thrown away the old and barbarous idea that a law had been broken, that God demanded a sacrifice, and that Christ, the innocent, was offered up for us, and that he bore the wrath of God and suffered in our place, then I congratulate you with all my heart.
It seems to me impossible that life should be exceedingly joyous to any one who is acquainted with its miseries, its burdens, and its tears. I know that as darkness follows light around the globe, so misery and misfortune follow the sons of men. According to your creed, the future state will be worse than this. Here, the vicious may reform; here, the wicked may repent; here, a few gleams of sunshine may fall upon the darkest life. But in your future state, for countless billions of the human race, there will be no reform, no opportunity of doing right, and no possible gleam of sunshine can ever touch their souls. Do you not see that your future state is infinitely worse than this? You seem to mistake the glare of hell for the light of morning.
Let us throw away the dogma of eternal retribution. Let us "cling to all that can bring a ray of hope into the darkness of this life."
You have been kind enough to say that I find a subject for caricature in the doctrine of regeneration. If, by regeneration, you mean reformation,—if you mean that there comes a time in the life of a young man when he feels the touch of responsibility, and that he leaves his foolish or vicious ways, and concludes to act like an honest man,—if this is what you mean by regeneration, I am a believer. But that is not the definition of regeneration in your creed—that is not Christian regeneration. There is some mysterious, miraculous, supernatural, invisible agency, called, I believe, the Holy Ghost, that enters and changes the heart of man, and this mysterious agency is like the wind, under the control, apparently, of no one, coming and going when and whither it listeth. It is this illogical and absurd view of regeneration that I have attacked.
You ask me how it came to' pass that a Hebrew peasant, born among the hills of Galilee, had a wisdom above that of Socrates or Plato, of Confucius or Buddha, and you conclude by saying, "This is the greatest of miracles—that such a being should live and die on the earth."
I can hardly admit your conclusion, because I remember that Christ said nothing in favor of the family relation. As a matter of fact, his life tended to cast discredit upon marriage. He said nothing against the institution of slavery; nothing against the tyranny of government; nothing of our treatment of animals; nothing about education, about intellectual progress; nothing of art, declared no scientific truth, and said nothing as to the rights and duties of nations.
You may reply that all this is included in "Do unto others as you would be done by;" and "Resist not evil." More than this is necessary to educate the human race. It is not enough to say to your child or to your pupil, "Do right." The great question still remains: What is right? Neither is there any wisdom in the idea of non-resistance. Force without mercy is tyranny. Mercy without force is but a waste of tears. Take from virtue the right of self-defence and vice becomes the master of the world.
Let me ask you how it came to pass that an ignorant driver of camels, a man without family, without wealth, became master of hundreds of millions of human beings? How is it that he conquered and overran more than half of the Christian world? How is it that on a thousand fields the banner of the cross went down in blood, while that of the crescent floated in triumph? How do you account for the fact that the flag of this impostor floats to-day above the sepulchre of Christ? Was this a miracle? Was Mohammed inspired? How do you account for Confucius, whose name is known wherever the sky bends? Was he inspired—this man who for many centuries has stood first, and who has been acknowledged the superior of all men by hundreds and thousands of millions of his fellow-men? How do you account for Buddha,—in many respects the greatest religious teacher this world has ever known,—the broadest, the most intellectual of them all; he who was great enough, hundreds of years before Christ was born, to declare the universal brotherhood of man, great enough to say that intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind? How do you account for him, who has had more followers than any other? Are you willing to say that all success is divine? How do you account for Shakespeare, born of parents who could neither read nor write, held in the lap of ignorance and love, nursed at the breast of poverty—how do you account for him, by far the greatest of the human race, the wings of whose imagination still fill the horizon of human thought; Shakespeare, who was perfectly acquainted with the human heart, knew all depths of sorrow, all heights of joy, and in whose mind were the fruit of all thought, of all experience, and a prophecy of all to be; Shakespeare, the wisdom and beauty and depth of whose words increase with the intelligence and civilization of mankind? How do you account for this miracle? Do you believe that any founder of any religion could have written "Lear" or "Hamlet"? Did Greece produce a man who could by any possibility have been the author of "Troilus and Cressida"? Was there among all the countless millions of almighty Rome an intellect that could have written the tragedy of "Julius Cæsar"? Is not the play of "Antony and Cleopatra" as Egyptian as the Nile? How do you account for this man, within whose veins there seemed to be the blood of every race, and in whose brain there were the poetry and philosophy of a world?
You ask me to tell my opinion of Christ. Let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ—for the man who, in the darkness, cried out, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me!" —for that man I have the greatest possible respect. And let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man is holy ground. To that great and serene peasant of Palestine I gladly pay the tribute of my admiration and my tears. He was a reformer in his day—an infidel in his time. Back of the theological mask, and in spite of the interpolations of the New Testament, I see a great and genuine man.
It is hard to see how you can consistently defend the course pursued by Christ himself. He attacked with great bitterness "the religion of others." It did not occur to him that "there was something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of his fellow-creatures." He denounced the chosen people of God as a "generation of vipers." He compared them to "whited sepulchres." How can you sustain the conduct of missionaries? They go to other lands and attack the sacred beliefs of others. They tell the people of India and of all heathen lands, not only that their religion is a lie, not only that their gods are myths, but that the ancestors of these people—their fathers and mothers who never heard of God, of the Bible, or of Christ—are all in perdition. Is not this a cruel treatment of the belief of a fellow-creature?
A religion that is not manly and robust enough to bear attack with smiling fortitude is unworthy of a place in the heart or brain. A religion that takes refuge in sentimentality, that cries out: "Do not, I pray you, tell me any truth calculated to hurt my feelings," is fit only for asylums.
You believe that Christ was God, that he was infinite in power. While in Jerusalem he cured the sick, raised a few from the dead, and opened the eyes of the blind. Did he do these things because he loved mankind, or did he do these miracles simply to establish the fact that he was the very Christ? If he was actuated by love, is he not as powerful now as he was then? Why does he not open the eyes of the blind now? Why does he not with a touch make the leper clean? If you had the power to give sight to the blind, to cleanse the leper, and would not exercise it, what would be thought of you? What is the difference between one who can and will not cure, and one who causes disease?
Only the other day I saw a beautiful girl—a paralytic, and yet her brave and cheerful spirit shone over the wreck and ruin of her body like morning on the desert. What would I think of myself, had I the power by a word to send the blood through all her withered limbs freighted again with life, should I refuse?
Most theologians seem to imagine that the virtues have been produced by and are really the children of religion.
Religion has to do with the supernatural. It defines our duties and obligations to God. It prescribes a certain course of conduct by means of which happiness can be attained in another world. The result here is only an incident. The virtues are secular. They have nothing whatever to do with the supernatural, and are of no kindred to any religion. A man may be honest, courageous, charitable, industrious, hospitable, loving and pure, without being religious—that is to say, without any belief in the supernatural; and a man may be the exact opposite and at the same time a sincere believer in the creed of any church—that is to say, in the existence of a personal God, the inspiration of the Scriptures and in the divinity of Jesus Christ. A man who believes in the Bible may or may not be kind to his family, and a man who is kind and loving in his family may or may not believe in the Bible.
In order that you may see the effect of belief in the formation of character, it is only necessary to call your attention to the fact that your Bible shows that the devil himself is a believer in the existence of your God, in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and in the divinity of Jesus Christ. He not only believes these things, but he knows them, and yet, in spite of it all, he remains a devil still.
Few religions have been bad enough to destroy all the natural goodness in the human heart. In the deepest midnight of superstition some natural virtues, like stars, have been visible in the heavens. Man has committed every crime in the name of Christianity—or at least crimes that involved the commission of all others. Those who paid for labor with the lash, and who made blows a legal tender, were Christians. Those who engaged in the slave trade were believers in a personal God. One slave ship was called "The Jehovah." Those who pursued with hounds the fugitive led by the Northern star prayed fervently to Christ to crown their efforts with success, and the stealers of babes, just before falling asleep, commended their souls to the keeping of the Most High.
As you have mentioned the apostles, let me call your attention to an incident.
You remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira. The apostles, having nothing themselves, conceived the idea of having all things in common. Their followers who had something were to sell what little they had, and turn the proceeds over to these theological financiers. It seems that Ananias and Sapphira had a piece of land. They sold it, and after talking the matter over, not being entirely satisfied with the collaterals, concluded to keep a little—just enough to keep them from starvation if the good and pious bankers should abscond.
When Ananias brought the money, he was asked whether he had kept back a part of the price. He said that he had not. Whereupon God, the compassionate, struck him dead. As soon as the corpse was removed, the apostles sent for his wife. They did not tell her that her husband had been killed. They deliberately set a trap for her life. Not one of them was good enough or noble enough to put her on her guard; they allowed her to believe that her husband had told his story, and that she was free to corroborate what he had said. She probably felt that they were giving more than they could afford, and, with the instinct of woman, wanted to keep a little. She denied that any part of the price had been kept back. That moment the arrow of divine vengeance entered her heart.
Will you be kind enough to tell me your opinion of the apostles in the light of this story? Certainly murder is a greater crime than mendacity.
You have been good enough, in a kind of fatherly way, to give me some advice. You say that I ought to soften my colors, and that my words would be more weighty if not so strong. Do you really desire that I should add weight to my words? Do you really wish me to succeed? If the commander of one army should send word to the general of the other that his men were firing too high, do you think the general would be misled? Can you conceive of his changing his orders by reason of the message?
I deny that "the Pilgrims crossed the sea to find freedom to worship God in the forests of the new world." They came not in the interest of freedom. It never entered their minds that other men had the same right to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences that the Pilgrims themselves had. The moment they had power they were ready to whip and brand, to imprison and burn. They did not believe in religious freedom. They had no more idea of liberty of conscience than Jehovah.
I do not say that there is no place in the world for heroes and martyrs. On the contrary, I declare that the liberty we now have was won for us by heroes and by martyrs, and millions of these martyrs were burned, or flayed alive, or torn in pieces, or assassinated by the church of God. The heroism was shown in fighting the hordes of religious superstition.
Giordano Bruno was a martyr. He was a hero. He believed in no God, in no heaven, and in no hell, yet he perished by fire. He was offered liberty on condition that he would recant. There was no God to please, no heaven to expect, no hell to fear, and yet he died by fire, simply to preserve the unstained whiteness of his soul.
For hundreds of years every man who attacked the church was a hero. The sword of Christianity has been wet for many centuries with the blood of the noblest. Christianity has been ready with whip and chain and fire to banish freedom from the earth.
Neither is it true that "family life withers under the cold sneer—half pity and half scorn—with which I look down on household worship."
Those who believe in the existence of God, and believe that they are indebted to this divine being for the few gleams of sunshine in this life, and who thank God for the little they have enjoyed, have my entire respect. Never have I said one word against the spirit of thankfulness. I understand the feeling of the man who gathers his family about him after the storm, or after the scourge, or after long sickness, and pours out his heart in thankfulness to the supposed God who has protected his fireside. I understand the spirit of the savage who thanks his idol of stone, or his fetich of wood. It is not the wisdom of the one or of the other that I respect, it is the goodness and thankfulness that prompt the prayer.
I believe in the family. I believe in family life; and one of my objections to Christianity is that it divides the family. Upon this subject I have said hundreds of times, and I say again, that the roof-tree is sacred, from the smallest fibre that feels the soft, cool clasp of earth, to the topmost flower that spreads its bosom to the sun, and like a spendthrift gives its perfume to the air. The home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire, the fairest flower in all this world.
What did Christianity in the early centuries do for the home? What have nunneries and monasteries, and what has the glorification of celibacy done for the family? Do you not know that Christ himself offered rewards in this world and eternal happiness in another to those who would desert their wives and children and follow him? What effect has that promise had upon family life?
As a matter of fact, the family is regarded as nothing. Christianity teaches that there is but one family, the family of Christ, and that all other relations are as nothing compared with that. Christianity teaches the husband to desert the wife, the wife to desert the husband, children to desert their parents, for the miserable and selfish purpose of saving their own little, shriveled souls.
It is far better for a man to love his fellow-men than to love God. It is better to love wife and children than to love Christ. It is better to serve your neighbor than to serve your God—even if God exists. The reason is palpable. You can do nothing for God. You can do something for wife and children. You can add to the sunshine of a life. You can plant flowers in the pathway of another.
It is true that I am an enemy of the orthodox Sabbath. It is true that I do not believe in giving one-seventh of our time to the service of superstition. The whole scheme of your religion can be understood by any intelligent man in one day. Why should he waste a seventh of his whole life in hearing the same thoughts repeated again and again?
Nothing is more gloomy than an orthodox Sabbath. The mechanic who has worked during the week in heat and dust, the laboring man who has barely succeeded in keeping his soul in his body, the poor woman who has been sewing for the rich, may go to the village church which you have described. They answer the chimes of the bell, and what do they hear in this village church? Is it that God is the Father of the human race; is that all? If that were all, you never would have heard an objection from my lips. That is not all. If all ministers said: Bear the evils of this life; your Father in heaven counts your tears; the time will come when pain and death and grief will be forgotten words; I should have listened with the rest. What else does the minister say to the poor people who have answered the chimes of your bell? He says: "The smallest sin deserves eternal pain." "A vast majority of men are doomed to suffer the wrath of God forever." He fills the present with fear and the future with fire. He has heaven for the few, hell for the many. He describes a little grass-grown path that leads to heaven, where travelers are "few and far between," and a great highway worn with countless feet that leads to everlasting death.
Such Sabbaths are immoral. Such ministers are the real savages. Gladly would I abolish such a Sabbath. Gladly would I turn it into a holiday, a day of rest and peace, a day to get acquainted with your wife and children, a day to exchange civilities with your neighbors; and gladly would I see the church in which such sermons are preached changed to a place of entertainment. Gladly would I have the echoes of orthodox sermons—the owls and bats among the rafters, the snakes in crevices and corners—driven out by the glorious music of Wagner and Beethoven. Gladly would I see the Sunday school where the doctrine of eternal fire is taught, changed to a happy dance upon the village green.
Music refines. The doctrine of eternal punishment degrades. Science civilizes. Superstition looks longingly back to savagery.
You do not believe that general morality can be upheld without the sanctions of religion.
Christianity has sold, and continues to sell, crime on a credit. It has taught, and it still teaches, that there is forgiveness for all. Of course it teaches morality. It says: "Do not steal, do not murder;" but it adds, "but if you do both, there is a way of escape: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." I insist that such a religion is no restraint. It is far better to teach that there is no forgiveness, and that every human being must bear the consequences of his acts.
The first great step toward national reformation is the universal acceptance of the idea that there is no escape from the consequences of our acts. The young men who come from their country homes into a city filled with temptations, may be restrained by the thought of father and mother. This is a natural restraint. They may be restrained by their knowledge of the fact that a thing is evil on account of its consequences, and that to do wrong is always a mistake. I cannot conceive of such a man being more liable to temptation because he has heard one of my lectures in which I have told him that the only good is happiness—that the only way to attain that good is by doing what he believes to be right. I cannot imagine that his moral character will be weakened by the statement that there is no escape from the consequences of his acts. You seem to think that he will be instantly led astray—that he will go off under the flaring lamps to the riot of passion. Do you think the Bible calculated to restrain him? To prevent this would you recommend him to read the lives of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, and the other holy polygamists of the Old Testament? Should he read the life of David, and of Solomon? Do you think this would enable him to withstand temptation? Would it not be far better to fill the young man's mind with facts so that he may know exactly the physical consequences of such acts? Do you regard ignorance as the foundation of virtue? Is fear the arch that supports the moral nature of man?
You seem to think that there is danger in knowledge, and that the best chemists are most likely to poison themselves.
You say that to sneer at religion is only a step from sneering at morality, and then only another step to that which is vicious and profligate.
The Jews entertained the same opinion of the teachings of Christ. He sneered at their religion. The Christians have entertained the same opinion of every philosopher. Let me say to you again—and let me say it once for all—that morality has nothing to do with religion. Morality does not depend upon the supernatural. Morality does not walk with the crutches of miracles. Morality appeals to the experience of mankind. It cares nothing about faith, nothing about sacred books. Morality depends upon facts, something that can be seen, something known, the product of which can be estimated. It needs no priest, no ceremony, no mummery. It believes in the freedom of the human mind. It asks for investigation. It is founded upon truth. It is the enemy of all religion, because it has to do with this world, and with this world alone.
My object is to drive fear out of the world. Fear is the jailer of the mind. Christianity, superstition—that is to say, the supernatural—makes every brain a prison and every soul a convict. Under the government of a personal deity, consequences partake of the nature of punishments and rewards.
Under the government of Nature, what you call punishments and rewards are simply consequences. Nature does not punish. Nature does not reward. Nature has no purpose. When the storm comes, I do not think: "This is being done by a tyrant." When the sun shines, I do not say: "This is being done by a friend." Liberty means freedom from personal dictation. It does not mean escape from the relations we sustain to other facts in Nature. I believe in the restraining influences of liberty. Temperance walks hand in hand with freedom. To remove a chain from the body puts an additional responsibility upon the soul. Liberty says to the man: You injure or benefit yourself; you increase or decrease your own well-being. It is a question of intelligence. You need not bow to a supposed tyrant, or to infinite goodness. You are responsible to yourself and to those you injure, and to none other.
I rid myself of fear, believing as I do that there is no power above which can help me in any extremity, and believing as I do that there is no power above or below that can injure me in any extremity. I do not believe that I am the sport of accident, or that I may be dashed in pieces by the blind agency of Nature. There is no accident, and there is no agency. That which happens must happen. The present is the necessary child of all the past, the mother of all the future.
Does it relieve mankind from fear to believe that there is some God who will help them in extremity? What evidence have they on which to found this belief? When has any God listened to the prayer of any man? The water drowns, the cold freezes, the flood destroys, the fire burns, the bolt of heaven falls—when and where has the prayer of man been answered?
Is the religious world to-day willing to test the efficacy of prayer? Only a few years ago it was tested in the United States. The Christians of Christendom, with one accord, fell upon their knees and asked God to spare the life of one man. You know the result. You know just as well as I that the forces of Nature produce the good and bad alike. You know that the forces of Nature destroy the good and bad alike. You know that the lightning feels the same keen delight in striking to death the honest man that it does or would in striking the assassin with his knife lifted above the bosom of innocence.
Did God hear the prayers of the slaves? Did he hear the prayers of imprisoned philosophers and patriots? Did he hear the prayers of martyrs, or did he allow fiends, calling themselves his followers, to pile the fagots round the forms of glorious men? Did he allow the flames to devour the flesh of those whose hearts were his? Why should any man depend on the goodness of a God who created countless millions, knowing that they would suffer eternal grief?
The faith that you call sacred—"sacred as the most delicate manly or womanly sentiment of love and honor"—is the faith that nearly all of your fellow-men are to be lost. Ought an honest man to be restrained from denouncing that faith because those who entertain it say that their feelings are hurt? You say to me: "There is a hell. A man advocating the opinions you advocate will go there when he dies." I answer: "There is no hell. The Bible that teaches it is not true." And you say: "How can you hurt my feelings?"
You seem to think that one who attacks the religion of his parents is wanting in respect to his father and his mother.
Were the early Christians lacking in respect for their fathers and mothers? Were the Pagans who embraced Christianity heartless sons and daughters? What have you to say of the apostles? Did they not heap contempt upon the religion of their fathers and mothers? Did they not join with him who denounced their people as a "generation of vipers"? Did they not follow one who offered a reward to those who would desert fathers and mothers? Of course you have only to go back a few generations in your family to find a Field who was not a Presbyterian. After that you find a Presbyterian. Was he base enough and infamous enough to heap contempt upon the religion of his father and mother? All the Protestants in the time of Luther lacked in respect for the religion of their fathers and mothers. According to your idea, Progress is a Prodigal Son. If one is bound by the religion of his father and mother, and his father happens to be a Presbyterian and his mother a Catholic, what is he to do? Do you not see that your doctrine gives intellectual freedom only to foundlings?
If by Christianity you mean the goodness, the spirit of forgiveness, the benevolence claimed by Christians to be a part, and the principal part, of that peculiar religion, then I do not agree with you when you say that "Christ is Christianity and that it stands or falls with him." You have narrowed unnecessarily the foundation of your religion. If it should be established beyond doubt that Christ never existed, all that is of value in Christianity would remain, and remain unimpaired. Suppose that we should find that Euclid was a myth, the science known as mathematics would not suffer. It makes no difference who painted or chiseled the greatest pictures and statues, so long as we have the pictures and statues. When he who has given the world a truth passes from the earth, the truth is left. A truth dies only when forgotten by the human race. Justice, love, mercy, forgiveness, honor, all the virtues that ever blossomed in the human heart, were known and practiced for uncounted ages before the birth of Christ.
You insist that religion does not leave man in "abject terror"—does not leave him "in utter darkness as to his fate."
Is it possible to know who will be saved? Can you read the names mentioned in the decrees of the Infinite? Is it possible to tell who is to be eternally lost? Can the imagination conceive a worse fate than your religion predicts for a majority of the race? Why should not every human being be in "abject terror" who believes your doctrine? How many loving and sincere women are in the asylums to-day fearing that they have committed "the unpardonable sin"—a sin to which your God has attached the penalty of eternal torment, and yet has failed to describe the offence? Can tyranny go beyond this—fixing the penalty of eternal pain for the violation of a law not written, not known, but kept in the secrecy of infinite darkness? How much happier it is to know nothing about it, and to believe nothing about it! How much better to have no God!
You discover a "Great Intelligence ordering our little lives, so that even the trials that we bear, as they call out the finer elements of character, conduce to our future happiness." This is an old explanation—probably as good as any. The idea is, that this world is a school in which man becomes educated through tribulation—the muscles of character being developed by wrestling with misfortune. If it is necessary to live this life in order to develop character, in order to become worthy of a better world, how do you account for the fact that billions of the human race die in infancy, and are thus deprived of this necessary education and development? What would you think of a schoolmaster who should kill a large proportion of his scholars during the first day, before they had even had the opportunity to look at "A"?
You insist that "there is a power behind Nature making for righteousness."
If Nature is infinite, how can there be a power outside of Nature? If you mean by "a power making for righteousness" that man, as he becomes civilized, as he becomes intelligent, not only takes advantage of the forces of Nature for his own benefit, but perceives more and more clearly that if he is to be happy he must live in harmony with the conditions of his being, in harmony with the facts by which he is surrounded, in harmony with the relations he sustains to others and to things; if this is what you mean, then there is "a power making for righteousness." But if you mean that there is something supernatural back of Nature directing events, then I insist that there can by no possibility be any evidence of the existence of such a power.
The history of the human race shows that nations rise and fall. There is a limit to the life of a race; so that it can be said of every dead nation, that there was a period when it laid the foundations of prosperity, when the combined intelligence and virtue of the people constituted a power working for righteousness, and that there came a time when this nation became a spendthrift, when it ceased to accumulate, when it lived on the labors of its youth, and passed from strength and glory to the weakness of old age, and finally fell palsied to its tomb.
The intelligence of man guided by a sense of duty is the only power that makes for righteousness.
You tell me that I am waging "a hopeless war," and you give as a reason that the Christian religion began to be nearly two thousand years before I was born, and that it will live two thousand years after I am dead.
Is this an argument? Does it tend to convince even yourself? Could not Caiaphas, the high priest, have said substantially this to Christ? Could he not have said: "The religion of Jehovah began to be four thousand years before you were born, and it will live two thousand years after you are dead"? Could not a follower of Buddha make the same illogical remark to a missionary from Andover with the glad tidings? Could he not say: "You are waging a hopeless war. The religion of Buddha began to be twenty-five hundred years before you were born, and hundreds of millions of people still worship at Great Buddha's shrine"?
Do you insist that nothing except the right can live for two thousand years? Why is it that the Catholic Church "lives on and on, while nations and kingdoms perish"? Do you consider that the "survival of the fittest"?
Is it the same Christian religion now living that lived during the Middle Ages? Is it the same Christian religion that founded the Inquisition and invented the thumbscrew? Do you see no difference between the religion of Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and the Christianity of to-day? Do you really think that it is the same Christianity that has been living all these years? Have you noticed any change in the last generation? Do you remember when scientists endeavored to prove a theory by a passage from the Bible, and do you now know that believers in the Bible are exceedingly anxious to prove its truth by some fact that science has demonstrated? Do you know that the standard has changed? Other things are not measured by the Bible, but the Bible has to submit to another test. It no longer owns the scales. It has to be weighed,—it is being weighed,—it is growing lighter and lighter every day. Do you know that only a few years ago "the glad tidings of great joy" consisted mostly in a description of hell? Do you know that nearly every intelligent minister is now ashamed to preach about it, or to read about it, or to talk about it? Is there any change? Do you know that but few ministers now believe in the "plenary inspiration" of the Bible, that from thousands of pulpits people are now told that the creation according to Genesis is a mistake, that it, never was as wet as the flood, and that the miracles of the Old Testament are considered simply as myths or mistakes?
How long will what you call Christianity endure, if it changes as rapidly during the next century as it has during the last? What will there be left of the supernatural?
It does not seem possible that thoughtful people can, for many years, believe that a being of infinite wisdom is the author of the Old Testament, that a being of infinite purity and kindness upheld polygamy and slavery, that he ordered his chosen people to massacre their neighbors, and that he commanded husbands and fathers to persecute wives and daughters unto death for opinion's sake.
It does not seem within the prospect of belief that Jehovah, the cruel, the jealous, the ignorant, and the revengeful, is the creator and preserver of the universe.
Does it seem possible that infinite goodness would create a world in which life feeds on life, in which everything devours and is devoured? Can there be a sadder fact than this: Innocence is not a certain shield?
It is impossible for me to believe in the eternity of punishment. If that doctrine be true, Jehovah is insane.
Day after day there are mournful processions of men and women, patriots and mothers, girls whose only crime is that the word Liberty burst into flower between their pure and loving lips, driven like beasts across the melancholy wastes of Siberian snow. These men, these women, these daughters, go to exile and to slavery, to a land where hope is satisfied with death. Does it seem possible to you that an "Infinite Father" sees all this and sits as silent as a god of stone?
And yet, according to your Presbyterian creed, according to your inspired book, according to your Christ, there is another procession, in which are the noblest and the best, in which you will find the wondrous spirits of this world, the lovers of the human race, the teachers of their fellow-men, the greatest soldiers that ever battled for the right; and this procession of countless millions, in which you will find the most generous and the most loving of the sons and daughters of men, is moving on to the Siberia of God, the land of eternal exile, where agony becomes immortal.
How can you, how can any man with brain or heart, believe this infinite lie?
Is there not room for a better, for a higher philosophy? After all, is it not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily produced, that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes and all crimes, were simply necessities? Is it not possible that out of this perception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute justification for the individual? May we not find that every soul has, like Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like Prometheus to the rocks of fate?
You ask me to take the "sober second thought." I beg of you to take the first, and if you do, you will throw away the Presbyterian creed; you will instantly perceive that he who commits the "smallest sin" no more deserves eternal pain than he who does the smallest virtuous deed deserves eternal bliss; you will become convinced that an infinite God who creates billions of men knowing that they will suffer through all the countless years is an infinite demon; you will be satisfied that the Bible, with its philosophy and its folly, with its goodness and its cruelty, is but the work of man, and that the supernatural does not and cannot exist.
For you personally, I have the highest regard and the sincerest respect, and I beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not to furrow the cheeks of mothers, by preaching a creed that should be shrieked in a mad-house. Do not make the cradle as terrible as the coffin. Preach, I pray you, the gospel of Intellectual Hospitality—the liberty of thought and speech. Take from loving hearts the awful fear. Have mercy on your fellow-men. Do not drive to madness the mothers whose tears are falling on the pallid faces of those who died in unbelief. Pity the erring, wayward, suffering, weeping world. Do not proclaim as "tidings of great joy" that an Infinite Spider is weaving webs to catch the souls of men.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
I have read your Reply to my Open Letter half a dozen times, and each time with new appreciation of your skill as an advocate. It is written with great ingenuity, and furnishes probably as complete an argument as you are able to give for the faith (or want of faith) that is in you. Doubtless you think it unanswerable, and so it will seem to those who are predisposed to your way of thinking. To quote a homely saying of Mr. Lincoln, in which there is as much of wisdom as of wit, "For those who like that sort of thing, no doubt that is the sort of thing they do like." You may answer that we, who cling to the faith of our fathers, are equally prejudiced, and that it is for that reason that we are not more impressed by the force of your pleading. I do not deny a strong leaning that way, and yet our real interest is the same—to get at the truth; and, therefore, I have tried to give due weight to whatever of argument there is in the midst of so much eloquence; but must confess that, in spite of all, I remain in the same obdurate frame of mind as before. With all the candor that I can bring to bear upon the question, I find on reviewing my Open Letter scarcely a sentence to change and nothing to withdraw; and am quite willing to leave it as my Declaration of Faith, to stand side by side with your Reply, for intelligent and candid men to judge between us. I need only to add a few words in taking leave of the subject.
You seem a little disturbed that "some of my brethren" should look upon you as "a monster" because of your unbelief. I certainly do not approve of such language, although they would tell me that it is the only word which is a fit response to your ferocious attacks upon what they hold most sacred. You are a born gladiator, and when you descend into the arena, you strike heavy blows, which provoke blows in return. In this very Reply you manifest a particular animosity against Presbyterians. Is it because you were brought up in that Church, of which your father, whom you regard with filial respect and affection, was an honored minister? You even speak of "the Presbyterian God!" as if we assumed to appropriate the Supreme Being, claiming to be the special objects of His favor. Is there any ground for this imputation of narrowness? On the contrary, when we bow our knees before our Maker, it is as the God and Father of all mankind; and the expression you permit yourself to use, can only be regarded as grossly offensive. Was it necessary to offer this rudeness to the religious denomination in which you were born?
And this may explain, what you do not seem fully to understand, why it is that you are sometimes treated to sharp epithets by the religious press and public. You think yourself persecuted for your opinions. But others hold the same opinions without offence. Nor is it because you express your opinions. Nobody would deny you the same freedom which is accorded to Huxley or Herbert Spencer. It is not because you exercise your liberty of judgment or of speech, but because of the way in which you attack others, holding up their faith to all manner of ridicule, and speaking of those who profess it as if they must be either knaves or fools. It is not in human nature not to resent such imputations on that which, however incredible to you, is very precious to them. Hence it is that they think you a rough antagonist; and when you shock them by such expressions as I have quoted, you must expect some pretty strong language in return. I do not join them in this, because I know you, and appreciate that other side of you which is manly and kindly and chivalrous. But while I recognize these better qualities, I must add in all frankness that I am compelled to look upon you as a man so embittered against religion that you cannot think of it except as associated with cant, bigotry, and hypocrisy. In such a state of mind it is hardly possible for you to judge fairly of the arguments for its truth.
I believe with you, that reason was given us to be exercised, and that when man seeks after truth, his mind should be, as you say Darwin's was, "as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass." But if he is warped by passion so that he cannot see things truly, then is he responsible. It is the moral element which alone makes the responsibility. Nor do I believe that any man will be judged in this world or the next for what does not involve a moral wrong. Hence your appalling statement, "The God you worship will, according to your creed, torture (!) through all the endless years the man who entertains an honest doubt," does not produce the effect intended, simply because I do not affirm nor believe any such thing. I believe that, in the future world, every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body, and that the judgment, whatever it may be, will be transparently just. God is more merciful than man. He desireth not the death of the wicked. Christ forgave, where men would condemn, and whatever be the fate of any human soul, it can never be said that the Supreme Ruler was wanting either in justice or mercy. This I emphasize because you dwell so much upon the subject of future retribution, giving it an attention so constant as to be almost exclusive. Whatever else you touch upon, you soon come back to this as the black thunder-cloud that darkens all the horizon, casting its mighty shadows over the life that now is and that which is to come. Your denunciations of this "inhuman" belief are so reiterated that one would be left to infer that there is nothing else in Religion; that it is all wrath and terror. But this is putting a part for the whole. Religion is a vast system, of which this is but a single feature: it is but one doctrine of many; and indeed some whom no one will deny to be devout Christians, do not hold it at all, or only in a modified form, while with all their hearts they accept and profess the Religion that Christ came to bring into the world.
Archdeacon Farrar, of Westminster Abbey, the most eloquent preacher in the Church of England, has written a book entitled "Eternal Hope," in which he argues from reason and the Bible, that this life is not "the be-all and end-all" of human probation; but that in the world to come there will be another opportunity, when countless millions, made wiser by unhappy experience, will turn again to the paths of life; and that so in the end the whole human race, with the exception of perhaps a few who remain irreclaimable, will be recovered and made happy forever. Others look upon "eternal death" as merely the extinction of being, while immortality is the reward of pre-eminent virtue, interpreting in that sense the words, "The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." The latter view might recommend itself to you as the application of "the survival of the fittest" to another world, the worthless, the incurably bad, of the human race being allowed to drop out of existence (an end which can have no terrors for you, since you look upon it as the common lot of all men,) while the good are continued in being forever. The acceptance of either of these theories would relieve your mind of that "horror of great darkness" which seems to come over it whenever you look forward to retribution beyond the grave.
But while conceding all liberty to others I cannot so easily relieve myself of this stern and rugged truth. To me moral evil in the universe is a tremendous reality, and I do not see how to limit it within the bounds of time. Retribution is to me a necessary part of the Divine law. A law without a penalty for its violations is no law. But I rest the argument for it, not on the Bible, but on principles which you yourself acknowledge. You say, "There are no punishments, no rewards: there are consequences." Very well, take the "consequences," and see where they lead you. When a man by his vices has reduced his body to a wreck and his mind to idiocy, you say this is the "consequence" of his vicious life. Is it a great stretch of language to say that it is his "punishment," and nonetheless punishment because self-inflicted? To the poor sufferer raving in a madhouse, it matters little what it is called, so long as he is experiencing the agonies of hell. And here your theory of "consequences," if followed up, will lead you very far. For if man lives after death, and keeps his personal identity, do not the "consequences" of his past life follow him into the future? And if his existence is immortal, are not the consequences immortal also? And what is this but endless retribution?
But you tell me that the moral effect of retribution is destroyed by the easy way in which a man escapes the penalty. He has but to repent, and he is restored to the same condition before the law as if he had not sinned. Not so do I understand it. "I believe in the forgiveness of sins," but forgiveness does not reverse the course of nature; it does not prevent the operation of natural law. A drunkard may repent as he is nearing his end, but that does not undo the wrong that he has done, nor avert the consequences. In spite of his tears, he dies in an agony of shame and remorse. The inexorable law must be fulfilled.
And so in the future world. Even though a man be forgiven, he does not wholly escape the evil of his past life. A retribution follows him even within the heavenly gates; for if he does not suffer, still that bad life has so shriveled up his moral nature as to diminish his power of enjoyment. There are degrees of happiness, as one star differeth from another star in glory; and he who begins wrong, will find that it is not as well to sin and repent of it as not to sin at all. He enters the other world in a state of spiritual infancy, and will have to begin at the bottom and climb slowly upward.
We might go a step farther, and say that perhaps heaven itself has not only its lights but its shadows, in the reflections that must come even there. We read of "the book of God's remembrance," but is there not another book of remembrance in the mind itself—a book which any man may well fear to open and to look thereon? When that book is opened, and we read its awful pages, shall we not all think "what might have been?" And will those thoughts be wholly free from sadness? The drunken brute who breaks the heart that loved him may weep bitterly, and his poor wife may forgive him with her dying lips; but he cannot forgive himself , and never can he recall without grief that bowed head and that broken heart. This preserves the element of retribution, while it does not shut the door to forgiveness and mercy.
But we need not travel over again the round of Christian doctrines. My faith is very simple; it revolves around two words; God and Christ. These are the two centres, or, as an astronomer might say, the double-star, or double-sun, of the great orbit of religious truth.
As to the first of these, you say "There can be no evidence to my mind of the existence of such a being, and my mind is so that it is incapable of even thinking of an infinite personality;" and you gravely put to me this question: "Do you really believe that this world is governed by an infinitely wise and good God? Have you convinced even yourself of this?" Here are two questions—one as to the existence of God, and the other as to His benevolence. I will answer both in language as plain as it is possible for me to use.
First, Do I believe in the existence of God? I answer that it is impossible for me not to believe it. I could not disbelieve it if I would. You insist that belief or unbelief is not a matter of choice or of the will, but of evidence. You say "the brain thinks as the heart beats, as the eyes see." Then let us stand aside with all our prepossessions, and open our eyes to what we can see.
When Robinson Crusoe in his desert island came down one day to the seashore, and saw in the sand the print of a human foot, could he help the instantaneous conviction that a man had been there? You might have tried to persuade him that it was all chance,—that the sand had been washed up by the waves or blown by the winds, and taken this form, or that some marine insect had traced a figure like a human foot,—you would not have moved him a particle. The imprint was there, and the conclusion was irresistible: he did not believe—he knew that some human being, whether friend or foe, civilized or savage, had set his foot upon that desolate shore. So when I discover in the world (as I think I do) mysterious footprints that are certainly not human, it is not a question whether I shall believe or not: I cannot help believing that some Power greater than man has set foot upon the earth.
It is a fashion among atheistic philosophers to make light of the argument from design; but "my mind is so that it is incapable" of resisting the conclusion to which it leads me. And (since personal questions are in order) I beg to ask if it is possible for you to take in your hands a watch, and believe that there was no "design" in its construction; that it was not made to keep time, but only "happened" so; that it is the product of some freak of nature, which brought together its parts and set it going. Do you not know with as much positiveness as can belong to any conviction of your mind, that it was not the work of accident, but of design; and that if there was a design, there was a designer? And if the watch was made to keep time, was not the eye made to see and the ear to hear? Skeptics may fight against this argument as much as they please, and try to evade the inevitable conclusion, and yet it remains forever entwined in the living frame of man as well as imbedded in the solid foundations of the globe. Wherefore I repeat, it is not a question with me whether I will believe or not—I cannot help believing; and I am not only surprised, but amazed, that you or any thoughtful man can come to any other conclusion.' In wonder and astonishment I ask, "Do you really believe" that in all the wide universe there is no Higher Intelligence than that of the poor human creatures that creep on this earthly ball? For myself, it is with the pro-foundest conviction as well as the deepest reverence that I repeat the first sentence of my faith: "I believe in God the Father Almighty."
And not the Almighty only, but the Wise and the Good. Again I ask, How can I help believing what I see every day of my life? Every morning, as the sun rises in the East, sending light and life over the world, I behold a glorious image of the beneficent Creator. The exquisite beauty of the dawn, the dewy freshness of the air, the fleecy clouds floating in the sky—all speak of Him. And when the sun goes down, sending shafts of light through the dense masses that would hide his setting, and casting a glory over the earth and sky, this wondrous illumination is to me but the reflection of Him who "spreadeth out the heavens like a curtain; who maketh the clouds His chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind."
How much more do we find the evidences of goodness in man himself: in the power of thought; of acquiring knowledge; of penetrating the mysteries of nature and climbing among the stars. Can a being endowed with such transcendent gifts doubt the goodness of his Creator?
Yes, I believe with all my heart and soul in One who is not only Infinitely Great, but Infinitely Good; who loves all the creatures He has made; bending over them as the bow in the cloud spans the arch of heaven, stretching from horizon to horizon; looking down upon them with a tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him; for He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust."
On the question of immortality you are equally "at sea." You know nothing and believe nothing; or, rather, you know only that you do not know, and believe that you do not believe. You confess indeed to a faint hope, and admit a bare possibility, that there may be another life, though you are in an uncertainty about it that is altogether bewildering and desperate. But your mind is so poetical that you give a certain attractiveness even to the prospect of annihilation. You strew the sepulchre with such flowers as these:
"I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
"I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings; the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life that brings rapture and love to every one."
Beautiful words! but inexpressibly sad! It is a silver lining to the cloud, and yet the cloud is there, dark and impenetrable. But perhaps we ought not to expect anything clearer and brighter from one who recognizes no light but that of Nature.
That light is very dim. If it were all we had, we should be just where Cicero was, and say with him, and with you, that a future life was "to be hoped for rather than believed." But does not that very uncertainty show the need of a something above Nature, which is furnished in Him who "was crucified, dead and buried, and the third day rose again from the dead?" It is the Conqueror of Death who calls to the fainthearted: "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Since He has gone before us, lighting up the dark passage of the grave, we need not fear to follow, resting on the word of our Leader: "Because I live, ye shall live also."
This faith in another life is a precious inheritance, which cannot be torn from the agonized bosom without a wrench that tears every heartstring; and it was to this I referred as the last refuge of a poor, suffering, despairing soul, when I asked: "Does it never occur to you that there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of your fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another life hangs all that relieves the darkness of their present existence?" The imputation of cruelty you repel with some warmth, saying (with a slight variation of my language): "When I deny the existence of perdition, you reply that there is something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures." Of course, this change of words, putting perdition in the place of immortal life and hope, was a mere inadvertence. But it was enough to change the whole character of what I wrote. As I described "the treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures," I did think it "very cruel," and I think so still.
While correcting this slight misquotation, I must remove from your mind a misapprehension, which is so very absurd as to be absolutely comical. In my Letter referring to your disbelief of immortality, I had said: "With an air of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience by storm, you confess your ignorance of what perhaps others are better acquainted with, when you say, 'This world is all that I know anything about, so far as I recollect'" Of course "what perhaps others are better acquainted with" was a part of what you said, or at least implied by your manner (for you do not convey your meaning merely by words, but by a tone of voice, by arched eyebrows, or a curled lip); and yet, instead of taking the sentence in its plain and obvious sense, you affect to understand it as an assumption on my part to have some private and mysterious knowledge of another world (!), and gravely ask me, "Did you by this intend to say that you know anything of any other state of existence; that you have inhabited some other planet; that you lived before you were born; and that you recollect something of that other world or of that other state?" No, my dear Colonel! I have been a good deal of a traveler, and have seen all parts of this world, but I have never visited any other. In reading your sober question, if I did not know you to be one of the brightest wits of the day, I should be tempted to quote what Sidney Smith says of a Scotchman, that "you cannot get a joke into his head except by a surgical operation!"
But to return to what is serious: you make light of our faith and our hopes, because you know not the infinite solace they bring to the troubled human heart. You sneer at the idea that religion can be a "consolation." Indeed! Is it not a consolation to have an Almighty Friend? Was it a light matter for the poor slave mother, who sat alone in her cabin, having been robbed of her children, to sing in her wild, wailing accents:
"Nobody knows the sorrows I've seen:
Nobody knows but Jesus?"
Would you rob her of that Unseen Friend—the only Friend she had on earth or in heaven?
But I will do you the justice to say that your want of religious faith comes in part from your very sensibility and tenderness of heart. You cannot recognize an overruling Providence, because your mind is so harassed by scenes that you witness. Why, you ask, do men suffer so? You draw frightful pictures of the misery which exists in the world, as a proof of the incapacity of its Ruler and Governor, and do not hesitate to say that "any honest man of average intelligence could do vastly better." If you could have your way, you would make everybody happy; there should be no more poverty, and no more sickness or pain.
This is a pleasant picture to look at, and yet you must excuse me for saying that it is rather a child's picture than that of a stalwart man. The world is not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged like children: spoiled children they would soon become. It is an arena of conflict, in which we are to develop the manhood that is in us. We all have to take the "rough-and-tumble" of life, and are the better for it—physically, intellectually, and morally. If there be any true manliness within us, we come out of the struggle stronger and better; with larger minds and kinder hearts; a broader wisdom and a gentler charity.
Perhaps we should not differ on this point if we could agree as to the true end of life. But here I fear the difference is irreconcilable. You think that end is happiness: I think it is character. I do not believe that the highest end of life upon earth is to "have a good time to get from it the utmost amount of enjoyment;" but to be truly and greatly GOOD; and that to that end no discipline can be too severe which leads us "to suffer and be strong." That discipline answers its end when it raises the spirit to the highest pitch of courage and endurance. The splendor of virtue never appears so bright as when set against a dark background. It was in prisons and dungeons that the martyrs showed the greatest degree of moral heroism, the power of
"Man's unconquerable mind."
But I know well that these illustrations do not cover the whole case. There is another picture to be added to those of heroic struggle and martyrdom—that of silent suffering, which makes of life one long agony, and which often comes upon the good, so that it seems as if the best suffered the most. And yet when you sit by a sick bed, and look into a face whiter than the pillow on which it rests, do you not sometimes mark how that very suffering refines the nature that bears it so meekly? This is the Christian theory: that suffering, patiently borne, is a means of the greatest elevation of character, and, in the end, of the highest enjoyment. Looking at it in this light, we can understand how it should be that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared [or even to be named] with the glory which shall be revealed." When the heavenly morning breaks, brighter than any dawn that blushes "o'er the world," there will be "a restitution of all things:" the poor will be made rich, and the most suffering the most serenely happy; as in the vision of the Apocalypse, when it is asked "What are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?" the answer is, "These are they which came our of great tribulation."
In this conclusion, which is not adopted lightly, but after innumerable struggles with doubt, after the experience and the reflection of years, I feel "a great peace." It is the glow of sunset that gilds the approach of evening. For (we must confess it) it is towards that you and I are advancing. The sun has passed the meridian, and hastens to his going down. Whatever of good this life has for us (and I am far from being one of those who look upon it as a vale of tears) will soon be behind us. I see the shadows creeping on; yet I welcome the twilight that will soon darken into night, for I know that it will be a night all glorious with stars. As I look upward, the feeling of awe is blended with a strange, overpowering sense of the Infinite Goodness, which surrounding me like an atmosphere:
"And so beside the Silent Sea,
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His Islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care."
Would that you could share with me this confidence and this hope! But you seem to be receding farther from any kind of faith. In one of your closing paragraphs, you give what is to you "the conclusion of the whole matter." After repudiating religion with scorn, you ask, "Is there not room for a better, for a higher philosophy?" and thus indicate the true answer to be given, to which no words can do justice but your own:
"After all, is it not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily produced; that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes and all crimes, were simply necessities? Is it not possible that out of this perception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute justification for the individual? May we not find that every soul has, like Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like Prometheus to the rocks of fate?"
If this be the end of all philosophy, it is equally the end of "all things." Not only does it make an end of us and of our hopes of futurity, but of all that makes the present life worth living—of all freedom, and hence of all virtue. There are no more any moral distinctions in the world—no good and no evil, no right and no wrong; nothing but grim necessity. With such a creed, I wonder how you can ever stand at the bar, and argue for the conviction of a criminal. Why should he be convicted and punished for what he could not help? Indeed he is not a criminal, since there is no such thing as crime. He is not to blame. Was he not "lashed to the wild horse of passion," carried away by a power beyond his control?
What cruelty to thrust him behind iron bars! Poor fellow! he deserves our pity. Let us hasten to relieve him from a position which must be so painful, and make our humble apology for having presumed to punish him for an act in which he only obeyed an impulse which he could not resist. This will be "absolute justification for the individual." But what will become of society, you do not tell us.
Are you aware that in this last attainment of "a better, a higher philosophy" (which is simply absolute fatalism), you have swung round to the side of John Calvin, and gone far beyond him? That you, who have exhausted all the resources of the English language in denouncing his creed as the most horrible of human beliefs—brainless, soulless, heartless; who have held it up to scorn and derision; now hold to the blackest Calvinism that was ever taught by man? You cannot find words sufficient to express your horror of the doctrine of Divine decrees; and yet here you have decrees with a vengeance—predestination and damnation, both in one. Under such a creed, man is a thousand times worse off than under ours: for he has absolutely no hope. You may say that at any rate he cannot suffer forever. You do not know even that; but at any rate he suffers as long as he exists. There is no God above to show him pity, and grant him release; but as long as the ages roll, he is "lashed to the rocks of fate," with the insatiate vulture tearing at his heart!
In reading your glittering phrases, I seem to be losing hold of everything, and to be sinking, sinking, till I touch the lowest depths of an abyss; while from the blackness above me a sound like a death-knell tolls the midnight of the soul. If I believed this I should cry, God help us all! Or no—for there would be no God, and even this last consolation would be denied us: for why should we offer a prayer which can neither be heard nor answered? As well might we ask mercy from "the rocks of fate" to which we are chained forever!
Recoiling from this Gospel of Despair, I turn to One in whose face there is something at once human and divine—an indescribable majesty, united with more than human tenderness and pity; One who was born among the poor, and had not where to lay His head, and yet went about doing good; poor, yet making many rich; who trod the world in deepest loneliness, and yet whose presence lighted up every dwelling into which He came; who took up little children in His arms, and blessed them; a giver of joy to others, and yet a sufferer himself; who tasted every human sorrow, and yet was always ready to minister to others' grief; weeping with them that wept; coming to Bethany to comfort Mary and Martha concerning their brother; rebuking the proud, but gentle and pitiful to the most abject of human creatures; stopping amid the throng at the cry of a blind beggar by the wayside; willing to be known as "the friend of sinners," if He might recall them into the way of peace; who did not scorn even the fallen woman who sank at His feet, but by His gentle word, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more," lifted her up, and set her in the path of a virtuous womanhood; and who, when dying on the cross, prayed: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." In this Friend of the friendless, Comforter of the comfortless, Forgiver of the penitent, and Guide of the erring, I find a greatness that I had not found in any of the philosophers or teachers of the world. No voice in all the ages thrills me like that which whispers close to my heart, "Come unto me and I will give you rest," to which I answer: This is my Master, and I will follow Him.
Henry M. Field.
With great pleasure I have read your second letter, in which you seem to admit that men may differ even about religion without being responsible for that difference; that every man has the right to read the Bible for himself, state freely the conclusion at which he arrives, and that it is not only his privilege, but his duty to speak the truth; that Christians can hardly be happy in heaven, while those they loved on earth are suffering with the lost; that it is not a crime to investigate, to think, to reason, to observe, and to be governed by evidence; that credulity is not a virtue, and that the open mouth of ignorant wonder is not the only entrance to Paradise; that belief is not necessary to salvation, and that no man can justly be made to suffer eternal pain for having expressed an intellectual conviction.
You seem to admit that no man can justly be held responsible for his thoughts; that the brain thinks without asking our consent, and that we believe or disbelieve without an effort of the will.
I congratulate you upon the advance that you have made. You not only admit that we have the right to think, but that we have the right to express our honest thoughts. You admit that the Christian world no longer believes in the fagot, the dungeon, and the thumbscrew. Has the Christian world outgrown its God? Has man become more merciful than his maker? If man will not torture his fellow-man on account of a difference of opinion, will a God of infinite love torture one of his children for what is called the sin of unbelief? Has man outgrown the Inquisition, and will God forever be the warden of a penitentiary? The walls of the old dungeons have fallen, and light now visits the cell where brave men perished in darkness. Is Jehovah to keep the cells of perdition in repair forever, and are his children to be the eternal prisoners?
It seems hard for you to appreciate the mental condition of one who regards all gods as substantially the same; that is to say, who thinks of them all as myths and phantoms born of the imagination,—characters in the religious fictions of the race. To you it probably seems strange that a man should think far more of Jupiter than of Jehovah. Regarding them both as creations of the mind, I choose between them, and I prefer the God of the Greeks, on the same principle that I prefer Portia to Iago; and yet I regard them, one and all, as children of the imagination, as phantoms born of human fears and human hopes.
Surely nothing was further from my mind than to hurt the feelings of any one by speaking of the Presbyterian God. I simply intended to speak of the God of the Presbyterians. Certainly the God of the Presbyterian is not the God of the Catholic, nor is he the God of the Mohammedan or Hindoo. He is a special creation suited only to certain minds. These minds have naturally come together, and they form what we call the Presbyterian Church. As a matter of fact, no two churches can by any possibility have precisely the same God; neither can any two human beings conceive of precisely the same Deity. In every man's God there is, to say the least, a part of that man. The lower the man, the lower his conception of God. The higher the man, the grander his Deity must be. The savage who adorns his body with a belt from which hang the scalps of enemies slain in battle, has no conception of a loving, of a forgiving God; his God, of necessity, must be as revengeful, as heartless, as infamous as the God of John Calvin.
You do not exactly appreciate my feeling. I do not hate Presbyterians; I hate Presbyterianism. I hate with all my heart the creed of that church, and I most heartily despise the God described in the Confession of Faith. But some of the best friends I have in the world are afflicted with the mental malady known as Presbyterianism. They are the victims of the consolation growing out of the belief that a vast majority of their fellow-men are doomed to suffer eternal torment, to the end that their Creator may be eternally glorified. I have said many times, and I say again, that I do not despise a man because he has the rheumatism; I despise the rheumatism because it has a man.
But I do insist that the Presbyterians have assumed to appropriate to themselves their Supreme Being, and that they have claimed, and that they do claim, to be the "special objects of his favor." They do claim to be the very elect, and they do insist that God looks upon them as the objects of his special care. They do claim that the light of Nature, without the torch of the Presbyterian creed, is insufficient to guide any soul to the gate of heaven. They do insist that even those who never heard of Christ, or never heard of the God of the Presbyterians, will be eternally lost; and they not only claim this, but that their fate will illustrate not only the justice but the mercy of God. Not only so, but they insist that the morality of an unbeliever is displeasing to God, and that the love of an unconverted mother for her helpless child is nothing less than sin.
When I meet a man who really believes the Presbyterian creed, I think of the Laocoon. I feel as though looking upon a human being helpless in the coils of an immense and poisonous serpent. But I congratulate you with all my heart that you have repudiated this infamous, this savage creed; that you now admit that reason was given us to be exercised; that God will not torture any man for entertaining an honest doubt, and that in the world to come "every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body."
Let me quote your exact language: "I believe that in the future world every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body." Do you not see that you have bidden farewell to the Presbyterian Church? In that sentence you have thrown away the atonement, you have denied the efficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ, and you have denied the necessity of belief. If we are to be judged by the deeds done in the body, that is the end of the Presbyterian scheme of salvation. I sincerely congratulate you for having repudiated the savagery of Calvinism.
It also gave me great pleasure to find that you have thrown away, with a kind of glad shudder, that infamy of infamies, the dogma of eternal pain. I have denounced that inhuman belief; I have denounced every creed that had coiled within it that viper; I have denounced every man who preached it, the book that contains it, and with all my heart the God who threatens it; and at last I have the happiness of seeing the editor of the New York Evangelist admit that devout Christians do not believe that lie, and quote with approbation the words of a minister of the Church of England to the effect that all men will be finally recovered and made happy.
Do you find this doctrine of hope in the Presbyterian creed? Is this star, that sheds light on every grave, found in your Bible? Did Christ have in his mind the shining truth that all the children of men will at last be filled with joy, when he uttered these comforting words: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels"?
Do you find in this flame the bud of hope, or the flower of promise?
You suggest that it is possible that "the incurably bad will be annihilated," and you say that such a fate can have no terrors for me, as I look upon annihilation as the common lot of all. Let us examine this position. Why should a God of infinite wisdom create men and women whom he knew would be "incurably bad"? What would you say of a mechanic who was forced to destroy his own productions on the ground that they were "incurably bad"? Would you say that he was an infinitely wise mechanic? Does infinite justice annihilate the work of infinite wisdom? Does God, like an ignorant doctor, bury his mistakes?
Besides, what right have you to say that I "look upon annihilation as the common lot of all"? Was there any such thought in my Reply? Do you find it in any published words of mine? Do you find anything in what I have written tending to show that I believe in annihilation? Is it not true that I say now, and that I have always said, that I do not know? Does a lack of knowledge as to the fate of the human soul imply a belief in annihilation? Does it not equally imply a belief in immortality?
You have been—at least until recently—a believer in the inspiration of the Bible and in the truth of its every word. What do you say to the following: "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast." You will see that the inspired writer is not satisfied with admitting that he does not know. "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away; so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." Was it not cruel for an inspired man to attack a sacred belief?
You seem surprised that I should speak of the doctrine of eternal pain as "the black thunder-cloud that darkens all the horizon, casting its mighty shadows over the life that now is and that which is to come." If that doctrine be true, what else is there worthy of engaging the attention of the human mind? It is the blackness that extinguishes every star. It is the abyss in which every hope must perish. It leaves a universe without justice and without mercy—a future without one ray of light, and a present with nothing but fear. It makes heaven an impossibility, God an infinite monster, and man an eternal victim. Nothing can redeem a religion in which this dogma is found. Clustered about it are all the snakes of the Furies.
But you have abandoned this infamy, and you have admitted that we are to be judged according to the deeds done in the body. Nothing can be nearer self-evident than the fact that a finite being cannot commit an infinite sin; neither can a finite being do an infinitely good deed. That is to say, no one can deserve for any act eternal pain, and no one for any deed can deserve eternal joy. If we are to be judged by the deeds done in the body, the old orthodox hell and heaven both become impossible.
So, too, you have recognized the great and splendid truth that sin cannot be predicated of an intellectual conviction. This is the first great step toward the liberty of soul. You admit that there is no morality and no immorality in belief—that is to say, in the simple operation of the mind in weighing evidence, in observing facts, and in drawing conclusions. You admit that these things are without sin and without guilt. Had all men so believed there never could have been religious persecution—the Inquisition could not have been built, and the idea of eternal pain never could have polluted the human heart.
You have been driven to the passions for the purpose of finding what you are pleased to call "sin" and "responsibility" and you say, speaking of a human being, "but if he is warped by passion so that he cannot see things truly, then is he responsible." One would suppose that the use of the word "cannot" is inconsistent with the idea of responsibility. What is passion? There are certain desires, swift, thrilling, that quicken the action of the heart—desires that fill the brain with blood, with fire and flame—desires that bear the same relation to judgment that storms and waves bear to the compass on a ship. Is passion necessarily produced? Is there an adequate cause for every effect? Can you by any possibility think of an effect without a cause, and can you by any possibility think of an effect that is not a cause, or can you think of a cause that is not an effect? Is not the history of real civilization the slow and gradual emancipation of the intellect, of the judgment, from the mastery of passion? Is not that man civilized whose reason sits the crowned monarch of his brain—whose passions are his servants?
Who knows the strength of the temptation to another? Who knows how little has been resisted by those who stand, how much has been resisted by those who fall? Who knows whether the victor or the victim made the braver and the more gallant fight? In judging of our fellow-men we must take into consideration the circumstances of ancestry, of race, of nationality, of employment, of opportunity, of education, and of the thousand influences that tend to mold or mar the character of man. Such a view is the mother of charity, and makes the God of the Presbyterians impossible.
At last you have seen the impossibility of forgiveness. That is to say, you perceive that after forgiveness the crime remains, and its children, called consequences, still live. You recognize the lack of philosophy in that doctrine. You still believe in what you call "the forgiveness of sins," but you admit that forgiveness cannot reverse the course of nature, and cannot prevent the operation of natural law. You also admit that if a man lives after death, he preserves his personal identity, his memory, and that the consequences of his actions will follow him through all the eternal years. You admit that consequences are immortal. After making this admission, of what use is the old idea of the forgiveness of sins? How can the criminal be washed clean and pure in the blood of another? In spite of this forgiveness, in spite of this blood, you have taken the ground that consequences, like the dogs of Actæon, follow even a Presbyterian, even one of the elect, within the heavenly gates. If you wish to be logical, you must also admit that the consequences of good deeds, like winged angels, follow even the atheist within the gates of hell.
You have had the courage of your convictions, and you have said that we are to be judged according to the deeds done in the body. By that judgment I am willing to abide. But, whether willing or not, I must abide, because there is no power, no God that can step between me and the consequences of my acts. I wish no heaven that I have not earned, no happiness to which I am not entitled. I do not wish to become an immortal pauper; neither am I willing to extend unworthy hands for alms.
My dear Mr. Field, you have outgrown your creed—as every Presbyterian must who grows at all. You are far better than the spirit of the Old Testament; far better, in my judgment, even than the spirit of the New. The creed that you have left behind, that you have repudiated, teaches that a man may be guilty of every crime—that he may have driven his wife to insanity, that his example may have led his children to the penitentiary, or to the gallows, and that yet, at the eleventh hour, he may, by what is called "repentance," be washed absolutely pure by the blood of another and receive and wear upon his brow the laurels of eternal peace. Not only so, but that creed has taught that this wretch in heaven could look back on the poor earth and see the wife, whom he swore to love and cherish, in the mad-house, surrounded by imaginary serpents, struggling in the darkness of night, made insane by his heartlessness—that creed has taught and teaches that he could look back and see his children in prison cells, or on the scaffold with the noose about their necks, and that these visions would not bring a shade of sadness to his redeemed and happy face. It is this doctrine, it is this dogma—so bestial, so savage as to beggar all the languages of men—that I have denounced. All the words of hatred, loathing and contempt, found in all the dialects and tongues of men, are not sufficient to express my hatred, my contempt, and my loathing of this creed.
You say that it is impossible for you not to believe in the existence of God. With this statement, I find no fault. Your mind is so that a belief in the existence of a Supreme Being gives satisfaction and content. Of course, you are entitled to no credit for this belief, as you ought not to be rewarded for believing that which you cannot help believing; neither should I be punished for failing to believe that which I cannot believe.
You believe because you see in the world around you such an adaptation of means to ends that you are satisfied there is design. I admit that when Robinson Crusoe saw in the sand the print of a human foot, like and yet unlike his own, he was justified in drawing the conclusion that a human being had been there. The inference was drawn from his own experience, and was within the scope of his own mind. But I do not agree with you that he "knew" a human being had been there; he had only sufficient evidence upon which to found a belief. He did not know the footsteps of all animals; he could not have known that no animal except man could have made that footprint: In order to have known that it was the foot of man, he must have known that no other animal was capable of making it, and he must have known that no other being had produced in the sand the likeness of this human foot.
You see what you call evidences of intelligence in the universe, and you draw the conclusion that there must be an infinite intelligence. Your conclusion is far wider than your premise. Let us suppose, as Mr. Hume supposed, that there is a pair of scales, one end of which is in darkness, and you find that a pound weight, or a ten-pound weight, placed upon that end of the scale in the light is raised; have you the right to say that there is an infinite weight on the end in darkness, or are you compelled to say only that there is weight enough on the end in darkness to raise the weight on the end in light?
It is illogical to say, because of the existence of this earth and of what you can see in and about it, that there must be an infinite intelligence. You do not know that even the creation of this world, and of all planets discovered, required an infinite power, or infinite wisdom. I admit that it is impossible for me to look at a watch and draw the inference that there was no design in its construction, or that it only happened. I could not regard it as a product of some freak of nature, neither could I imagine that its various parts were brought together and set in motion by chance. I am not a believer in chance. But there is a vast difference between what man has made and the materials of which he has constructed the things he has made. You find a watch, and you say that it exhibits, or shows design. You insist that it is so wonderful it must have had a designer—in other words, that it is too wonderful not to have been constructed. You then find the watchmaker, and you say with regard to him that he too must have had a designer, for he is more wonderful than the watch. In imagagination you go from the watchmaker to the being you call God, and you say he designed the watchmaker, but he himself was not designed because he is too wonderful to have been designed. And yet in the case of the watch and of the watchmaker, it was the wonder that suggested design, while in the case of the maker of the watchmaker the wonder denied a designer. Do you not see that this argument devours itself?
If wonder suggests a designer, can it go on increasing until it denies that which it suggested?
You must remember, too, that the argument of design is applicable to all. You are not at liberty to stop at sunrise and sunset and growing corn and all that adds to the happiness of man; you must go further. You must admit that an infinitely wise and merciful God designed the fangs of serpents, the machinery by which the poison is distilled, the ducts by which it is carried to the fang, and that the same intelligence impressed this serpent with a desire to deposit this deadly virus in the flesh of man. You must believe that an infinitely wise God so constructed this world, that in the process of cooling, earthquakes would be caused—earthquakes that devour and overwhelm cities and states. Do you see any design in the volcano that sends its rivers of lava over the fields and the homes of men? Do you really think that a perfectly good being designed the invisible parasites that infest the air, that inhabit the water, and that finally attack and destroy the health and life of man? Do you see the same design in cancers that you do in wheat and corn? Did God invent tumors for the brain? Was it his ingenuity that so designed the human race that millions of people should be born deaf and dumb, that millions should be idiotic? Did he knowingly plant in the blood or brain the seeds of insanity? Did he cultivate those seeds? Do you see any design in this?
Man calls that good which increases his happiness, and that evil which gives him pain. In the olden time, back of the good he placed a God; back of the evil a devil; but now the orthodox world is driven to admit that the God is the author of all.
For my part, I see no goodness in the pestilence—no mercy in the bolt that leaps from the cloud and leaves the mark of death on the breast of a loving mother. I see no generosity in famine, no goodness in disease, no mercy in want and agony.
And yet you say that the being who created parasites that live only by inflicting pain—the being responsible for all the sufferings of mankind—you say that he has "a tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold." Yet according to the doctrine of the orthodox world, this being of infinite love and tenderness so created nature that its light misleads, and left a vast majority of the human race to blindly grope their way to endless pain.
You insist that a knowledge of God—a belief in God—is the foundation of social order; and yet this God of infinite tenderness has left for thousands and thousands of years nearly all of his children without a revelation. Why should infinite goodness leave the existence of God in doubt? Why should he see millions in savagery destroying the lives of each other, eating the flesh of each other, and keep his existence a secret from man? Why did he allow the savages to depend on sunrise and sunset and clouds? Why did he leave this great truth to a few half-crazed prophets, or to a cruel, heartless, and ignorant church? The sentence "There is a God".could have been imprinted on every blade of grass, on every leaf, on every star. An infinite God has no excuse for leaving his children in doubt and darkness.
There is still another point. You know that for thousands of ages men worshiped wild beasts as God. You know that for countless generations they knelt by coiled serpents, believing those serpents to be gods. Why did the real God secrete himself and allow his poor, ignorant, savage children to imagine that he was a beast, a serpent? Why did this God allow mothers to sacrifice their babes? Why did he not emerge from the darkness? Why did he not say to the poor mother, "Do not sacrifice your babe; keep it in your arms; press it to your bosom; let it be the solace of your declining years. I take no delight in the death of children; I am not what you suppose me to be; I am not a beast; I am not a serpent; I am full of love and kindness and mercy, and I want my children to be happy in this world"? Did the God who allowed a mother to sacrifice her babe through the mistaken idea that he, the God, demanded the sacrifice, feel a tenderness toward that mother "compared to which all human love is faint and cold"? Would a good father allow some of his children to kill others of his children to please him?
There is still another question. Why should God, a being of infinite tenderness, leave the question of immortality in doubt? How is it that there is nothing in the Old Testament on this subject? Why is it that he who made all the constellations did not put in his heaven the star of hope? How do you account for the fact that you do not find in the Old Testament, from the first mistake in Genesis, to the last curse in Malachi, a funeral service? Is it not strange that some one in the Old Testament did not stand by an open grave of father or mother and say: "We shall meet again"? Was it because the divinely inspired men did not know?
You taunt me by saying that I know no more of the immortality of the soul than Cicero knew. I admit it. I know no more than the lowest savage, no more than a doctor of divinity—that is to say, nothing.
Is it not, however, a curious fact that there is less belief in the immortality of the soul in Christian countries than in heathen lands—that the belief in immortality, in an orthodox church, is faint and cold and speculative, compared with that belief in India, in China, or in the Pacific Isles? Compare the belief in immortality in America, of Christians, with that of the followers of Mohammed. Do not Christians weep above their dead? Does a belief in immortality keep back their tears? After all, the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near—the echoes of words said to have been spoken more than eighteen centuries ago are lost in the sounds of the clods that fall on the coffin, And yet, compared with the orthodox hell, compared with the prison-house of God, how ecstatic is the grave—the grave without a sigh, without a tear, without a dream, without a fear. Compared with the immortality promised by the Presbyterian creed, how beautiful annihilation seems. To be nothing—how much better than to be a convict forever. To be unconscious dust—how much better than to be a heartless angel.
There is not, there never has been, there never will be, any consolation in orthodox Christianity. It offers no consolation to any good and loving man. I prefer the consolation of Nature, the consolation of hope, the consolation springing from human affection. I prefer the simple desire to live and love forever.
Of course, it would be a consolation to know that we have an "Almighty Friend" in heaven; but an "Almighty Friend" who cares nothing for us, who allows us to be stricken by his lightning, frozen by his winter, starved by his famine, and at last imprisoned in his hell, is a friend I do not care to have.
I remember "the poor slave mother who sat alone in her cabin, having been robbed of her children;" and, my dear Mr. Field, I also remember that the people who robbed her justified the robbery by reading passages from the sacred Scriptures. I remember that while the mother wept, the robbers, some of whom were Christians, read this: "Buy of the heathen round about, and they shall be your bondmen and bondwomen forever." I remember, too, that the robbers read: "Servants be obedient unto your masters;" and they said, this passage is the only message from the heart of God to the scarred back of the slave. I remember this, and I remember, also, that the poor slave mother upon her knees in wild and wailing accents called on the "Almighty Friend," and I remember that her prayer was never heard, and that her sobs died in the negligent air.
You ask me whether I would "rob this poor woman of such a friend?" My answer is this: I would give her liberty; I would break her chains. But let me ask you, did an "Almighty Friend" see the woman he loved "with a tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold," and the woman who loved him, robbed of her children? What was the "Almighty Friend" worth to her? She preferred her babe.
How could the "Almighty Friend" see his poor children pursued by hounds—his children whose only crime was the love of liberty—how could he see that, and take sides with the hounds? Do you believe that the "Almighty Friend" then governed the world? Do you really think that he
"Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast,
Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost"?
Do you believe that the "Almighty Friend" saw all of the tragedies that were enacted in the jungles of Africa—that he watched the wretched slave-ships, saw the miseries of the middle passage, heard the blows of all the whips, saw all the streams of blood, all the agonized faces of women, all the tears that were shed? Do you believe that he saw and knew all these things, and that he, the "Almighty Friend," looked coldly down and stretched no hand to save?
You persist, however, in endeavoring to account for the miseries of the world by taking the ground that happiness is not the end of life. You say that "the real end of life is character, and that no discipline can be too severe which leads us to suffer and be strong." Upon this subject you use the following language: "If you could have your way you would make everybody happy; there would be no more poverty, and no more sickness or pain." And this you say, is a "child's picture, hardly worthy of a stalwart man." Let me read you another "child's picture," which you will find in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, supposed to have been written by St. John, the Divine: "And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.".
If you visited some woman living in a tenement, supporting by her poor labor a little family—a poor woman on the edge of famine, sewing, it may be, her eyes blinded by tears—would you tell her that "the world is not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged like children."? Would you tell her that to think of a world without poverty, without tears, without pain, is "a child's picture"? If she asked you for a little assistance, would you refuse it on the ground that by being helped she might lose character? Would you tell her: "God does not wish to have you happy; happiness is a very foolish end; character is what you want, and God has put you here with these helpless, starving babes, and he has put this burden on your young life simply that you may suffer and be strong. I would help you gladly, but I do not wish to defeat the plans of your Almighty Friend"? You can reason one way, but you would act the other.
I agree with you that work is good, that struggle is essential; that men are made manly by contending with each other and with the forces of nature; but there is a point beyond which struggle does not make character; there is a point at which struggle becomes failure.
Can you conceive of an "Almighty Friend" deforming his children because he loves them? Did he allow the innocent to languish in dungeons because he was their friend? Did he allow the noble to perish upon the scaffold, the great and the self-denying to be burned at the stake, because he had the power to save? Was he restrained by love? Did this "Almighty Friend" allow millions of his children to be enslaved to the end that the "splendor of virtue might have a dark background"? You insist that "suffering patiently borne, is a means of the greatest elevation of character, and in the end of the highest enjoyment." Do you not then see that your "Almighty Friend" has been unjust to the happy—that he is cruel to those whom we call the fortunate—that he is indifferent to the men who do not suffer—that he leaves all the happy and prosperous and joyous without character, and that in the end, according to your doctrine, they are the losers?
But, after all, there is no need of arguing this question further. There is one fact that destroys forever your theory—and that is the fact that millions upon millions die in infancy. Where do they get "elevation of character"? What opportunity is given to them to "suffer and be strong"? Let us admit that we do not know. Let us say that the mysteries of life, of good and evil, of joy and pain, have never been explained. Is character of no importance in heaven? How is it possible for angels, living in "a child's picture," to "suffer and be strong"? Do you not see that, according to your philosophy, only the damned can grow great—only the lost can become sublime?
You do not seem to understand what I say with regard to what I call the higher philosophy. When that philosophy is accepted, of course there will be good in the world, there will be evil, there will still be right and wrong. What is good? That which tends to the happiness of sentient beings. What is evil? That which tends to the misery, or tends to lessen the happiness of sentient beings. What is right? The best thing to be done under the circumstances—that is to say, the thing that will increase or preserve the happiness of man. What is wrong? That which tends to the misery of man.
What you call liberty, choice, morality, responsibility, have nothing whatever to do with this. There is no difference between necessity and liberty. He who is free, acts from choice. What is the foundation of his choice? What we really mean by liberty is freedom from personal dictation—we do not wish to be controlled by the will of others. To us the nature of things does not seem to be a master—Nature has no will.
Society has the right to protect itself by imprisoning those who prey upon its interests; but it has no right to punish. It may have the right to destroy the life of one dangerous to the community; but what has freedom to do with this? Do you kill the poisonous serpent because he knew better than to bite? Do you chain a wild beast because he is morally responsible? Do you not think that the criminal deserves the pity of the virtuous?
I was looking forward to the time when the individual might feel justified—when the convict who had worn the garment of disgrace might know and feel that he had acted as he must.
There is an old Hindoo prayer to which I call your attention:
"Have mercy, God, upon the vicious;
Thou hast already had mercy upon the just by making them just."
Is it not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily produced? This, of course, would end in the justification of men. Is not that a desirable thing? Is it not possible that intelligence may at last raise the human race to that sublime and philosophic height?
You insist, however, that this is Calvinism. I take it for granted that you understand Calvinism—but let me tell you what it is. Calvinism asserts that man does as he must, and that, notwithstanding this fact, he is responsible for what he does—that is to say, for what he is compelled to do—that is to say, for what God does with him; and that, for doing that which he must, an infinite God, who compelled him to do it, is justified in punishing the man in eternal fire; this, not because the man ought to be damned, but simply for the glory of God.
Starting from the same declaration, that man does as he must, I reach the conclusion that we shall finally perceive in this fact justification for every individual. And yet you see no difference between my doctrine and Calvinism. You insist that damnation and justification are substantially the same; and yet the difference is as great as human language can express. You call the justification of all the world "the Gospel of Despair," and the damnation of nearly all the human race the "Consolation of Religion."
After all, my dear friend, do you not see that when you come to speak of that which is really good, you are compelled to describe your ideal human being? It is the human in Christ, and only the human, that you by any possibility can understand. You speak of one who was born among the poor, who went about doing good, who sympathized with those who suffered. You have described, not only one, but many millions of the human race, Millions of others have carried light to those sitting in darkness; millions and millions have taken children in their arms; millions have wept that those they love might smile. No language can express the goodness, the heroism, the patience and self-denial of the many millions, dead and living, who have preserved in the family of man the jewels of the heart. You have clad one being in all the virtues of the race, in all the attributes of gentleness, patience, goodness, and love, and yet that being, according to the New Testament, had to his character another side. True, he said, "Come unto me and I will give you rest;" but what did he say to those who failed to come? You pour out your whole heart in thankfulness to this one man who suffered for the right, while I thank not only this one, but all the rest. My heart goes out to all the great, the self-denying and the good,—to the founders of nations, singers of songs, builders of homes; to the inventors, to the artists who have filled the world with beauty, to the composers of music, to the soldiers of the right, to the makers of mirth, to honest men, and to all the loving mothers of the race.
Compare, for one moment, all that the Savior did, all the pain and suffering that he relieved,—compare all this with the discovery of anæsthetics. Compare your prophets with the inventors, your Apostles with the Keplers, the Humboldts and the Darwins.
I belong to the great church that holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul.
Most men are provincial, narrow, one sided, only partially developed. In a new country we often see a little patch of land, a clearing in which the pioneer has built his cabin. This little clearing is just large enough to support a family, and the remainder of the farm is still forest, in which snakes crawl and wild beasts occasionally crouch. It is thus with the brain of the average man. There is a little clearing, a little patch, just large enough to practice medicine with, or sell goods, or practice law; or preach with, or do some kind of business, sufficient to obtain bread and food and shelter for a family, while all the rest of the brain is covered with primeval forest, in which lie coiled the serpents of superstition and from which spring the wild beasts of orthodox religion.
Neither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it necessary to assert what we do not know. No cause is great enough to demand a sacrifice of candor. The mysteries of life and death, of good and evil, have never yet been solved.
I combat those only who, knowing nothing of the future, prophesy an eternity of pain—those only who sow the seeds of fear in the hearts of men—those only who poison all the springs of life, and seat a skeleton at every feast.
Let us banish the shriveled hags of superstition; let us welcome the beautiful daughters of truth and joy.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
COLONEL INGERSOLL ON CHRISTIANITY; SOME REMARKS ON HIS REPLY TO DR. FIELD.
By Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone.
AS a listener from across the broad Atlantic to the clash of arms in the combat between Colonel Ingersoll and Dr. Field on the most momentous of all subjects, I have not the personal knowledge which assisted these doughty champions in making reciprocal acknowledgments, as broad as could be desired, with reference to personal character and motive. Such acknowledgments are of high value in keeping the issue clear, if not always of all adventitious, yet of all venomous matter. Destitute of the experience on which to found them as original testimonies, still, in attempting partially to criticise the remarkable Reply of Colonel Ingersoll, I can both accept in good faith what has been said by Dr. Field, and add that it seems to me consonant with the strain of the pages I have set before me. Having said this, I shall allow myself the utmost freedom in remarks, which will be addressed exclusively to the matter, not the man.
Let me begin by making several acknowledgments of another kind, but which I feel to be serious. The Christian Church has lived long enough in external triumph and prosperity to expose those of whom it is composed to all such perils of error and misfeasance, as triumph and prosperity bring with them. Belief in divine guidance is not of necessity belief that such guidance can never be frustrated by the laxity, the infirmity, the perversity of man, alike in the domain of action and in the domain of thought. Believers in the perpetuity of the life of the Church are not tied to believing in the perpetual health of the Church. Even the great Latin Communion, and that communion even since the Council of the Vatican in 1870, theoretically admits, or does not exclude, the possibility of a wide range of local and partial error in opinion as well as conduct. Elsewhere the admission would be more unequivocal. Of such errors in tenet, or in temper and feeling more or less hardened into tenet, there has been a crop alike abundant and multifarious. Each Christian party is sufficiently apt to recognize this fact with regard to every other Christian party; and the more impartial and reflective minds are aware that no party is exempt from mischiefs, which lie at the root of the human constitution in its warped, impaired, and dislocated condition. Naturally enough, these deformities help to indispose men towards belief; and when this indisposition has been developed into a system of negative warfare, all the faults of all the Christian bodies, and sub-divisions of bodies, are, as it was natural to expect they would be, carefully raked together, and become part and parcel of the indictment against the divine scheme of redemption. I notice these things in the mass, without particularity, which might be invidious, for two important purposes. First, that we all, who hold by the Gospel and the Christian Church, may learn humility and modesty, as well as charity and indulgence, in the treatment of opponents, from our consciousness that we all, alike by our exaggerations and our shortcomings in belief, no less than by faults of conduct, have contributed to bring about this condition of fashionable hostility to religious faith: and, secondly, that we may resolutely decline to be held bound to tenets, or to consequences of tenets, which represent not the great Christendom of the past and present, but only some hole and corner of its vast organization; and not the heavenly treasure, but the rust or the canker to which that treasure has been exposed through the incidents of its custody in earthen vessels.
I do not remember ever to have read a composition, in which the merely local coloring of particular, and even very limited sections of Christianity, was more systematically used as if it had been available and legitimate argument against the whole, than in the Reply before us. Colonel Ingersoll writes with a rare and enviable brilliancy, but also with an impetus which he seems unable to control. Denunciation, sarcasm, and invective, may in consequence be said to constitute the staple of his work; and, if argument or some favorable admission here and there peeps out for a moment, the writer soon leaves the dry and barren heights for his favorite and more luxurious galloping grounds beneath. Thus, when the Reply has consecrated a line (N. A. R., No. 372, p. 473) to the pleasing contemplation of his opponent as "manly, candid, and generous," it immediately devotes more than twelve to a declamatory denunciation of a practice (as if it were his) altogether contrary to generosity and to candor, and reproaches those who expect (ibid.) "to receive as alms an eternity of joy." I take this as a specimen of the mode of statement which permeates the whole Reply. It is not the statement of an untruth. The Christian receives as alms all whatsoever he receives at all. Qui salvandos salvas gratis is his song of thankful praise. But it is the statement of one-half of a truth, which lives only in its entirety, and of which the Reply gives us only a mangled and bleeding frustum. For the gospel teaches that the faith which saves is a living and energizing faith, and that the most precious part of the alms which we receive lies in an ethical and spiritual process, which partly qualifies for, but also and emphatically composes, this conferred eternity of joy. Restore this ethical element to the doctrine from which the Reply has rudely displaced it, and the whole force of the assault is gone, for there is now a total absence of point in the accusation; it conies only to this, that "mercy and judgment are met together," and that "righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Ps. lxxxv. 10).
Perhaps, as we proceed, there will be supplied ampler means of judging whether I am warranted in saying that the instance I have here given is a normal instance of a practice so largely followed as to divest the entire Reply of that calmness and sobriety of movement which are essential to the just exercise of the reasoning power in subject matter not only grave, but solemn. Pascal has supplied us, in the "Provincial Letters," with an unique example of easy, brilliant, and fascinating treatment of a theme both profound and complex. But where shall we find another Pascal? And, if we had found him, he would be entitled to point out to us that the famous work was not less close and logical than it was witty. In this case, all attempt at continuous argument appears to be deliberately abjured, not only as to pages, but, as may almost be said, even as to lines. The paper, noteworthy as it is, leaves on my mind the impression of a battle-field where every man strikes at every man, and all is noise, hurry, and confusion. Better surely had it been, and worthier of the great weight and elevation of the subject, if the controversy had been waged after the pattern of those engagements where a chosen champion on either side, in a space carefully limited and reserved, does battle on behalf of each silent and expectant host. The promiscuous crowds represent all the lower elements which enter into human conflicts: the chosen champions, and the order of their proceeding, signify the dominion of reason over force, and its just place as the sovereign arbiter of the great questions that involve the main destiny of man.
I will give another instance of the tumultuous method in which the Reply conducts, not, indeed, its argument, but its case. Dr. Field had exhibited an example of what he thought superstition, and had drawn a distinction between superstition and religion. But to the author of the Reply all religion is superstition, and, accordingly, he writes as follows (p. 475): "You are shocked at the Hindoo mother, when she gives her child to death at the supposed command of her God. What do you think of Abraham? of Jephthah? What is your opinion of Jehovah himself?"
Taking these three appeals in the reverse order to that in which they are written, I will briefly ask, as to the closing challenge, "What do you think of Jehovah himself?" whether this is the tone in which controversy ought to be carried on? Not only is the name of Jehovah encircled in the heart of every believer with the profoundest reverence and love, but the Christian religion teaches, through the Incarnation, a doctrine of personal union with God so lofty that it can only be approached in a deep, reverential calm. I do not deny that a person who deems a given religion to be wicked may be led onward by logical consistency to impugn in strong terms the character of the Author and Object of that religion. But he is surely bound by the laws of social morality and decency to consider well the terms and the manner of his indictment. If he founds it upon allegations of fact, these allegations should be carefully stated, so as to give his antagonists reasonable evidence that it is truth and not temper which wrings from him a sentence of condemnation, delivered in sobriety and sadness, and not without a due commiseration for those, whom he is attempting to undeceive, who think he is himself both deceived and a deceiver, but who surely are entitled, while this question is in process of decision, to require that He whom they adore should at least be treated with those decent reserves which are deemed essential when a human being, say a parent, wife, or sister, is in question. But here a contemptuous reference to Jehovah follows, not upon a careful investigation of the cases of Abraham and of Jephthah, but upon a mere summary citation of them to surrender themselves, so to speak, as culprits; that is to say, a summons to accept at once, on the authority of the Reply, the view which the writer is pleased to take of those cases. It is true that he assures us in another part of his paper that he has read the scriptures with care; and I feel bound to accept this assurance, but at the same time to add that if it had not been given I should, for one, not have made the discovery, but might have supposed that the author had galloped, not through, but about, the sacred volume, as a man glances over the pages of an ordinary newspaper or novel.
Although there is no argument as to Abraham or Jephthah expressed upon the surface, we must assume that one is intended, and it seems to be of the following kind: "You are not entitled to reprove the Hindoo mother who cast her child under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut, for you approve of the conduct of Jephthah, who (probably) sacrificed his daughter in fulfilment of a vow (Judges xi. 31) that he would make a burnt offering of whatsoever, on his safe return, he should meet coming forth from the doors of his dwelling." Now the whole force of this rejoinder depends upon our supposed obligation as believers to approve the conduct of Jephthah. It is, therefore, a very serious question whether we are or are not so obliged. But this question the Reply does not condescend either to argue, or even to state. It jumps to an extreme conclusion without the decency of an intermediate step. Are not such methods of proceeding more suited to placards at an election, than to disquisitions on these most solemn subjects?
I am aware of no reason why any believer in Christianity should not be free to canvass, regret, condemn the act of Jephthah. So far as the narration which details it is concerned, there is not a word of sanction given to it more than to the falsehood of Abraham in Egypt, or of Jacob and Rebecca in the matter of the hunting (Gen. xx. 1-18, and Gen. xxiii.); or to the dissembling of St. Peter in the case of the Judaizing converts (Gai. ii. 11). I am aware of no color of approval given to it elsewhere. But possibly the author of the Reply may have thought he found such an approval in the famous eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the apostle, handling his subject with a discernment and care very different from those of the Reply, writes thus (Heb. xi. 32):
"And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah: of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets."
Jephthah, then, is distinctly held up to us by a canonical writer as an object of praise. But of praise on what account? Why should the Reply assume that it is on account of the sacrifice of his child? The writer of the Reply has given us no reason, and no rag of a reason, in support of such a proposition. But this was the very thing he was bound by every consideration to prove, upon making his indictment against the Almighty. In my opinion, he could have one reason only for not giving a reason, and that was that no reason could be found.
The matter, however, is so full of interest, as illustrating both the method of the Reply and that of the Apostolic writer, that I shall enter farther into it, and draw attention to the very remarkable structure of this noble chapter, which is to Faith what the thirteenth of Cor. I. is to Charity. From the first to the thirty-first verse, it commemorates the achievements of faith in ten persons: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses (in greater detail than any one else), and finally Rahab, in whom, I observe in passing, it will hardly be pretended that she appears in this list on account of the profession she had pursued. Then comes the rapid recital (v. 31), without any specification of particulars whatever, of these four names: Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah. Next follows a kind of recommencement, indicated by the word also; and the glorious acts and sufferings of the prophets are set forth largely with a singular power and warmth, headed by the names of David and Samuel, the rest of the sacred band being mentioned only in the mass.
Now, it is surely very remarkable that, in the whole of this recital, the Apostle, whose "feet were shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace," seems with a tender instinct to avoid anything like stress on the exploits of warriors. Of the twelve persons having a share in the detailed expositions, David is the only warrior, and his character as a man of war is eclipsed by his greater attributes as a prophet, or declarer of the Divine counsels. It is yet more noteworthy that Joshua, who had so fair a fame, but who was only a warrior, is never named in the chapter, and we are simply told that "by faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about seven times" (Hebrews xi. 30). But the series of four names, which are given without any specification of their title to appear in the list, are all names of distinguished warriors. They had all done great acts of faith and patriotism against the enemies of Israel,—Gideon against the Midianites, Barak against the hosts of Syria, Samson against the Philistines, and Jephthah against the children of Ammon. Their tide to appear in the list at all is in their acts of war, and the mode of their treatment as men of war is in striking accordance with the analogies of the chapter. All of them had committed errors. Gideon had again and again demanded a sign, and had made a golden ephod, "which thing became a snare unto Gideon and to his house" (Judges viii. 27). Barak had refused to go up against Jabin unless Deborah would join the venture (Judges v. 8). Samson had been in dalliance with Delilah. Last came Jephthah, who had, as we assume, sacrificed his daughter in fulfilment of a rash vow. No one supposes that any of the others are honored by mention in the chapter on account of his sin or error: why should that supposition be made in the case of Jephthah, at the cost of all the rules of orderly interpretation?
Having now answered the challenge as to Jephthah, I proceed to the case of Abraham. It would not be fair to shrink from touching it in its tenderest point. That point is nowhere expressly touched by the commendations bestowed upon Abraham in Scripture. I speak now of the special form, of the words that are employed. He is not commended because, being a father, he made all the preparations antecedent to plunging the knife into his son. He is commended (as I read the text) because, having received a glorious promise, a promise that his wife should be a mother of nations, and that kings should be born of her (Gen. xvii. 6), and that by his seed the blessings of redemption should be conveyed to man, and the fulfilment of this promise depending solely upon the life of Isaac, he was, nevertheless, willing that the chain of these promises should be broken by the extinction of that life, because his faith assured him that the Almighty would find the way to give effect to His own designs (Heb. xi. 17-19). The offering of Isaac is mentioned as a completed offering, and the intended blood-shedding, of which I shall speak presently, is not here brought into view.
The facts, however, which we have before us, and which are treated in Scripture with caution, are grave and startling. A father is commanded to sacrifice his son. Before consummation, the sacrifice is interrupted. Yet the intention of obedience had been formed, and certified by a series of acts. It may have been qualified by a reserve of hope that God would interpose before the final act, but of this we have no distinct statement, and it can only stand as an allowable conjecture. It may be conceded that the narrative does not supply us with a complete statement of particulars. That being so, it behooves us to tread cautiously in approaching it. Thus much, however, I think, may further be said: the command was addressed to Abraham under conditions essentially different from those which now determine for us the limits of moral obligation.
For the conditions, both socially and otherwise, were indeed very different. The estimate of human life at the time was different. The position of the father in the family was different: its members were regarded as in some sense his property. There is every reason to suppose that, around Abraham in "the land of Moriah," the practice of human sacrifice as an act of religion was in vigor. But we may look more deeply into the matter. According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were placed under a law, not of consciously perceived right and wrong, but of simple obedience. The tree, of which alone they were forbidden to eat, was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Duty lay for them in following the command of the Most High, before and until they, or their descendants, should become capable of appreciating it by an ethical standard. Their condition was greatly analogous to that of the infant, who has just reached the stage at which he can comprehend that he is ordered to do this or that, but not the nature of the thing so ordered. To the external standard of right and wrong, and to the obligation it entails per se, the child is introduced by a process gradually unfolded with the development of his nature, and the opening out of what we term a moral sense. If we pass at once from the epoch of Paradise to the period of the prophets, we perceive the important progress that has been made in the education of the race. The Almighty, in His mediate intercourse with Israel, deigns to appeal to an independently conceived criterion, as to an arbiter between His people and Himself. "Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord" (Isaiah i. 18). "Yet ye say the way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel, is not my way equal, are not your ways unequal?" (Ezekiel xvii. 25). Between these two epochs how wide a space of moral teaching has been traversed! But Abraham, so far as we may judge from the pages of Scripture, belongs essentially to the Adamic period, far more than to the prophetic. The notion of righteousness and sin was not indeed hidden from him: transgression itself had opened that chapter, and it was never to be closed: but as yet they lay wrapped up, so to speak, in Divine command and prohibition. And what God commanded, it was for Abraham to believe that He himself would adjust to the harmony of His own character.
The faith of Abraham, with respect to this supreme trial, appears to have been centered in this, that he would trust God to all extremities, and in despite of all appearances. The command received was obviously inconsistent with the promises which had preceded it. It was also inconsistent with the morality acknowledged in later times, and perhaps too definitely reflected in our minds, by an anachronism easy to conceive, on the day of Abraham. There can be little doubt, as between these two points of view, that the strain upon his faith was felt mainly, to say the least, in connection with the first mentioned. This faith is not wholly unlike the faith of Job; for Job believed, in despite of what was to the eye of flesh an unrighteous government of the world. If we may still trust the Authorized Version, his cry was, "though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job xiii. 15). This cry was, however, the expression of one who did not expect to be slain; and it may be that Abraham, when he said, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering," not only believed explicitly that God would do what was right, but, moreover, believed implicitly that a way of rescue would be found for his son. I do not say that this case is like the case of Jephthah, where the introduction of difficulty is only gratuitous. I confine myself to these propositions. Though the law of moral action is the same everywhere and always, it is variously applicable to the human being, as we know from experience, in the various stages of his development; and its first form is that of simple obedience to a superior whom there is every ground to trust. And further, if the few straggling rays of our knowledge in a case of this kind rather exhibit a darkness lying around us than dispel it, we do not even know all that was in the mind of Abraham, and are not in a condition to pronounce upon it, and cannot, without departure from sound reason, abandon that anchorage by which he probably held, that the law of Nature was safe in the hands of the Author of Nature, though the means of the reconciliation between the law and the appearances have not been fully placed within our reach.
But the Reply is not entitled to so wide an answer as that which I have given. In the parallel with the case of the Hindoo widow, it sins against first principles. An established and habitual practice of child-slaughter, in a country of an old and learned civilization, presents to us a case totally different from the issue of a command which was not designed to be obeyed and which belongs to a period when the years of manhood were associated in great part with the character that appertains to childhood.
It will already have been seen that the method of this Reply is not to argue seriously from point to point, but to set out in masses, without the labor of proof, crowds of imputations, which may overwhelm an opponent like balls from a mitrailleuse. As the charges lightly run over in a line or two require pages for exhibition and confutation, an exhaustive answer to the Reply within the just limits of an article is on this account out of the question; and the only proper course left open seems to be to make a selection of what appears to be the favorite, or the most formidable and telling assertions, and to deal with these in the serious way which the grave interests of the theme, not the manner of their presentation, may deserve.
It was an observation of Aristotle that weight attaches to the undemonstrated propositions of those who are able to speak on any given subject matter from experience. The Reply abounds in undemonstrated propositions. They appear, however, to be delivered without any sense of a necessity that either experience or reasoning are required in order to give them a title to acceptance. Thus, for example, the system of Mr. Darwin is hurled against Christianity as a dart which cannot but be fatal (p. 475):
"His discoveries, carried to their legitimate conclusion, destroy the creeds and sacred Scriptures of mankind."
This wide-sweeping proposition is imposed upon us with no exposition of the how or the why; and the whole controversy of belief one might suppose is to be determined, as if from St. Petersburgh, by a series of ukases. It is only advanced, indeed, to decorate the introduction of Darwin's name in support of the proposition, which I certainly should support and not contest, that error and honesty are compatible.
On what ground, then, and for what reason, is the system of Darwin fatal to Scriptures and to creeds? I do not enter into the question whether it has passed from the stage of working hypothesis into that of demonstration, but I assume, for the purposes of the argument, all that, in this respect, the Reply can desire.
It is not possible to discover, from the random language of the Reply, whether the scheme of Darwin is to sweep away all theism, or is to be content with extinguishing revealed religion. If the latter is meant, I should reply that the moral history of man, in its principal stream, has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now; and that the succinct though grand account of the Creation in Genesis is singularly accordant with the same idea, but is wider than Darwinism, since it includes in the grand progression the inanimate world as well as the history of organisms. But, as this could not be shown without much detail, the Reply reduces me to the necessity of following its own unsatisfactory example in the bald form of an assertion, that there is no colorable ground for assuming evolution and revelation to be at variance with one another.
If, however, the meaning be that theism is swept away by Darwinism, I observe that, as before, we have only an unreasoned dogma or dictum to deal with, and, dealing perforce with the unknown, we are in danger of striking at a will of the wisp. Still, I venture on remarking that the doctrine of Evolution has acquired both praise and dispraise which it does not deserve. It is lauded in the skeptical camp because it is supposed to get rid of the shocking idea of what are termed sudden acts of creation; and it is as unjustly dispraised, on the opposing side, because it is thought to bridge over the gap between man and the inferior animals, and to give emphasis to the relationship between them. But long before the day either of Mr. Darwin or his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, this relationship had been stated, perhaps even more emphatically by one whom, were it not that I have small title to deal in undemonstrated assertion, I should venture to call the most cautious, the most robust, and the most comprehensive of our philosophers. Suppose, says Bishop Butler (Analogy, Part 2, Chap. 2), that it were implied in the natural immortality of brutes, that they must arrive at great attainments, and become (like us) rational and moral agents; even this would be no difficulty, since we know not what latent powers and capacities they may be endowed with. And if pride causes us to deem it an indignity that our race should have proceeded by propagation from an ascending scale of inferior organisms, why should it be a more repulsive idea to have sprung immediately from something less than man in brain and body, than to have been fashioned according to the expression in Genesis (Chap. II., v. 7), "out of the dust of the ground?" There are halls and galleries of introduction in a palace, but none in a cottage; and this arrival of the creative work at its climax through an ever aspiring preparatory series, rather than by transition at a step from the inanimate mould of earth, may tend rather to magnify than to lower the creation of man on its physical side. But if belief has (as commonly) been premature in its alarms, has non-belief been more reflective in its exulting anticipations, and its paeans on the assumed disappearance of what are strangely enough termed sudden acts of creation from the sphere of our study and contemplation?
One striking effect of the Darwinian theory of descent is, so far as I understand, to reduce the breadth of all intermediate distinctions in the scale of animated life. It does not bring all creatures into a single lineage, but all diversities are to be traced back, at some point in the scale and by stages indefinitely minute, to a common ancestry. All is done by steps, nothing by strides, leaps, or bounds; all from protoplasm up to Shakespeare, and, again, all from primal night and chaos up to protoplasm. I do not ask, and am incompetent to judge, whether this is among the things proven, but I take it so for the sake of the argument; and I ask, first, why and whereby does this doctrine eliminate the idea of creation? Does the new philosophy teach that if the passage from pure reptile to pure bird is achieved by a spring (so to speak) over a chasm, this implies and requires creation; but that if reptile passes into bird, and rudimental into finished bird, by a thousand slight and but just discernible modifications, each one of these is so small that they are not entitled to a name so lofty, may be set down to any cause or no cause, as we please? I should have supposed it miserably unphilosophical to treat the distinction between creative and non-creative function as a simply quantitative distinction. As respects the subjective effect on the human mind, creation in small, when closely regarded, awakens reason to admiring wonder, not less than creation in great: and as regards that function itself, to me it appears no less than ridiculous to hold that the broadly outlined and large advances of so-called Mosaism are creation, but the refined and stealthy onward steps of Darwinism are only manufacture, and relegate the question of a cause into obscurity, insignificance, or oblivion.
But does not reason really require us to go farther, to turn the tables on the adversary, and to contend that evolution, by how much it binds more closely together the myriad ranks of the living, aye, and of all other orders, by so much the more consolidates, enlarges, and enhances the true argument of design, and the entire theistic position? If orders are not mutually related, it is easier to conceive of them as sent at haphazard into the world. We may, indeed, sufficiently, draw an argument of design from each separate structure, but we have no further title to build upon the position which each of them holds as towards any other. But when the connexion between these objects has been established, and so established that the points of transition are almost as indiscernible as the passage from day to night, then, indeed, each preceding stage is a prophecy of the following, each succeeding one is a memorial of the past, and, throughout the immeasurable series, every single member of it is a witness to all the rest. The Reply ought surely to dispose of these, and probably many more arguments in the case, before assuming so absolutely the rights of dictatorship, and laying it down that Darwinism, carried to its legitimate conclusion (and I have nowhere endeavored to cut short its career), destroys the creeds and Scriptures of mankind. That I maybe the more definite in my challenge, I would, with all respect, ask the author of the Reply to set about confuting the succinct and clear argument of his countryman, Mr. Fiske, who, in the earlier part of the small work entitled Man's Destiny (Macmillan, London, 1887) has given what seems to me an admissible and also striking interpretation of the leading Darwinian idea in its bearings on the theistic argument. To this very partial treatment of a great subject I must at present confine myself; and I proceed to another of the notions, as confident as they seem to be crude, which the Reply has drawn into its wide-casting net (p. 475):
"Why should God demand a sacrifice from; man? Why should the Infinite ask anything from the finite? Should the sun beg of the glow-worm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light?"
This is one of the cases in which happy or showy illustration is, in the Reply before me, set to carry with a rush the position which argument would have to approach more laboriously and more slowly. The case of the glow-worm with the sun cannot but move a reader's pity, it seems so very hard. But let us suppose for a moment that the glow-worm was so constituted, and so related to the sun that an interaction between them was a fundamental condition of its health and life; that the glowworm must, by the law of its nature, like the moon, reflect upon the sun, according to its strength and measure, the light which it receives, and that only by a process involving that reflection its own store of vitality could be upheld? It will be said that this is a very large petitio to import into the glowworm's case. Yes, but it is the very petitio which is absolutely requisite in order to make it parallel to the case of the Christian. The argument which the Reply has to destroy is and must be the Christian argument, and not some figure of straw, fabricated at will. It is needless, perhaps, but it is refreshing, to quote the noble Psalm (Ps. 1. 10, 12, 14, 15), in which this assumption of the Reply is rebuked. "All the beasts of the forest are mine; and so are the cattle upon a thousand hills.... If I be hungry I will not tell thee; for the whole world is mine, and all that is therein.... Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the Most Highest, and call upon Me in the time of trouble; so will I hear thee, and thou shalt praise Me." Let me try my hand at a counter-illustration. If the Infinite is to make no demand upon the finite, by parity of reasoning the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small. Why then should the father make demands of love, obedience, and sacrifice, from his young child? Is there not some flavor of the sun and glow-worm here? But every man does so make them, if he is a man of sense and feeling; and he makes them for the sake and in the interest of the son himself, whose nature, expanding in the warmth of affection and pious care, requires, by an inward law, to return as well as to receive. And so God asks of us, in order that what we give to Him may be far more our own than it ever was before the giving, or than it could have been unless first rendered up to Him, to become a part of what the gospel calls our treasure in heaven.
Although the Reply is not careful to supply us with whys, it does not hesitate to ask for them (p. 479):
"Why should an infinitely wise and powerful God destroy the good and preserve the vile? Why should He treat all alike here, and in another world make an infinite difference? Why should your God allow His worshipers, His adorers, to be destroyed by His enemies? Why should He allow the honest, the loving, the noble, to perish at the stake?"
The upholders of belief or of revelation, from Claudian down to Cardinal Newman (see the very remarkable passage of the Apologia pro vitâ suâ, pp. 376-78), cannot and do not, seek to deny that the methods of divine government, as they are exhibited by experience, present to us many and varied moral problems, insoluble by our understanding. Their existence may not, and should not, be dissembled. But neither should they be exaggerated. Now exaggeration by mere suggestion is the fault, the glaring fault, of these queries. One who had no knowledge of mundane affairs beyond the conception they insinuate would assume that, as a rule, evil has the upper hand in the management of the world. Is this the grave philosophical conclusion of a careful observer, or is it a crude, hasty, and careless overstatement?
It is not difficult to conceive how, in times of sadness and of storm, when the suffering soul can discern no light at any point of the horizon, place is found for such an idea of life. It is, of course, opposed to the Apostolic declaration that godliness hath the promise of the life that now is (1 Tim. iv. 8), but I am not to expect such a declaration to be accepted as current coin, even of the meanest value, by the author of the Reply. Yet I will offer two observations founded on experience in support of it, one taken from a limited, another from a larger and more open sphere. John Wesley, in the full prime of his mission, warned the converts whom he was making among English laborers of a spiritual danger that lay far ahead. It was that, becoming godly, they would become careful, and, becoming careful, they would become wealthy. It was a just and sober forecast, and it represented with truth the general rule of life, although it be a rule perplexed with exceptions. But, if this be too narrow a sphere of observation, let us take a wider one, the widest of all. It is comprised in the brief statement that Christendom rules the world, and rules it, perhaps it should be added, by the possession of a vast surplus of material as well as moral force. Therefore the assertions carried by implication in the queries of the Reply, which are general, are because general untrue, although they might have been true within those prudent limitations which the method of this Reply appears especially to eschew.
Taking, then, these challenges as they ought to have been given, I admit that great believers, who have been also great masters of wisdom and knowledge, are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between human beings and the conditions in which they have been set down to work out their destiny. The climax of these inequalities is perhaps to be found in the fact that, whereas rational belief, viewed at large, founds the Providential government of the world upon the hypothesis of free agency, there are so many cases in which the overbearing mastery of circumstance appears to reduce it to extinction or paralysis. Now, in one sense, without doubt, these difficulties are matter for our legitimate and necessary cognizance. It is a duty incumbent upon us respectively, according to our means and opportunities, to decide for ourselves, by the use of the faculty of reason given us, the great questions of natural and revealed religion. They are to be decided according to the evidence; and, if we cannot trim the evidence into a consistent whole, then according to the balance of the evidence. We are not entitled, either for or against belief, to set up in this province any rule of investigation, except such as common-sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life. As in ordinary conduct, so in considering the basis of belief, we are bound to look at the evidence as a whole. We have no right to demand demonstrative proofs, or the removal of all conflicting elements, either in the one sphere or in the other. What guides us sufficiently in matters of common practice has the very same authority to guide us in matters of speculation; more properly, perhaps, to be called the practice of the soul. If the evidence in the aggregate shows the being of a moral Governor of the world, with the same force as would suffice to establish an obligation to act in a matter of common conduct, we are bound in duty to accept it, and have no right to demand as a condition previous that all occasions of doubt or question be removed out of the way. Our demands for evidence must be limited by the general reason of the case. Does that general reason of the case make it probable that a finite being, with a finite place in a comprehensive scheme, devised and administered by a Being who is infinite, would be able either to embrace within his view, or rightly to appreciate, all the motives and the aims that may have been in the mind of the Divine Disposer? On the contrary, a demand so unreasonable deserves to be met with the scornful challenge of Dante (Paradise xix. 79):
Or tu chi sei, che vuoi sedere a scranna
Per giudicar da lungi mille miglia
Colla veduta corta d'una spanna?
Undoubtedly a great deal here depends upon the question whether, and in what degree, our knowledge is limited. And here the Reply seems to be by no means in accord with Newton and with Butler. By its contempt for authority, the Reply seems to cut off from us all knowledge that is not at first hand; but then also it seems to assume an original and first hand knowledge of all possible kinds of things. I will take an instance, all the easier to deal with because it is outside the immediate sphere of controversy. In one of those pieces of fine writing with which the Reply abounds, it is determined obiter by a backhanded stroke (N. A. R., p. 491) that Shakespeare is "by far the greatest of the human race." I do not feel entitled to assert that he is not; but how vast and complex a question is here determined for us in this airy manner! Has the writer of the Reply really weighed the force, and measured the sweep of his own words? Whether Shakespeare has or has not the primacy of genius over a very few other names which might be placed in competition with his, is a question which has not yet been determined by the general or deliberate judgment of lettered mankind. But behind it lies another question, inexpressibly difficult, except for the Reply, to solve. That question is, what is the relation of human genius to human greatness. Is genius the sole constitutive element of greatness, or with what other elements, and in what relations to them, is it combined? Is every man great in proportion to his genius? Was Goldsmith, or was Sheridan, or was Burns, or was Byron, or was Goethe, or was Napoleon, or was Alcibiades, no smaller, and was Johnson, or was Howard, or was Washington, or was Phocion, or Leonidas, no greater, than in proportion to his genius properly so-called? How are we to find a common measure, again, for different kinds of greatness; how weigh, for example, Dante against Julius Caesar? And I am speaking of greatness properly so called, not of goodness properly so called. We might seem to be dealing with a writer whose contempt for authority in general is fully balanced, perhaps outweighed, by his respect for one authority in particular.
The religions of the world, again, have in many cases given to many men material for life-long study. The study of the Christian Scriptures, to say nothing of Christian life and institutions, has been to many and justly famous men a study "never ending, still beginning"; not, like the world of Alexander, too limited for the powerful faculty that ranged over it; but, on the contrary, opening height on height, and with deep answering to deep, and with increase of fruit ever prescribing increase of effort. But the Reply has sounded all these depths, has found them very shallow, and is quite able to point out (p. 490) the way in which the Saviour of the world might have been a much greater teacher than He actually was; had He said anything, for instance, of the family relation, had He spoken against slavery and tyranny, had He issued a sort of code Napoleon embracing education, progress, scientific truth, and international law. This observation on the family relation seems to me beyond even the usual measure of extravagance when we bear in mind that, according to the Christian scheme, the Lord of heaven and earth "was subject" (St. Luke ii. 51) to a human mother and a reputed human father, and that He taught (according to the widest and, I believe, the best opinion) the absolute indissolubility of marriage. I might cite many other instances in reply. But the broader and the true answer to the objection is, that the Gospel was promulgated to teach principles and not a code; that it included the foundation of a society in which those principles were to be conserved, developed, and applied; and that down to this day there is not a moral question of all those which the Reply does or does not enumerate, nor is there a question of duty arising in the course of life for any of us, that is not determinable in all its essentials by applying to it as a touchstone the principles declared in the Gospel. Is not, then, the hiatus, which the Reply has discovered in the teaching of our Lord, an imaginary hiatus? Nay, are the suggested improvements of that teaching really gross deteriorations? Where would have been the wisdom of delivering to an uninstructed population of a particular age a codified religion, which was to serve for all nations, all ages, all states of civilization? Why was not room to be left for the career of human thought in finding out, and in working out, the adaptation of Christianity to the ever varying movement of the world? And how is it that they who will not admit that a revelation is in place when it has in view the great and necessary work of conflict against sin, are so free in recommending enlargements of that Revelation for purposes, as to which no such necessity can be pleaded?
I have known a person who, after studying the old classical or Olympian religion for the third part of a century, at length began to hope that he had some partial comprehension of it, some inkling of what it meant. Woe is him that he was not conversant either with the faculties or with the methods of the Reply, which apparently can dispose in half an hour of any problem, dogmatic, historical, or moral: and which accordingly takes occasion to assure us that Buddha was "in many respects the greatest religious teacher this world has ever known, the broadest, the most intellectual of them all" (p. 491). On this I shall only say that an attempt to bring Buddha and Buddhism into line together is far beyond my reach, but that every Christian, knowing in some degree what Christ is, and what He has done for the world, can only be the more thankful if Buddha, or Confucius, or any other teacher has in any point, and in any measure, come near to the outskirts of His ineffable greatness and glory.
It is my fault or my misfortune to remark, in this Reply, an inaccuracy of reference, which would of itself suffice to render it remarkable. Christ, we are told (pp. 492, 500), denounced the chosen people of God as "a generation of vipers." This phrase is applied by the Baptist to the crowd who came to seek baptism from him; but it is only applied by our Lord to Scribes or Pharisees (Luke iii. 7, Matthew xxiii. 33, and xii.34), who are so commonly placed by Him in contrast with the people. The error is repeated in the mention of whited sepulchres. Take again the version of the story of Ananias and Sapphira. We are told (p. 494) that the Apostles conceived the idea "of having all things in common." In the narrative there is no statement, no suggestion of the kind; it is a pure interpolation (Acts iv. 32-7). Motives of a reasonable prudence are stated as a mattei of fact to have influenced the offending couple—another pure interpolation. After the catastrophe of Ananias "the Apostles sent for his wife"—a third interpolation. I refer only to these points as exhibitions of an habitual and dangerous inaccuracy, and without any attempt at present to discuss the case, in which the judgments of God are exhibited on their severer side, and in which I cannot, like the Reply, undertake summarily to determine for what causes the Almighty should or should not take life, or delegate the power to take it.
Again, we have (p. 486) these words given as a quotation from the Bible:
"They who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned; and these shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."
The second clause thus reads as if applicable to the persons mentioned in the first; that is to say, to those who reject the tidings of the Gospel. But instead of its being a continuous passage, the latter section is brought out of another gospel (St. Matthew's) and another connection; and it is really written, not of those who do not believe, but those who refuse to perform offices of charity to their neighbor in his need. It would be wrong to call this intentional misrepresentation; but can it be called less than somewhat reckless negligence?
It is a more special misfortune to find a writer arguing on the same side with his critic, and yet for the critic not to be able to agree with him. But so it is with reference to the great subject of immortality, as treated in the Reply.
"The idea of immortality, that, like a sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection; and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mist and clouds of doubt and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death" (p. 483).
Here we have a very interesting chapter of the history of human opinion disposed of in the usual summary way, by a statement which, as it appears to me, is developed out of the writer's inner consciousness. If the belief in immortality is not connected with any revelation or religion, but is simply the expression of a subjective want, then plainly we may expect the expression of it to be strong and clear in proportion to the various degrees in which faculty is developed among the various races of mankind. But how does the matter stand historically? The Egyptians were not a people of high intellectual development, and yet their religious system was strictly associated with, I might rather say founded on, the belief in immortality. The ancient Greeks, on the other hand, were a race of astonishing, perhaps unrivalled, intellectual capacity. But not only did they, in prehistoric ages, derive their scheme of a future world from Egypt; we find also that, with the lapse of time and the advance of the Hellenic civilization, the constructive ideas of the system lost all life and definite outline, and the most powerful mind of the Greek philosophy, that of Aristotle, had no clear perception whatever of a personal existence in a future state.
The favorite doctrine of the Reply is the immunity of all error in belief from moral responsibility. In the first page (p. 473) this is stated with reserve as the "innocence of honest error." But why such a limitation? The Reply warms with its subject; it shows us that no error can be otherwise than honest, inasmuch as nothing which involves honesty, or its reverse, can, from the constitution of our nature, enter into the formation of opinion. Here is the full blown exposition (p. 476):
"The brain thinks without asking our consent. We believe, or we disbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the effect of evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of him who watches. There is no opportunity of being honesty or dishonest, in the formation of an opinion. The conclusion is entirely independent of desire."
The reasoning faculty is, therefore, wholly extrinsic to our moral nature, and no influence is or can be received or imparted between them. I know not whether the meaning is that all the faculties of our nature are like so many separate departments in one of the modern shops that supply all human wants; that will, memory, imagination, affection, passion, each has its own separate domain, and that they meet only for a comparison of results, just to tell one another what they have severally been doing. It is difficult to conceive, if this be so, wherein consists the personality, or individuality or organic unity of man. It is not difficult to see that while the Reply aims at uplifting human nature, it in reality plunges us (p. 475) into the abyss of degradation by the destruction of moral freedom, responsibility, and unity. For we are justly told that "reason is the supreme and final test." Action may be merely instinctive and habitual, or it may be consciously founded on formulated thought; but, in the cases where it is instinctive and habitual, it passes over, so soon as it is challenged, into the other category, and finds a basis for itself in some form of opinion. But, says the Reply, we have no responsibility for our opinions: we cannot help forming them according to the evidence as it presents itself to us. Observe, the doctrine embraces every kind of opinion, and embraces all alike, opinion on subjects where we like or dislike, as well as upon subjects where we merely affirm or deny in some medium absolutely colorless. For, if a distinction be taken between the colorless and the colored medium, between conclusions to which passion or propensity or imagination inclines us, and conclusions to which these have nothing to say, then the whole ground will be cut away from under the feet of the Reply, and it will have to build again ab initio. Let us try this by a test case. A father who has believed his son to have been through life upright, suddenly finds that charges are made from various quarters against his integrity. Or a friend, greatly dependent for the work of his life on the co-operation of another friend, is told that that comrade is counterworking and betraying him. I make no assumption now as to the evidence or the result; but I ask which of them could approach the investigation without feeling a desire to be able to acquit? And what shall we say of the desire to condemn? Would Elizabeth have had no leaning towards finding Mary Stuart implicated in a conspiracy? Did English judges and juries approach with an unbiassed mind the trials for the Popish plot? Were the opinions formed by the English Parliament on the Treaty of Limerick formed without the intervention of the will? Did Napoleon judge according to the evidence when he acquitted himself in the matter of the Due d' Enghien? Does the intellect sit in a solitary chamber, like Galileo in the palace of the Vatican, and pursue celestial observation all untouched, while the turmoil of earthly business is raging everywhere around? According to the Reply, it must be a mistake to suppose that there is anywhere in the world such a thing as bias, or prejudice, or prepossession: they are words without meaning in regard to our judgments, for even if they could raise a clamor from without, the intellect sits within, in an atmosphere of serenity, and, like Justice, is deaf and blind, as well as calm.
In addition to all other faults, I hold that this philosophy, or phantasm of philosophy, is eminently retrogressive. Human nature, in its compound of flesh and spirit, becomes more complex with the progress of civilization; with the steady multiplication of wants, and of means for their supply. With complication, introspection has largely extended, and I believe that, as observation extends its field, so far from isolating the intelligence and making it autocratic, it tends more and more to enhance and multiply the infinitely subtle, as well as the broader and more palpable modes, in which the interaction of the human faculties is carried on. Who among us has not had occasion to observe, in the course of his experience, how largely the intellectual power of a man is affected by the demands of life on his moral powers, and how they open and grow, or dry up and dwindle, according to the manner in which those demands are met.
Genius itself, however purely a conception of the intellect, is not exempt from the strong influences of joy and suffering, love and hatred, hope and fear, in the development of its powers. It may be that Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, basking upon the whole in the sunshine of life, drew little supplementary force from its trials and agitations. But the history of one not less wonderful than any of these, the career of Dante, tells a different tale; and one of the latest and most searching investigators of his history (Scartazzini, Dante Alighieri, seine zeit, sein leben, und seine werkes, B. II. Ch. 5, p. 119; also pp. 438, 9. Biel, 1869) tells and shows us, how the experience of his life co-operated with his extraordinary natural gifts and capabilities to make him what he was. Under the three great heads of love, belief, and patriotism, his life was a continued course of ecstatic or agonizing trials. The strain of these trials was discipline; discipline was experience; and experience was elevation. No reader of his greatest work will, I believe, hold with the Reply that his thoughts, conclusions, judgments, were simple results of an automatic process, in which the will and affections had no share, that reasoning operations are like the whir of a clock running down, and we can no more arrest the process or alter the conclusion than the wheels can stop the movement or the noise.*
* I possess the confession of an illiterate criminal, made,
I think, in 1834, under the following circumstances: The new
poor law had just been passed in England, and it required
persons needing relief to go into the workhouse as a
condition of receiving it. In some parts of the country,
this provision produced a profound popular panic. The man in
question was destitute at the time. He was (I think) an old
widower with four very young sons. He rose in the night and
strangled them all, one after another, with a blue
handkerchief, not from want of fatherly affection, but to
keep them out of the workhouse. The confession of this
peasant, simple in phrase, but intensely impassioned,
strongly reminds me of the Ugolino of Dante, and appears to
make some approach to its sublimity. Such, in given
circumstances, is the effect of moral agony on mental power.
The doctrine taught in the Reply, that belief is, as a general, nay, universal law, independent of the will, surely proves, when examined, to be a plausibility of the shallowest kind. Even in arithmetic, if a boy, through dislike of his employment, and consequent lack of attention, brings out a wrong result for his sum, it can hardly be said that his conclusion is absolutely and in all respects independent of his will. Moving onward, point by point, toward the centre of the argument, I will next take an illustration from mathematics. It has (I apprehend) been demonstrated that the relation of the diameter to the circumference of a circle is not susceptible of full numerical expression. Yet, from time to time, treatises are published which boldly announce that they set forth the quadrature of the circle. I do not deny that this may be purely intellectual error; but would it not, on the other hand, be hazardous to assert that no grain of egotism or ambition has ever entered into the composition of any one of such treatises? I have selected these instances as, perhaps, the most favorable that can be found to the doctrine of the Reply. But the truth is that, if we set aside matters of trivial import, the enormous majority of human judgments are those into which the biassing power off likes and dislikes more or less largely enters. I admit, indeed, that the illative faculty works under rules upon which choice and inclination ought to exercise no influence whatever. But even if it were granted that in fact the faculty of discourse is exempted from all such influence within its own province, yet we come no nearer to the mark, because that faculty has to work upon materials supplied to it by other faculties; it draws conclusions according to premises, and the question has to be determined whether our conceptions set forth in those premises are or are not influenced by moral causes. For, if they be so influenced, then in vain will be the proof that the understanding has dealt loyally and exactly with the materials it had to work upon; inasmuch as, although the intellectual process be normal in itself, the operation may have been tainted ab initio by coloring and distorting influences which have falsified the primary conceptions.
Let me now take an illustration from the extreme opposite quarter to that which I first drew upon. The system called Thuggism, represented in the practice of the Thugs, taught that the act, which we describe as murder, was innocent. Was this an honest error? Was it due, in its authors as well as in those who blindly followed them, to an automatic process of thought, in which the will was not consulted, and which accordingly could entail no responsibility? If it was, then it is plain that the whole foundations, not of belief, but of social morality, are broken up. If it was not, then the sweeping doctrine of the present writer on the necessary blamelessness of erroneous conclusions tumbles to the ground like a house of cards at the breath of the child who built it.
In truth, the pages of the Reply, and the Letter which has more recently followed it,* themselves demonstrate that what the writer has asserted wholesale he overthrows and denies in detail.
* North American Review for January, 1888, "Another Letter
to Dr. Field."
"You will admit," says the Reply (p. 477), "that he who now persecutes for opinion's sake is infamous." But why? Suppose he thinks that by persecution he can bring a man from soul-destroying falsehood to soul-saving truth, this opinion may reflect on his intellectual debility: but that is his misfortune, not his fault. His brain has thought without asking his consent; he has believed or disbelieved without an effort of the will (p. 476). Yet the very writer, who has thus established his title to think, is the first to hurl at him an anathema for thinking. And again, in the Letter to Dr. Field (N. A. R., vol. 146, p. 33), "the dogma of eternal pain" is described as "that infamy of infamies." I am not about to discuss the subject of future retribution. If I were, it would be my first duty to show that this writer has not adequately considered either the scope of his own arguments (which in no way solve the difficulties he presents) or the meaning of his words; and my second would be to recommend his perusal of what Bishop Butler has suggested on this head. But I am at present on ground altogether different. I am trying another issue. This author says we believe or disbelieve without the action of the will, and, consequently, belief or disbelief is not the proper subject of praise or blame. And yet, according to the very same authority, the dogma of eternal pain is what?—not "an error of errors," but an "infamy of infamies;" and though to hold a negative may not be a subject of moral reproach, yet to hold the affirmative may. Truly it may be asked, is not this a fountain which sends forth at once sweet waters and bitter?
Once more. I will pass away from tender ground, and will endeavor to lodge a broader appeal to the enlightened judgment of the author. Says Odysseus in the Illiad (B. II.) [—Greek—]: and a large part of the world, stretching this sentiment beyond its original meaning, have held that the root of civil power is not in the community, but in its head. In opposition to this doctrine, the American written Constitution, and the entire American tradition, teach the right of a nation to self-government. And these propositions, which have divided and still divide the world, open out respectively into vast systems of irreconcilable ideas and laws, practices and habits of mind. Will any rational man, above all will any American, contend that these conflicting systems have been adopted, upheld, and enforced on one side and the other, in the daylight of pure reasoning only, and that moral, or immoral, causes have had nothing to do with their adoption? That the intellect has worked impartially, like a steam-engine, and that selfishness, love of fame, love of money, love of power, envy, wrath, and malice, or again bias, in its least noxious form, have never had anything to do with generating the opposing movements, or the frightful collisions in which they have resulted? If we say that they have not, we contradict the universal judgment of mankind. If we say they have, then mental processes are not automatic, but may be influenced by the will and by the passions, affections, habits, fancies that sway the will; and this writer will not have advanced a step toward proving the universal innocence of error, until he has shown that propositions of religion are essentially unlike almost all other propositions, and that no man ever has been, or from the nature of the case can be, affected in their acceptance or rejection by moral causes.*
* The chief part of these observations were written before I
had received the January number of the Review, with Col.
Ingersoll's additional letter to Dr. Field. Much, of this
letter is specially pointed at Dr. Field, who can defend
himself, and at Calvin, whose ideas I certainly cannot
undertake to defend all along the line. I do not see that
the Letter adds to those, the most salient, points of the
earlier article which I have endeavored to select for
animadversion.
To sum up. There are many passages in these noteworthy papers, which, taken by themselves, are calculated to command warm sympathy. Towards the close of his final, or latest letter, the writer expresses himself as follows (N. A. R., vol. 146, p. 46.):
"Neither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it necessary to assert what we do not know. No cause is great enough to demand a sacrifice of candor. The mysteries of life and death, of good and evil, have never yet been solved." How good, how wise are these words! But coming at the close of the controversy, have they not some of the ineffectual features of a death-bed repentance? They can hardly be said to represent in all points the rules under which the pages preceding them have been composed; or he, who so justly says that we ought not to assert what we do not know, could hardly have laid down the law as we find it a few pages earlier (ibid, p. 40) when it is pronounced that "an infinite God has no excuse for leaving his children in doubt and darkness." Candor and upright intention are indeed every where manifest amidst the flashing corruscations which really compose the staple of the articles. Candor and upright intention also impose upon a commentator the duty of formulating his animadversions. I sum them up under two heads. Whereas we are placed in an atmosphere of mystery, relieved only by a little sphere of light round each of us, like a clearing in an American forest (which this writer has so well described), and rarely can see farther than is necessary for the direction of our own conduct from day to day, we find here, assumed by a particular person, the character of an universal judge without appeal. And whereas the highest self-restraint is necessary in these dark but, therefore, all the more exciting inquiries, in order to maintain the ever quivering balance of our faculties, this rider chooses to ride an unbroken horse, and to throw the reins upon his neck. I have endeavored to give a sample of the results.
W. E. Gladstone.
My Dear Sir:
At the threshold of this Reply, it gives me pleasure to say that for your intellect and character I have the greatest respect; and let me say further, that I shall consider your arguments, assertions, and inferences entirely apart from your personality—apart from the exalted position that you occupy in the estimation of the civilized world. I gladly acknowledge the inestimable services that you have rendered, not only to England, but to mankind. Most men are chilled and narrowed by the snows of age; their thoughts are darkened by the approach of night. But you, for many years, have hastened toward the light, and your mind has been "an autumn that grew the more by reaping."
Under no circumstances could I feel justified in taking advantage of the admissions that you have made as to the "errors" the "misfeasance" the "infirmities and the perversity" of the Christian Church.
It is perfectly apparent that churches, being only aggregations of people, contain the prejudice, the ignorance, the vices and the virtues of ordinary human beings. The perfect cannot be made out of the imperfect.
A man is not necessarily a great mathematician because he admits the correctness of the multiplication table. The best creed may be believed by the worst of the human race. Neither the crimes nor the virtues of the church tend to prove or disprove the supernatural origin of religion. The massacre of St. Bartholomew tends no more to establish the inspiration of the Scriptures, than the bombardment of Alexandria.
But there is one thing that cannot be admitted, and that is your statement that the constitution of man is in a "warped, impaired, and dislocated condition," and that "these deformities indispose men to belief." Let us examine this.
We say that a thing is "warped" that was once nearer level, flat, or straight; that it is "impaired" when it was once nearer perfect, and that it is "dislocated" when once it was united. Consequently, you have said that at some time the human constitution was unwarped, unimpaired, and with each part working in harmony with all. You seem to believe in the degeneracy of man, and that our unfortunate race, starting at perfection, has traveled downward through all the wasted years.
It is hardly possible that our ancestors were perfect. If history proves anything, it establishes the fact that civilization was not first, and savagery afterwards. Certainly the tendency of man is not now toward barbarism. There must have been a time when language was unknown, when lips had never formed a word. That which man knows, man must have learned. The victories of our race have been slowly and painfully won. It is a long distance from the gibberish of the savage to the sonnets of Shakespeare—a long and weary road from the pipe of Pan to the great orchestra voiced with every tone from the glad warble of a mated bird to the hoarse thunder of the sea. The road is long that lies between the discordant cries uttered by the barbarian over the gashed body of his foe and the marvelous music of Wagner and Beethoven. It is hardly possible to conceive of the years that lie between the caves in which crouched our naked ancestors crunching the bones of wild beasts, and the home of a civilized man with its comforts, its articles of luxury and use,—with its works of art, with its enriched and illuminated walls. Think of the billowed years that must have rolled between these shores. Think of the vast distance that man has slowly groped from the dark dens and lairs of ignorance and fear to the intellectual conquests of our day.
Is it true that these deformities, these warped, impaired, and dislocated constitutions indispose men to belief? Can we in this way account for the doubts entertained by the intellectual leaders of mankind?
It will not do, in this age and time, to account for unbelief in this deformed and dislocated way. The exact opposite must be true. Ignorance and credulity sustain the relation of cause and effect. Ignorance is satisfied with assertion, with appearance. As man rises in the scale of intelligence he demands evidence. He begins to look back of appearance. He asks the priest for reasons. The most ignorant part of Christendom is the most orthodox.
You have simply repeated a favorite assertion of the clergy, to the effect that man rejects the gospel because he is naturally depraved and hard of heart—because, owing to the sin of Adam and Eve, he has fallen from the perfection and purity of Paradise to that "impaired" condition in which he is satisfied with the filthy rags of reason, observation and experience.
The truth is, that what you call unbelief is only a higher and holier faith. Millions of men reject Christianity because of its cruelty. The Bible was never rejected by the cruel. It has been upheld by countless tyrants—by the dealers in human flesh—by the destroyers of nations—by the enemies of intelligence—by the stealers of babes and the whippers of women.
It is also true that it has been held as sacred by the good, the self-denying, the virtuous and the loving, who clung to the sacred volume on account of the good it contains and in spite of all its cruelties and crimes.
You are mistaken when you say that all "the faults of all the Christian bodies and subdivisions of bodies have been carefully raked together," in my Reply to Dr. Field, "and made part and parcel of the indictment against the divine scheme of salvation."
No thoughtful man pretends that any fault of any Christian body can be used as an argument against what you call the "divine scheme of redemption."
I find in your Remarks the frequent charge that I am guilty of making assertions and leaving them to stand without the assistance of argument or fact, and it may be proper, at this particular point, to inquire how you know that there is "a divine scheme of redemption."
My objections to this "divine scheme of redemption" are: first, that there is not the slightest evidence that it is divine; second, that it is not in any sense a "scheme," human or divine; and third, that it cannot, by any possibility, result in the redemption of a human being.
It cannot be divine, because it has no foundation in the nature of things, and is not in accordance with reason. It is based on the idea that right and wrong are the expression of an arbitrary will, and not words applied to and descriptive of acts in the light of consequences. It rests upon the absurdity called "pardon," upon the assumption that when a crime has been committed justice will be satisfied with the punishment of the innocent. One person may suffer, or reap a benefit, in consequence of the act of another, but no man can be justly punished for the crime, or justly rewarded for the virtues, of another. A "scheme" that punishes an innocent man for the vices of another can hardly be called divine. Can a murderer find justification in the agonies of his victim? There is no vicarious vice; there is no vicarious virtue. For me it is hard to understand how a just and loving being can charge one of his children with the vices, or credit him with the virtues, of another.
And why should we call anything a "divine scheme" that has been a failure from the "fall of man" until the present moment? What race, what nation, has been redeemed through the instrumentality of this "divine scheme"? Have not the subjects of redemption been for the most part the enemies of civilization? Has not almost every valuable book since the invention of printing been denounced by the believers in the "divine scheme"? Intelligence, the development of the mind, the discoveries of science, the inventions of genius, the cultivation of the imagination through art and music, and the practice of virtue will redeem the human race. These are the saviors of mankind.
You admit that the "Christian churches have by their exaggerations and shortcomings, and by their faults of conduct, contributed to bring about a condition of hostility to religious faith."
If one wishes to know the worst that man has done, all that power guided by cruelty can do, all the excuses that can be framed for the commission of every crime, the infinite difference that can exist between that which is professed and that which is practiced, the marvelous malignity of meekness, the arrogance of humility and the savagery of what is known as "universal love," let him read the history of the Christian Church.
Yet, I not only admit that millions of Christians have been honest in the expression of their opinions, but that they have been among the best and noblest of our race.
And it is further admitted that a creed should be examined apart from the conduct of those who have assented to its truth. The church should be judged as a whole, and its faults should be accounted for either by the weakness of human nature, or by reason of some defect or vice in the religion taught,—or by both.
Is there anything in the Christian religion—anything in what you are pleased to call the "Sacred Scriptures" tending to cause the crimes and atrocities that have been committed by the church?
It seems to be natural for man to defend himself and the ones he loves. The father slays the man who would kill his child—he defends the body. The Christian father burns the heretic—he defends the soul.
If "orthodox Christianity" be true, an infidel has not the right to live. Every book in which the Bible is attacked should be burned with its author. Why hesitate to burn a man whose constitution is "warped, impaired and dislocated," for a few moments, when hundreds of others will be saved from eternal flames?
In Christianity you will find the cause of persecution. The idea that belief is essential to salvation—this ignorant and merciless dogma—accounts for the atrocities of the church. This absurd declaration built the dungeons, used the instruments of torture, erected the scaffolds and lighted the fagots of a thousand years.
What, I pray you, is the "heavenly treasure" in the keeping of your church? Is it a belief in an infinite God? That was believed thousands of years before the serpent tempted Eve. Is it the belief in the immortality of the soul? That is far older. Is it that man should treat his neighbor as himself? That is more ancient. What is the treasure in the keeping of the church? Let me tell you. It is this: That there is but one true religion—Christianity,—and that all others are false; that the prophets, and Christs, and priests of all others have been and are impostors, or the victims of insanity; that the Bible is the one inspired book—the one authentic record of the words of God; that all men are naturally depraved and deserve to be punished with unspeakable torments forever; that there is only one path that leads to heaven, while countless highways lead to hell; that there is only one name under heaven by which a human being can be saved; that we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; that this life, with its few and fleeting years, fixes the fate of man; that the few will be saved and the many forever lost. This is "the heavenly treasure" within the keeping of your church.
And this "treasure" has been guarded by the cherubim of persecution, whose flaming swords were wet for many centuries with the best and bravest blood. It has been guarded by cunning, by hypocrisy, by mendacity, by honesty, by calumniating the generous, by maligning the good, by thumbscrews and racks, by charity and love, by robbery and assassination, by poison and fire, by the virtues of the ignorant and the vices of the learned, by the violence of mobs and the whirlwinds of war, by every hope and every fear, by every cruelty and every crime, and by all there is of the wild beast in the heart of man.
With great propriety it may be asked: In the keeping of which church is this "heavenly treasure"? Did the Catholics have it, and was it taken by Luther? Did Henry the VIII. seize it, and is it now in the keeping of the Church of England? Which of the warring sects in America has this treasure; or have we, in this country, only the "rust and cankers"? Is it in an Episcopal Church, that refuses to associate with a colored man for whom Christ died, and who is good enough for the society of the angelic host?
But wherever this "heavenly treasure" has been, about it have always hovered the Stymphalian birds of superstition, thrusting their brazen beaks and claws deep into the flesh of honest men.
You were pleased to point out as the particular line justifying your assertion "that denunciation, sarcasm, and invective constitute the staple of my work," that line in which I speak of those who expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy, and add: "I take this as a specimen of the mode of statement which permeates the whole."
Dr. Field commenced his Open Letter by saying: "I am glad that I know you, even though some of my brethren look upon you as a monster, because of your unbelief."
In reply I simply said: "The statement in your Letter that some of your brethren look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief tends to show that those who love God are not always the friends of their fellow-men. Is it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be eternally damned—that they are by nature depraved—that there is no soundness or health in them, can be so arrogantly egotistic as to look upon others as monsters? And yet some of your brethren, who regard unbelievers as infamous, rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of another, and expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy." Is there any denunciation, sarcasm or invective in this?
Why should one who admits that he himself is totally depraved call any other man, by way of reproach, a monster? Possibly, he might be justified in addressing him as a fellow-monster.
I am not satisfied with your statement that "the Christian receives as alms all whatsoever he receives at all." Is it true that man deserves only punishment? Does the man who makes the world better, who works and battles for the right, and dies for the good of his fellow-men, deserve nothing but pain and anguish? Is happiness a gift or a consequence? Is heaven only a well-conducted poorhouse? Are the angels in their highest estate nothing but happy paupers? Must all the redeemed feel that they are in heaven simply because there was a miscarriage of justice? Will the lost be the only ones who will know that the right thing has been done, and will they alone appreciate the "ethical elements of religion"? Will they repeat the words that you have quoted: "Mercy and judgment are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other"? or will those words be spoken by the redeemed as they joyously contemplate the writhings of the lost?
No one will dispute "that in the discussion of important questions calmness and sobriety are essential." But solemnity need not be carried to the verge of mental paralysis. In the search for truth,—that everything in nature seems to hide,—man needs the assistance of all his faculties. All the senses should be awake. Humor should carry a torch, Wit should give its sudden light, Candor should hold the scales, Reason, the final arbiter, should put his royal stamp on every fact, and Memory, with a miser's care, should keep and guard the mental gold.
The church has always despised the man of humor, hated laughter, and encouraged the lethargy of solemnity. It is not willing that the mind should subject its creed to every test of truth. It wishes to overawe. It does not say, "He that hath a mind to think, let him think;" but, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." The church has always abhorred wit,—that is to say, it does not enjoy being struck by the lightning of the soul. The foundation of wit is logic, and it has always been the enemy of the supernatural, the solemn and absurd.
You express great regret that no one at the present day is able to write like Pascal. You admire his wit and tenderness, and the unique, brilliant, and fascinating manner in which he treated the profoundest and most complex themes. Sharing in your admiration and regret, I call your attention to what might be called one of his religious generalizations: "Disease is the natural state of a Christian." Certainly it cannot be said that I have ever mingled the profound and complex in a more fascinating manner.
Another instance is given of the "tumultuous method in which I conduct, not, indeed, my argument, but my case."
Dr. Field had drawn a distinction between superstition and religion, to which I replied: "You are shocked at the Hindoo mother when she gives her child to death at the supposed command of her God. What do you think of Abraham, of Jephthah? What is your opinion of Jehovah himself?"
These simple questions seem to have excited you to an unusual degree, and you ask in words of some severity:
"Whether this is the tone in which controversies ought be carried on?" And you say that—"not only is the name of Jehovah encircled in the heart of every believer with the pro-foundest reverence and love, but that the Christian religion teaches, through the incarnation, a personal relation with God so lofty that it can only be approached in a deep, reverential calm." You admit that "a person who deems a given religion to be wicked, may be led onward by logical consistency to impugn in strong terms the character of the author and object of that religion," but you insist that such person is "bound by the laws of social morality and decency to consider well the terms and meaning of his indictment."
Was there any lack of "reverential calm" in my question? I gave no opinion, drew no indictment, but simply asked for the opinion of another. Was that a violation of the "laws of social morality and decency"?
It is not necessary for me to discuss this question with you. It has been settled by Jehovah himself. You probably remember the account given in the eighteenth chapter of I. Kings, of a contest between the prophets of Baal and the prophets of Jehovah. There were four hundred and fifty prophets of the false God who endeavored to induce their deity to consume with fire from heaven the sacrifice upon his altar. According to the account, they were greatly in earnest. They certainly appeared to have some hope of success, but the fire did not descend.
"And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said 'Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure, he sleepeth and must be awaked.'"
Do you consider that the proper way to attack the God of another? Did not Elijah know that the name of Baal "was encircled in the heart of every believer with the profoundest reverence and love"? Did he "violate the laws of social morality and decency"?
But Jehovah and Elijah did not stop at this point. They were not satisfied with mocking the prophets of Baal, but they brought them down to the brook Kishon—four hundred and fifty of them—and there they murdered every one.
Does it appear to you that on that occasion, on the banks of the brook Kishon—"Mercy and judgment met together, and that righteousness and peace kissed each other"?
The question arises: Has every one who reads the Old Testament the right to express his thought as to the character of Jehovah? You will admit that as he reads his mind will receive some impression, and that when he finishes the "inspired volume" he will have some opinion as to the character of Jehovah. Has he the right to express that opinion? Is the Bible a revelation from God to man? Is it a revelation to the man who reads it, or to the man who does not read it? If to the man who reads it, has he the right to give to others the revelation that God has given to him? If he comes to the conclusion at which you have arrived,—that Jehovah is God,—has he the right to express that opinion?
If he concludes, as I have done, that Jehovah is a myth, must he refrain from giving his honest thought? Christians do not hesitate to give their opinion of heretics, philosophers, and infidels. They are not restrained by the "laws of social morality and decency." They have persecuted to the extent of their power, and their Jehovah pronounced upon unbelievers every curse capable of being expressed in the Hebrew dialect. At this moment, thousands of missionaries are attacking the gods of the heathen world, and heaping contempt on the religion of others.
But as you have seen proper to defend Jehovah, let us for a moment examine this deity of the ancient Jews.
There are several tests of character. It may be that all the virtues can be expressed in the word "kindness," and that nearly all the vices are gathered together in the word "cruelty."
Laughter is a test of character. When we know what a man laughs at, we know what he really is. Does he laugh at misfortune, at poverty, at honesty in rags, at industry without food, at the agonies of his fellow-men? Does he laugh when he sees the convict clothed in the garments of shame—at the criminal on the scaffold? Does he rub his hands with glee over the embers of an enemy's home? Think of a man capable ol laughing while looking at Marguerite in the prison cell with her dead babe by her side. What must be the real character of a God who laughs at the calamities of his children, mocks at their fears, their desolation, their distress and anguish? Would an infinitely loving God hold his ignorant children in derision? Would he pity, or mock? Save, or destroy? Educate, or exterminate? Would he lead them with gentle hands toward the light, or lie in wait for them like a wild beast? Think of the echoes of Jehovah's laughter in the rayless caverns of the eternal prison. Can a good man mock at the children of deformity? Will he deride the misshapen? Your Jehovah deformed some of his own children, and then held them up to scorn and hatred. These divine mistakes—these blunders of the infinite—were not allowed to enter the temple erected in honor of him who had dishonored them. Does a kind father mock his deformed child? What would you think of a mother who would deride and taunt her misshapen babe?
There is another test. How does a man use power? Is he gentle or cruel? Does he defend the weak, succor the oppressed, or trample on the fallen?
If you will read again the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, you will find how Jehovah, the compassionate, whose name is enshrined in so many hearts, threatened to use his power.
"The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting and mildew. And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust.".... "And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air and unto the beasts of the earth.".... "The Lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness. And thou shalt eat of the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and thy daughters. The tender and delicate woman among you,... her eye shall be evil... toward her young one and toward her children which she shall bear; for she shall eat them."
Should it be found that these curses were in fact uttered by the God of hell, and that the translators had made a mistake in attributing them to Jehovah, could you say that the sentiments expressed are inconsistent with the supposed character of the Infinite Fiend?
A nation is judged by its laws—by the punishment it inflicts. The nation that punishes ordinary offences with death is regarded as barbarous, and the nation that tortures before it kills is denounced as savage.
What can you say of the government of Jehovah, in which death was the penalty for hundreds of offences?—death for the expression of an honest thought—death for touching with a good intention a sacred ark—death for making hair oil—for eating shew bread—for imitating incense and perfumery?
In the history of the world a more cruel code cannot be found. Crimes seem to have been invented to gratify a fiendish desire to shed the blood of men.
There is another test: How does a man treat the animals in his power—his faithful horse—his patient ox—his loving dog?
How did Jehovah treat the animals in Egypt? Would a loving God, with fierce hail from heaven, bruise and kill the innocent cattle for the crimes of their owners? Would he torment, torture and destroy them for the sins of men?
Jehovah was a God of blood. His altar was adorned with the horns of a beast. He established a religion in which every temple was a slaughter-house, and every priest a butcher—a religion that demanded the death of the first-born, and delighted in the destruction of life.
There is still another test: The civilized man gives to others the rights that he claims for himself. He believes in the liberty of thought and expression, and abhors persecution for conscience sake.
Did Jehovah believe in the innocence of thought and the liberty of expression? Kindness is found with true greatness. Tyranny lodges only in the breast of the small, the narrow, the shriveled and the selfish. Did Jehovah teach and practice generosity? Was he a believer in religious liberty? If he was and is, in fact, God, he must have known, even four thousand years ago, that worship must be free, and that he who is forced upon his knees cannot, by any possibility, have the spirit of prayer.
Let me call your attention to a few passages in the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy:
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods,... thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die."
Is it possible for you to find in the literature of this world more awful passages than these? Did ever savagery, with strange and uncouth marks, with awkward forms of beast and bird, pollute the dripping walls of caves with such commands? Are these the words of infinite mercy? When they were uttered, did "righteousness and peace kiss each other"? How can any loving man or woman "encircle the name of Jehovah"—author of these words—"with profoundest reverence and love"? Do I rebel because my "constitution is warped, impaired and dislocated"? Is it because of "total depravity" that I denounce the brutality of Jehovah? If my heart were only good—if I loved my neighbor as myself—would I then see infinite mercy in these hideous words? Do I lack "reverential calm"?
These frightful passages, like coiled adders, were in the hearts of Jehovah's chosen people when they crucified "the Sinless Man."
Jehovah did not tell the husband to reason with his wife. She was to be answered only with death. She was to be bruised and mangled to a bleeding, shapeless mass of quivering flesh, for having breathed an honest thought.
If there is anything of importance in this world, it is the family, the home, the marriage of true souls, the equality of husband and wife—the true republicanism of the heart—the real democracy of the fireside.
Let us read the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of Genesis:
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
Never will I worship any being who added to the sorrows and agonies of maternity. Never will I bow to any God who introduced slavery into every home—who made the wife a slave and the husband a tyrant.
The Old Testament shows that Jehovah, like his creators, held women in contempt. They were regarded as property: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,—nor his ox."
Why should a pure woman worship a God who upheld polygamy? Let us finish this subject: The institution of slavery involves all crimes. Jehovah was a believer in slavery. This is enough. Why should any civilized man worship him? Why should his name "be encircled with love and tenderness in any human heart"?
He believed that man could become the property of man—that it was right for his chosen people to deal in human flesh—to buy and sell mothers and babes. He taught that the captives were the property of the captors and directed his chosen people to kill, to enslave, or to pollute.
In the presence of these commandments, what becomes of the fine saying, "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? What shall we say of a God who established slavery, and then had the effrontery to say, "Thou shalt not steal"?
It may be insisted that Jehovah is the Father of all—and that he has "made of one blood all the nations of the earth." How then can we account for the wars of extermination? Does not the commandment "Love thy neighbor as thyself," apply to nations precisely the same as to individuals? Nations, like individuals, become great by the practice of virtue. How did Jehovah command his people to treat their neighbors?
He commanded his generals to destroy all, men, women and babes: "Thou shalt save nothing alive that breatheth."
"I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh."
"That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same."
"... I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust...."
"The sword without and terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs."
Is it possible that these words fell from the lips of the Most Merciful?
You may reply that the inhabitants of Canaan were unfit to live—that they were ignorant and cruel. Why did not Jehovah, the "Father of all," give them the Ten Commandments? Why did he leave them without a bible, without prophets and priests? Why did he shower all the blessings of revelation on one poor and wretched tribe, and leave the great world in ignorance and crime—and why did he order his favorite children to murder those whom he had neglected?
By the question I asked of Dr. Field, the intention was to show that Jephthah, when he sacrificed his daughter to Jehovah, was as much the slave of superstition as is the Hindoo mother when she throws her babe into the yellow waves of the Ganges.
It seems that this savage Jephthah was in direct communication with Jehovah at Mizpeh, and that he made a vow unto the Lord and said:
"If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering."
In the first place, it is perfectly clear that the sacrifice intended was a human sacrifice, from the words: "that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me." Some human being—wife, daughter, friend, was expected to come. According to the account, his daughter—his only daughter—his only child—came first.
If Jephthah was in communication with God, why did God allow this man to make this vow; and why did he allow the daughter that he loved to be first, and why did he keep silent and allow the vow to be kept, while flames devoured the daughter's flesh?
St. Paul is not authority. He praises Samuel, the man who hewed Agag in pieces; David, who compelled hundreds to pass under the saws and harrows of death, and many others who shed the blood of the innocent and helpless. Paul is an unsafe guide. He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes.
If "believers are not obliged to approve of the conduct of Jephthah" are they free to condemn the conduct of Jehovah? If you will read the account you will see that the "spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah" when he made the cruel vow. If Paul did not commend Jephthah for keeping this vow, what was the act that excited his admiration? Was it because Jephthah slew on the banks of the Jordan "forty and two thousand" of the sons of Ephraim?
In regard to Abraham, the argument is precisely the same, except that Jehovah is said to have interfered, and allowed an animal to be slain instead.
One of the answers given by you is that "it may be allowed that the narrative is not within our comprehension"; and for that reason you say that "it behooves us to tread cautiously in approaching it." Why cautiously?
These stories of Abraham and Jephthah have cost many an innocent life. Only a few years ago, here in my country, a man by the name of Freeman, believing that God demanded at least the show of obedience—believing what he had read in the Old Testament that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission," and so believing, touched with insanity, sacrificed his little girl—plunged into her innocent breast the dagger, believing it to be God's will, and thinking that if it were not God's will his hand would be stayed.
I know of nothing more pathetic than the story of this crime told by this man.
Nothing can be more monstrous than the conception of a God who demands sacrifice—of a God who would ask of a father that he murder his son—of a father that he would burn his daughter. It is far beyond my comprehension how any man ever could have believed such an infinite, such a cruel absurdity.
At the command of the real God—if there be one—I would not sacrifice my child, I would not murder my wife. But as long as there are people in the world whose minds are so that they can believe the stories of Abraham and Jephthah, just so long there will be men who will take the lives of the ones they love best.
You have taken the position that the conditions are different; and you say that: "According to the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were placed under a law, not of consciously perceived right and wrong, but of simple obedience. The tree of which alone they were forbidden to eat was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; duty lay for them in following the command of the Most High, before and until they became capable of appreciating it by an ethical standard. Their knowledge was but that of an infant who has just reached the stage at which he can comprehend that he is ordered to do this or that, but not the nature of the things so ordered.".
If Adam and Eve could not "consciously perceive right and wrong," how is it possible for you to say that "duty lay for them in following the command of the Most High"? How can a person "incapable of perceiving right and wrong" have an idea of duty? You are driven to say that Adam and Eve had no moral sense. How under such circumstances could they have the sense of guilt, or of obligation? And why should such persons be punished? And why should the whole human race become tainted by the offence of those who had no moral sense?
Do you intend to be understood as saying that Jehovah allowed his children to enslave each other because "duty lay for them in following the command of the Most High"? Was it for this reason that he caused them to exterminate each other? Do you account for the severity of his punishments by the fact that the poor creatures punished were not aware of the enormity of the offences they had committed? What shall we say of a God who has one of his children stoned to death for picking up sticks on Sunday, and allows another to enslave his fellow-man? Have you discovered any theory that will account for both of these facts?
Another word as to Abraham:—You defend his willingness to kill his son because "the estimate of human life at the time was different"—because "the position of the father in the family was different; its members were regarded as in some sense his property;" and because "there is every reason to suppose that around Abraham in the 'land of Moriah' the practice of human sacrifice as an act of religion was in full vigor."
Let us examine these three excuses: Was Jehovah justified in putting a low estimate on human life? Was he in earnest when he said "that whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed"? Did he pander to the barbarian view of the worthlessness of life? If the estimate of human life was low, what was the sacrifice worth?
Was the son the property of the father? Did Jehovah uphold this savage view? Had the father the right to sell or kill his child?
Do you defend Jehovah and Abraham because the ignorant wretches in the "land of Moriah," knowing nothing of the true God, cut the throats of their babes "as an act of religion"?
Was Jehovah led away by the example of the Gods of Moriah? Do you not see that your excuses are simply the suggestions of other crimes?
You see clearly that the Hindoo mother, when she throws her babe into the Ganges at the command of her God, "sins against first principles"; but you excuse Abraham because he lived in the childhood of the race. Can Jehovah be excused because of his youth? Not satisfied with your explanation, your defences and excuses, you take the ground that when Abraham said: "My son, God will provide a lamb for a burnt offering," he may have "believed implicitly that a way of rescue would be found for his son." In other words, that Abraham did not believe that he would be required to shed the blood of Isaac. So that, after all, the faith of Abraham consisted in "believing implicitly" that Jehovah was not in earnest.
You have discovered a way by which, as you think, the neck of orthodoxy can escape the noose of Darwin, and in that connection you use this remarkable language:
"I should reply that the moral history of man, in its principal stream, has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now." It is hard to see how this statement agrees with the one in the beginning of your Remarks, in which you speak of the human constitution in its "warped, impaired and dislocated" condition. When you wrote that line you were certainly a theologian—a believer in the Episcopal creed—and your mind, by mere force of habit, was at that moment contemplating man as he is supposed to have been created—perfect in every part. At that time you were endeavoring to account for the unbelief now in the world, and you did this by stating that the human constitution is "warped, impaired and dislocated"; but the moment you are brought face to face with the great truths uttered by Darwin, you admit "that the moral history of man has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now." Is not this a fountain that brings forth sweet and bitter waters?
I insist, that the discoveries of Darwin do away absolutely with the inspiration of the Scriptures—with the account of creation in Genesis, and demonstrate not simply the falsity, not simply the wickedness, but the foolishness of the "sacred volume." There is nothing in Darwin to show that all has been evolved from "primal night and from chaos." There is no evidence of "primal night." There is no proof of universal chaos. Did your Jehovah spend an eternity in "primal night," with no companion but chaos.
It makes no difference how long a lower form may require to reach a higher. It makes no difference whether forms can be simply modified or absolutely changed. These facts have not the slightest tendency to throw the slightest light on the beginning or on the destiny of things.
I most cheerfully admit that gods have the right to create swiftly or slowly. The reptile may become a bird in one day, or in a thousand billion years—this fact has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of a first cause, but it has something to do with the truth of the Bible, and with the existence of a personal God of infinite power and wisdom.
Does not a gradual improvement in the thing created show a corresponding improvement in the creator? The church demonstrated the falsity and folly of Darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the Mosaic account of creation, and now the theories of Darwin having been fairly established, the church says that the Mosaic account is true, because it is in harmony with Darwin. Now, if it should turn out that Darwin was mistaken, what then?
To me it is somewhat difficult to understand the mental processes of one who really feels that "the gap between man and the inferior animals or their relationship was stated, perhaps, even more emphatically by Bishop Butler than by Darwin."
Butler answered deists, who objected to the cruelties of the Bible, and yet lauded the God of Nature by showing that the God of Nature is as cruel as the God of the Bible. That is to say, he succeeded in showing that both Gods are bad. He had no possible conception of the splendid generalizations of Darwin—the great truths that have revolutionized the thought of the world.
But there was one question asked by Bishop Butler that throws a flame of light upon the probable origin of most, if not all, religions: "Why might not whole communities and public bodies be seized with fits of insanity as well as individuals?"
If you are convinced that Moses and Darwin are in exact accord, will you be good enough to tell who, in your judgment, were the parents of Adam and Eve? Do you find in Darwin any theory that satisfactorily accounts for the "inspired fact" that a Rib, commencing with Monogonic Propagation—falling into halves by a contraction in the middle—reaching, after many ages of Evolution, the Amphigonie stage, and then, by the Survival of the Fittest, assisted by Natural Selection, moulded and modified by Environment, became at last, the mother of the human race?
Here is a world in which there are countless varieties of life—these varieties in all probability related to each other—all living upon each other—everything devouring something, and in its turn devoured by something else—everywhere claw and beak, hoof and tooth,—everything seeking the life of something else—every drop of water a battle-field, every atom being for some wild beast a jungle—every place a golgotha—and such a world is declared to be the work of the infinitely wise and compassionate.
According to your idea, Jehovah prepared a home for his children—first a garden in which they should be tempted and from which they should be driven; then a world filled with briers and thorns and wild and poisonous beasts—a world in which the air should be filled with the enemies of human life—a world in which disease should be contagious, and in which it was impossible to tell, except by actual experiment, the poisonous from the nutritious. And these children were allowed to live in dens and holes and fight their way against monstrous serpents and crouching beasts—were allowed to live in ignorance and fear—to have false ideas of this good and loving God—ideas so false, that they made of him a fiend—ideas so false, that they sacrificed their wives and babes to appease the imaginary wrath of this monster. And this God gave to different nations different ideas of himself, knowing that in consequence of that these nations would meet upon countless fields of death and drain each other's veins.
Would it not have been better had the world been so that parents would transmit only their virtues—only their perfections, physical and mental,—allowing their diseases and their vices to perish with them?
In my reply to Dr. Field I had asked: Why should God demand a sacrifice from man? Why should the infinite ask anything from the finite? Should the sun beg from the glowworm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light?
Upon which you remark, "that if the infinite is to make no demands upon the finite, by parity of reasoning, the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small." Can this be called reasoning? Why should the infinite demand a sacrifice from man? In the first place, the infinite is conditionless—the infinite cannot want—the infinite has. A conditioned being may want; but the gratification of a want involves a change of condition. If God be conditionless, he can have no wants—consequently, no human being can gratify the infinite.
But you insist that "if the infinite is to make no demands upon the finite, by parity of reasoning, the great and strong should scarcely make them on the weak and small."
The great have wants. The strong are often in need, in peril, and the great and strong often need the services of the small and weak. It was the mouse that freed the lion. England is a great and powerful nation—yet she may need the assistance of the weakest of her citizens. The world is filled with illustrations.
The lack of logic is in this: The infinite cannot want anything; the strong and the great may, and as a fact always do. The great and the strong cannot help the infinite—they can help the small and the weak, and the small and the weak can often help the great and strong.
You ask: "Why then should the father make demands of love, obedience, and sacrifice from his young child?"
No sensible father ever demanded love from his child. Every civilized father knows that love rises like the perfume from a flower. You cannot command it by simple authority.
It cannot obey. A father demands obedience from a child for the good of the child and for the good of himself. But suppose the father to be infinite—why should the child sacrifice anything for him?
But it may be that you answer all these questions, all these difficulties, by admitting, as you have in your Remarks, "that these problems are insoluble by our understanding."
Why, then, do you accept them? Why do you defend that which you cannot understand? Why does your reason volunteer as a soldier under the flag of the incomprehensible?
I asked of Dr. Field, and I ask again, this question: Why should an infinitely wise and powerful God destroy the good and preserve the vile?
What do I mean by this question? Simply this: The earthquake, the lightning, the pestilence, are no respecters of persons. The vile are not always destroyed, the good are not always saved. I asked: Why should God treat all alike in this world, and in another make an infinite difference? This, I suppose, is "insoluble to our understanding."
Why should Jehovah allow his worshipers, his adorers, to be destroyed by his enemies? Can you by any possibility answer this question?
You may account for all these inconsistencies, these cruel contradictions, as John Wesley accounted for earthquakes when he insisted that they were produced by the wickedness of men, and that the only way to prevent them was for everybody to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you may have some way of showing that Mr. Wesley's idea is entirely consistent with the theories of Mr. Darwin.
You seem to think that as long as there is more goodness than evil in the world—as long as there is more joy than sadness—we are compelled to infer that the author of the world is infinitely good, powerful, and wise, and that as long as a majority are out of gutters and prisons, the "divine scheme" is a success.
According to this system of logic, if there were a few more unfortunates—if there was just a little more evil than good—then we would be driven to acknowledge that the world was created by an infinitely malevolent being.
As a matter of fact, the history of the world has been such that not only your theologians but your apostles, and not only your apostles but your prophets, and not only your prophets but your Jehovah, have all been forced to account for the evil, the injustice and the suffering, by the wickedness of man, the natural depravity of the human heart and the wiles and machinations of a malevolent being second only in power to Jehovah himself.
Again and again you have called me to account for "mere suggestions and assertions without proof"; and yet your remarks are filled with assertions and mere suggestions without proof.
You admit that "great believers are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between human beings and the conditions in which they have been set down to work out their destiny."
How do you know "that they have been set down to work out their destiny"? If that was, and is, the purpose, then the being who settled the "destiny," and the means by which it tvas to be "worked out," is responsible for all that happens.
And is this the end of your argument, "That you are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between human beings"? Is the solution of this problem beyond your power? Does the Bible shed no light? Is the Christian in the presence of this question as dumb as the agnostic? When the injustice of this world is so flagrant that you cannot harmonize that awful fact with the wisdom and goodness of an infinite God, do you not see that you have surrendered, or at least that you have raised a flag of truce beneath which your adversary accepts as final your statement that you do not know and that your imagination is not sufficient to frame an excuse for God?
It gave me great pleasure to find that at last even you have been driven to say that: "it is a duty incumbent upon us respectively according to our means and opportunities, to decide by the use of the faculty of reason given us, the great questions of natural and revealed religion."
You admit "that I am to decide for myself, by the use of my reason," whether the Bible is the word of God or not—whether there is any revealed religion—and whether there be or be not an infinite being who created and who governs this world.
You also admit that we are to decide these questions according to the balance of the evidence.
Is this in accordance with the doctrine of Jehovah? Did Jehovah say to the husband that if his wife became convinced, according to her means and her opportunities, and decided according to her reason, that it was better to worship some other God than Jehovah, then that he was to say to her: "You are entitled to decide according to the balance of the evidence as it seems to you"?
Have you abandoned Jehovah? Is man more just than he? Have you appealed from him to the standard of reason? Is it possible that the leader of the English Liberals is nearer civilized than Jehovah?
Do you know that in this sentence you demonstrate the existence of a dawn in your mind? This sentence makes it certain that in the East of the midnight of Episcopal superstition there is the herald of the coming day. And if this sentence shows a dawn, what shall I say of the next:
"We are not entitled, either for or against belief, to set up in this province any rule of investigation except such as common sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life"?
This certainly is a morning star. Let me take this statement, let me hold it as a torch, and by its light I beg of you to read the Bible once again.
Is it in accordance with reason that an infinitely good and loving God would drown a world that he had taken no means to civilize—to whom he had given no bible, no gospel,—taught no scientific fact and in which the seeds of art had not been sown; that he would create a world that ought to be drowned? That a being of infinite wisdom would create a rival, knowing that the rival would fill perdition with countless souls destined to suffer eternal pain? Is it according to common sense that an infinitely good God would order some of his children to kill others? That he would command soldiers to rip open with the sword of war the bodies of women—wreaking vengeance on babes unborn? Is it according to reason that a good, loving, compassionate, and just God would establish slavery among men, and that a pure God would uphold polygamy? Is it according to common sense that he who wished to make men merciful and loving would demand the sacrifice of animals, so that his altars would be wet with the blood of oxen, sheep, and doves? Is it according to reason that a good God would inflict tortures upon his ignorant children—that he would torture animals to death—and is it in accordance with common sense and reason that this God would create countless billions of people knowing that they would be eternally damned?
What is common sense? Is it the result of observation, reason and experience, or is it the child of credulity?
There is this curious fact: The far past and the far future seem to belong to the miraculous and the monstrous. The present, as a rule, is the realm of common sense. If you say to a man: "Eighteen hundred years ago the dead were raised," he will reply: "Yes, I know that." And if you say: "A hundred thousand years from now all the dead will be raised," he will probably reply: "I presume so." But if you tell him: "I saw a dead man raised to-day," he will ask, "From what madhouse have you escaped?"
The moment we decide "according to reason," "according to the balance of evidence," we are charged with "having violated the laws of social morality and decency," and the defender of the miraculous and the incomprehensible takes another position.
The theologian has a city of refuge to which he flies—an old breastwork behind which he kneels—a rifle-pit into which he crawls. You have described this city, this breastwork, this rifle-pit and also the leaf under which the ostrich of theology thrusts its head. Let me quote:
"Our demands for evidence must be limited by the general reason of the case. Does that general reason of the case make it probable that a finite being, with a finite place in a comprehensive scheme devised and administered by a being who is infinite, would be able even to embrace within his view, or rightly to appreciate all the motives or aims that there may have been in the mind of the divine disposer?"
And this is what you call "deciding by the use of the faculty of reason," "according to the evidence," or at least "according to the balance of evidence." This is a conclusion reached by a "rule of investigation such as common sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life." Will you have the kindness to explain what it is to act contrary to evidence, or contrary to common sense? Can you imagine a superstition so gross that it cannot be defended by that argument?
Nothing, it seems to me, could have been easier than for Jehovah to have reasonably explained his scheme. You may answer that the human intellect is not sufficient to understand the explanation. Why then do not theologians stop explaining? Why do they feel it incumbent upon them to explain that which they admit God would have explained had the human mind been capable of understanding it?
How much better would it have been if Jehovah had said a few things on these subjects. It always seemed wonderful to me that he spent several days and nights on Mount Sinai explain* ing to Moses how he could detect the presence of leprosy, without once thinking to give him a prescription for its cure.
There were thousands and thousands of opportunities for this God to withdraw from these questions the shadow and the cloud. When Jehovah out of the whirlwind asked questions of Job, how much better it would have been if Job had asked and Jehovah had answered.
You say that we should be governed by evidence and by common sense. Then you tell us that the questions are beyond the reach of reason, and with which common sense has nothing to do. If we then ask for an explanation, you reply in the scornful challenge of Dante.
You seem to imagine that every man who gives an opinion, takes his solemn oath that the opinion is the absolute end of all investigation on that subject.
In my opinion, Shakespeare was, intellectually, the greatest of the human race, and my intention was simply to express that view. It never occurred to me that any one would suppose that I thought Shakespeare a greater actor than Garrick, a more wonderful composer than Wagner, a better violinist than Remenyi, or a heavier man than Daniel Lambert. It is to be regretted that you were misled by my words and really supposed that I intended to say that Shakespeare was a greater general than Caesar. But, after all, your criticism has no possible bearing on the point at issue. Is it an effort to avoid that which cannot be met? The real question is this: If we cannot account for Christ without a miracle, how can we account for Shakespeare? Dr. Field took the ground that Christ himself was a miracle; that it was impossible to account for such a being in any natural way; and, guided by common sense, guided by the rule of investigation such as common sense teaches, I called attention to Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, and Shakespeare.
In another place in your Remarks, when my statement about Shakespeare was not in your mind, you say: "All is done by steps—nothing by strides, leaps or bounds—all from protoplasm up to Shakespeare." Why did you end the series with Shakespeare? Did you intend to say Dante, or Bishop Butler?
It is curious to see how much ingenuity a great man exercises when guided by what he calls "the rule of investigation as suggested by common sense." I pointed out some things that Christ did not teach—among others, that he said nothing with regard to the family relation, nothing against slavery, nothing about education, nothing as to the rights and duties of nations, nothing as to any scientific truth. And this is answered by saying that "I am quite able to point out the way in which the Savior of the world might have been much greater as a teacher than he actually was."
Is this an answer, or is it simply taking refuge behind a name? Would it not have been better if Christ had told his disciples that they must not persecute; that they had no right to destroy their fellow-men; that they must not put heretics in dungeons, or destroy them with flames; that they must not invent and use instruments of torture; that they must not appeal to brutality, nor endeavor to sow with bloody hands the seeds of peace? Would it not have been far better had he said: "I come not to bring a sword, but peace"? Would not this have saved countless cruelties and countless lives?
You seem to think that you have fully answered my objection when you say that Christ taught the absolute indissolubility of marriage.
Why should a husband and wife be compelled to live with each other after love is dead? Why should the wife still be bound in indissoluble chains to a husband who is cruel, infamous, and false? Why should her life be destroyed because of his? Why should she be chained to a criminal and an outcast? Nothing can be more unphilosophic than this. Why fill the world with the children of indifference and hatred?
The marriage contract is the most important, the most sacred, that human beings can make. It will be sacredly kept by good men and by good women. But if a loving woman—tender, noble, and true—makes this contract with a man whom she believed to be worthy of all respect and love, and who is found to be a cruel, worthless wretch, why should her life be lost?
Do you not know that the indissolubility of the marriage contract leads to its violation, forms an excuse for immorality, eats out the very heart of truth, and gives to vice that which alone belongs to love?
But in order that you may know why the objection was raised, I call your attention to the fact that Christ offered a reward, not only in this world but in another, to any husband who would desert his wife. And do you know that this hideous offer caused millions to desert their wives and children?
Theologians have the habit of using names instead of arguments—of appealing to some man, great in some direction, to establish their creed; but we all know that no man is great enough to be an authority, except in that particular domain in which he won his eminence; and we all know that great men are not great in all directions. Bacon died a believer in the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. Tycho Brahe kept an imbecile in his service, putting down with great care the words that fell from the hanging lip of idiocy, and then endeavored to put them together in a way to form prophecies. Sir Matthew Hale believed in witchcraft not only, but in its lowest and most vulgar forms; and some of the greatest men of antiquity examined the entrails of birds to find the secrets of the future.
It has always seemed to me that reasons are better than names.
After taking the ground that Christ could not have been a greater teacher than he actually was, you ask: "Where would have been the wisdom of delivering to an uninstructed population of a particular age a codified religion which was to serve for all nations, all ages, all states of civilization?"
Does not this question admit that the teachings of Christ will not serve for all nations, all ages and all states of civilization?
But let me ask: If it was necessary for Christ "to deliver to an uninstructed population of a particular age a certain religion suited only for that particular age," why should a civilized and scientific age eighteen hundred years afterwards be absolutely bound by that religion? Do you not see that your position cannot be defended, and that you have provided no way for retreat? If the religion of Christ was for that age, is it for this? Are you willing to admit that the Ten Commandments are not for all time? If, then, four thousand years before Christ, commandments were given not simply for "an uninstructed population of a particular age, but for all time," can you give a reason why the religion of Christ should not have been of the same character?
In the first place you say that God has revealed himself to the world—that he has revealed a religion; and in the next place, that "he has not revealed a perfect religion, for the reason that no room would be left for the career of human thought."
Why did not God reveal this imperfect religion to all people instead of to a small and insignificant tribe, a tribe without commerce and without influence among the nations of the world? Why did he hide this imperfect light under a bushel? If the light was necessary for one, was it not necessary for all? And why did he drown a world to whom he had not even given that light? According to your reasoning, would there not have been left greater room for the career of human thought, had no revelation been made?
You say that "you have known a person who after studying the old classical or Olympian religion for a third part of a century, at length began to hope that he had some partial comprehension of it—some inkling of what is meant." You say this for the purpose of showing how impossible it is to understand the Bible. If it is so difficult, why do you call it a revelation? And yet, according to your creed, the man who does not understand the revelation and believe it, or who does not believe it, whether he understands it or not, is to reap the harvest of everlasting pain. Ought not the revelation to be revealed?
In order to escape from the fact that Christ denounced the chosen people of God as "a generation of vipers" and as "whited sepulchres," you take the ground that the scribes and pharisees were not the chosen people. Of what blood were they? It will not do to say that they were not the people. Can you deny that Christ addressed the chosen people when he said: "Jerusalem, which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee"?
You have called me to an account for what I said in regard to Ananias and Sapphira. First, I am charged with having said that the apostles conceived the idea of having all things in common, and you denounce this as an interpolation; second, "that motives of prudence are stated as a matter of fact to have influenced the offending couple"—and this is charged as an interpolation; and, third, that I stated that the apostles sent for the wife of Ananias—and this is characterized as a pure invention.
To me it seems reasonable to suppose that the idea of having all things in common was conceived by those who had nothing, or had the least, and not by those who had plenty. In the last verses of the fourth chapter of the Acts, you will find this:
"Neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessed of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, the son of consolation), a Levite and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet."
Now it occurred to me that the idea was in all probability suggested by the men at whose feet the property was laid. It never entered my mind that the idea originated with those who had land for sale. There may be a different standard by which human nature is measured in your country, than in mine; but if the thing had happened in the United States, I feel absolutely positive that it would have been at the suggestion of the apostles.
"Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet."
In my Letter to Dr. Field I stated—not at the time pretending to quote from the New Testament—that Ananias and Sapphira, after talking the matter over, not being entirely satisfied with the collaterals, probably concluded to keep a little—just enough to keep them from starvation if the good and pious bankers should abscond. It never occurred to me that any man would imagine that this was a quotation, and I feel like asking your pardon for having led you into this error. We are informed in the Bible that "they kept back a part of the price." It occurred to me, "judging by the rule of investigation according to common sense," that there was a reason for this, and I could think of no reason except that they did not care to trust the apostles with all, and that they kept back just a little, thinking it might be useful if the rest should be lost.
According to the account, after Peter had made a few remarks to Ananias,
"Ananias fell down and gave up the ghost;.... and the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in."
Whereupon Peter said:
"'Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much?' And she said, 'Yea, for so much.' Then Peter said unto her, 'How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.' Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost; and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband."
The only objection found to this is, that I inferred that the apostles had sent for her. Sending for her was not the offence. The failure to tell her what had happened to her husband was the offence—keeping his fate a secret from her in order that she might be caught in the same net that had been set for her husband by Jehovah. This was the offence. This was the mean and cruel thing to which I objected. Have you answered that?
Of course, I feel sure that the thing never occurred—the probability being that Ananias and Sapphira never lived and never died. It is probably a story invented by the early church to make the collection of subscriptions somewhat easier.
And yet, we find a man in the nineteenth century, foremost of his fellow-citizens in the affairs of a great nation, upholding this barbaric view of God.
Let me beg of you to use your reason "according to the rule suggested by common sense." Let us do what little we can to rescue the reputation, even of a Jewish myth, from the calumnies of Ignorance and Fear.
So, again, I am charged with having given certain words as a quotation from the Bible in which two passages are combined—"They who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned. And these shall go away into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
They were given as two passages. No one for a moment supposed that they would be read together as one, and no one imagined that any one in answering the argument would be led to believe that they were intended as one. Neither was there in this the slightest negligence, as I was answering a man who is perfectly familiar with the Bible. The objection was too small to make. It is hardly large enough to answer—and had it not been made by you it would not have been answered.
You are not satisfied with what I have said upon the subject of immortality. What I said was this: The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
You answer this by saying that "the Egyptians were believers in immortality, but were not a people of high intellectual development."
How such a statement tends to answer what I have said, is beyond my powers of discernment. Is there the slightest connection between my statement and your objection?
You make still another answer, and say that "the ancient Greeks were a race of perhaps unparalled intellectual capacity, and that notwithstanding that, the most powerful mind of the Greek philosophy, that of Aristotle, had no clear conception of a personal existence in a future state." May I be allowed to ask this simple question: Who has?
Are you urging an objection to the dogma of immortality, when you say that a race of unparalled intellectual capacity had no confidence in it? Is that a doctrine believed only by people who lack intellectual capacity? I stated that the idea of immortality was born of love, You reply, "the Egyptians believed it, but they were not intellectual." Is not this a non sequitur? The question is: Were they a loving people?
Does history show that there is a moral governor of the world? What witnesses shall we call? The billions of slaves who were paid with blows?—the countless mothers whose babes were sold? Have we time to examine the Waldenses, the Covenanters of Scotland, the Catholics of Ireland, the victims of St. Bartholomew, of the Spanish Inquisition, all those who have died in flames? Shall we hear the story of Bruno? Shall we ask Servetus? Shall we ask the millions slaughtered by Christian swords in America—all the victims of ambition, of perjury, of ignorance, of superstition and revenge, of storm and earthquake, of famine, flood and fire?
Can all the agonies and crimes, can all the inequalities of the world be answered by reading the "noble Psalm" in which are found the words: "Call upon me in the day of trouble, so I will hear thee, and thou shalt praise me"? Do you prove the truth of these fine words, this honey of Trebizond, by the victims of religious persecution? Shall we hear the sighs and sobs of Siberia?
Another thing. Why should you, from the page of Greek history, with the sponge of your judgment, wipe out all names but one, and tell us that the most powerful mind of the Greek philosophy was that of Aristotle? How did you ascertain this fact? Is it not fair to suppose that you merely intended to say that, according to your view, Aristotle had the most powerful mind among all the philosophers of Greece? I should not call attention to this, except for your criticism on a like remark of mine as to the intellectual superiority of Shakespeare. But if you knew the trouble I have had in finding out your meaning, from your words, you would pardon me for calling attention to a single line from Aristotle: "Clearness is the virtue of style."
To me Epicurus seems far greater than Aristotle, He had clearer vision. His cheek was closer to the breast of nature, and he planted his philosophy nearer to the bed-rock of fact. He was practical enough to know that virtue is the means and happiness the end; that the highest philosophy is the art of living. He was wise enough to say that nothing is of the slightest value to man that does not increase or preserve his wellbeing, and he was great enough to know and courageous enough to declare that all the gods and ghosts were monstrous phantoms born of ignorance and fear.
I still insist that human affection is the foundation of the idea of immortality; that love was the first to speak that word, no matter whether they who spoke it were savage or civilized, Egyptian or Greek. But if we are immortal—if there be another world—why was it not clearly set forth in the Old Testament? Certainly, the authors of that book had an opportunity to learn it from the Egyptians. Why was it not revealed by Jehovah? Why did he waste his time in giving orders for the consecration of priests—in saying that they must have sheep's blood put on their right ears and on their right thumbs and on their right big toes? Could a God with any sense of humor give such directions, or watch without huge laughter the performance of such a ceremony? In order to see the beauty, the depth and tenderness of such a consecration, is it essential to be in a state of "reverential calm"?
Is it not strange that Christ did not tell of another world distinctly, clearly, without parable, and without the mist of metaphor?
The fact is that the Hindoos, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans taught the immortality of the soul, not as a glittering guess—a possible perhaps—but as a clear and demonstrated truth for many centuries before the birth of Christ.
If the Old Testament proves anything, it is that death ends all. And the New Testament, by basing immortality on the resurrection of the body, but "keeps the word of promise to our ear and breaks it to our hope."
In my Reply to Dr. Field, I said: "The truth is, that no one can justly be held responsible for his thoughts. The brain thinks without asking our consent; we believe, or disbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the effect of evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of him who watches. There is no opportunity of being honest or dishonest in the formation of an opinion. The conclusion is entirely independent of desire. We must believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what we wish."
Does the brain think without our consent? Can we control our thought? Can we tell what we are going to think tomorrow?
Can we stop thinking?
Is belief the result of that which to us is evidence, or is it a product of the will? Can the scales in which reason weighs evidence be turned by the will? Why then should evidence be weighed? If it all depends on the will, what is evidence? Is there any opportunity of being dishonest in the formation of an opinion? Must not the man who forms the opinion know what it is? He cannot knowingly cheat himself. He cannot be deceived with dice that he loads. He cannot play unfairly at solitaire without knowing that he has lost the game. He cannot knowingly weigh with false scales and believe in the correctness of the result.
You have not even attempted to answer my arguments upon these points, but you have unconsciously avoided them. You did not attack the citadel. In military parlance, you proceeded to "shell the woods." The noise is precisely the same as though every shot had been directed against the enemy's position, but the result is not. You do not seem willing to implicitly trust the correctness of your aim. You prefer to place the target after the shot.
The question is whether the will knowingly can change evidence, and whether there is any opportunity of being dishonest in the formation of an opinion. You have changed the issue. You have erased the word formation and interpolated the word expression.
Let us suppose that a man has given an opinion, knowing that it is not based on any fact. Can you say that he has given his opinion? The moment a prejudice is known to be a prejudice, it disappears. Ignorance is the soil in which prejudice must grow. Touched by a ray of light, it dies. The judgment of man may be warped by prejudice and passion, but it cannot be consciously warped. It is impossible for any man to be influenced by a known prejudice, because a known prejudice cannot exist.
I am not contending that all opinions have been honestly expressed. What I contend is that when a dishonest opinion has been expressed it is not the opinion that was formed.
The cases suggested by you are not in point. Fathers are honestly swayed, if really swayed, by love; and queens and judges have pretended to be swayed by the highest motives, by the clearest evidence, in order that they might kill rivals, reap rewards, and gratify revenge. But what has all this to do with the fact that he who watches the scales in which evidence is weighed knows the actual result?
Let us examine your case: If a father is consciously swayed by his love for his son, and for that reason says that his son is innocent, then he has not expressed his opinion. If he is unconsciously swayed and says that his son is innocent, then he has expressed his opinion. In both instances his opinion was independent of his will; but in the first instance he did not express his opinion. You will certainly see this distinction between the formation and the expression of an opinion.
The same argument applies to the man who consciously has a desire to condemn. Such a conscious desire cannot affect the testimony—cannot affect the opinion. Queen Elizabeth undoubtedly desired the death of Mary Stuart, but this conscious desire could not have been the foundation on which rested Elizabeth's opinion as to the guilt or innocence of her rival. It is barely possible that Elizabeth did not express her real opinion. Do you believe that the English judges in the matter of the Popish Plot gave judgment in accordance with their opinions? Are you satisfied that Napoleon expressed his real opinion when he justified himself for the assassination of the Duc d'Enghien?
If you answer these questions in the affirmative, you admit that I am right. If you answer in the negative, you admit that you are wrong. The moment you admit that the opinion formed cannot be changed by expressing a pretended opinion, your argument is turned against yourself.
It is admitted that prejudice strengthens, weakens and colors evidence; but prejudice is honest. And when one acts knowingly against the evidence, that is not by reason of prejudice.
According to my views of propriety, it would be unbecoming for me to say that your argument on these questions is "a piece of plausible shallowness." Such language might be regarded as lacking "reverential calm," and I therefore refrain from even characterizing it as plausible.
Is it not perfectly apparent that you have changed the issue, and that instead of showing that opinions are creatures of the will, you have discussed the quality of actions? What have corrupt and cruel judgments pronounced by corrupt and cruel judges to do with their real opinions? When a judge forms one opinion and renders another he is called corrupt. The corruption does not consist in forming his opinion, but in rendering one that he did not form. Does a dishonest creditor, who incorrectly adds a number of items making the aggregate too large, necessarily change his opinion as to the relations of numbers? When an error is known, it is not a mistake; but a conclusion reached by a mistake, or by a prejudice, or by both, is a necessary conclusion. He who pretends to come to a conclusion by a mistake which he knows is not a mistake, knows that he has not expressed his real opinion.
Can any thing be more illogical than the assertion that because a boy reaches, through negligence in adding figures, a wrong result, that he is accountable for his opinion of the result? If he knew he was negligent, what must his opinion of the result have been?
So with the man who boldly announces that he has discovered the numerical expression of the relation sustained by the diameter to the circumference of a circle. If he is honest in the announcement, then the announcement was caused not by his will but by his ignorance. His will cannot make the announcement true, and he could not by any possibility have supposed that his will could affect the correctness of his announcement. The will of one who thinks that he has invented or discovered what is called perpetual motion, is not at fault. The man, if honest, has been misled; if not honest, he endeavors to mislead others. There is prejudice, and prejudice does raise a clamor, and the intellect is affected and the judgment is darkened and the opinion is deformed; but the prejudice is real and the clamor is sincere and the judgment is upright and the opinion is honest.
The intellect is not always supreme. It is surrounded by clouds. It sometimes sits in darkness. It is often misled—sometimes, in superstitious fear, it abdicates. It is not always a white light. The passions and prejudices are prismatic—they color thoughts. Desires betray the judgment and cunningly mislead the will.
You seem to think that the fact of responsibility is in danger unless it rests upon the will, and this will you regard as something without a cause, springing into being in some mysterious way, without father or mother, without seed or soil, or rain or light. You must admit that man is a conditioned being—that he has wants, objects, ends, and aims, and that these are gratified and attained only by the use of means. Do not these wants and these objects have something to do with the will, and does not the intellect have something to do with the means? Is not the will a product? Independently of conditions, can it exist? Is it not necessarily produced? Behind every wish and thought, every dream and fancy, every fear and hope, are there not countless causes? Man feels shame. What does this prove? He pities himself. What does this demonstrate?
The dark continent of motive and desire has never been explored. In the brain, that wondrous world with one inhabitant, there are recesses dim and dark, treacherous sands and dangerous shores, where seeming sirens tempt and fade; streams that rise in unknown lands from hidden springs, strange seas with ebb and flow of tides, resistless billows urged by storms of flame, profound and awful depths hidden by mist of dreams, obscure and phantom realms where vague and fearful things are half revealed, jungles where passion's tigers crouch, and skies of cloud and blue where fancies fly with painted wings that dazzle and mislead; and the poor sovereign of this pictured world is led by old desires and ancient hates, and stained by crimes of many vanished years, and pushed by hands that long ago were dust, until he feels like some bewildered slave that Mockery has throned and crowned.
No one pretends that the mind of man is perfect—that it is not affected by desires, colored by hopes, weakened by fears, deformed by ignorance and distorted by superstition. But all this has nothing to do with the innocence of opinion.
It may be that the Thugs were taught that murder is innocent; but did the teachers believe what they taught? Did the pupils believe the teachers? Did not Jehovah teach that the act that we describe as murder was a duty? Were not his teachings practiced by Moses and Joshua and Jephthah and Samuel and David? Were they honest? But what has all this to do with the point at issue?
Society has the right to protect itself, even from honest murderers and conscientious thieves. The belief of the criminal does not disarm society; it protects itself from him as from a poisonous serpent, or from a beast that lives on human flesh. We are under no obligation to stand still and allow ourselves to be murdered by one who honestly thinks that it is his duty to take our lives. And yet according to your argument, we have no right to defend ourselves from honest Thugs. Was Saul of Tarsus a Thug when he persecuted Christians "even unto strange cities"? Is the Thug of India more ferocious than Torquemada, the Thug of Spain?
If belief depends upon the will, can all men have correct opinions who will to have them? Acts are good or bad, according to their consequences, and not according to the intentions of the actors. Honest opinions may be wrong, and opinions dishonestly expressed may be right.
Do you mean to say that because passion and prejudice, the reckless "pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores of will and judgment," sway the mind, that the opinions which you have expressed in your Remarks to me are not your opinions? Certainly you will admit that in all probability you have prejudices and passions, and if so, can the opinions that you have expressed, according to your argument, be honest? My lack of confidence in your argument gives me perfect confidence in your candor. You may remember the philosopher who retained his reputation for veracity, in spite of the fact that he kept saying: "There is no truth in man."
Are only those opinions honest that are formed without any interference of passion, affection, habit or fancy? What would the opinion of a man without passions, affections, or fancies be worth? The alchemist gave up his search for an universal solvent upon being asked in what kind of vessel he expected to keep it when found.
It may be admitted that Biel "shows us how the life of Dante co-operated with his extraordinary natural gifts and capabilities to make him what he was," but does this tend to show that Dante changed his opinions by an act of his will, or that he reached honest opinions by knowingly using false weights and measures?
You must admit that the opinions, habits and religions of men depend, at least in some degree, on race, occupation, training and capacity. Is not every thoughtful man compelled to agree with Edgar Fawcett, in whose brain are united the beauty of the poet and the subtlety of the logician,
"Who sees how vice her venom wreaks
On the frail babe before it speaks,
And how heredity enslaves
With ghostly hands that reach from graves"?
Why do you hold the intellect criminally responsible for opinions, when you admit that it is controlled by the will? And why do you hold the will responsible, when you insist that it is swayed by the passions and affections? But all this has nothing to do with the fact that every opinion has been honestly formed, whether honestly expressed or not.
No one pretends that all governments have been honestly formed and honestly administered. All vices, and some virtues are represented in most nations. In my opinion a republic is far better than a monarchy. The legally expressed will of the people is the only rightful sovereign. This sovereignty, however, does not embrace the realm of thought or opinion. In that world, each human being is a sovereign,—throned and crowned: One is a majority. The good citizens of that realm give to others all rights that they claim for themselves, and those who appeal to force are the only traitors.
The existence of theological despotisms, of God-anointed kings, does not tend to prove that a known prejudice can determine the weight of evidence. When men were so ignorant as to suppose that God would destroy them unless they burned heretics, they lighted the fagots in selfdefence.
Feeling as I do that man is not responsible for his opinions, I characterized persecution for opinion's sake as infamous. So, it is perfectly clear to me, that it would be the infamy of infamies for an infinite being to create vast numbers of men knowing that they would suffer eternal pain. If an infinite God creates a man on purpose to damn him, or creates him knowing that he will be damned, is not the crime the same? We make mistakes and failures because we are finite; but can you conceive of any excuse for an infinite being who creates failures? If you had the power to change, by a wish, a statue into a human being, and you knew that this being would die without a "change of heart" and suffer endless pain, what would you do?
Can you think of any excuse for an earthly father, who, having wealth, learning and leisure, leaves his own children in ignorance and darkness? Do you believe that a God of infinite wisdom, justice and love, called countless generations of men into being, knowing that they would be used as fuel for the eternal fire?
Many will regret that you did not give your views upon the main questions—the principal issues—involved, instead of calling attention, for the most part, to the unimportant. If men were discussing the causes and results of the Franco-Prussian war, it would hardly be worth while for a third person to interrupt the argument for the purpose of calling attention to a misspelled word in the terms of surrender.
If we admit that man is responsible for his opinions and his thoughts, and that his will is perfectly free, still these admissions do not even tend to prove the inspiration of the Bible, or the "divine scheme of redemption."
In my judgment, the days of the supernatural are numbered. The dogma of inspiration must be abandoned. As man advances,—as his intellect enlarges,—as his knowledge increases,—as his ideals become nobler, the bibles and creeds will lose their authority—the miraculous will be classed with the impossible, and the idea of special providence will be discarded. Thousands of religions have perished, innumerable gods have died, and why should the religion of our time be exempt from the common fate?
Creeds cannot remain permanent in a world in which knowledge increases. Science and superstition cannot peaceably occupy the same brain. This is an age of investigation, of discovery and thought. Science destroys the dogmas that mislead the mind and waste the energies of man. It points out the ends that can be accomplished; takes into consideration the limits of our faculties; fixes our attention on the affairs of this world, and erects beacons of warning on the dangerous shores. It seeks to ascertain the conditions of health, to the end that life may be enriched and lengthened, and it reads with a smile this passage:
"And God-wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them."
Science is the enemy of fear and credulity. It invites investigation, challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. It seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the human race. It welcomes every fact and every truth. It has furnished a foundation for morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. From all books it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. It seeks to civilize the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and' heart. It refines through art, music and the drama—giving voice and expression to every noble thought. The mysterious does not excite the feeling of worship, but the ambition to understand. It does not pray—it works. It does not answer inquiry with the malicious cry of "blasphemy." Its feelings are not hurt by contradiction, neither does it ask to be protected by law from the laughter of heretics. It has taught man that he cannot walk beyond the horizon—that the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered—that an infinite personality cannot be comprehended by a finite being, and that the truth of any system of religion based on the supernatural cannot by any possibility be established—such a religion not being within the domain of evidence. And, above all, it teaches that all our duties are here—that all our obligations are to sentient beings; that intelligence, guided by kindness, is the highest possible wisdom; and that "man believes not what he would, but what he can."
And after all, it may be that "to ride an unbroken horse with the reins thrown upon his neck"—as you charge me with doing—gives a greater variety of sensations, a keener delight, and a better prospect of winning the race than to sit solemnly astride of a dead one, in "a deep reverential calm," with the bridle firmly in your hand.
Again assuring you of my profound respect, I remain, Sincerely yours,
Robert G. Ingersoll.
The Gladstone-Ingersoll Controversy.
THE Vatican Council, in its Decree on Faith has these words: "The Church itself, by its marvelous propagation, its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things, its catholic unity and invincible stability, is a vast and perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness of its own Divine legation."* Its Divine Founder said: "I am the light of the world;" and, to His Apostles, He said also, "Ye are the light of the world," and of His Church He added, "A city seated on a hill cannot be hid." The Vatican Council says, "The Church is its own witness." My purpose is to draw out this assertion more fully.
* "Const. Dogm. de Fide Catholica, c. iii.
These words affirm that the Church is self-evident, as light is to the eye, and through sense, to the intellect. Next to the sun at noonday, there is nothing in the world more manifest than the one visible Universal Church. Both the faith and the infidelity of the world bear witness to it. It is loved and hated, trusted and feared, served and assaulted, honored and blasphemed: it is Christ or Antichrist, the Kingdom of God or the imposture of Satan. It pervades the civilized world. No man and no nation can ignore it, none can be indifferent to it. Why is all this? How is its existence to be accounted for?
Let me suppose that I am an unbeliever in Christianity, and that some friend should make me promise to examine the evidence to show that Christianity is a Divine revelation; I should then sift and test the evidence as strictly as if it were in a court of law, and in a cause of life and death; my will would be in suspense: it would in no way control the process of my intellect. If it had any inclination from the equilibrium, it would be towards mercy and hope; but this would not add a feather's weight to the evidence, nor sway the intellect a hair's breadth.
After the examination has been completed, and my intellect convinced, the evidence being sufficient to prove that Christianity is a divine revelation, nevertheless I am not yet a Christian. All this sifting brings me to the conclusion of a chain of reasoning; but I am not yet a believer. The last act of reason has brought me to the brink of the first act of faith. They are generically distinct and separable. The acts of reason are intellectual, and jealous of the interference of the will. The act of faith is an imperative act of the will, founded on and justified by the process and conviction of the intellect. Hitherto I have been a critic: henceforward, if I will, I become a disciple.
It may here be objected that no man can so far suspend the inclination of the will when the question is, has God indeed spoken to man or no? is the revealed law of purity, generosity, perfection, divine, or only the poetry of imagination? Can a man be indifferent between two such sides of the problem? Will he not desire the higher and better side to be true? and if he desire, will he not incline to the side that he desires to find true? Can a moral being be absolutely indifferent between two such issues? and can two such issues be equally attractive to a moral agent? Can it be indifferent and all the same to us whether God has made Himself and His will known to us or not? Is there no attraction in light, no repulsion in darkness? Does not the intrinsic and eternal distinction of good and evil make itself felt in spite of the will? Are we not responsible to "receive the truth in the love of it?" Nevertheless, evidence has its own limits and quantities, and cannot be made more or less by any act of the will. And yet, what is good or bad, high or mean, lovely or hateful, ennobling or degrading, must attract or repel men as they are better or worse in their moral sense; for an equilibrium between good and evil, to God or to man, is impossible.
The last act of my reason, then, is distinct from my first act of faith precisely in this: so long as I was uncertain I suspended the inclination of my will, as an act of fidelity to conscience and of loyalty to truth; but the process once complete, and the conviction once attained, my will imperatively constrains me to believe, and I become a disciple of a Divine revelation.
My friend next tells me that there are Christian Scriptures, and I go through precisely the same process of critical examination and final conviction, the last act of reasoning preceding, as before, the first act of faith.
He then tells me that there is a Church claiming to be divinely founded, divinely guarded, and divinely guided in its custody of Christianity and of the Christian Scriptures.
Once more I have the same twofold process of reasoning and of believing to go through.
There is, however, this difference in the subject-matter: Christianity is an order of supernatural truth appealing intellectually to my reason; the Christian Scriptures are voiceless, and need a witness. They cannot prove their own mission, much less their own authenticity or inspiration. But the Church is visible to the eye, audible to the ear, self-manifesting and self-asserting: I cannot escape from it. If I go to the east, it is there; if I go to the west, it is there also. If I stay at home, it is before me, seated on the hill; if I turn away from it, I am surrounded by its light. It pursues me and calls to me. I cannot deny its existence; I cannot be indifferent to it; I must either listen to it or willfully stop my ears; I must heed it or defy it, love it or hate it. But my first attitude towards it is to try it with forensic strictness, neither pronouncing it to be Christ nor Antichrist till I have tested its origin, claim, and character. Let us take down the case in short-hand.
1. It says that it interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world. In some it holds the whole nation in its unity, in others it holds fewer; but in all it is present, visible, audible, naturalized, and known as the one Catholic Church, a name that none can appropriate. Though often claimed and controversially assumed, none can retain it; it falls off. The world knows only one Catholic Church, and always restores the name to the right owner.
2. It is not a national body, but extra-national, accused of its foreign relations and foreign dependence. It is international, and independent in a supernational unity.
3. In faith, divine worship, sacred ceremonial, discipline, government, from the highest to the lowest, it is the same in every place.
4. It speaks all languages in the civilized world.
5. It is obedient to one Head, outside of all nations, except one only; and in that nation, his headship is not national but world-wide.
6. The world-wide sympathy of the Church in all lands with its Head has been manifested in our days, and before our eyes, by a series of public assemblages in Rome, of which nothing like or second to it can be found. In 1854, 350 Bishops of all nations surrounded their Head when he defined the Immaculate Conception. In 1862, 400 Bishops assembled at the canonization of the Martyrs of Japan. In 1867, 500 Bishops came to keep the eighteenth centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom. In 1870, 700 Bishops assembled in the Vatican Council. On the Feast of the Epiphany, 1870, the Bishops of thirty nations during two whole hours made profession of faith in their own languages, kneeling before their head. Add to this, that in 1869, in the sacerdotal jubilee of Pius IX., Rome was filled for months by pilgrims from all lands in Europe and beyond the sea, from the Old World and from the New, bearing all manner of gifts and oblations to the Head of the Universal Church. To this, again, must be added the world-wide outcry and protest of all the Catholic unity against the seizure and sacrilege of September, 1870, when Rome was taken by the Italian Revolution.
7. All this came to pass not only by reason of the great love of the Catholic world for Pius IX., but because they revered him as the successor of St. Peter and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. For that undying reason the same events have been reproduced in the time of Leo XIII. In the early months of this year Rome was once more filled with pilgrims of all nations, coming in thousands as representatives of millions in all nations, to celebrate the sacerdotal jubilee of the Sovereign Pontiff. The courts of the Vatican could not find room for the multitude of gifts and offerings of every kind which were sent from all quarters of the world.
8. These things are here said, not because of any other importance, but because they set forth in the most visible and self-evident way the living unity and the luminous universality of the One Catholic and Roman Church.
9. What has thus far been said is before our eyes at this hour. It is no appeal to history, but to a visible and palpable fact. Men may explain it as they will; deny it, they cannot. They see the Head of the Church year by year speaking to the nations of the world; treating with Empires, Republics and Governments. There is no other man on earth that can so bear himself. Neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople can such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen.
This is the century of revolutions. Rome has in our time been besieged three times; three Popes have been driven out of it, two have been shut up in the Vatican. The city is now full of the Revolution. The whole Church has been tormented by Falck laws, Mancini laws, and Crispi laws. An unbeliever in Germany said some years ago, "The net is now drawn so tight about the Church, that if it escapes this time I will believe in it." Whether he believes, or is even alive now to believe, I cannot say.
Nothing thus far has been said as proof. The visible, palpable facts, which are at this moment before the eyes of all men, speak for themselves. There is one, and only one, worldwide unity of which these things can be said. It is a fact and a phenomenon for which an intelligible account must be rendered. If it be only a human system built up by the intellect, will and energy of men, let the adversaries prove it. The burden is upon them; and they will have more to do as we go on.
Thus far we have rested upon the evidence of sense and fact. We must now go on to history and reason.
Every religion and every religious body known to history has varied from itself and broken up. Brahminism has given birth to Buddhism; Mahometanism is parted into the Arabian and European Khalifates; the Greek schism into the Russian, Constantinopolitan, and Bulgarian autocephalous fragment; Protestaritism into its multitudinous diversities. All have departed from their original type, and all are continually developing new and irreconcilable, intellectual and ritualistic, diversities and repulsions. How is it that, with all diversities of language, civilization, race, interest, and conditions, social and political, including persecution and warfare, the Catholic nations are at this day, even when in warfare, in unchanged unity of faith, communion, worship and spiritual sympathy with each other and with their Head? This needs a rational explanation.
It may be said in answer, endless divisions have come out of the Church, from Arius to Photius, and from Photius to Luther.
Yes, but they all came out. There is the difference. They did not remain in the Church, corrupting the faith. They came out, and ceased to belong to the Catholic unity, as a branch broken from a tree ceases to belong to the tree. But the identity of the tree remains the same. A branch is not a tree, nor a tree a branch. A tree may lose branches, but it rests upon its root, and renews its loss. Not so the religions, so to call them, that have broken away from unity. Not one has retained its members or its doctrines. Once separated from the sustaining unity of the Church, all separations lose their spiritual cohesion, and then their intellectual identity. Ramus procisus arescit.
For the present it is enough to say that no human legislation, authority or constraint can ever create internal unity of intellect and will; and that the diversities and contradictions generated by all human systems prove the absence of Divine authority. Variations or contradictions are proof of the absence of a Divine mission to mankind. All natural causes run to disintegration. Therefore, they can render no account of the world-wide unity of the One Universal Church.
Such, then, are the facts before our eyes at this day. We will seek out the origin of the body or system called the Catholic Church, and pass at once to its outset eighteen hundred years ago.
I affirm, then, three things: (1) First, that no adequate account can be given of this undeniable fact from natural causes; (2) that the history of the Catholic Church demands causes above nature; and (3) that it has always claimed for itself a Divine origin and Divine authority.
I. And, first, before we examine what it was and what it has done, we will recall to mind what was the world in the midst of which it arose.
The most comprehensive and complete description of the old world, before Christianity came in upon it, is given in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Mankind had once the knowledge of God: that knowledge was obscured by the passions of sense; in the darkness of the human intellect, with the light of nature still before them, the nations worshiped the creature—that is, by pantheism, polytheism, idolatry; and, having lost the knowledge of God and of His perfections, they lost the knowledge of their own nature and of its laws, even of the natural and rational laws, which thenceforward ceased to guide, restrain, or govern them. They became perverted and inverted with every possible abuse, defeating the end and destroying the powers of creation. The lights of nature were put out, and the world rushed headlong into confusions, of which the beasts that perish were innocent. This is analytically the history of all nations but one. A line of light still shone from Adam to Enoch, from Enoch to Abraham, to whom the command was given, "Walk before Me and be perfect." And it ran on from Abraham to Caiaphas, who crucified the founder of Christianity. Through all anthropomorphisms of thought and language this line of light still passed inviolate and inviolable. But in the world, on either side of that radiant stream, the whole earth was dark. The intellectual and moral state of the Greek world may be measured in its highest excellence in Athens; and of the Roman world in Rome. The 'state of Athens—its private, domestic, and public morality—may be seen in Aristophanes.
The state of Rome is visible in Juvenal, and in the fourth book of St. Augustine's "City of God." There was only one evil wanting-. The world was not Atheist. Its polytheism was the example and the warrant of all forms of moral abominations. Imitary quod colis plunged the nations in crime. Their theology was their degradation; their text-book of an elaborate corruption of intellect and will.
Christianity came in "the fullness of time." What that fullness may mean, is one of the mysteries of times and seasons which it is not for us to know. But one motive for the long delay of four thousand years is not far to seek. It gave time, full and ample, for the utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of which the intellect and will of man are capable. The four great empires were each of them the concentration of a supreme effort of human power. The second inherited from the first, the third from both, the fourth from all three. It was, as it was foretold or described, as a beast, "exceeding terrible; his teeth and claws were of iron; he devoured and broke in pieces; and the rest he stamped upon with his feet." * The empire of man over man was never so widespread, so absolute, so hardened into one organized mass, as in Imperial Rome. The world had never seen a military power so disciplined, irresistible, invincible; a legislation so just, so equitable, so strong in its execution; a government so universal, so local, so minute. It seemed to be imperishable. Rome was called the eternal. The religions of all nations were enshrined in Dea Roma; adopted, practiced openly, and taught. They were all religiones licitae, known to the law; not tolerated only, but recognized. The theologies of Egypt, Greece, and of the Latin world, met in an empyreum, consecrated and guarded by the Imperial law, and administered by the Pontifex Maximus. No fanaticism ever surpassed the religious cruelties of Rome.. Add to all this the colluvies of false philosophies of every land, and of every date. They both blinded and hardened the intellect of public opinion and of private men against the invasion of anything except contempt, and hatred of both the philosophy of sophists and of the religion of the people. Add to all this the sensuality of the most refined and of the grossest luxury the world had ever seen, and a moral confusion and corruption which violated every law of nature.
* Daniel, vii. 19.
The god of this world had built his city. From foundation to parapet, everything that the skill and power of man could do had been done without stint of means or limit of will. The Divine hand was stayed, or rather, as St. Augustine says, an unsurpassed natural greatness was the reward of certain natural virtues, degraded as they were in unnatural abominations. Rome was the climax of the power of man without God, the apotheosis of the human will, the direct and supreme antagonist of God in His own world. In this the fullness of time was come. Man built all this for himself. Certainly, man could not also build the City of God. They are not the work of one and the same architect, who capriciously chose to build first the city of confusion, suspending for a time his skill and power to build some day the City of God. Such a hypothesis is folly. Of two things, one. Disputers must choose one or the other. Both cannot be asserted, and the assertion needs no answer—it refutes itself. So much for the first point.
II. In the reign of Augustus, and in a remote and powerless Oriental race, a Child was born in a stable of a poor Mother. For thirty years He lived a hidden life; for three years He preached the Kingdom of God, and gave laws hitherto unknown to men. He died in ignominy upon the Cross; on the third day He rose again; and after forty days He was seen no more. This unknown Man created the world-wide unity of intellect and will which is visible to the eye, and audible, in all languages, to the ear. It is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations, in all ages, to this day. What proportion is there between the cause and the effect? What power was there in this isolated Man? What unseen virtues went out of Him to change the world? For change the world He did; and that not in the line or on the level of nature as men had corrupted it, but in direct contradiction to all that was then supreme in the world. He taught the dependence of the intellect against its self-trust, the submission of the will against its license, the subjugation of the passions by temperate control or by absolute subjection against their willful indulgence. This was to reverse what men believed to be the laws of nature: to make water climb upward and fire to point downward. He taught mortification of the lusts of the flesh, contempt of the lusts of the eyes, and hatred of the pride of life. What hope was there that such a teacher should convert imperial Rome? that such a doctrine should exorcise the fullness of human pride and lust? Yet so it has come to pass; and how? Twelve men more obscure than Himself, absolutely without authority or influence of this world, preached throughout the empire and beyond it. They asserted two facts: the one, that God had been made man; the other, that He died and rose again. What could be more incredible? To the Jews the unity and spirituality of God were axioms of reason and faith; to the Gentiles, however cultured, the resurrection of the flesh was impossible. The Divine Person Who had died and risen could not be called in evidence as the chief witness. He could not be produced in court. Could anything be more suspicious if credible, or less credible even if He were there to say so? All that they could do was to say, "We knew Him for three years, both before His death and after He rose from the dead. If you will believe us, you will believe what we say. If you will not believe us, we can say no more. He is not here, but in heaven. We cannot call him down." It is true, as we read, that Peter cured a lame man at the gate of the Temple. The Pharisees could not deny it, but they would not believe what Peter said; they only told him to hold his tongue. And yet thousands in one day in Jerusalem believed in the Incarnation and the Resurrection; and when the Apostles were scattered by persecution, wherever they went men believed their word. The most intense persecution was from the Jews, the people of faith and of Divine traditions. In the name of God and of religion they stoned Stephen, and sent Saul to persecute at Damascus. More than this, they stirred up the Romans in every place. As they had forced Pilate to crucify Jesus of Nazareth, so they swore to slay Paul. And yet, in spite of all, the faith spread.
It is true, indeed, that the Empire of Alexander, the spread of the Hellenistic Greek, the prevalence of Greek in Rome itself, the Roman roads which made the Empire traversable, the Roman peace which sheltered the preachers of the faith in the outset of their work, gave them facilities to travel and to be understood. But these were only external facilities, which in no way rendered more credible or more acceptable the voice of penance and mortification, or the mysteries of the faith, which was immutably "to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness." It was in changeless opposition to nature as man had marred it; but it was in absolute harmony with nature as God had made it to His own likeness. Its power was its persuasiveness; and its persuasiveness was in its conformity to the highest and noblest aspirations and aims of the soul in man. The master-key so long lost was found at last; and its conformity to the wards of the lock was its irrefragable witness to its own mission and message.
But if it is beyond belief that Christianity in its outset made good its foothold by merely human causes and powers, how much more does this become incredible in every age as we come down from the first century to the nineteenth, and from the Apostolic mission to the world-wide Church, Catholic and Roman, at this day.
Not only did the world in the fullness of its power give to the Christian faith no help to root or to spread itself, but it wreaked all the fullness of its power upon it to uproot and to destroy it, Of the first thirty Pontiffs in Rome, twenty-nine were martyred. Ten successive persecutions, or rather one universal and continuous persecution of two hundred years, with ten more bitter excesses of enmity in every province of the Empire, did all that man can do to extinguish the Christian name. The Christian name may be blotted out here and there in blood, but the Christian faith can nowhere be slain. It is inscrutable, and beyond the reach of man. In nothing is the blood of the martyrs more surely the seed of the faith. Every martyrdom was a witness to the faith, and the ten persecutions were the sealing of the work of the twelve Apostles. The destroyer defeated himself. Christ crucified was visibly set forth before all the nations, the world was a Calvary, and the blood of the martyrs preached in every tongue the Passion of Jesus Christ. The world did its worst, and ceased only for weariness and conscious defeat.
Then came the peace, and with peace the peril of the Church. The world outside had failed; the world inside began to work. It no longer destroyed life; it perverted the intellect, and, through intellectual perversion, assailed the faith at its centre, The Angel of light preached heresy. The Baptismal Creed was assailed all along the line; Gnosticism assailed the Father-and Creator of all things; Arianism, the God-head of the Son; Nestorianism, the unity of His person; Monophysites, the two natures; Monothelites, the divine and human wills; Macedonians, the person of the Holy Ghost So throughout the centuries, from Nicæa to the Vatican, every article has been in succession perverted by heresy and defined by the Church. But of this we shall speak hereafter. If the human intellect could fasten its perversions on the Chris tian faith, it would have done so long ago; and if the Christian faith had been guarded by no more than human intellect, it would long ago have been disintegrated, as we see in every religion outside the unity of the one Catholic Church. There is no example in which fragmentary Christianities have not departed from their original type. No human system is immutable; no thing human is changeless. The human intellect, therefore, can give no sufficient account of the identity of the Catholic faith in all places and in all ages by any of its own natural processes or powers. The force of this argument is immensely increased when we trace the tradition of the faith through the nineteen OEcumenical Councils which, with one continuous intelligence, have guarded and unfolded the deposit of faith, defining every truth as it has been successively assailed, in absolute harmony and unity of progression.
What the Senate is to your great Republic, or the Parliament to our English monarchy, such are the nineteen Councils of the Church, with this only difference: the secular Legislatures must meet year by year with short recesses; Councils have met on the average once in a century. The reason of this is that the mutabilities of national life, which are as the water-floods, need constant remedies; the stability of the Church seldom needs new legislation. The faith needs no definition except in rare intervals of periodical intellectual disorder. The discipline of the Church reigns by an universal common law which seldom needs a change, and by local laws which are provided on the spot. Nevertheless, the legislation of the Church, the Corpus Juris, or Canon Law, is a creation of wisdom and justice, to which no Statutes at large or Imperial pandects can bear comparison. Human intellect has reached its climax in jurisprudence, but the world-wide and secular legislation of the Church has a higher character. How the Christian law corrected, elevated, and completed the Imperial law, may be seen in a learned and able work by an American author, far from the Catholic faith, but in the main just and accurate in his facts and arguments—the Gesta Christi of Charles Loring Brace. Water cannot rise above its source, and if the Church by mere human wisdom corrected and perfected the Imperial law, its source must be higher than the sources of the world. This makes a heavy demand on our credulity.
Starting from St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some 258 Pontiffs claiming to be, and recognized by the whole Catholic unity as, successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ. To them has been rendered in every age not only the external obedience of outward submission, but the internal obedience of faith. They have borne the onset of the nations who destroyed Imperial Rome, and the tyranny of heretical Emperors of Byzantium; and, worse than this, the alternate despotism and patronage of the Emperors of the West, and the substraction of obedience in the great Western schisms, when the unity of the Church and the authority of its Head were, as men thought, gone for ever. It was the last assault—the forlorn hope of the gates of hell. Every art of destruction had been tried: martyrdom, heresy, secularity, schism; at last, two, and three, and four claimants, or, as the world says, rival Popes, were set up, that men might believe that St. Peter had no longer a successor, and our Lord no Vicar, upon earth; for, though all might be illegitimate, only one could be the lawful and true Head of the Church. Was it only by the human power of man that the unity, external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been supreme, was once more restored in the Council of Constance, never to be broken again? The succession of the English monarchy has been, indeed, often broken, and always restored, in these thousand years. But here is a monarchy of eighteen hundred years, powerless in worldly force or support, claiming and receiving not only outward allegiance, but inward unity of intellect and will. If any man tell us that these two phenomena are on the same level of merely human causes, it is too severe a tax upon our natural reason to believe it.
But the inadequacy of human causes to account for the universality, unity, and immutability of the Catholic Church, will stand out more visibly if we look at the intellectual and moral revolution which Christianity has wrought in the world and upon mankind.
The first effect of Christianity was to fill the world with the true knowledge of the One True God, and to destroy utterly all idols, not by fire but by light. Before the Light of the world no false god and no polytheism could stand. The unity and spirituality of God swept away all theogonies and theologies of the first four thousand years. The stream of light which descended from the beginning expanded into a radiance, and the radiance into a flood, which illuminated all nations, as it had been foretold, "The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea;" "And idols shall be utterly destroyed."* In this true knowledge of the Divine Nature was revealed to men their own relation to a Creator as of sons to a father. The Greeks called the chief of the gods Zeus Pater, and the Latins Jupiter; but neither realized the dependence and love of sonship as revealed by the Founder of Christianity.
* Isaias, xi. 9-11, 18.
The monotheism of the world comes down from a primeval and Divine source. Polytheism is the corruption of men and of nations. Yet in the multiplicity of all polytheisms, ont supreme Deity was always recognized. The Divine unity was imperishable. Polytheism is of human imagination: it is of men's manufacture. The deification of nature and passions and heroes had filled the world with an elaborate and tenacious superstition, surrounded by reverence, fear, religion, and awe. Every perversion of what is good in man surrounded it with authority; everything that is evil in man guarded it with jealous care. Against this world-wide and imperious demon-ology the science of one God, all holy and supreme, advanced with resistless force. Beelzebub is not divided against himself; and if polytheism is not Divine, monotheism must be. The overthrow of idolatry and demonology was the mastery of forces that are above nature. This conclusion is enough for our present purpose.
A second visible effect of Christianity of which nature cannot offer any adequate cause is to be found in the domestic life of the Christian world. In some nations the existence of marriage was not so much as recognized. In others, if recognized, it was dishonored by profuse concubinage. Even in Israel, the most advanced nation, the law of divorce was permitted for the hardness of their hearts. Christianity republished the primitive law by which marriage unites only one man and one woman indissolubly in a perpetual contract. It raised their mutual and perpetual contract to a sacrament. This at one blow condemned all other relations between man and woman, all the legal gradations of the Imperial law, and all forms and pleas of divorce. Beyond this the spiritual legislation of the Church framed most elaborate tables of consanguinity and affinity, prohibiting all marriages between persons in certain degrees of kinship or relation. This law has created the purity and peace of domestic life. Neither the Greek nor the Roman world had any true conception of a home. The Eoria or Vesta was a sacred tradition guarded by vestals like a temple worship. It was not a law and a power in the homes of the people. Christianity, by enlarging the circles of prohibition within which men and women were as brothers and sisters, has created the home with all its purities and safeguards.
Such a law of unity and indissolubility, encompassed by a multitude of prohibitions, no mere human legislation could impose on the the passions and will of mankind. And yet the Imperial laws gradually yielded to its resistless pressure, and incorporated it in its world-wide legislation. The passions and practices of four thousand years were against the change; yet it was accomplished, and it reigns inviolate to this day, though the relaxations of schism in the East and the laxities of the West have revived the abuse of divorces, and have partially abolished the wise and salutary prohibitions which guard the homes of the faithful. These relaxations prove that all natural forces have been, and are, hostile to the indissoluble law of Christian marriage. Certainly, then, it was not by natural forces that the Sacrament of Matrimony and the legislation springing from it were enacted. If these are restraints of human liberty and license, either they do not spring from nature, or they have had a supernatural cause whereby they exist. It was this that redeemed woman from the traditional degradation in which the world had held her. The condition of women in Athens and in Rome—which may be taken as the highest points of civilization—is too well known to need recital. Women had no rights, no property, no independence. Plato looked upon them as State property; Aristotle as chattels; the Greeks wrote of them as [—Greek—].
They were the prey, the sport, the slaves of man. Even in Israel, though they were raised incomparably higher than in the Gentile world, they were far below the dignity and authority of Christian women. Libanius, the friend of Julian, the Apostate, said, "O ye gods of Greece, how great are the women of the Christians!" Whence came the elevation of womanhood? Not from the ancient civilization, for it degraded them; not from Israel, for among the Jews the highest state of womanhood was the marriage state. The daughter of Jepthe went into the mountains to mourn not her death but her virginity. The marriage state in the Christian world, though holy and good, is not the highest state. The state of virginity unto death is the highest condition of man and woman. But this is above the law of nature. It belongs to a higher order. And this life of virginity, in repression of natural passion and lawful instinct, is both above and against the tendencies of human nature. It begins in a mortification, and ends in a mastery, over the movements and ordinary laws of human nature. Who will ascribe this to natural causes? and, if so, why did it not appear in the first four thousand years? And when has it ever appeared except in a handful of vestal virgins, or in Oriental recluses, with what reality history shows? An exception proves a rule. No one will imagine that a life of chastity is impossible to nature; but the restriction is a repression of nature which individuals may acquire, but the multitude have never attained. A religion which imposes chastity on the unmarried, and upon its priesthood, and upon the multitudes of women in every age who devote themselves to the service of One Whom they have never seen, is a mortification of nature in so high a degree as to stand out as a fact and a phenomenon, of which mere natural causes afford no adequate solution. Its existence, not in a handful out of the millions of the world, but its prevalence and continuity in multitudes scattered throughout the Christian world, proves the presence of a cause higher than the laws of nature. So true is this, that jurists teach that the three vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience are contrary to "the policy of the law," that is, to the interests of the commonwealth, which desires the multiplication, enrichment, and liberty of its members.
To what has been said may be added the change wrought by Christianity upon the social, political, and international relations of the world. The root of this ethical change, private and public, is the Christian home. The authority of parents, the obedience of children, the love of brotherhood, are the three active powers which have raised the society of man above the level of the old world. Israel was head and shoulders above the world around it; but Christendom is high above Israel. The new Commandment of brotherly love, and the Sermon on the Mount, have wrought a revolution, both in private and public life. From this come the laws of justice and sympathy which bind together the nations of the Christian world. In the old world, even the most refined races, worshiped by our modern philosophers, held and taught that man could hold property in man. In its chief cities there were more slaves than free men. Who has taught the equality of men before the law, and extinguished the impious thought that man can hold property in man? It was no philosopher: even Aristotle taught that a slave was [—Greek—]. It was no lawgiver, for all taught the lawfulness of slavery till Christianity denied it. The Christian law has taught that man can lawfully sell his labor, but that he cannot lawfully be sold, or sell himself.
The necessity of being brief, the impossibility of drawing out the picture of the old world, its profound immoralities, its unimaginable cruelties, compels me to argue with my right hand tied behind me. I can do no more than point again to Mr. Brace's "Gesta Christi," or to Dr. Dollinger's "Gentile and Jew," as witnesses to the facts which I have stated or implied. No one who has not read such books, or mastered their contents by original study, can judge of the force of the assertion that Christianity has reformed the world by direct antagonism to the human will, and by a searching and firm repression of human passion. It has ascended the stream of human license, contra ictum fluminis, by a power mightier than nature, and by laws of a higher order than the relaxations of this world.
Before Christianity came on earth, the civilization of man by merely natural force had culminated. It could not rise above its source; all that it could do was done; and the civilization in every race and empire had ended in decline and corruption. The old civilization was not regenerated. It passed away to give place to a new. But the new had a higher source, nobler laws and supernatural powers. The highest excellence of men and of nations is the civilization of Christianity. The human race has ascended into what we call Christendom, that is, into the new creation of charity and justice among men. Christendom was created by the worldwide Church as we see it before our eyes at this day. Philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own hands: they did not make it; but they have for three hundred years been unmaking it by reformations and revolutions. These are destructive forces. They build up nothing. It has been well said by Donoso Cortez that "the history of civilization is the history of Christianity, the history of Christianity is the history of the Church, the history of the Church is the history of the Pontiffs, the greatest statesmen and rulers that the world has ever seen."
Some years ago, a Professor of great literary reputation in England, who was supposed even then to be, as his subsequent writings have proved, a skeptic or non-Christian, published a well-known and very candid book, under the title of "Ecce Homo." The writer placed himself, as it were, outside of Christianity. He took, not the Church in the world as in this article, but the Christian Scriptures as a historical record, to be judged with forensic severity and absolute impartiality of mind. To the credit of the author, he fulfilled this pledge; and his conclusion shall here be given. After an examination of the life and character of the Author of Christianity, he proceeded to estimate His teaching and its effects under the following heads:
1. The Christian Legislation.
2. The Christian Republic.
3. Its Universality.
4. The Enthusiasm of Humanity.
5. The Lord's Supper.
6. Positive Morality.
7. Philanthropy.
8. Edification.
9. Mercy.
10. Resentment.
11. Forgiveness.
He then draws his conclusion as follows:
"The achievement of Christ in founding by his single will and power a structure so durable and so universal is like no other achievement which history records. The masterpieces of the men of action are coarse and commonplace in comparison with it, and the masterpieces of speculation flimsy and unsubstantial. When we speak of it the commonplaces of admiration fail us altogether. Shall we speak of the originality of the design, of the skill displayed in the execution? All such terms are inadequate. Originality and contriving skill operate indeed, but, as it were, implicitly. The creative effort which produced that against which it is said the gates of hell shall not prevail cannot be analyzed. No architect's designs were furnished for the New Jerusalem; no committee drew up rules for the universal commonwealth. If in the works of nature we can trace the indications of calculation, of a struggle with difficulties, of precaution, of ingenuity, then in Christ's work it may be that the same indications occur. But these inferior and secondary powers were not consciously exercised; they were implicitly present in the manifold yet single creative act. The inconceivable work was done in calmness; before the eyes of mea it was noiselessly accomplished, attracting little attention. Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into the formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these things can explain the origin of the Christian Church. For others it must be enough to say, 'The Holy Ghost fell on those that believed'. No man saw the building of the New Jerusalem, the workmen crowded together, the unfinished walla and unpaved streets; no man heard the cFlink of trowel and pickaxe: 'it descended out of heaven from God.'"*
* "Ece Homo," Conclusion, p. 329, Fifth Edition. Macmillan,
1886.
And yet the writer is, as he was then, still outside of Christianity.
III. We come now to our third point, that Christianity has always claimed a Divine origin and a Divine presence as the source of its authority and powers.
To prove this by texts from the New Testament would be to transcribe the volume; and if the evidence of the whole New Testament were put in, not only might some men deny its weight as evidence, but we should place our whole argument upon a false foundation. Christianity was anterior to the New Testament and is independent of it. The Christian Scriptures presuppose both the faith and the Church as already existing, known, and believed. Prior liber quam stylus: as Tertullian argued. The Gospel was preached before it was written. The four books were written to those who already believed, to confirm their faith. They were written at intervals: St. Matthew in Hebrew in the year 39, in Greek in 45. St. Mark in 43, St. Luke in 57, St. John about 90, in different places and for different motives. Four Gospels did not exist for sixty years, or two generations of men. St. Peter and St. Paul knew of only three of our four. In those sixty years the faith had spread from east to west. Saints and Martyrs had gone up to their crown who never saw a sacred book. The Apostolic Epistles prove the antecedent existence of the Churches to which they were addressed. Rome and Corinth, and Galatia and Ephesus, Philippi and Colossæ, were Churches with pastors and people before St. Paul wrote to them. The Church had already attested and executed its Divine legation before the New Testament existed; and when all its books were written they were not as yet collected into a volume. The earliest collection was about the beginning of the second century, and in the custody of the Church in Rome. We must, therefore, seek to know what was and is Christianity before and outside of the written books; and we have the same evidence for the oral tradition of the faith as we have for the New Testament itself. Both alike were in the custody of the Church; both are delivered to us by the same witness and on the same evidence. To reject either, is logically to reject both. Happily men are not saved by logic, but by faith. The millions of men in all ages have believed by inheritance of truth divinely guarded and delivered to them. They have no need of logical analysis. They have believed from their childhood. Neither children nor those who infantibus oquiparantur are logicians. It is the penance of the doubter and the unbeliever to regain by toil his lost inheritance. It is a hard penance, like the suffering of those who eternally debate on "predestination, freewill, fate."
Between the death of St. John and the mature lifetime of St. Irenæus fifty years elapsed. St. Polycarp was disciple of St. John. St. Irenæus was disciple of St. Polycarp. The mind of St. John and the mind of St. Irenæus had only one intermediate intelligence, in contact with each. It would be an affectation of minute criticism to treat the doctrine of St. Irenaeus as a departure from the doctrine of St. Polycarp, or the doctrine of St. Polycarp as a departure from the doctrine of St. John. Moreover, St. John ruled the Church at Ephesus, and St. Irenaeus was born in Asia Minor about the year A. D. 120—that is, twenty years after St. John's death, when the Church in Asia Minor was still full of the light of his teaching and of the accents of his voice. Let us see how St. Irenæus describes the faith and the Church. In his work against Heresies, in Book iii. chap. i., he says, "We have known the way of our salvation by those through whom the Gospel came to us; which, indeed, they then preached, but afterwards, by the will of God, delivered to us in Scriptures, the future foundation and pillar of our faith. It is not lawful to say that they preached before they had perfect knowledge, as some dare to affirm, boasting themselves to be correctors of the Apostles. For after our Lord rose from the dead, and when they had been clothed with the power of the Holy Ghost, Who came upon them from on high, they were filled with all truths, and had knowledge which was perfect." In chapter ii. he adds that, "When they are refuted out of Scripture, they turn and accuse the Scriptures as erroneous, unauthoritative, and of various readings, so that the truth cannot be found by those who do not know tradition"—that is, their own. "But when we challenge them to come to the tradition of the Apostles, which is in custody of the succession of Presbyters in the Church, they turn against tradition, saying that they are not only wiser than the Presbyters, but even the Apostles, and have found the truth." "It therefore comes to pass that they will not agree either with the Scriptures or with tradition." (Ibid. c. iii.) "Therefore, all who desire to know the truth ought to look to the tradition of the Apostles, which is manifest in all the world and in all the Church. We are able to count up the Bishops who were instituted in the Church by the Apostles, and their successors to our day. They never taught nor knew such things as these men madly assert." "But as it would be too long in such a book as this to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, we point to the tradition of the greatest, most ancient Church, known to all, founded and constituted in Rome by the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, and to the faith announced to all men, coming down to us by the succession of Bishops, thereby confounding all those who, in any way, by self-pleasing, or vainglory, or blindness, or an evil mind, teach as they ought not. For with this Church, by reason of its greater principality, it is necessary that all churches should agree; that is, the faithful, wheresoever they be, for in that Church the tradition of the Apostles has been preserved." No comment need be made on the words the "greater principality," which have been perverted by every anti-Catholic writer from the time they were written to this day. But if any one will compare them with the words of St. Paul to the Colossians (chap. i. 18), describing the primacy of the Head of the Church in heaven, it will appear almost certain that the original Greek of St. Irenæus, which is unfortunately lost, contained either [—Greek—], or some inflection of [—Greek—] which signifies primacy. However this may be, St. Irenæus goes on: "The blessed Apostles, having founded and instructed the Church, gave in charge the Episcopate, for the administration of the same, to Linus. Of this Linus, Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, makes mention. To him succeeded Anacletus, and after him, in the third place from the Apostles, Clement received the Episcopate, he who saw the Apostles themselves and conferred with them, while as yet he had the preaching of the Apostles in his ears and the tradition before his eyes; and not he only, but many who had been taught by the Apostles still survived. In the time of this Clement, when no little dissension had arisen among the brethren in Corinth, the Church in Rome wrote very powerful letters potentissimas litteras to the Corinthians, recalling them to peace, restoring their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had so short a time ago received from the Apostles." These letters of St. Clement are well known, but have lately become more valuable and complete by the discovery of fragments published in a new edition by Light-foot. In these fragments there is a tone of authority fully explaining the words of St. Irenæus. He then traces the succession of the Bishops of Rome to his own day, and adds: "This demonstration is complete to show that it is one and the same life-giving faith which has been preserved in the Church from the Apostles until now, and is handed on in truth." "Polycarp was not only taught by the Apostles, and conversed with many of those who had seen our Lord, but he also was constituted by the Apostles in Asia to be Bishop in the Church of Smyrna. We also saw him in our early youth, for he lived long, and when very old departed from this life most gloriously and nobly by martyrdom. He ever taught that what he had learned from the Apostles, and what the Church had delivered, those things only are true." In the fourth chapter, St. Irenæus goes on to say: "Since, then, there are such proofs (of the faith), the truth is no longer to be sought for among others, which it is easy to receive from the Church, forasmuch as the Apostles laid up all truth in fullness in a rich depository, that all who will may receive from it the water of life." "But what if the Apostles had not left us the Scriptures: ought we not to follow the order of tradition, which they gave in charge to them to whom they intrusted the Churches? To which order (of tradition) many barbarous nations yield assent, who believe in Christ without paper and ink, having salvation written by the Spirit in their hearts, and diligently holding the ancient tradition." In the twenty-sixth chapter of the same book he says: "Therefore, it is our duty to obey the Presbyters who are in the Church, who have succession from the Apostles, as we have already shown; who also with the succession of the Episcopate have the charisma veritatis certum," the spiritual and certain gift of truth.
I have quoted these passages at length, not so much as proofs of the Catholic Faith as to show the identity of the Church at its outset with the Church before our eyes at this hour, proving that the acorn has grown up into its oak, or, if you will, the identity of the Church at this hour with the Church of the Apostolic mission. These passages show the Episcopate, its central principality, its succession, its custody of the faith, its subsequent reception and guardianship of the Scriptures, Its Divine tradition, and the charisma or Divine assistance by which its perpetuity is secured in the succession of the Apostles. This is almost verbally, after eighteen hundred years, the decree of the Vatican Council: Veritatis et fidei nunquam deficientis charisma.*
* "Const. Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesia Christi," cap. iv.
But St. Irenæus draws out in full the Church of this day. He shows the parallel of the first creation and of the second; of the first Adam and the Second; and of the analogy between the Incarnation or natural body, and the Church or mystical body of Christ. He says:
Our faith "we received from the Church, and guard.... as an excellent gift in a noble vessel, always full of youth, and making youthful the vessel itself in which it is. For this gift of God is intrusted to the Church, as the breath of life (was imparted) to the first man, so this end, that all the members partaking of it might be quickened with life. And thus the communication of Christ is imparted; that is, the Holy Ghost, the earnest of incorruption, the confirmation of the faith, the way of ascent to God. For in the Church (St. Paul says) God placed Apostles, Prophets, Doctors, and all other operations of the Spirit, of which none are partakers who do not come to the Church, thereby depriving themselves of life by a perverse mind and worse deeds. For where the Church is, there is also the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church, and all grace. But the Spirit is truth. Wherefore, they who do not partake of Him (the Spirit), and are not nurtured unto life at the breast of the mother (the Church), do not receive of that most pure fountain which proceeds from the Body of Christ, but dig out for themselves broken pools from the trenches of the earth, and drink water soiled with mire, because they turn aside from the faith of the Church lest they should be convicted, and reject the Spirit lest they should be taught."* Again he says: "The Church, scattered throughout the world, even unto the ends of the earth, received from the Apostles and their disciples the faith in one God the Father Almighty, that made the heaven and the earth, and the seas, and all things that are in them." &c.**
*St. Irenæus, Cont. Hezret lib. iii. cap. xxiv.
** Lib. i. cap. x.
He then recites the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and His coming again to raise all men, to judge men and angels, and to give sentence of condemnation or of life everlasting. How much soever the language may vary from other forms, such is the substance of the Baptismal Creed. He then adds:
"The Church having received this preaching and this faith, as we have said before, although it be scattered abroad through the whole world, carefully preserves it, dwelling as in one habitation, and believes alike in these (doctrines) as though she had one soul and the same heart: and in strict accord, as though she had one mouth, proclaims, and teaches, and delivers onward these things. And although there may be many diverse languages in the world, yet the power of the tradition is one and the same. And neither do the Churches planted in Germany believe otherwise, or otherwise deliver (the faith), nor those in Iberia, nor among the Celtae, nor in the East, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor they that are planted in the mainland. But as the sun, which is God's creature, in all the world is one and the same, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere, and lightened all men that are willing to come to the knowledge of the truth. And neither will any ruler of the Church, though he be mighty in the utterance of truth, teach otherwise than thus (for no man is above the master), nor will he that is weak in the same diminish from the tradition; for the faith being one and the same, he that is able to say most of it hath nothing over, and he that is able to say least hath no lack."*
* St. Irenaeus, lib. i. c. x.
To St. Irenaeus, then, the Church was "the irrefragable witness of its own legation." When did it cease so to be? It would be easy to multiply quotations from Tertullian in A. D. 200, from St. Cyprian a. d. 250, from St. Augustine and St. Optatus in A. d. 350, from St. Leo in a. d. 450, all of which are on the same traditional lines of faith in a divine mission to the world and of a divine assistance in its discharge. But I refrain from doing so because I should have to write not an article but a folio. Any Catholic theology will give the passages which are now before me; or one such book as the Loci Theologici of Melchior Canus will suffice to show the continuity and identity of the tradition of St. Irenaeus and the tradition of the Vatican Council, in which the universal church last declared the immutable faith and its own legation to mankind.
The world-wide testimony of the Catholic Church is a sufficient witness to prove the coming of the Incarnate Son to redeem mankind, and to return to His Father; it is also sufficient to prove the advent of the Holy Ghost to abide with us for ever. The work of the Son in this world was accomplished by the Divine acts and facts of His three-and-thirty years of life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension. The office of the Holy Ghost is perpetual, not only as the Illuminator and Sanctifier of all who believe, but also as the Life and Guide of the Church. I may quote now the words of the Founder of the Church: "It is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you."* "I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever."** "The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not nor knoweth Him; but you shall know Him, because He shall abide with you and shall be in you."***
* St. John, xvi. 7.
** Ibid, xiv. 16.
*** St.John, xiv. 16, 17.
St. Paul in the Epistles to the Ephesians describes the Church as a body of which the Head is in heaven, and the Author of its indefectible life abiding in it as His temple. Therefore the words, "He that heareth you heareth Me." This could not be if the witness of the Apostles had been only human. A Divine guidance was attached to the office they bore. They were, therefore, also judges of right and wrong, and teachers by Divine guidance of the truth. But the presence and guidance of the Spirit of Truth is as full at this day as when St. Irenæus wrote. As the Churches then were witnesses, judges, and teachers, so is the Church at this hour a world-wide witness, an unerring judge and teacher, divinely guided and guarded in the truth. It is therefore not only a human and historical, but a Divine witness. This is the chief Divine truth which the last three hundred years have obscured. Modern Christianity believes in the one advent of the Redeemer, but rejects the full and personal advent of the Holy Ghost. And yet the same evidence proves both. The Christianity of reformers, always returns to Judaism, because they reject the full, or do not believe the personal, advent of the Holy Ghost. They deny that there is an infallible teacher, among men; and therefore they return to the types and shadows of the Law before the Incarnation, when the Head was not yet incarnate, and the Body of Christ did not as yet exist.
But perhaps some one will say, "I admit your description of the Church as it is now and as it was in the days of St. Irenæus; but the eighteen hundred years of which you have said nothing were ages of declension, disorder, superstition, demoralization." I will answer by a question: was not this foretold? Was not the Church to be a field of wheat and tares growing together till the harvest at the end of the world? There were Cathari of old, and Puritans since, impatient at the patience of God in bearing with the perversities and corruptions of the human intellect and will. The Church, like its Head in heaven, is both human and divine. "He was crucified in weakness," but no power of man could wound His divine nature. So with the Church, which is His Body. Its human element may corrupt and die; its divine life, sanctity, authority, and structure cannot die; nor can the errors of human intellect fasten upon its faith, nor the immoralities of the human will fasten upon its sanctity. Its organization of Head and Body is of divine creation, divinely guarded by the Holy Ghost, who quickens it by His indwelling, and guides it by His light. It is in itself incorrupt and incorruptible in the midst of corruption, as the light of heaven falls upon all the decay and corruption in the world, unsullied and unalterably pure. We are never concerned to deny or to cloak the sins of Christians or of Catholics. They may destroy themselves, but they cannot infect the Church from which they fall. The fall of Lucifer left no stain behind him.
When men accuse the Church of corruption, they reveal the fact that to them the Church is a human institution, of voluntary aggregation or of legislative enactment. They reveal the fact that to them the Church is not an object of Divine faith, as the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar. They do not perceive or will not believe that the articles of the Baptismal Creed are objects of faith, divinely revealed or divinely created. "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins," are all objects of faith in a Divine order. They are present in human history, but the human element which envelops them has no power to infect or to fasten upon them. Until this is perceived there can be no true or full belief in the advent and office of the Holy Ghost, or in the nature and sacramental action of the Church. It is the visible means and pledge of light and of sanctification to all who do not bar their intellect and their will against its inward and spiritual grace. The Church is not on probation. It is the instrument of probation to the world. As the light of the world, it is changeless as the firmament As the source of sanctification, it is inexhaustible as the Rivex of Life. The human and external history of men calling themselves Christian and Catholic has been at times as degrading and abominable as any adversary is pleased to say. But the sanctity of the Church is no more affected by human sins than was Baptism by the hypocrisy of Simon Magus. The Divine foundation, and office, and mission of the Church is a part of Christianity. They who deny it deny an article of faith; they who believe it imperfectly are the followers of a fragmentary Christianity of modern date. Who can be a disciple of Jesus Christ who does not believe the words? "On this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it;" "As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you;"* "I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom;"** "All power in heaven and earth is given unto Me. Go, therefore, and teach all nations;"*** "He that heareth you heareth Me;"**** "I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world;"(v) "When the days of Pentecost were accomplished they were all together in one place: and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming, and there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were, of fire;" "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost;" (vi) "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no other burdens."(vii) But who denies that the Apostles claimed a Divine mission? and who can deny that the Catholic and Roman Church from St. Irenæus to Leo XIII. has ever and openly claimed the same, invoking in all its supreme acts as witness, teacher, and legislator the presence, light, and guidance of the Holy Ghost? As the preservation of all created things is by the same creative power produced in perpetual and universal action, so the indefectibility of the Church and of the faith is by the perpetuity of the presence and office of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, St. Augustine calls the day of Pentecost, Natalis Spiritus Sancti.
*St. John, xx. 21.
** St. Luke, xxii. 29.
*** St. Matthew, xxviii. 18, 19.
**** St. Luke, x. 10.
(v) St. Matthew, xxviii. 20.
(vii)Acts, ii. 1-5.
(viii) Acts, xv. 28.
It is more than time that I should make an end; and to do so it will be well to sum up the heads of our argument. The Vatican Council declares that the world-wide Church is the irrefragable witness of its own legation or mission to mankind.
In proof of this I have affirmed:
1. That the imperishable existence of Christianity, and the vast and undeniable revolution that it has wrought in men and in nations, in the moral elevation of manhood and of womanhood, and in the domestic, social and political life of the Christian world, cannot be accounted for by any natural causes, or by any forces that are, as philosophers say, intra possibilitatem natures, within the limits of what is possible to man.
2. That this world-wide and permanent elevation of the Christian world, in comparison with both the old world and the modern world outside of Christianity, demands a cause higher than the possibility of nature.
3. That the Church has always claimed a Divine origin and a Divine office and authority in virtue of a perpetual Divine assistance. To this even the Christian world, in all its fragments external to the Catholic unity, bears witness. It is turned to our reproach. They rebuke us for holding the teaching of the Church to be infallible. We take the rebuke as a testimony of our changeless faith. It is not enough for men to say that they refuse to believe this account of the visible and palpable fact of the imperishable Christianity of the Catholic and Roman Church. They must find a more reasonable, credible, and adequate account for it. This no man has yet done. The denials are many and the solutions are many; but they do not agree together. Their multiplicity is proof of their human origin. The claim of the Catholic Church to a Divine authority and to a Divine assistance is one and the same in every age, and is identical in every place. Error is not the principle of unity, nor truth of variations.
The Church has guarded the doctrine of the Apostles, by Divine assistance, with unerring fidelity. The articles of the faith are to-day the same in number as in the beginning. The explicit definition of their implicit meaning has expanded from age to age, as the everchanging denials and perversions of the world have demanded new definitions of the ancient truth. The world is against all dogma, because it is impatient of definiteness and certainty in faith. It loves open questions and the liberty of error. The Church is dogmatic for fear of error. Every truth defined adds to its treasure. It narrows the field of error and enlarges the inheritance of truth. The world and the Church are ever moving in opposite directions. As the world becomes more vague and uncertain, the Church becomes more definite. It moves against wind and tide, against the stress and storm of the world. There was never a more luminous evidence of this supernatural fact than in the Vatican Council. For eight months all that the world could say and do, like the four winds of heaven, was directed upon it. Governments, statesmen, diplomatists, philosophers, intriguers, mockers, and traitors did their utmost and their worst against it. They were in dread lest the Church should declare that by Divine assistance its Head in faith and morals cannot err; for if this be true, man did not found it, man cannot reform it, man cannot teach it to interpret its history or its acts. It knows its own history, and is the supreme witness of its own legation.
I am well aware that I have been writing truisms, and repeating trite and trivial arguments. They are trite because the feet of the faithful for nearly nineteen hundred years have worn them in their daily life; they are trivial because they point to the one path in which the wayfarer, though a fool, shall not err.
Henry Edward, (Cardinal Manning), Card. Archbishop of Westminster.
Superstition "has ears more deaf than adders to the voice of
any true decision."
I.
CARDINAL MANNING has stated the claims of the Roman Catholic Church with great clearness, and apparently without reserve. The age, position and learning of this man give a certain weight to his words, apart from their worth. He represents the oldest of the Christian churches. The questions involved are among the most important that can engage the human mind. No one having the slightest regard for that superb thing known as intellectual honesty, will avoid the issues tendered, or seek in any way to gain a victory over truth.
Without candor, discussion, in the highest sense, is impossible. All have the same interest, whether they know it or not, in the establishment of facts. All have the same to gain, the same to lose. He loads the dice against himself who scores a point against the right.
Absolute honesty is to the intellectual perception what light is to the eyes. Prejudice and passion cloud the mind. In each disputant should be blended the advocate and judge.
In this spirit, having in view only the ascertainment of the truth, let us examine the arguments, or rather the statements and conclusions, of Cardinal Manning.
The proposition is that "The church itself, by its marvelous propagation, its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things, its catholic unity and invincible stability, is a vast and perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness of its own divine legation."
The reasons given as supporting this proposition are:
That the Catholic Church interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world; that it is extranational and independent in a supernational unity; that it is the same in every place; that it speaks all languages in the civilized world; that it is obedient to one head; that as many as seven hundred bishops have knelt before the pope; that pilgrims from all nations have brought gifts to Rome, and that all these things set forth in the most self-evident way the unity and universality of the Roman Church.
It is also asserted that "men see the Head of the Church year by year speaking to the nations of the world, treating with Empires, Republics and Governments;" that "there is no other man on earth that can so bear himself," and that "neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople can such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen."
It is also claimed that the Catholic Church has enlightened and purified the world; that it has given us the peace and purity of domestic life; that it has destroyed idolatry and demonology; that it gave us a body of law from a higher source than man; that it has produced the civilization of Christendom; that the popes were the greatest of statesmen and rulers; that celibacy is better than marriage, and that the revolutions and reformations of the last three hundred years have been destructive and calamitous.
We will examine these assertions as well as some others.
No one will dispute that the Catholic Church is the best witness of its own existence. The same is true of every thing that exists—of every church, great and small, of every man, and of every insect.
But it is contended that the marvelous growth or propagation of the church is evidence of its divine origin. Can it be said that success is supernatural? All success in this world is relative. Majorities are not necessarily right. If anything is known—if anything can be known—we are sure that very large bodies of men have frequently been wrong. We believe in what is called the progress of mankind. Progress, for the most part, consists in finding new truths and getting rid of old errors—that is to say, getting nearer and nearer in harmony with the facts of nature, seeing with greater clearness the conditions of well-being.
There is no nation in which a majority leads the way. In the progress of mankind, the few have been the nearest right. There have been centuries in which the light seemed to emanate only from a handful of men, while the rest of the world was enveloped in darkness. Some great man leads the way—he becomes the morning star, the prophet of a coming day. Afterward, many millions accept his views. But there are still heights above and beyond; there are other pioneers, and the old day, in comparison with the new, becomes a night. So, we cannot say that success demonstrates either divine origin or supernatural aid.
We know, if we know anything, that wisdom has often been trampled beneath the feet of the multitude. We know that the torch of science has been blown out by the breath of the hydra-headed. We know that the whole intellectual heaven has been darkened again and again. The truth or falsity of a proposition cannot be determined by ascertaining the number of those who assert, or of those who deny.
If the marvelous propagation of the Catholic Church proves its divine origin, what shall we say of the marvelous propagation of Mohammedanism?
Nothing can be clearer than that Christianity arose out of the ruins of the Roman Empire—that is to say, the ruins of Paganism. And it is equally clear that Mohammedanism arose out of the wreck and ruin of Catholicism.
After Mohammed came upon the stage, "Christianity was forever expelled from its most glorious seats—from Palestine, the scene of its most sacred recollections; from Asia Minor, that of its first churches; from Egypt, whence issued the great doctrine of Trinitarian Orthodoxy, and from Carthage, who imposed her belief on Europe." Before that time "the ecclesiastical chiefs of Rome, of Constantinople, and of Alexandria were engaged in a desperate struggle for supremacy, carrying out their purposes by weapons and in ways revolting to the conscience of man. Bishops were concerned in assassinations, poisonings, adulteries, blindings, riots, treasons, civil war. Patriarchs and primates were excommunicating and anathematizing one another in their rivalries for earthly power—bribing eunuchs with gold and courtesans and royal females with concessions of episcopal love. Among legions of monks who carried terror into the imperial armies and riot into the great cities arose hideous clamors for theological dogmas, but never a voice for intellectual liberty or the outraged rights of man.
"Under these circumstances, amid these atrocities and crimes, Mohammed arose, and raised his own nation from Fetichism, the adoration of the meteoric stone, and from the basest idol worship, and irrevocably wrenched from Christianity more than half—and that by far the best half—of her possessions, since it included the Holy Land, the birth-place of the Christian faith, and Africa, which had imparted to it its Latin form; and now, after a lapse of more than a thousand years that continent, and a very large part of Asia, remain permanently attached to the Arabian doctrine."
It may be interesting in this connection to say that the Mohammedan now proves the divine mission of his apostle by appealing to the marvelous propagation of the faith. If the argument is good in the mouth of a Catholic, is it not good in the mouth of a Moslem? Let us see if it is not better.
According to Cardinal Manning, the Catholic Church triumphed only over the institutions of men—triumphed only over religions that had been established by men,—by wicked and ignorant men. But Mohammed triumphed not only over the religions of men, but over the religion of God. This ignorant driver of camels, this poor, unknown, unlettered boy, unassisted by God, unenlightened by supernatural means, drove the armies of the true cross before him as the winter's storm drives withered leaves. At his name, priests, bishops, and cardinals fled with white faces—popes trembled, and the armies of God, fighting for the true faith, were conquered on a thousand fields.
If the success of a church proves its divinity, and after that another church arises and defeats the first, what does that prove?
Let us put this question in a milder form: Suppose the second church lives and flourishes in spite of the first, what does that prove?
As a matter of fact, however, no church rises with everything against it. Something is favorable to it, or it could not exist. If it succeeds and grows, it is absolutely certain that the conditions are favorable. If it spreads rapidly, it simply shows that the conditions are exceedingly favorable, and that the forces in opposition are weak and easily overcome.
Here, in my own country, within a few years, has arisen a new religion. Its foundations were laid in an intelligent community, having had the advantages of what is known as modern civilization. Yet this new faith—founded on the grossest absurdities, as gross as we find in the Scriptures—in spite of all opposition began to grow, and kept growing. It was subjected to persecution, and the persecution increased its strength. It was driven from State to State by the believers in universal love, until it left what was called civilization, crossed the wide plains, and took up its abode on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It continued to grow. Its founder, as he declared, had frequent conversations with God, and received directions from that source. Hundreds of miracles were performed—multitudes upon the desert were miraculously fed—the sick were cured—the dead were raised, and the Mormon Church continued to grow, until now, less than half a century after the death of its founder, there are several hundred thousand believers in the new faith.
Do you think that men enough could join this church to prove the truth of its creed?
Joseph Smith said that he found certain golden plates that had been buried for many generations, and upon these plates, in some unknown language, had been engraved this new revelation, and I think he insisted that by the use of miraculous mirrors this language was translated. If there should be Mormon bishops in all the countries of the world, eighteen hundred years from now, do you think a cardinal of that faith could prove the truth of the golden plates simply by the fact that the faith had spread and that seven hundred bishops had knelt before the head of that church?
It seems to me that a "supernatural" religion—that is to say, a religion that is claimed to have been divinely founded and to be authenticated by miracles, is much easier to establish among an ignorant people than any other—and the more ignorant the people, the easier such a religion could be established. The reason for this is plain. All ignorant tribes, all savage men, believe in the miraculous, in the supernatural. The conception of uniformity, of what may be called the eternal consistency of nature, is an idea far above their comprehension. They are forced to think in accordance with their minds, and as a consequence they account for all phenomena by the acts of superior beings—that is to say, by the supernatural. In other words, that religion having most in common with the savage, having most that was satisfactory to his mind, or to his lack of mind, would stand the best chance of success.
It is probably safe to say that at one time, or during one phase of the development of man, everything was miraculous. After a time, the mind slowly developing, certain phenomena, always happening under like conditions, were called "natural," and none suspected any special interference. The domain of the miraculous grew less and less—the domain of the natural larger; that is to say, the common became the natural, but the uncommon was still regarded as the miraculous. The rising and setting of the sun ceased to excite the wonder of mankind—there was no miracle about that; but an eclipse of the sun was miraculous. Men did not then know that eclipses are periodical, that they happen with the same certainty that the sun rises. It took many observations through many generations to arrive at this conclusion. Ordinary rains became "natural," floods remained "miraculous."
But it can all be summed up in this: The average man regards the common as natural, the uncommon as supernatural. The educated man—and by that I mean the developed man—is satisfied that all phenomena are natural, and that the supernatural does not and can not exist.
As a rule, an individual is egotistic in the proportion that he lacks intelligence. The same is true of nations and races. The barbarian is egotistic enough to suppose that an Infinite Being is constantly doing something, or failing to do something, on his account. But as man rises in the scale of civilization, as he becomes really great, he comes to the conclusion that nothing in Nature happens on his account—that he is hardly great enough to disturb the motions of the planets.
Let us make an application of this: To me, the success of Mormonism is no evidence of its truth, because it has succeeded only with the superstitious. It has been recruited from communities brutalized by other forms of superstition. To me, the success of Mohammed does not tend to show that he was right—for the reason that he triumphed only over the ignorant, over the superstitious. The same is true of the Catholic Church. Its seeds were planted in darkness. It was accepted by the credulous, by men incapable of reasoning upon such questions. It did not, it has not, it can not triumph over the intellectual world. To count its many millions does not tend to prove the truth of its creed. On the contrary, a creed that delights the credulous gives evidence against itself.
Questions of fact or philosophy cannot be settled simply by numbers. There was a time when the Copernican system of astronomy had but few supporters—the multitude being on the other side. There was a time when the rotation of the earth was not believed by the majority.
Let us press this idea further. There was a time when Christianity was not in the majority, anywhere. Let us suppose that the first Christian missionary had met a prelate of the Pagan faith, and suppose this prelate had used against the Christian missionary the Cardinal's argument—how could the missionary have answered if the Cardinal's argument is good?
But, after all, is the success of the Catholic Church a marvel? If this church is of divine origin, if it has been under the especial care, protection and guidance of an Infinite Being, is not its failure far more wonderful than its success? For eighteen centuries it has persecuted and preached, and the salvation of the world is still remote. This is the result, and it may be asked whether it is worth while to try to convert the world to Catholicism.
Are Catholics better than Protestants? Are they nearer honest, nearer just, more charitable? Are Catholic nations better than Protestant? Do the Catholic nations move in the van of progress? Within their jurisdiction are life, liberty and property safer than anywhere else? Is Spain the first nation of the world?
Let me ask another question: Are Catholics or Protestants better than Freethinkers? Has the Catholic Church produced a greater man than Humboldt? Has the Protestant produced a greater than Darwin? Was not Emerson, so far as purity of life is concerned, the equal of any true believer? Was Pius IX., or any other vicar of Christ, superior to Abraham Lincoln?
But it is claimed that the Catholic Church is universal, and that its universality demonstrates its divine origin.
According to the Bible, the apostles were ordered to go into all the world and preach the gospel—yet not one of them, nor one of their converts at any time, nor one of the vicars of God, for fifteen hundred years afterward, knew of the existence of the Western Hemisphere. During all that time, can it be said that the Catholic Church was universal? At the close of the fifteenth century, there was one-half of the world in which the Catholic faith had never been preached, and in the other half not one person in ten had ever heard of it, and of those who had heard of it, not one in ten believed it. Certainly the Catholic Church was not then universal.
Is it universal now? What impression has Catholicism made upon the many millions of China, of Japan, of India, of Africa? Can it truthfully be said that the Catholic Church is now universal? When any church becomes universal, it will be the only church. There cannot be two universal churches, neither can there be one universal church and any other.
The Cardinal next tries to prove that the Catholic Church is divine, "by its eminent sanctity and its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things."
And here let me admit that there are many millions of good Catholics—that is, of good men and women who are Catholics. It is unnecessary to charge universal dishonesty or hypocrisy, for the reason that this would be only a kind of personality. Many thousands of heroes have died in defence of the faith, and millions of Catholics have killed and been killed for the sake of their religion.
And here it may be well enough to say that martyrdom does not even tend to prove the truth of a religion. The man who dies in flames, standing by what he believes to be true, establishes, not the truth of what he believes, but his sincerity.
Without calling in question the intentions of the Catholic Church, we can ascertain whether it has been "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things," and whether it has been "eminent for its sanctity."
In the first place, nothing can be better than goodness. Nothing is more sacred, or can be more sacred, than the wellbeing of man. All things that tend to increase or preserve the happiness of the human race are good—that is to say, they are sacred. All things that tend to the destruction of man's well-being, that tend to his unhappiness, are bad, no matter by whom they are taught or done.
It is perfectly certain that the Catholic Church has taught, and still teaches, that intellectual liberty is dangerous—that it should not be allowed. It was driven to take this position because it had taken another. It taught, and still teaches, that a certain belief is necessary to salvation. It has always known that investigation and inquiry led, or might lead, to doubt; that doubt leads, or may lead, to heresy, and that heresy leads to hell. In other words, the Catholic Church has something more important than this world, more important than the well-being of man here. It regards this life as an opportunity for joining that church, for accepting that creed, and for the saving of your soul.
If the Catholic Church is right in its premises, it is right in its conclusion. If it is necessary to believe the Catholic creed in order to obtain eternal joy, then, of course, nothing else in this world is, comparatively speaking, of the slightest importance. Consequently, the Catholic Church has been, and still is, the enemy of intellectual freedom, of investigation, of inquiry—in other words, the enemy of progress in secular things.
The result of this was an effort to compel all men to accept the belief necessary to salvation. This effort naturally divided itself into persuasion and persecution.
It will be admitted that the good man is kind, merciful, charitable, forgiving and just. A church must be judged by the same standard. Has the church been merciful? Has it been "fruitful in the good things" of justice, charity and forgiveness? Can a good man, believing a good doctrine, persecute for opinion's sake? If the church imprisons a man for the expression of an honest opinion, is it not certain, either that the doctrine of the church is wrong, or that the church is bad? Both cannot be good. "Sanctity" without goodness is impossible. Thousands of "saints" have been the most malicious of the human race. If the history of the world proves anything, it proves that the Catholic Church was for many centuries the most merciless institution that ever existed among men. I cannot believe that the instruments of persecution were made and used by the eminently good; neither can I believe that honest people were imprisoned, tortured, and burned at the stake by a church that was "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things."
And let me say here that I have no Protestant prejudices against Catholicism, and have no Catholic prejudices against Protestantism. I regard all religions either without prejudice or with the same prejudice. They were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and all have for a foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next. All the Gods have been made by men. They are all equally powerful and equally useless. I like some of them better than I do others, for the same reason that I admire some characters in fiction more than I do others. I prefer Miranda to Caliban, but have not the slightest idea that either of them existed. So I prefer Jupiter to Jehovah, although perfectly satisfied that both are myths. I believe myself to be in a frame of mind to justly and fairly consider the claims of different religions, believing as I do that all are wrong, and admitting as I do that there is some good in all.
When one speaks of the "inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things" of the Catholic Church, we remember the horrors and atrocities of the Inquisition—the rewards offered by the Roman Church for the capture and murder of honest men. We remember the Dominican Order, the members of which, upheld by the vicar of Christ, pursued the heretics like sleuth hounds, through many centuries.
The church, "inexhaustible in fruitfulness in all good things," not only imprisoned and branded and burned the living, but violated the dead. It robbed graves, to the end that it might convict corpses of heresy—to the end that it might take from widows their portions and from orphans their patrimony.
We remember the millions in the darkness of dungeons—the millions who perished by the sword—the vast multitudes destroyed in flames—those who were flayed alive—those who were blinded—those whose tongues were cut out—those into whose ears were poured molten lead—those whose eyes were deprived of their lids—those who were tortured and tormented in every way by which pain could be inflicted and human nature overcome.
And we remember, too, the exultant cry of the church over the bodies of her victims: "Their bodies were burned here, but their souls are now tortured in hell."
We remember that the church, by treachery, bribery, perjury, and the commission of every possible crime, got possession and control of Christendom, and we know the use that was made of this power—that it was used to brutalize, degrade, stupefy, and "sanctify" the children of men. We know also that the vicars of Christ were persecutors for opinion's sake—that they sought to destroy the liberty of thought through fear—that they endeavored to make every brain a bastile in which the mind should be a convict—that they endeavored to make every tongue a prisoner, watched by a familiar of the Inquisition—and that they threatened punishment here, imprisonment here, burnings here, and, in the name of their God, eternal imprisonment and eternal burnings hereafter.
We know, too, that the Catholic Church was, during all the years of its power, the enemy of every science. It preferred magic to medicine, relics to remedies, priests to physicians. It thought more of astrologers than of astronomers. It hated geologists—it persecuted the chemist, and imprisoned the naturalist, and opposed every discovery calculated to improve the condition of mankind.
It is impossible to forget the persecutions of the Cathari, the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Hussites, the Huguenots, and of every sect that had the courage to think just a little for itself. Think of a woman—the mother of a family—taken from her children and burned, on account of her view as to the three natures of Jesus Christ. Think of the Catholic Church,—an institution with a Divine Founder, presided over by the agent of God—punishing a woman for giving a cup of cold water to a fellow-being who had been anathematized. Think of this church, "fruitful in all good things," launching its curse at an honest man—not only cursing him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet with a fiendish particularity, but having at the same time the impudence to call on God, and the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary, to join in the curse; and to curse him not only here, but forever hereafter—calling upon all the saints and upon all the redeemed to join in a hallelujah of curses, so that earth and heaven should reverberate with countless curses launched at a human being simply for having expressed an honest thought.
This church, so "fruitful in all good things," invented crimes that it might punish. This church tried men for a "suspicion of heresy"—imprisoned them for the vice of being suspected—stripped them of all they had on earth and allowed them to rot in dungeons, because they were guilty of the crime of having been suspected. This was a part of the Canon Law.
It is too late to talk about the "invincible stability" of the Catholic Church.
It was not invincible in the seventh, in the eighth, or in the ninth centuries. It was not invincible in Germany in Luther's day. It was not invincible in the Low Countries. It was not invincible in Scotland, or in England. It was not invincible in France. It is not invincible in Italy, It is not supreme in any intellectual centre of the world. It does not triumph in Paris, or Berlin; it is not dominant in London, in England; neither is it triumphant in the United States. It has not within its fold the philosophers, the statesmen, and the thinkers, who are the leaders of the human race.
It is claimed that Catholicism "interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world," and that "in some it holds the whole nation in its unity."
I suppose the Catholic Church is more powerful in Spain than in any other nation. The history of this nation demonstrates the result of Catholic supremacy, the result of an acknowledgment by a people that a certain religion is too sacred to be examined.
Without attempting in an article of this character to point out the many causes that contributed to the adoption of Catholicism by the Spanish people, it is enough to say that Spain, of all nations, has been and is the most thoroughly Catholic, and the most thoroughly interpenetrated and dominated by the spirit of the Church of Rome.
Spain used the sword of the church. In the name of religion it endeavored to conquer the Infidel world. It drove from its territory the Moors, not because they were bad, not because they were idle and dishonest, but because they were Infidels. It expelled the Jews, not because they were ignorant or vicious, but because they were unbelievers. It drove out the Moriscoes, and deliberately made outcasts of the intelligent, the industrious, the honest and the useful, because they were not Catholics. It leaped like a wild beast upon the Low Countries, for the destruction of Protestantism. It covered the seas with its fleets, to destroy the intellectual liberty of man. And not only so—it established the Inquisition within its borders. It imprisoned the honest, it burned the noble, and succeeded after many years of devotion to the true faith, in destroying the industry, the intelligence, the usefulness, the genius, the nobility and the wealth of a nation. It became a wreck, a jest of the conquered, and excited the pity of its former victims.
In this period of degradation, the Catholic Church held "the whole nation in its unity."
At last Spain began to deviate from the path of the church It made a treaty with an Infidel power. In 1782 it became humble enough, and wise enough, to be friends with Turkey. It made treaties with Tripoli and Algiers and the Barbary States. It had become too poor to ransom the prisoners taken by these powers. It began to appreciate the fact that it could neither conquer nor convert the world by the sword.
Spain has progressed in the arts and sciences, in all that tends to enrich and ennoble a nation, in the precise proportion that she has lost faith in the Catholic Church. This may be said of every other nation in Christendom. Torquemada is dead; Castelar is alive. The dungeons of the Inquisition are empty, and a little light has penetrated the clouds and mists—not much, but a little. Spain is not yet clothed and in her right mind. A few years ago the cholera visited Madrid and other cities. Physicians were mobbed. Processions of saints carried the host through the streets for the purpose of staying the plague. The streets were not cleaned; the sewers were filled. Filth and faith, old partners, reigned supreme. The church, "eminent for its sanctity," stood in the light and cast its shadow on the ignorant and the prostrate. The church, in its "inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things," allowed its children to perish through ignorance, and used the diseases it had produced as an instrumentality to further enslave its votaries and its victims.
No one will deny that many of its priests exhibited heroism of the highest order in visiting the sick and administering what are called the consolations of religion to the dying, and in burying the dead. It is necessary neither to deny or disparage the self-denial and goodness of these men. But their religion did more than all other causes to produce the very evils that called for the exhibition of self-denial and heroism. One scientist in control of Madrid could have prevented the plague. In such cases, cleanliness is far better than "godliness;" science is superior to superstition; drainage much better than divinity; therapeutics more excellent than theology. Goodness is not enough—intelligence is necessary. Faith is not sufficient, creeds are helpless, and prayers fruitless.
It is admitted that the Catholic Church exists in many nations; that it is dominated, at least in a great degree, by the Bishop of Rome—that it is international in that sense, and that in that sense it has what may be called a "supernational unity." The same, however, is true of the Masonic fraternity. It exists in many nations, but it is not a national body. It is in the same sense extranational, in the same sense international, and has in the same sense a supernational unity. So the same may be said of other societies. This, however, does not tend to prove that anything supernational is supernatural.
It is also admitted that in faith, worship, ceremonial, discipline and government, the Catholic Church is substantially the same wherever it exists. This establishes the unity, but not the divinity, of the institution.
The church that does not allow investigation, that teaches that all doubts are wicked, attains unity through tyranny, that is, monotony by repression. Wherever man has had something like freedom, differences have appeared, heresies have taken root, and the divisions have become permanent—new sects have been born and the Catholic Church has been weakened. The boast of unity is the confession of tyranny.
It is insisted that the unity of the church substantiates its claim to divine origin. This is asserted over and over again, in many ways; and yet in the Cardinal's article is found this strange mingling of boast and confession: "Was it only by the human power of man that the unity, external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been supreme, was once more restored in the Council of Constance, never to be broken again?"
By this it is admitted that the internal and external unity of the Catholic Church had been broken, and that it required more than human power to restore it. Then the boast is made that it will never be broken again. Yet it is asserted that the internal and external unity of the Catholic Church is the great fact that demonstrates its divine origin.
Now, if this internal and external unity was broken, and remained broken for years, there was an interval during which the church had no internal or external unity, and during which the evidence of divine origin failed. The unity was broken in spite of the Divine Founder. This is admitted by the use of the word "again." The unbroken unity of the church is asserted, and upon this assertion is based the claim of divine origin; it is then admitted that the unity was broken. The argument is then shifted, and the claim is made that it required more than human power to restore the internal and external unity of the church, and that the restoration, not the unity, is proof of the divine origin. Is there any contradiction beyond this?
Let us state the case in another way. Let us suppose that a man has a sword which he claims was made by God, stating that the reason he knows that God made the sword is that it never had been and never could be broken. Now, if it was afterwards ascertained that it had been broken, and the owner admitted that it had been, what would be thought of him if he then took the ground that it had been welded, and that the welding was the evidence that it was of divine origin?
A prophecy is then indulged in, to the effect that the internal and external unity of the church can never be broken again. It is admitted that it was broken—it is asserted that it was divinely restored—and then it is declared that it is never to be broken again. No reason is given for this prophecy; it must be born of the facts already stated. Put in a form to be easily understood, it is this:
We know that the unity of the church can never be broken, because the church is of divine origin.
We know that it was broken; but this does not weaken the argument, because it was restored by God, and it has not been broken since.
Therefore, it never can be broken again.
It is stated that the Catholic Church is immutable, and that its immutability establishes its claim to divine origin. Was it immutable when its unity, internal and external, was broken? Was it precisely the same after its unity was broken that it was before? Was it precisely the same after its unity was divinely restored that it was while broken? Was it universal while it was without unity? Which of the fragments was universal—which was immutable?
The fact that the Catholic Church is obedient to the pope, establishes, not the supernatural origin of the church, but the mental slavery of its members. It establishes the fact that it is a successful organization; that it is cunningly devised; that it destroys the mental independence, and that whoever absolutely submits to its authority loses the jewel of his soul.
The fact that Catholics are to a great extent obedient to the pope, establishes nothing except the thoroughness of the organization.
How was the Roman empire formed? By what means did that Great Power hold in bondage the then known world? How is it that a despotism is established? How is it that the few enslave the many? How is it that the nobility live on the labor of peasants? The answer is in one word, Organization. The organized few triumph over the unorganized many. The few hold the sword and the purse. The unorganized are overcome in detail—terrorized, brutalized, robbed, conquered.
We must remember that when Christianity was established the world was ignorant, credulous and cruel. The gospel with its idea of forgiveness—with its heaven and hell—was suited to the barbarians among whom it was preached. Let it be understood, once for all, that Christ had but little to do with Christianity. The people became convinced—being ignorant, stupid and credulous—that the church held the keys of heaven and hell. The foundation for the most terrible mental tyranny that has existed among men was in this way laid. The Catholic Church enslaved to the extent of its power. It resorted to every possible form of fraud; it perverted every good instinct of the human heart; it rewarded every vice; it resorted to every artifice that ingenuity could devise, to reach the highest round of power. It tortured the accused to make them confess; it tortured witnesses to compel the commission of perjury; it tortured children for the purpose of making them convict their parents; it compelled men to establish their own innocence; it imprisoned without limit; it had the malicious patience to wait; it left the accused without trial, and left them in dungeons until released by death. There is no crime that the Catholic Church did not commit,—no cruelty that it did not practice,—no form of treachery that it did not reward, and no virtue that it did not persecute. It was the greatest and most powerful enemy of human rights. It did all that organization, cunning, piety, self-denial, heroism, treachery, zeal and brute force could do to enslave the children of men. It was the enemy of intelligence, the assassin of liberty, and the destroyer of progress. It loaded the noble with chains and the infamous with honors. In one hand it carried the alms dish, in the other a dagger. It argued with the sword, persuaded with poison, and convinced with the fagot.
It is impossible to see how the divine origin of a church can be established by showing that hundreds of bishops have visited the pope.
Does the fact that millions of the faithful visit Mecca establish the truth of the Koran? Is it a scene for congratulation when the bishops of thirty nations kneel before a man? Is it not humiliating to know that man is willing to kneel at the feet of man? Could a noble man demand, or joyfully receive, the humiliation of his fellows?
As a rule, arrogance and humility go together. He who in power compels his fellow-man to kneel, will himself kneel when weak. The tyrant is a cringer in power; a cringer is a tyrant out of power. Great men stand face to face. They meet on equal terms. The cardinal who kneels in the presence of the pope, wants the bishop to kneel in his presence; and the bishop who kneels demands that the priest shall kneel to him; and the priest who kneels demands that they in lower orders shall kneel; and all, from pope to the lowest—that is to say, from pope to exorcist, from pope to the one in charge of the bones of saints—all demand that the people, the laymen, those upon whom they live, shall kneel to them.
The man of free and noble spirit will not kneel. Courage has no knees.
Fear kneels, or falls upon its ashen face.
The Cardinal insists that the pope is the vicar of Christ, and that all popes have been. What is a vicar of Christ? He is a substitute in office. He stands in the place, or occupies the position in relation to the church, in relation to the world, that Jesus Christ would occupy were he the pope at Rome. In other words, he takes Christ's place; so that, according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ himself is present in the person of the pope.
We all know that a good man may employ a bad agent. A good king might leave his realm and put in his place a tyrant and a wretch. The good man and the good king cannot certainly know what manner of man the agent is—what kind of person the vicar is—consequently the bad may be chosen. But if the king appointed a bad vicar, knowing him to be bad, knowing that he would oppress the people, knowing that he would imprison and burn the noble and generous, what excuse can be imagined for such a king?
Now, if the church is of divine origin, and if each pope is the vicar of Jesus Christ, he must have been chosen by Jesus Christ; and when he was chosen, Christ must have known exactly what his vicar would do. Can we believe that an infinitely wise and good Being would choose immoral, dishonest, ignorant, malicious, heartless, fiendish, and inhuman vicars?
The Cardinal admits that "the history of Christianity is the history of the church, and that the history of the church is the history of the Pontiffs," and he then declares that "the greatest statesmen and rulers that the world has ever seen are the Popes of Rome."
Let me call attention to a few passages in Draper's "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe."
"Constantine was one of the vicars of Christ. Afterwards, Stephen IV. was chosen. The eyes of Constantine were then put out by Stephen, acting in Christ's place. The tongue of the Bishop Theodorus was amputated by the man who had been substituted for God. This bishop was left in a dungeon to perish of thirst. Pope Leo III. was seized in the street and forced into a church, where the nephews of Pope Adrian attempted to put out his eyes and cut off his tongue. His successor, Stephen V., was driven ignominiously from Rome. His successor, Paschal I., was accused of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace. John VIII., unable to resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute.
"At this time, the Bishop of Naples was in secret alliance with the Mohammedans, and they divided with this Catholic bishop the plunder they collected from other Catholics. This bishop was excommunicated by the pope; afterwards he gave him absolution because he betrayed the chief Mohammedans, and assassinated others. There was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the pope, and some of the treasures of the church were seized, and the gate of St. Pancrazia was opened with false keys to admit the Saracens. Formosus, who had been engaged in these transactions, who had been excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of Pope John, was himself elected pope in 891. Boniface VI. was his successor. He had been deposed from the diaconate and from the priesthood for his immoral and lewd life. Stephen VII. was the next pope, and he had the dead body of Formosus taken from the grave, clothed in papal habiliments, propped up in a chair and tried before a Council. The corpse was found guilty, three fingers were cut off and the body cast into the Tiber. Afterwards Stephen VII., this Vicar of Christ, was thrown into prison and strangled.
"From 896 to 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo V., in less than two months after he became pope, was cast into prison by Christopher, one of his chaplains. This Christopher usurped his place, and in a little while was expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who became pope in 905. This pope lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated Theodora, who with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, both prostitutes, exercised an extraordinary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by John X. She gave him the Archbishopric of Revenna, and made him pope in 915. The daughter of Theodora overthrew this pope. She surprised him in the Lateran Palace. His brother, Peter, was killed; the pope was thrown into prison, where he was afterward murdered. Afterward, this Marozia, daughter of Theodora, made her own son pope, John XI. Many affirmed that Pope Sergius was his father, but his mother inclined to attribute him to her husband Alberic, whose brother Guido she afterward married. Another of her sons, Alberic, jealous of his brother John, the pope, cast him and their mother into prison. Alberic's son was then elected pope as John XII.
"John was nineteen years old when he became the vicar of Christ. His reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German clergy to interfere. He was tried. It appeared that John had received bribes for the consecration of bishops; that he had ordained one who was only ten years old; that he was charged with incest, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel. He put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic; he maimed another—both dying in consequence of their injuries. He was given to drunkenness and to gambling. He was deposed at last, and Leo VII. elected in his stead. Subsequently he got the upper hand. He seized his antagonists; he cut off the hand of one, the nose, the finger, and the tongue of others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced."
And yet, I admit that the most infamous popes, the most heartless and fiendish bishops, friars, and priests were models of mercy, charity, and justice when compared with the orthodox God—with the God they worshiped. These popes, these bishops, these priests could persecute only for a few years—they could burn only for a few moments—but their God threatened to imprison and burn forever; and their God is as much worse than they were, as hell is worse than the Inquisition.
"John XIII. was strangled in prison. Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict VII., and starved him to death. John XIV. was secretly put to death in the dungeons of the castle of St. Angelo. The corpse of Boniface was dragged by the populace through the streets."
It must be remembered that the popes were assassinated by Catholics—murdered by the faithful—that one vicar of Christ strangled another vicar of Christ, and that these men were "the greatest rulers and the greatest statesmen of the earth."
"Pope John XVI. was seized, his eyes put out, his nose cut off, his tongue torn from his mouth, and he was sent through the streets mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail. Benedict IX., a boy of less than twelve years of age, was raised to the apostolic throne. One of his successors, Victor III., declared that the life of Benedict was so shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a captain of banditti. The people, unable to bear longer his adulteries, his homicides and his abominations, rose against him, and in despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy to auction, and it was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI., in the year of grace 1045. Well may we ask, Were these the vicegerents of God upon earth—these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pass?"
It may be sufficient to say that there is no crime that man can commit that has not been committed by the vicars of Christ. They have inflicted every possible torture, violated every natural right. Greater monsters the human race has not produced.
Among the "some two hundred and fifty-eight" Vicars of Christ there were probably some good men. This would have happened even if the intention had been to get all bad men, for the reason that man reaches perfection neither in good nor in evil; but if they were selected by Christ himself, if they were selected by a church with a divine origin and under divine guidance, then there is no way to account for the selection of a bad one. If one hypocrite was duly elected pope—one murderer, one strangler, one starver—this demonstrates that all the popes were selected by men, and by men only, and that the claim of divine guidance is born of zeal and uttered without knowledge.
But who were the vicars of Christ? How many have there been? Cardinal Manning himself does not know. He is not sure. He says: "Starting from St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some two hundred and fifty-eight Pontiffs claiming to be recognized by the whole Catholic unity as successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ." Why did he use the word "some"? Why "claiming"? Does he not positively know? Is it possible that the present Vicar of Christ is not certain as to the number of his predecessors? Is he infallible in faith and fallible in fact?
Robert G. Ingersoll.
II.
"If we live thus tamely,—
To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,—
Farewell nobility."
NO ONE will deny that "the pope speaks to many people in many nations; that he treats with empires and governments," and that "neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople such a voice goes forth."
How does the pope speak? What does he say?
He speaks against the liberty of man—against the progress of the human race. He speaks to calumniate thinkers, and to warn the faithful against the discoveries of science. He speaks for the destruction of civilization.
Who listens? Do astronomers, geologists and scientists put the hand to the ear fearing that an accent may be lost? Does France listen? Does Italy hear? Is not the church weakest at its centre? Do those who have raised Italy from the dead, and placed her again among the great nations, pay attention? Does Great Britain care for this voice—this moan, this groan—of the Middle Ages? Do the words of Leo XIII. impress the intelligence of the Great Republic? Can anything be more absurd than for the vicar of Christ to attack a demonstration of science with a passage of Scripture, or a quotation from one of the "Fathers"?
Compare the popes with the kings and queens of England. Infinite wisdom had but little to do with the selection of these monarchs, and yet they were far better than any equal number of consecutive popes. This is faint praise, even for kings and queens, but it shows that chance succeeded in getting better rulers for England than "Infinite Wisdom" did for the Church of Rome. Compare the popes with the presidents of the Republic elected by the people. If Adams had murdered Washington, and Jefferson had imprisoned Adams, and if Madison had cut out Jefferson's tongue, and Monroe had assassinated Madison, and John Quincy Adams had poisoned Monroe, and General Jackson had hung Adams and his Cabinet, we might say that presidents had been as virtuous as popes. But if this had happened, the verdict of the world would be that the people are not capable of selecting their presidents.
But this voice from Rome is growing feebler day by day; so feeble that the Cardinal admits that the vicar of God, and the supernatural church, "are being tormented by Falck laws, by Mancini laws and by Crispi laws." In other words, this representative of God, this substitute of Christ, this church of divine origin, this supernatural institution—pervaded by the Holy Ghost—are being "tormented" by three politicians. Is it possible that this patriotic trinity is more powerful than the other?
It is claimed that if the Catholic Church "be only a human system, built up by the intellect, will and energy of men, the adversaries must prove it—that the burden is upon them."
As a general thing, institutions are natural. If this church is supernatural, it is the one exception. The affirmative is with those who claim that it is of divine origin. So far as we know, all governments and all creeds are the work of man. No one believes that Rome was a supernatural production, and yet its beginnings were as small as those of the Catholic Church. Commencing in weakness, Rome grew, and fought, and conquered, until it was believed that the sky bent above a subjugated world. And yet all was natural. For every effect there was an efficient cause.
The Catholic asserts that all other religions have been produced by man—that Brahminism and Buddhism, the religion of Isis and Osiris, the marvelous mythologies of Greece and Rome, were the work of the human mind. From these religions Catholicism has borrowed. Long before Catholicism was born, it was believed that women had borne children whose fathers were gods. The Trinity was promulgated in Egypt centuries before the birth of Moses. Celibacy was taught by the ancient Nazarenes and Essenes, by the priests of Egypt and India, by mendicant monks, and by the piously insane of many countries long before the apostles lived. The Chinese tell us that "when there were but one man and one woman upon the earth, the woman refused to sacrifice her virginity even to people the globe; and the gods, honoring her purity, granted that she should conceive beneath the gaze of her lover's eyes, and a virgin mother became the parent of humanity."
The founders of many religions have insisted that it was the duty of man to renounce the pleasures of sense, and millions before our era took the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and most cheerfully lived upon the labor of others.
The sacraments of baptism and confirmation are far older than the Church of Rome. The Eucharist is pagan. Long before popes began to murder each other, pagans ate cakes—the flesh of Ceres, and drank wine—the blood of Bacchus. Holy water flowed in the Ganges and Nile, priests interceded for the people, and anointed the dying.
It will not do to say that every successful religion that has taught unnatural doctrines, unnatural practices, must of necessity have been of divine origin. In most religions there has been a strange mingling of the good and bad, of the merciful and cruel, of the loving and malicious. Buddhism taught the universal brotherhood of man, insisted on the development of the mind, and this religion was propagated not by the sword, but by preaching, by persuasion, and by kindness—yet in many things it was contrary to the human will, contrary to the human passions, and contrary to good sense. Buddhism succeeded. Can we, for this reason, say that it is a supernatural religion? Is the unnatural the supernatural?
It is insisted that, while other churches have changed, the Catholic Church alone has remained the same, and that this fact demonstrates its divine origin.
Has the creed of Buddhism changed in three thousand years? Is intellectual stagnation a demonstration of divine origin? When anything refuses to grow, are we certain that the seed was planted by God? If the Catholic Church is the same to-day that it has been for many centuries, this proves that there has been no intellectual development. If men do not differ upon religious subjects, it is because they do not think.
Differentiation is the law of growth, of progress. Every church must gain or lose: it cannot remain the same; it must decay or grow. The fact that the Catholic Church has not grown—that it has been petrified from the first—does not establish divine origin; it simply establishes the fact that it retards the progress of man. Everything in nature changes—every atom is in motion—every star moves. Nations, institutions and individuals have youth, manhood, old age, death. This is and will be true of the Catholic Church. It was once weak—it grew stronger—it reached its climax of power—it began to decay—it never can rise again. It is confronted by the dawn of Science. In the presence of the nineteenth century it cowers.
It is not true that "All natural causes run to disintegration."
Natural causes run to integration as well as to disintegration. All growth is integration, and all growth is natural. All decay is disintegration, and all decay is natural. Nature builds and nature destroys. When the acorn grows—when the sunlight and rain fall upon it and the oak rises—so far as the oak is concerned "all natural causes" do not "run to disintegration." But there comes a time when the oak has reached its limit, and then the forces of nature run towards disintegration, and finally the old oak falls. But if the Cardinal is right—if "all natural causes run to disintegration," then every success must have been of divine origin, and nothing is natural but destruction. This is Catholic science: "All natural causes run to disintegration." What do these causes find to disintegrate? Nothing that is natural. The fact that the thing is not disintegrated shows that it was and is of supernatural origin. According to the Cardinal, the only business of nature is to disintegrate the supernatural. To prevent this, the supernatural needs the protection of the Infinite. According to this doctrine, if anything lives and grows, it does so in spite of nature. Growth, then, is not in accordance with, but in opposition to nature. Every plant is supernatural—it defeats the disintegrating influences of rain and light. The generalization of the Cardinal is half the truth. It would be equally true to say: All natural causes run to integration. But the whole truth is that growth and decay are equal.
The Cardinal asserts that "Christendom was created by the world-wide church as we see it before our eyes at this day."
Philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own hands; they did not make it, but they have for three hundred years been unmaking it by reformations and revolutions.
The meaning of this is that Christendom was far better three hundred years ago than now; that during these three centuries Christendom has been going toward barbarism. It means that the supernatural church of God has been a failure for three hundred years; that it has been unable to withstand the attacks of philosophers and statesmen, and that it has been helpless in the midst of "reformations and revolutions."
What was the condition of the world three hundred years ago, the period, according to the Cardinal, in which the church reached the height of its influence, and since which it has been unable to withstand the rising tide of reformation and the whirlwind of revolution?
In that blessed time, Philip II. was king of Spain—he with the cramped head and the monstrous jaw. Heretics were hunted like wild and poisonous beasts; the Inquisition was firmly established, and priests were busy with rack and fire. With a zeal born of the hatred of man and the love of God, the church, with every instrument of torture, touched every nerve in the human body.
In those happy days, the Duke of Alva was devastating the homes of Holland; heretics were buried alive—their tongues were torn from their mouths, their lids from their eyes; the Armada was on the sea for the destruction of the heretics of England, and the Moriscoes—a million and a half of industrious people—were being driven by sword and flame from their homes. The Jews had been expelled from Spain. This Catholic country had succeeded in driving intelligence and industry from its territory; and this had been done with a cruelty, with a ferocity, unequaled, in the annals of crime.
Nothing was left but ignorance, bigotry, intolerance, credulity, the Inquisition, the seven sacraments and the seven deadly sins. And yet a Cardinal of the nineteenth century, living in the land of Shakespeare, regrets the change that has been wrought by the intellectual efforts, by the discoveries, by the inventions and heroism of three hundred years.
Three hundred years ago, Charles IX., in France, son of Catherine de Medici, in the year of grace 1572—after nearly sixteen centuries of Catholic Christianity—after hundreds of vicars of Christ had sat in St. Peter's chair—after the natural passions of man had been "softened" by the creed of Rome—came the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the result of a conspiracy between the Vicar of Christ, Philip II., Charles IX., and his fiendish mother. Let the Cardinal read the account of this massacre once more, and, after reading it, imagine that he sees the gashed and mutilated bodies of thousands of men and women, and then let him say that he regrets the revolutions and reformations of three hundred years.
About three hundred years ago Clement VIII., Vicar of Christ, acting in God's place, substitute of the Infinite, persecuted Giordano Bruno even unto death. This great, this sublime man, was tried for heresy. He had ventured to assert the rotary motion of the earth; he had hazarded the conjecture that there were in the fields of infinite space worlds larger and more glorious than ours. For these low and groveling thoughts, for this contradiction of the word and vicar of God, this man was imprisoned for many years. But his noble spirit was not broken, and finally, in the year 1600, by the orders of the infamous vicar, he was chained to the stake. Priests believing in the doctrine of universal forgiveness—priests who when smitten upon one cheek turned the other—carried with a kind of ferocious joy fagots to the feet of this incomparable man. These disciples of "Our Lord" were made joyous as the flames, like serpents, climbed around the body of Bruno. In a few moments the brave thinker was dead, and the priests who had burned him fell upon their knees and asked the infinite God to continue the blessed work forever in hell.
There are two things that cannot exist in the same universe—an infinite God and a martyr.
Does the Cardinal regret that kings and emperors are not now engaged in the extermination of Protestants? Does he regret that dungeons of the Inquisition are no longer crowded with the best and bravest? Does he long for the fires of the auto da fé.?
In coming to a conclusion as to the origin of the Catholic Church—in determining the truth of the claim of infallibility—we are not restricted to the physical achievements of that church, or to the history of its propagation, or to the rapidity of its growth.
This church has a creed; and if this church is of divine origin—if its head is the vicar of Christ, and, as such, infallible in matters of faith and morals, this creed must be true. Let us start with the supposition that God exists, and that he is infinitely wise, powerful and good—and this is only a supposition. Now, if the creed is foolish, absurd and cruel, it cannot be of divine origin. We find in this creed the following:
"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith."
It is not necessary, before all things, that he be good, honest, merciful, charitable and just. Creed is more important than conduct. The most important of all things is, that he hold the Catholic faith. There were thousands of years during which it was not necessary to hold that faith, because that faith did not exist; and yet during that time the virtues were just as important as now, just as important as they ever can be.
Millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed. Millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and rejected it. Millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because of their belief, or notwithstanding their belief, have murdered millions of their fellows. We know that men can be, have been, and are just as wicked with it as without it. We know that it is not necessary to believe it to be good, loving, tender, noble and self-denying. We admit that millions who have believed it have also been self-denying and heroic, and that millions, by such belief, were not prevented from torturing and destroying the helpless.
Now, if all who believed it were good, and all who rejected it were bad, then there might be some propriety in saying that "whoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith." But as the experience of mankind is otherwise, the declaration becomes absurd, ignorant and cruel.
There is still another clause:
"Which faith, except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish."
We now have both sides of this wonderful truth: The believer will be saved, the unbeliever will be lost. We know that faith is not the child or servant of the will. We know that belief is a conclusion based upon what the mind supposes to be true. We know that it is not an act of the will. Nothing can be more absurd than to save a man because he is not intelligent enough to accept the truth, and nothing can be more infamous than to damn a man because he is intelligent enough to reject the false. It resolves itself into a question of intelligence. If the creed is true, then a man rejects it because he lacks intelligence. Is this a crime for which a man should everlastingly perish? If the creed is false, then a man accepts it because he lacks intelligence. In both cases the crime is exactly the same.
If a man is to be damned for rejecting the truth, certainly he should not be saved for accepting the false. This one clause demonstrates that a being of infinite wisdom and goodness did not write it. It also demonstrates that it was the work of men who had neither wisdom nor a sense of justice.
What is this Catholic faith that must be held? It is this:
"That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." Why should an Infinite Being demand worship? Why should one God wish to be worshiped as three? Why should three Gods wished to be worshiped as one? Why should we pray to one God and think of three, or pray to three Gods and think of one? Can this increase the happiness of the one or of the three? Is it possible to think of one as three, or of three as one? If you think of three as one, can you think of one as none, or of none as one? When you think of three as one, what do you do with the other two? You must not "confound the persons"—they must be kept separate. When you think of one as three, how do you get the other two? You must not "divide the substance." Is it possible to write greater contradictions than these?
This creed demonstrates the human origin of the Catholic Church. Nothing could be more unjust than to punish man for unbelief—for the expression of honest thought—for having been guided by his reason—for having acted in accordance with his best judgment.
Another claim is made, to the effect "that the Catholic Church has filled the world with the true knowledge of the one true God, and that it has destroyed all idols by light instead of by fire."
The Catholic Church described the true God as a being who would inflict eternal pain on his weak and erring children; described him as a fickle, quick-tempered, unreasonable deity, whom honesty enraged, and whom flattery governed; one who loved to see fear upon its knees, ignorance with closed eyes and open mouth; one who delighted in useless self-denial, who loved to hear the sighs and sobs of suffering nuns, as they lay prostrate on dungeon floors; one who was delighted when the husband deserted his family and lived alone in some cave in the far wilderness, tormented by dreams and driven to insanity by prayer and penance, by fasting and faith.
According to the Catholic Church, the true God enjoyed the agonies of heretics. He loved the smell of their burning flesh; he applauded with wide palms when philosophers were flayed alive, and to him the auto da fé was a divine comedy. The shrieks of wives, the cries of babes when fathers were being burned, gave contrast, heightened the effect and filled his cup with joy. This true God did not know the shape of the earth he had made, and had forgotten the orbits of the stars. "The stream of light which descended from the beginning" was propagated by fagot to fagot, until Christendom was filled with the devouring fires of faith.
It may also be said that the Catholic Church filled the world with the true knowledge of the one true Devil. It filled the air with malicious phantoms, crowded innocent sleep with leering fiends, and gave the world to the domination of witches and wizards, spirits and spooks, goblins and ghosts, and butchered and burned thousands for the commission of impossible crimes.
It is contended that: "In this true knowledge of the Divine Nature was revealed to man their own relation to a Creator as sons to a Father."
This tender relation was revealed by the Catholics to the Pagans, the Arians, the Cathari, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the heretics, the Jews, the Moriscoes, the Protestants—to the natives of the West Indies, of Mexico, of Peru—to philosophers, patriots and thinkers. All these victims were taught to regard the true God as a loving father, and this lesson was taught with every instrument of torture—with brandings and burnings, with flayings and flames. The world was filled with cruelty and credulity, ignorance and intolerance, and the soil in which all these horrors grew was the true knowledge of the one true God, and the true knowledge of the one true Devil. And yet, we are compelled to say, that the one true Devil described by the Catholic Church was not as malevolent as the one true God.
Is it true that the Catholic Church overthrew idolatry? What is idolatry? What shall we say of the worship of popes—of the doctrine of the Real Presence, of divine honors paid to saints, of sacred vestments, of holy water, of consecrated cups and plates, of images and relics, of amulets and charms?
The Catholic Church filled the world with the spirit of idolatry. It abandoned the idea of continuity in nature, it denied the integrity of cause and effect. The government of the world was the composite result of the caprice of God, the malice of Satan, the prayers of the faithful—softened, it may be, by the charity of Chance. Yet the Cardinal asserts, without the preface of a smile, that "Demonology was overthrown by the church, with the assistance of forces that were above nature;" and in the same breath gives birth to this enlightened statement: "Beelzebub is not divided against himself." Is a belief in Beelzebub a belief in demonology? Has the Cardinal forgotten the Council of Nice, held in the year of grace 787, that declared the worship of images to be lawful? Did that infallible Council, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, destroy idolatry?
The Cardinal takes the ground that marriage is a sacrament, and therefore indissoluble, and he also insists that celibacy is far better than marriage,—holier than a sacrament,—that marriage is not the highest state, but that "the state of virginity unto death is the highest condition of man and woman."
The highest ideal of a family is where all are equal—where love has superseded authority—where each seeks the good of all, and where none obey—where no religion can sunder hearts, and with which no church can interfere.
The real marriage is based on mutual affection—the ceremony is but the outward evidence of the inward flame. To this contract there are but two parties. The church is an impudent intruder. Marriage is made public to the end that the real contract may be known, so that the world can see that the parties have been actuated by the highest and holiest motives that find expression in the acts of human beings. The man and woman are not joined together by God, or by the church, or by the state. The church and state may prescribe certain ceremonies, certain formalities—but all these are only evidence of the existence of a sacred fact in the hearts of the wedded. The indissolubility of marriage is a dogma that has filled the lives of millions with agony and tears. It has given a perpetual excuse for vice and immorality. Fear has borne children begotten by brutality. Countless women have endured the insults, indignities and cruelties of fiendish husbands, because they thought that it was the will of God. The contract of marriage is the most important that human beings can make; but no contract can be so important as to release one of the parties from the obligation of performance; and no contract, whether made between man and woman, or between them and God, after a failure of consideration caused by the willful act of the man or woman, can hold and bind the innocent and honest.
Do the believers in indissoluble marriage treat their wives better than others? A little while ago, a woman said to a man who had raised his hand to strike her: "Do not touch me; you have no right to beat me; I am not your wife."
About a year ago a husband, whom God in his infinite wisdom had joined to a loving and patient woman in the indissoluble sacrament of marriage, becoming enraged, seized the helpless wife and tore out one of her eyes. She forgave him. A few weeks ago he deliberately repeated this frightful crime, leaving his victim totally blind. Would it not have been better if man, before the poor woman was blinded, had put asunder whom God had joined together? Thousands of husbands, who insist that marriage is indissoluble, are the beaters of wives.
The law of the church has created neither the purity nor the peace of domestic life. Back of all churches is human affection. Back of all theologies is the love of the human heart. Back of all your priests and creeds is the adoration of the one woman by the one man, and of the one man by the one woman. Back of your faith is the fireside; back of your folly is the family; and back of all your holy mistakes and your sacred absurdities is the love of husband and wife, of parent and child.
It is not true that neither the Greek nor the Roman world had any true conception of a home. The splendid story of Ulysses and Penelope, the parting of Hector and Andromache, demonstrate that a true conception of home existed among the Greeks. Before the establishment of Christianity, the Roman matron commanded the admiration of the then known world. She was free and noble. The church degraded woman—made her the property of the husband, and trampled her beneath its brutal feet. The "fathers" denounced woman as a perpetual temptation, as the cause of all evil. The church worshiped a God who had upheld polygamy, and had pronounced his curse on woman, and had declared that she should be the serf of the husband. This church followed the teachings of St. Paul. It taught the uncleanness of marriage, and insisted that all children were conceived in sin. This church pretended to have been founded by one who offered a reward in this world, and eternal joy in the next, to husbands who would forsake their wives and children and follow him. Did this tend to the elevation of woman? Did this detestable doctrine "create the purity and peace of domestic life"? Is it true that a monk is purer than a good and noble father?—that a nun is holier than a loving mother?
Is there anything deeper and stronger than a mother's love? Is there anything purer, holier than a mother holding her dimpled babe against her billowed breast?
The good man is useful, the best man is the most useful. Those who fill the nights with barren prayers and holy hunger, torture themselves for their own good and not for the benefit of others. They are earning eternal glory for themselves—they do not fast for their fellow-men—their selfishness is only equalled by their foolishness. Compare the monk in his selfish cell, counting beads and saying prayers for the purpose of saving his barren soul, with a husband and father sitting by his fireside with wife and children. Compare the nun with the mother and her babe.
Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity. It tries to put a stain upon motherhood, upon marriage, upon love—that is to say, upon all that is holiest in the human heart. Take love from the world, and there is nothing left worth living for. The church has treated this great, this sublime, this unspeakably holy passion, as though it polluted the heart. They have placed the love of God above the love of woman, above the love of man. Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish, because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own.
Yet the Cardinal asserts "that the change wrought by Christianity in the social, political and international relations of the world"—"that the root of this ethical change, private and public, is the Christian home." A moment afterward, this prelate insists that celibacy is far better than marriage. If the world could be induced to live in accordance with the "highest state," this generation would be the last. Why were men and women created? Why did not the Catholic God commence' with the sinless and sexless? The Cardinal ought to take the ground that to talk well is good, but that to be dumb is the highest condition; that hearing is a pleasure, but that deafness is ecstasy; and that to think, to reason, is very well, but that to be a Catholic is far better.
Why should we desire the destruction of human passions? Take passions from human beings and what is left? The great object should be not to destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge passion to the utmost is one form of intemperance—to destroy passion is another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue.
The goodness, the sympathy, the self-denial of the nun, of the monk, all come from the mother-instinct, the father-instinct—all were produced by human affection, by the love of man for woman, of woman for man. Love is a transfiguration. It ennobles, purifies and glorifies. In true marriage two hearts burst into flower. Two lives unite. They melt in music. Every moment is a melody. Love is a revelation, a creation. From love the world borrows its beauty and the heavens their glory. Justice, self-denial, charity and pity are the children of love. Lover, wife, mother, husband, father, child, home—these words shed light—they are the gems of human speech. Without love all glory fades, the noble falls from life, art dies, music loses meaning and becomes mere motions of the air, and virtue ceases to exist.
It is asserted that this life of celibacy is above and against the tendencies of human nature; and the Cardinal then asks: "Who will ascribe this to natural causes, and, if so, why did it not appear in the first four thousand years?"
If there is in a system of religion a doctrine, a dogma, or a practice against the tendencies of human nature—if this religion succeeds, then it is claimed by the Cardinal that such religion must be of divine origin. Is it "against the tendencies of human nature" for a mother to throw her child into the Ganges to please a supposed God? Yet a religion that insisted on that sacrifice succeeded, and has, to-day, more believers than the Catholic Church can boast.
Religions, like nations and individuals, have always gone along the line of least resistance. Nothing has "ascended the stream of human license by a power mightier than nature." There is no such power. There never was, there never can be, a miracle. We know that man is a conditioned being. We know that he is affected by a change of conditions. If he is ignorant he is superstitious; this is natural. If his brain is developed—if he perceives clearly that all things are naturally produced, he ceases to be superstitious, and becomes scientific. He is not a saint, but a savant—not a priest, but a philosopher. He does not worship, he works; he investigates; he thinks; he takes advantage, through intelligence, of the forces of nature. He is no longer the victim of appearances, the dupe of his own ignorance, and the persecutor of his fellow-men.
He then knows that it is far better to love his wife and children than to love God. He then knows that the love of man for woman, of woman for man, of parent for child, of child for parent, is far better, far holier than the love of man for any phantom born of ignorance and fear.
It is illogical to take the ground that the world was cruel and ignorant and idolatrous when the Catholic Church was established, and that because the world is better now than then, the church is of divine origin.
What was the world when science came? What was it in the days of Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler? What-was it when printing was invented? What was it when the Western World was found? Would it not be much easier to prove that science is of divine origin?
Science does not persecute. It does not shed blood—it fills the world with light. It cares nothing for heresy; it develops the mind, and enables man to answer his own prayers.
Cardinal Manning takes the ground that Jehovah practically abandoned the children of men for four thousand years, and gave them over to every abomination. He claims that Christianity came "in the fullness of time," and it is then admitted that "what the fullness of time may mean is one of the mysteries of times and seasons, that it is not for us to know." Having declared that it is a mystery, and one that we are not to know, the Cardinal explains it: "One motive for the long delay of four thousand years is not far to seek—it gave time, full and ample, for the utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of which the intellect and will of man are capable."
Is it possible to imagine why an infinitely good and wise being "gave time full and ample for the utmost development and consolidation of falsehood and evil"? Why should an infinitely wise God desire this development and consolidation? What would be thought of a father who should refuse to teach his son and deliberately allow him to go into every possible excess, to the end that he might "develop all the falsehood and evil of which his intellect and will were capable"? If a supernatural religion is a necessity, and if without it all men simply develop and consolidate falsehood and evil, why was not a supernatural religion given to the first man? The Catholic Church, if this be true, should have been founded in the Garden of Eden.
Was it not cruel to drown a world just for the want of a supernatural religion—a religion that man, by no possibility, could furnish? Was there "husbandry in heaven"?
But the Cardinal contradicts himself by not only admitting, but declaring, that the world had never seen a legislation so just, so equitable, as that of Rome.
Is it possible that a nation in which falsehood and evil had reached their highest development was, after all, so wise, so just and so equitable?
Was not the civil law far better than the Mosaic—more philosophical, nearer just?
The civil law was produced without the assistance of God.
According to the Cardinal, it was produced by men in whom all the falsehood and evil of which they were capable had been developed and consolidated, while the cruel and ignorant Mosaic code came from the lips of infinite wisdom and compassion.
It is declared that the history of Rome shows what man can do without God, and I assert that the history of the Inquisition shows what man can do when assisted by a church of divine origin, presided over, by the infallible vicars of God.
The fact that the early Christians not only believed incredible things, but persuaded others of their truth, is regarded by the Cardinal as a miracle. This is only another phase of the old argument that success is the test of divine origin. All supernatural religions have been founded in precisely the same way. The credulity of eighteen hundred years ago believed everything except the truth.
A religion is a growth, and is of necessity adapted in some degree to the people among whom it grows. It is shaped and molded by the general ignorance, the superstition and credulity of the age in which it lives. The key is fashioned by the lock.
Every religion that has succeeded has in some way supplied the wants of its votaries, and has to a certain extent harmonized with their hopes, their fears, their vices, and their virtues.
If, as the Cardinal says, the religion of Christ is in absolute harmony with nature, how can it be supernatural? The Cardinal also declares that "the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature in all nations and all ages to this day."
What becomes of the argument that Catholicism must be of divine origin because "it has ascended the stream of human license, contra ictum fluminis, by a power mightier than nature"?
If "it is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations and all ages to this day," it has gone with the stream, and not against it. If "the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations," then the men who have rejected it are unnatural, and these men have gone against the stream. How then can it be said that Christianity has been in changeless opposition to nature as man has marred it? To what extent has man marred it?
In spite of the marring by man, we are told that the reason and moral nature of all nations in all ages to this day is in harmony with the religion of Jesus Christ.
Are we justified in saying that the Catholic Church is of divine origin because the Pagans failed to destroy it by persecution?
We will put the Cardinal's statement in form:
Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution, therefore Catholicism is of divine origin.
Let us make an application of this logic:
Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution; therefore, Catholicism is of divine origin.
Catholicism failed to destroy Protestantism by persecution; therefore, Protestantism is of divine origin.
Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity; therefore, Infidelity is of divine origin.
Let us make another application:
Paganism did not succeed in destroying Catholicism; therefore, Paganism was a false religion.
Catholicism did not succeed in destroying Protestantism; therefore, Catholicism is a false religion.
Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity; therefore, both Catholicism and Protestantism are false religions.
The Cardinal has another reason for believing the Catholic Church of divine origin. He declares that the "Canon Law is a creation of wisdom and justice to which no statutes at large or imperial pandects can bear comparison;" "that the world-wide and secular legislation of the church was of a higher character, and that as water cannot rise above its source, the church could not, by mere human wisdom, have corrected and perfected the imperial law, and therefore its source must have been higher than the sources of the world."
When Europe was the most ignorant, the Canon Law was supreme.
As a matter of fact, the good in the Canon Law was borrowed—the bad was, for the most part, original. In my judgment, the legislation of the Republic of the United States is in many respects superior to that of Rome, and yet we are greatly indebted to the Civil Law. Our legislation is superior in many particulars to that of England, and yet we are greatly indebted to the Common Law; but it never occurred to me that our Statutes at Large are divinely inspired.
If the Canon Law is, in fact, the legislation of infinite wisdom, then it should be a perfect code. Yet, the Canon Law made it a crime next to robbery and theft to take interest for money. Without the right to take interest the business of the whole world, would to a large extent, cease and the prosperity of mankind end. There are railways enough in the United States to make six tracks around the globe, and every mile was built with borrowed money on which interest was paid or promised. In no other way could the savings of many thousands have been brought together and a capital great enough formed to construct works of such vast and continental importance.
It was provided in this same wonderful Canon Law that a heretic could not be a witness against a Catholic. The Catholic was at liberty to rob and wrong his fellow-man, provided the fellow-man was not a fellow Catholic, and in a court established by the vicar of Christ, the man who had been robbed was not allowed to open his mouth. A Catholic could enter the house of an unbeliever, of a Jew, of a heretic, of a Moor, and before the eyes of the husband and father murder his wife and children, and the father could not pronounce in the hearing of a judge the name of the murderer.
The world is wiser now, and the Canon Law, given to us by infinite wisdom, has been repealed by the common sense of man.
In this divine code it was provided that to convict a cardinal bishop, seventy-two witnesses were required; a cardinal presbyter, forty-four; a cardinal deacon, twenty-four; a subdeacon, acolyth, exorcist, reader, ostiarius, seven; and in the purgation of a bishop, twelve witnesses were invariably required; of a presbyter, seven; of a deacon, three. These laws, in my judgment, were made, not by God, but by the clergy.
So too in this cruel code it was provided that those who gave aid, favor, or counsel, to excommunicated persons, should be anathema, and that those who talked with, consulted, or sat at the same table with or gave anything in charity to the excommunicated should be anathema.
Is it possible that a being of infinite wisdom made hospitality a crime? Did he say: "Whoso giveth a cup of cold water to the excommunicated shall wear forever a garment of fire"? Were not the laws of the Romans much better? Besides all this, under the Canon Law the dead could be tried for heresy, and their estates confiscated—that is to say, their widows and orphans robbed.
The most brutal part of the common law of England is that in relation to the rights of women—all of which was taken from the Corpus Juris Canonici, "the law that came from a higher source than man."
The only cause of absolute divorce as laid down by the pious canonists was propter infidelitatem, which was when one of the parties became Catholic, and would not live with the other who continued still an unbeliever. Under this divine statute, a pagan wishing to be rid of his wife had only to join the Catholic Church, provided she remained faithful to the religion of her fathers. Under this divine law, a man marrying a widow was declared to be a bigamist.
It would require volumes to point out the cruelties, absurdities and inconsistencies of the Canon Law. It has been thrown away by the world. Every civilized nation has a code of its own, and the Canon Law is of interest only to the historian, the antiquarian, and the enemy of theological government.
Under the Canon Law, people were convicted of being witches and wizards, of holding intercourse with devils. Thousands perished at the stake, having been convicted of these impossible crimes. Under the Canon Law, there was such a crime as the suspicion of heresy. A man or woman could be arrested, charged with being suspected, and under this Canon Law, flowing from the intellect of infinite wisdom, the presumption was in favor of guilt. The suspected had to prove themselves innocent. In all civilized courts, the presumption of innocence is the shield of the indicted, but the Canon Law took away this shield, and put in the hand of the priest the sword of presumptive guilt.
If the real pope is the vicar of Christ, the true shepherd of the sheep, this fact should be known not only to the vicar, but to the sheep. A divinely founded and guarded church ought to know its own shepherd, and yet the Catholic sheep have not always been certain who the shepherd was.
The Council of Pisa, held in 1409, deposed two popes—rivals—Gregory and Benedict—that is to say, deposed the actual vicar of Christ and the pretended. This action was taken because a council, enlightened by the Holy Ghost, could not tell the genuine from the counterfeit. The council then elected another vicar, whose authority was afterwards denied. Alexander V. died, and John XXIII. took his place; Gregory XII. insisted that he was the lawful pope; John resigned, then he was deposed, and afterward imprisoned; then Gregory XII. resigned, and Martin V. was elected. The whole thing reads like the annals of a South American revolution.
The Council of Constance restored, as the Cardinal declares, the unity of the church, and brought back the consolation of the Holy Ghost. Before this great council John Huss appeared and maintained his own tenets. The council declared that the church was not bound to keep its promise with a heretic. Huss was condemned and executed on the 6th of July, 1415. His disciple, Jerome of Prague, recanted, but having relapsed, was put to death, May 30, 1416. This cursed council shed the blood of Huss and Jerome.
The Cardinal appeals to the author of "Ecce Homo" for the purpose of showing that Christianity is above nature, and the following passages, among others, are quoted:
"Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into the formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these things can explain the origin of the Christian Church."
These passages should not have been quoted by the Cardinal. The author of these passages simply says that the origin of the Christian Church is no harder to find and describe than that which unites men—than that which has entered into the formation of speech, the symbol of their union—no harder to describe than the origin of civil society—because he says that one who can describe these can describe the other.
Certainly none of these things are above nature. We do not need the assistance of the Holy Ghost in these matters. We know that men are united by common interests, common purposes, common dangers—by race, climate and education. It is no more wonderful that people live in families, tribes, communities and nations, than that birds, ants and bees live in flocks and swarms.
If we know anything, we know that language is natural—that it is a physical science. But if we take the ground occupied by the Cardinal, then we insist that everything that cannot be accounted for by man, is supernatural. Let me ask, by what man? What man must we take as the standard?
Cosmas or Humboldt, St. Irenæus or Darwin? If everything that we cannot account for is above nature, then ignorance is the test of the supernatural. The man who is mentally honest, stops where his knowledge stops. At that point he says that he does not know. Such a man is a philosopher. Then the theologian steps forward, denounces the modesty of the philosopher as blasphemy, and proceeds to tell what is beyond the horizon of the human intellect.
Could a savage account for the telegraph, or the telephone, by natural causes? How would he account for these wonders? He would account for them precisely as the Cardinal accounts for the Catholic Church.
Belonging to no rival church, I have not the slightest interest in the primacy of Leo XIII., and yet it is to be regretted that this primacy rests upon such a narrow and insecure foundation.
The Cardinal says that "it will appear almost certain that the original Greek of St. Irenæus, which is unfortunately lost, contained either [—Greek—], or some inflection of [—Greek—], which signifies primacy."
From this it appears that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome rests on some "inflection" of a Greek word—and that this supposed inflection was in a letter supposed to have been written by St. Irenæus, which has certainly been lost. Is it possible that the vast fabric of papal power has this, and only this, for its foundation? To this "inflection" has it come at last?
The Cardinal's case depends upon the intelligence and veracity of his witnesses. The Fathers of the church were utterly incapable of examining a question of fact. They were all believers in the miraculous. The same is true of the apostles. If St. John was the author of the Apocalypse, he was undoubtedly insane. If Polycarp said the things attributed to him by Catholic writers, he was certainly in the condition of his master. What is the testimony of St. John worth in the light of the following? "Cerinthus, the heretic, was in a bathhouse. St. John and another Christian were about to enter. St. John cried out: 'Let us run away, lest the house fall upon us while the enemy of truth is in it.'" Is it possible that St. John thought that God would kill two eminent Christians for the purpose of getting even with one heretic?
Let us see who Polycarp was. He seems to have been a prototype of the Catholic Church, as will be seen from the following statement concerning this Father: "When any heretical doctrine was spoken in his presence he would stop his ears." After this, there can be no question of his orthodoxy. It is claimed that Polycarp was a martyr—that a spear was run through his body, and that from the wound his soul, in the shape of a bird, flew away. The history of his death is just as true as the history of his life.
Irenæus, another witness, took the ground that there was to be a millennium—a thousand years of enjoyment in which celibacy would not be the highest form of virtue. If he is called as a witness for the purpose of establishing the divine origin of the church, and if one of his "inflections" is the basis of papal supremacy, is the Cardinal also willing to take his testimony as to the nature of the millennium?
All the Fathers were infinitely credulous. Every one of them believed, not only in the miracles said to have been wrought by Christ, by the apostles, and by other Christians, but every one of them believed in the Pagan miracles. All of these Fathers were familiar with wonders and impossibilities. Nothing was so common with them as to work miracles, and on many occasions they not only cured diseases, not only reversed the order of nature, but succeeded in raising the dead.
It is very hard, indeed, to prove what the apostles said, or what the Fathers of the church wrote. There were many centuries filled with forgeries—many generations in which the cunning hands of ecclesiastics erased, obliterated or interpolated the records of the past—during which they invented books, invented authors, and quoted from works that never existed.
The testimony of the "Fathers" is without the slightest value. They believed everything—they examined nothing. They received as a waste-basket receives. Whoever accepts their testimony will exclaim with the Cardinal: "Happily, men are not saved by logic."
Robert G. Ingersoll.
By Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Henry C. Potter, and Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll.
THE attention of the public has been particularly directed of late to the abuses of divorce, and to the facilities afforded by the complexities of American law, and by the looseness of its administration, for the disruption of family ties. Therefore the North American Review has opened its pages for the thorough discussion of the subject in its moral, social, and religious aspects, and some of the most eminent leaders of modern thought have contributed their opinions. The Rev. S. W. Dike, LL.D., who is a specialist on the subject of divorce, has prepared some statistics touching the matter, and, with the assistance of Bishop Potter, the four following questions have been formulated as a basis for the discussion:
1. Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances?
2. Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any circumstances?
3. What is the effect of divorce on the integrity of the family?
4. Does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists contribute to the moral purity of society?
Editor North American Review,
I AM to introduce this discussion with some facts and make a few suggestions upon them. In the dozen years of my work at this problem I have steadily insisted upon a broad basis of fact as the only foundation of sound opinion. We now have a great statistical advance in the report of the Department of labor. A few of these statistics will serve the present purpose.
There were in the United States 9,937 divorces reported for the year 1867 and 25,535 for 1886, or a total 328,716 in the twenty years. This increase is more than twice as great as the population, and has been remarkably uniform throughout the period. With the exception of New York, perhaps Delaware, and the three or four States where special legislative reforms have been secured, the increase covers the country and has been more than twice the gain in population. The South apparently felt the movement later than the North and West, but its greater rapidity there will apparently soon obliterate most existing differences. The movement is well-nigh as universal in Europe as here. Thirteen European countries, including Canada, had 6,540 divorces in 1876 and 10,909 in 1886—an increase of 67 per cent. In the same period the increase with us was 72.5 per cent. But the ratios of divorce to population are here generally three or four times greater than in Europe. The ratios to marriage in the United States are sometimes as high as 1 to 10, 1 to 9, or even a little more for single years. In heathen Japan for three years they were more than 1 to 3. But divorce there is almost wholly left to the regulation of the family, and practically optional with the parties. It is a re-transference of the wife by a simple writing to her own family.
1. The increase of divorce is one of several evils affecting the family. Among these are hasty or ill-considered marriages, the decline of marriage and the decrease of children,—too generally among classes pecuniarily best able to maintain domestic life,—the probable increase in some directions of marital infidelity and sexual vice, and last, but not least, a tendency to reduce the family to a minimum of force in the life of society. All these evils should be studied and treated in their relations to each other. Carefully-conducted investigations alone can establish these latter statements beyond dispute, although there can be little doubt of their general correctness as here carefully made. And the conclusion is forced upon us that the toleration of the increase of divorce, touching as it does the vital bond of the family, is so far forth a confession of our western civilization that it despairs of all remedies for ills of the family, and is becoming willing, in great degree, to look away from all true remedies to a dissolution of the family by the courts in all serious cases. If this were our settled purpose, it would look like giving up the idea of producing and protecting a family increasingly capable of enduring to the end of its natural existence. If the drift of things on this subject during the present century may be taken as prophetic, our civilization moves in an opposite direction in its treatment of the family from its course with the individual.
2. Divorce, including these other evils related to the family, is preeminently a social problem. It should therefore be reached by all the forces of our great social institutions—religious, educational, industrial, and political. Each of these should be brought to bear on it proportionately and in cooperation with the others. But I can here take up only one or two lines for further suggestion.
3. The causes of divorces, like those of most social evils, are often many and intricate. The statistics for this country, when the forty-three various statutory causes are reduced to a few classes, show that 20 per cent, of the divorces were based on adultery, 16 on cruelty, 38 were granted for desertion, 4 for drunkenness, less than 3 for neglect to provide, and so on. But these tell very little, except that it is easier or more congenial to use one or another of the statutory causes, just as the old "omnibus clause," which gave general discretion to the courts in Connecticut, and still more in some other States, was made to cover many cases. A special study of forty-five counties in twelve States, however, shows that drunkenness was a direct or indirect cause in 20.1 per cent, of 29,665 cases. That is, it could be found either alone or in conjunction with others, directly or indirectly, in one-fifth of the cases.
4. Laws and their administration affect divorce. New York grants absolute divorce for only one cause, and New Jersey for two. Yet New York has many more divorces in proportion to population, due largely to a looser system of administration. In seventy counties of twelve States 68 per cent, of the applications are granted. The enactment of a more stringent law is immediately followed by a decrease of divorces, from which there is a tendency to recover. Personally, I think stricter methods of administration, restrictions upon remarriage, proper delays in hearing suits, and some penal inflictions for cruelty, desertion, neglect of support, as well as for adultery, would greatly reduce divorces, even without removing a single statutory cause. There would be fewer unhappy families, not more. For people would then look to real remedies instead of confessing the hopelessness of remedy by appeals to the courts. A multitude of petty ills and many utterly wicked frauds and other abuses would disappear. "Your present methods," said a Nova Scotian to a man from Maine a few years ago, "are simply ways of multiplying and magnifying domestic ills." There is much force in this. But let us put reform of marriage laws along with these measures.
5. The evils of conflicting and diverse marriage and divorce laws are doing immense harm. The mischief through which innocent parties are defrauded, children rendered illegitimate, inheritance made uncertain, and actual imprisonments for bigamy grow out of divorce and remarriage, are well known to most. Uniformity through a national law or by conventions of the States has been strongly urged for many years. Uniformity is needed. But for one, I have long discouraged too early action, because the problem is too difficult, the consequences too serious, and the elements of it still too far out of our reach for any really wise action at present. The government report grew immediately out of this conviction. It will, I think, abundantly justify the caution. For it shows that uniformity could affect at the utmost only a small percentage of the total divorces in the United States. Only 19.9 percent of all the divorced who were married in this country obtained their divorces in a different State from the one in which their marriage had taken place, in all these twenty years, 80.1 per cent, having been divorced in the State where married. Now, marriage on the average lasts 9.17 years before divorce occurs, which probably is nearly two-fifths the length of a married life before its dissolution by death. From this 19.9 per cent, there must, therefore, be subtracted the large migration of married couples for legitimate purposes, in order to get any fair figure to express the migration for divorce. But the movement of the native population away from the State of birth is 22 or 23 per cent. This, however, includes all ages. For all who believe that divorce itself is generally a great evil, the conclusion is apparently inevitable that the question of uniformity, serious as it is, is a very small part of the great legal problem demanding solution at our hands. This general problem, aside from its graver features in the more immediate sphere of sociology and religion, must evidently tax our publicists and statesmen severely. The old temptation to meet special evils by general legislation besets us on this subject. I think comparative and historical study of the law of the family, (the Familienrecht of the Germans), especially if the movement of European law be seen, points toward the need of a pretty comprehensive and thorough examination of our specific legal problem of divorce and marriage law in this fuller light, before much legislation is undertaken.
Samuel W. Dike.
However much men may differ in their views of the nature and attributes of the matrimonial contract, and in their concept of the rights and obligations of the marriage state, no one will deny that these are grave questions; since upon marriage rests the family, and upon the family rest society, civilization, and the highest interests of religion and the state. Yet, strange to say, divorce, the deadly enemy of marriage, stalks abroad to-day bold and unblushing, a monster licensed by the laws of Christian states to break hearts, wreck homes and ruin souls. And passing strange is it, too, that so many, wise and far-seeing in less weighty concerns, do not appear to see in the evergrowing power of divorce a menace not only to the sacredness of the marriage institution, but even to the fair social fabric reared upon matrimony as its corner-stone.
God instituted in Paradise the marriage state and sanctified it. He established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility. By divine authority Adam spoke when of his wife he said: "This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh."*
* Gen., ii., 23-24.
But like other things on earth, marriage suffered in the fall; and little by little polygamy and divorce began to assert themselves against the law of matrimonial unity and indissolubility. Yet the ideal of the marriage institution never faded away. It survived, not only among the chosen people, but even among the nations of heathendom, disfigured much, 'tis true, but with its ancient beauty never wholly destroyed.
When, in the fullness of time, Christ came to restore the things that were perishing, he reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms the sanctity, unity, and indissolubility of marriage. Nay, more. He gave to this state added holiness and a dignity higher far than it had "from the beginning." He made marriage a sacrament, made it the type of his own never-ending union with his one spotless spouse, the church. St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.... For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh."*
* Ephes., v., 25-31.
In defence of Christian marriage, the church was compelled from the earliest days of her existence to do frequent and stern battle. But cultured pagan, and rough barbarian, and haughty Christian lord were met and conquered. Men were taught to master passion, and Christian marriage, with all its rights secured and reverenced, became a ruling power in the world.
The Council of Trent, called, in the throes of the mighty moral upheaval of the sixteenth century, to deal with the new state of things, again proclaimed to a believing and an unbelieving world the Catholic doctrine of the holiness, unity, and indissolubility of marriage, and the unlawfulness of divorce. The council declared no new dogmas: it simply reaffirmed the common teaching of the church for centuries. But some of the most hallowed attributes of marriage seemed to be objects of peculiar detestation to the new teachers, and their abolition was soon demanded. "The leaders in the changes of matrimonial law," writes Professor Woolsey, "were the Protestant reformers themselves, and that almost from the beginning of the movement.... The reformers, when they discarded the sacramental view of marriage and the celibacy of the clergy, had to make out a new doctrine of marriage and of divorce."* The "new doctrine of marriage and of divorce," pleasing as it was to the sensual man, was speedily learned and as speedily put in practice. The sacredness with which Christian marriage had been hedged around began to be more and more openly trespassed upon, and restive shoulders wearied more and more quickly of the marriage yoke when divorce promised freedom for newer joys.
To our own time the logical consequences of the "new doctrine" have come. To-day "abyss calls upon abyss," change calls for change, laxity calls for license. Divorce is now a recognized presence in high life and low; and polygamy, the first-born of divorce, sits shameless in palace and in hovel. Yet the teacher that feared not to speak the words of truth in bygone ages is not silent now. In no uncertain tones, the church proclaims to the world to-day the unchangeable law of the strict unity and absolute indissolubility of valid and consummated Christian marriage.
To the question then, "Can divorce from the bond of marriage ever be allowed?" the Catholic can only answer no.
* "Divorce and Divorce Legislation," by Theodore D. Woolsey,
2d Ed., p. 126.
And for this no, his first and last and best reason can be but this: "Thus saith the Lord."
As time goes on the wisdom of the church in absolutely forbidding divorce from the marriage bond grows more and more plain even to the many who deny to this prohibition a divine and authoritative sanction. And nowhere is this more true than in our own country. Yet our experience of the evils of divorce is but the experience of every people that has cherished this monster.
Let us take but a hasty view of the consequences of divorce in ancient times. Turn only to pagan Greece and Rome, two peoples that practised divorce most extensively. In both we find divorce weakening their primitive virtue and making their latter corruption more corrupt. Among the Greeks morality declined as material civilization advanced. Divorce grew easy and common, and purity and peace were banished from the family circle. Among the Romans divorce was not common until the latter days of the Republic. Then the flood-gates of immorality were opened, and, with divorce made easy, came rushing in corruption of morals among both sexes and in every walk of life. "Passion, interest, or caprice," Gibbon, the historian, tells us, "suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure."* Each succeeding generation witnessed moral corruption more general, moral degradation more profound; men and women were no longer ashamed of licentiousness; until at length the nation that became mighty because built on a pure family fell when its corner-stone crumbled away in rottenness.
* "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empiré," Milman's Ed., Vol.
III., p. 236.
Heedless of the lessons taught by history, modern nations, too, have made trial of divorce. In Europe, wherever the new gospel of marriage and divorce has had! notable influence, divorce has been legalized; and in due proportion to the extent of that influence causes for divorce have been multiplied, the bond of marriage more and more recklessly broken, and the obligations of that sacred state more and more shamelessly disregarded. In our own country the divorce evil has grown more rapidly than our growth and strengthened more rapidly than our strength. Mr. Carroll D. Wright, in a special report on the statistics of marriage and divorce made to Congress in February, 1889, places the number of divorces in the United States in 1867 at 9,937, and the number in 1886 at 25,535. These figures show an increase of the divorce evil much out of proportion to our increase in population. The knowledge that divorces can easily be procured encourages hasty marriages and equally hasty preparations. Legislators and judges in some States are encouraging inventive genius in the art of finding new causes for divorce. Frequently the most trivial and even ridiculous pretexts are recognized as sufficient for the rupture of the marriage bond; and in some States divorce can be obtained "without publicity," and even without the knowledge of the defendant—in such cases generally an innocent wife. Crime has sometimes been committed for the very purpose of bringing about a divorce, and cases are not rare in which plots have been laid to blacken the reputation of a virtuous spouse in order to obtain legal freedom for new nuptials. Sometimes, too, there is a collusion between the married parties to obtain divorce. One of them trumps up charges; the other does not oppose the suit; and judgment is entered for the plaintiff. Every daily newspaper tells us of divorces applied for or granted, and the public sense of decency is constantly being shocked by the disgusting recital of of divorce-court scandals.
We are filled with righteous indignation at Mormonism; we brand it as a national disgrace, and justly demand its suppression. Why? Because, forsooth, the Mormons are polygamists. Do we forget that there are two species of polygamy—simultaneous and successive? Mormons practise without legal recognition the first species; while among us the second species is indulged in, and with the sanction of law, by thousands in whose nostrils Mormonism is a stench and an abomination. The Christian press and pulpit of the land denounce the Mormons as "an adulterous generation," but too often deal very tenderly with Christian polygamists. Why? Is Christian polygamy less odious in the eyes of God than Mormon polygamy? Among us, *tis true, the one is looked upon as more respectable than the other. Yet we know that the Mormons as a class, care for their wives and children; while Christian polygamists but too often leave wretched wives to starve, slave, or sin, and leave miserable children a public charge. "O divorced and much-married Christian," says the polygamous dweller by Salt Lake, "pluck first the beam from thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to pluck the mote from the eye of thy much-married, but undivorced, Mormon brother." It follows logically from the Catholic doctrine of the unity and indissolubility of marriage, and the consequent prohibition of divorce from the marital bond, that no one, even though divorced a vinculo by the civil power, can be allowed by the church to take another consort during the lifetime of the true wife or husband, and such connection the church can but hold as sinful. It is written: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery."*
* Mark, x., ii, 12.
Of course, I am well aware that upon the words of our Saviour as found in St. Matthew, Chap. xix., 9, many base the right of divorce from the marriage bond for adultery, with permission to remarry. But, as is well known, the Catholic Church, upon the concurrent testimony of the Evangelists Mark* and Luke,** and upon the teaching of St. Paul,*** interprets our Lord's words quoted by St. Matthew as simply permitting, on account of adultery, divorce from bed and board, with no right to either party to marry another.
But even if divorce a vinculo were not forbidden by divine law, how inadequate a remedy would it be for the evils for which so many deem it a panacea. "Divorce a vinculo," as Dr. Brownson truly says, "logically involves divorce ad libitum."*** Now, what reason is there to suppose that parties divorced and remated will be happier in the new connection than in the old? As a matter of fact, many persons have been divorced a number of times. Sometimes, too, it happens that, after a period of separation, divorced parties repent of their folly, reunite, and are again divorced. Indeed, experience clearly proves that unhappiness among married people frequently does not arise so much from "mutual incompatibility" as from causes inherent in one or both of the parties—causes that would be likely to make a new union as wretched as the old one. There is wisdom in the pithy saying of-a recent writer: "Much ill comes, not because men and women are married, but because they are fools."***
* Mark, x., n, 12. Luke, xvi., 18. J I. Cor.,vii., 10, 11.
** Essay on "The Family—Christian and Pagan."
*** Prof. David Swing in Chicago Journal.
There are some who think that the absolute prohibition of divorce does not contribute to the purity of society, and are therefore of opinion that divorce with liberty to remarry does good in this regard. He who believes the matrimonial bond indissoluble, divorce a vinculo evil, and the connection resulting from it criminal, can only say: "Evil should not be done that good may come." But, after all, would even passing good come from this greater freedom? In a few exceptional cases—Yes: in the vast majority of cases—No. The trying of divorce as a safeguard of purity is an old experiment, and an unsuccessful one. In Rome adulteries increased as divorces were multiplied. After speaking of the facility and frequency of divorce among the Romans, Gibbon adds:
"A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which demonstrates that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue. The facility of separation would destroy all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute. The minute difference between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be removed, might still more easily be forgotten."*
How apropos in this connection are the words of Professor Woolsey:
"Nothing is more startling than to pass from the first part of the eighteenth to this latter part of the nineteenth century, and to observe how law has changed and opinion has altered in regard to marriage, the great foundation of society, and to divorce; and how, almost pari passu, various offences against chastity, such as concubinage, prostitution, illegitimate births, abortion, disinclination to family life, have increased also—not, indeed, at the same pace everywhere, or all of them equally in all countries, yet have decidedly increased on the whole."!
Surely in few parts of the wide world is the truth of these strong words more evident than in those parts of our own country where loose divorce laws have long prevailed.
It should be noted that, while never allowing the dissolution of the marriage bond, the Catholic Church has always permitted, for grave causes and under certain conditions, a temporary or permanent "separation from bed and board."
* "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Milman's Ed., Vol.
III., p. 236.
** "Divorce and Divorce Legislation," 2d Ed., p. 274.
The causes which, positis ponendis, justify such separation may be briefly given thus: mutual consent, adultery, and grave peril of soul or body.
It may be said that there are persons so unhappily mated and so constituted that for them no relief can come save from divorce a vinculo, with permission to remarry. I shall not linger here to point out to such the need of seeking from a higher than earthly power the grace to suffer and be strong. But for those whose reasoning on this subject is of the earth, earthy, I shall add some words of practical worldly wisdom from eminent jurists. In a note to his edition of Blackstone's "Commentaries," Mr. John Taylor Coleridge says:
"It is no less truly than beautifully said by Sir W. Scott, in the case of Evans v. Evans, that 'though in particular cases the repugnance of the law to dissolve the obligation of matrimonial cohabitation may operate with great severity upon individuals, yet it must be carefully remembered that the general happiness of the married life is secured by its indissolubility.' When people understand that they must live together, except for a few reasons known to the law, they learn to soften by mutual accommodation that yoke which they know they cannot shake off: they become good husbands and good wives from the necessity of remaining husbands and wives: for necessity is a powerful master in teaching the duties which it imposes. If it were once understood that upon mutual disgust married persons might be legally separated, many couples who now pass through the world with mutual comfort, with attention to their common offspring, and to the moral order of civil society, might have been at this moment living in a state of mutual unkindness, in a state of estrangement from their common offspring, and in a state of the most licentious and unrestrained immorality. In this case, as in many other cases, the happiness of some individuals must be sacrificed to the greater and more general good."
The facility and frequency of divorce, and its lamentable consequences, are nowadays calling much attention to measures of "divorce reform." "How can divorce reform be best secured?" it may be asked. Believing, as I do, that divorce is evil, I also believe that its "reformation" and its death must be simultaneous. It should cease to be. Divorce as we know it began when marriage was removed from the domain of the church: divorce shall cease when the old order shall be restored. Will this ever come to pass? Perhaps so—after many days. Meanwhile, something might be done, something should be done, to lessen the evils of divorce. Our present divorce legislation must be presumed to be such as the majority of the people wish it. A first step, therefore, in the way of "divorce reform" should be the creation of a more healthy public sentiment on this question. Then will follow measures that will do good in proportion to their stringency. A few practical suggestions as to the salient features of remedial divorce legislation may not be out of place. Persons seeking at the hands of the civil law relief in matrimonial troubles should have the right to ask for divorce a vinculo, or simple separation a mensâ et thoro, as they may elect. The number of legally-recognized grounds for divorce should be lessened, and "noiseless" divorces forbidden. "Rapid-transit" facilities for passing through divorce courts should be cut off, and divorce "agencies" should be suppressed. The plaintiff in a divorce case should be a bona fide resident of the judicial district in which his petition is filed, and in every divorce case the legal representatives of the State should appear for the defendant, and, by all means, the right of remarriage after divorce should be restricted. If divorce cannot be legislated out of existence, let, at least, its power for evil be diminished.
James Cardinal Gibbons.
I am asked certain questions with regard to the attitude of the Episcopal Church towards the matter of divorce. In undertaking to answer them, it is to be remembered that there is a considerable variety of opinion which is held in more or less precise conformity with doctrinal or canonical declarations of the church. With these variations this paper, except in so far as it may briefly indicate them, is not concerned. Nor is it an expression of individual opinion. That is not what has been asked for or attempted.
The doctrine and law of the Protestant Episcopal Church on the subject of divorce is contained in canon 13, title II., of the "Digest of the Canons," 1887. That, canon has been to a certain extent interpreted by Episcopal judgments under section IV. The "public opinion" of the clergy or laity can only be ascertained in the usual way; especially by examining their published treatises, letters, etc., and perhaps most satisfactorily by the reports of discussion in the diocesan and general conventions on the subject of divorce. Among members of the Protestant Episcopal Church divorce is excessively rare, cases of uncertainty in the application of the canon, are much more rare, and the practice of the clergy is almost perfectly uniform. There is, however, by no means the same uniformity in their opinions either as to divorce or marriage.
As divorce is necessarily a mere accident of marriage, and as divorce is impossible without a precedent marriage, much practical difficulty might arise, and much difference of opinion does arise, from the fact that the Protestant Episcopal Church has nowhere defined marriage. Negatively, it is explicitly affirmed (Article XXV.) that "matrimony is not to be counted for a sacrament of the Gospel." This might seem to reduce matrimony to a civil contract. And accordingly the first rubric in the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony directs, on the ground of differences of laws in the various States, that "the minister is left to the direction of those laws in everything that regards the civil contract between the parties." Laws determining what persons shall be capable of contracting would seem to be included in "everything that regards the civil contract;" and unquestionably the laws of most of the States render all persons legally divorced capable of at once contracting a new marriage. Both the first section of canon 13 and the Form of Solemnization, affirm that, "if any persons be joined together otherwise than as God's word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful." But it is nowhere excepting as to divorce, declared what the impediments are. The Protestant Episcopal Church has never, by canon or express legislation, published, for instance, a table of prohibited degrees.
On the matter of divorce, however, canon 13, title II., supersedes, for the members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, both a part of the civil law relating to the persons capable of contracting marriage, and also all private judgment as to the teaching of "the Word of God" on that subject. No minister is allowed, as a rule, to solemnize the marriage of any man or woman who has a divorced husband or wife still living. But if the person seeking to be married is the innocent party in the divorce for adultery, that person, whether man or woman, may be married by a minister of the church. With the above exception, the clergy are forbidden to administer the sacraments to any divorced and remarried person without the express permission of the bishop, unless that person be "penitent" and "in imminent danger of death." Any doubts "as to the facts of any case under section II. of this canon" must be referred to the bishop. Of course, where there is no reasonable doubt the minister may proceed. It may be added that the sacraments are to be refused also to persons who may be reasonably supposed to have contracted marriage "otherwise," in any respect, "than as the Word of God and the discipline of this Church doth allow." These impediments are nowhere defined; and accordingly it has happened that a man who had married a deceased wife's sister and the woman he had married were, by the private judgment of a priest, refused the holy communion. The civil courts do not seem inclined to protect the clergy from consequences of interference with the civil law. In Southbridge, Mass., a few weeks ago, a man who had been denounced from the altar for marrying again after a divorce obtained a judgment for $1,720 damages. The law of the church would seem to be that, even though a legal divorce may have been obtained, remarriage is absolutely forbidden, excepting to the innocent party, whether man or woman, in a divorce for adultery. The penalty for breach of this law might involve, for the officiating clergyman, deposition from the ministry; for the offending man or woman, exclusion from the sacraments, which, in the judgment of a very large number of the clergy, involves everlasting damnation.
It is obvious, then, that the Protestant Episcopal Church allows the complete validity of a divorce a vinculo in the case of adultery, and the right of remarriage to the innocent party. But that church has not determined in what manner either the grounds of the divorce or the "innocence" of either party is to be ascertained. The canon does not require a clergyman to demand, nor can the church enable him to secure, the production of a copy of the record or decree of the court of law by which a divorce is granted, nor would such decree indicate the "innocence" of one party, though it might prove the guilt of the other.
The effect of divorce upon the integrity of the family is too obvious to require stating. As the father and mother are the heads of the family, their separation must inevitably destroy the common family life. On the other hand, it is often contended that the destruction has been already completed, and that a divorce is only the legal recognition of what has already taken place; "the integrity of the family" can scarcely remain when either a father or mother, or both, are living in violation of the law on which that integrity rests. The question may be asked whether the absolute prohibition of divorce would contribute to the moral purity of society. It is difficult to answer such a question, because anything on the subject must be comparatively worthless until verified by experience. It is quite certain that the prohibition of divorce never prevents illicit sexual connections, as was abundantly proved when divorce in England was put within the reach of persons who were not able to afford the expense of a special act of Parliament. It is, indeed, so palpable a fact that any amount of evidence or argument is wholly superfluous.
The law of the Protestant Episcopal Church is by no means identical with the opinion of either the clergy or the laity. In the judgment of many, the existing law is far too lax, or, at least, the whole doctrine of marriage is far too inadequately dealt with in the authoritative teaching of the church. The opinion of this school finds, perhaps, its most adequate expression in the report of a committee of the last General Convention forming Appendix XIII. of the "Journal" of that convention. It is, substantially, that the Mosaic law of marriage is still binding upon the church, unless directly abrogated by Christ himself; that it was abrogated by him only so far that all divorce was forbidden by him, excepting for the cause of fornication; that a woman might not claim divorce for any reason whatever; that the marriage of a divorced person until the death of the other party is wholly forbidden; that marriage is not merely a civil contract, but a spiritual and supernatural union, requiring for its mutual obligation a supernatural, divine grace; that such grace is only imparted in the sacrament of matrimony, which is a true sacrament and does actually confer grace; that marriage is wholly within the jurisdiction of the church, though the State may determine such rules and guarantees as may secure publicity and sufficient evidence of a marriage, etc.; that severe penalties should be inflicted by the State, on the demand of the church, for the suppression of all offences against the seventh commandment and sundry other parts of the Mosaic legislation, especially in relation to "prohibited degrees."
There is another school, equally earnest and sincere in its zeal for the integrity of the family and sexual purity, which would nevertheless repudiate much the greater part of the above assumption. This school, if one may so venture to combine scattered opinions, argues substantially as follows: The type of all Mosaic legislation was circumcision; that rite was of universal obligation and divine authority. St. Paul so regarded it. The abrogation of the law requiring circumcision was, therefore, the abrogation of the whole of the Mosaic legislation. The "burden of proof," therefore, rests upon those who affirm the present obligation of what formed a part of the Mosaic law; and they must show that it has been reenacted by Christ and his Apostles or forms some part of some other and independent system of law or morals still in force. Christ's words about divorce are not to be construed as a positive law, but as expressing the ideal of marriage, and corresponding to his words about eunuchs, which not everybody "can receive." So far as Christ's words seem to indicate an inequality as to divorce between man and woman, they are explained by the authoritative and inspired assertion of St. Paul: "In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female." A divine law is equally authoritative by whomsoever declared—whether by the Son Incarnate or by the Holy Ghost speaking through inspired Apostles. If, then, a divine law was ever capable of suspension or modification, it may still be capable of such suspension or modification in corresponding circumstances. The circumstances which justified a modification of the original divine law of marriage do still exist in many conditions of society and even of individual life. The Protestant Episcopal Church cannot, alone, speak with such authority on disputed passages of Scripture as to justify her ministers in direct disobedience to the civil authority, which is also "ordained of God." The exegesis of the early church was closely connected with theories about matter, and about the inferiority of women and of married life, which are no longer believed.
Of course this is a very brief statement. As a matter of fact the actual effect of the doctrine and discipline of the Protestant Episcopal Church on marriage and divorce is that divorce among her members is excessively rare; that it is regarded with extreme aversion; and that the public opinion of the church maintains the law as it now is, but could not be trusted to execute laws more stringent. A member of the committee of the General Convention whose report has been already referred to closes that report with the following protest:
"The undersigned finds himself unable to concur in so much of the [proposed] canon as forbids the holy communion to a truly pious and godly woman who has been compelled by long years of suffering from a drunken and brutal husband to obtain a divorce, and has regularly married some suitable person according to the established laws of the land. And also from so much of the [proposed] canon as may seem to forbid marriage with a deceased wife's sister."
The final action on these points, which has already been stated, indicates that the proposed report thus referred to was, in one particular at least, in advance of the sentiment of the church as expressed in her General Convention.
Henry C. Potter.
Question (1.) Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances?
The world for the most part is ruled by the tomb, and the living are tyrannized over by the dead. Old ideas, long after the conditions under which they were produced have passed away, often persist in surviving. Many are disposed to worship the ancient—to follow the old paths, without inquiring where they lead, and without knowing exactly where they wish to go themselves.
Opinions on the subject of divorce have been, for the most part, inherited from the early Christians. They have come to us through theological and priestly channels. The early Christians believed that the world was about to be destroyed, or that it was to be purified by fire; that all the wicked were to perish, and that the good were to be caught up in the air to meet their Lord—to remain there, in all probability, until the earth was prepared as a habitation for the blessed. With this thought or belief in their minds, the things of this world were of comparatively no importance. The man who built larger barns in which to store his grain was regarded as a foolish farmer, who had forgotten, in his greed for gain, the value of his own soul. They regarded prosperous people as the children of Mammon, and the unfortunate, the wretched and diseased, as the favorites of God. They discouraged all worldly pursuits, except the soliciting of alms. There was no time to marry or to be given in marriage; no time to build homes and have families. All their thoughts were centred upon the heaven they expected to inherit. Business, love, all secular things, fell into disrepute.
Nothing is said in the Testament about the families of the apostles; nothing of family life, of the sacredness of home; nothing about the necessity of education, the improvement and development of the mind. These things were forgotten, for the reason that nothing, in the presence of the expected event, was considered of any importance, except to be ready when the Son of Man should come. Such was the feeling, that rewards were offered by Christ himself to those who would desert their wives and children. Human love was spoken of with contempt. "Let the dead bury their dead. What is that to thee? Follow thou me." They not only believed these things, but acted in accordance with them; and, as a consequence, all the relations of life were denied or avoided, and their obligations disregarded. Marriage was discouraged. It was regarded as only one degree above open and unbridled vice, and was allowed only in consideration of human weakness. It was thought far better not to marry—that it was something grander for a man to love God than to love woman. The exceedingly godly, the really spiritual, believed in celibacy, and held the opposite sex in a kind of pious abhorrence. And yet, with that inconsistency so characteristic of theologians, marriage was held to be a sacrament. The priest said to the man who married: "Remember that you are caught for life. This door opens but once. Before this den of matrimony the tracks are all one way." This was in the nature of a punishment for having married. The theologian felt that the contract of marriage, if not contrary to God's command, was at least contrary to his advice, and that the married ought to suffer in some way, as a matter of justice. The fact that there could be no divorce, that a mistake could not be corrected, was held up as a warning. At every wedding feast this skeleton stretched its fleshless finger towards bride and groom.
Nearly all intelligent people have given up the idea that the world is about to come to an end. They do not now believe that prosperity is a certain sign of wickedness, or that poverty and wretchedness are sure certificates of virtue. They are hardly convinced that Dives should have been sent to hell simply for being rich, or that Lazarus was entitled to eternal joy on account of his poverty. We now know that prosperous people may be good, and that unfortunate people may be bad. We have reached the conclusion that the practice of virtue tends in the direction of prosperity, and that a violation of the conditions of well-being brings, with absolute certainty, wretchedness and misfortune.
There was a time when it was believed that the sin of an individual was visited upon the tribe, the community, or the nation to which he belonged. It was then thought that if a man or woman had made a vow to God, and had failed to keep the vow, God might punish the entire community; therefore it was the business of the community to see to it that the vow was kept. That idea has been abandoned. As we progress, the rights of the individual are perceived, and we are now beginning dimly to discern that there are no rights higher than the rights of the individual. There was a time when nearly all believed in the reforming power of punishment—in the beneficence of brute force. But the world is changing. It was at one time thought that the Inquisition was the savior of society; that the persecution of the philosopher was requisite to the preservation of the state, and that, no matter what happened, the state should be preserved. We have now more light. And standing upon this luminous point that we call the present, let me answer your questions.
Marriage is the most important, the most sacred, contract that human beings can make. No matter whether we call it a contract, or a sacrament, or both, it remains precisely the same. And no matter whether this contract is entered into in the presence of magistrate or priest, it is exactly the same. A true marriage is a natural concord and agreement of souls, a harmony in which discord is not even imagined; it is a mingling so perfect that only one seems to exist; all other considerations are lost; the present seems to be eternal. In this supreme moment there is no shadow—or the shadow is as luminous as light. And when two beings thus love, thus unite, this is the true marriage of soul and soul. That which is said before the altar, or minister, or magistrate, or in the presence of witnesses, is only the outward evidence of that which has already happened within; it simply testifies to a union that has already taken place—to the uniting of two mornings of hope to reach the night together. Each has found the ideal; the man has found the one woman of all the world—the impersonation of affection, purity, passion, love, beauty, and grace; and the woman has found the one man of all the world, her ideal, and all that she knows of romance, of art, courage, heroism, honesty, is realized in him. The idea of contract is lost. Duty and obligation are instantly changed into desire and joy, and two lives, like uniting streams, flow on as one. Nothing can add to the sacredness of this marriage, to the obligation and duty of each to each. There is nothing in the ceremony except the desire on the part of the man and woman that the whole world should know that they are really married and that their souls have been united.
Every marriage, for a thousand reasons, should be public, should be recorded, should be known; but, above all, to the end that the purity of the union should appear. These ceremonies are not only for the good and for the protection of the married, but also for the protection of their children, and of society as well. But, after all, the marriage remains a contract of the highest possible character—a contract in which each gives and receives a heart.
The question then arises, Should this marriage, under any circumstances, be dissolved? It is easy to understand the position taken by the various churches; but back of theological opinions is the question of contract.
In this contract of marriage, the man agrees to protect and cherish his wife. Suppose that he refuses to protect; that he abuses, assaults, and tramples upon the woman he wed. What is her redress? Is she under any obligation to him? He has violated the contract. He has failed to protect, and, in addition, he has assaulted her like a wild beast. Is she under any obligation to him? Is she bound by the contract he has broken? If so, what is the consideration for this obligation? Must she live with him for his sake? or, if she leaves him to preserve her life, must she remain his wife for his sake? No intelligent man will answer these questions in the affirmative.
If, then, she is not bound to remain his wife for the husband's sake, is she bound to remain his wife because the marriage was a sacrament? Is there any obligation on the part of the wife to remain with the brutal husband for the sake of God? Can her conduct affect in any way the happiness of an infinite being? Is it possible for a human being to increase or diminish the well-being of the Infinite?
The next question is as to the right of society in this matter. It must be admitted that the peace of society will be promoted by the separation of such people. Certainly society cannot insist upon a wife remaining with a husband who bruises and mangles her flesh. Even married women have a right to personal security. They do not lose, either by contract or sacrament, the right of self-preservation; this they share in common, to say the least of it, with the lowest living creatures.
This will probably be admitted by most of the enemies of divorce; but they will insist that while the wife has the right to flee from her husband's roof and seek protection of kindred or friends, the marriage—the sacrament—must remain unbroken. Is it to the interest of society that those who despise each other should live together? Ought the world to be peopled by the children of hatred or disgust, the children of lust and loathing, or by the welcome babes of mutual love? Is it possible that an infinitely wise and compassionate God insists that a helpless woman shall remain the wife of a cruel wretch? Can this add to the joy of Paradise, or tend to keep one harp in tune? Can anything be more infamous than for a government to compel a woman to remain the wife of a man she hates—of one whom she justly holds in abhorrence? Does any decent man wish the assistance of a constable, a sheriff, a judge, or a church, to keep his wife in his house? Is it possible to conceive of a more contemptible human being than a man who would appeal to force in such a case? It may be said that the woman is free to go, and that the courts will protect her from the brutality of the man who promised to be her protector; but where shall the woman go? She may have no friends; or they may be poor; her kindred may be dead. Has she no right to build another home? Must this woman, full of kindness, affection, health, be tied and chained to this living corpse? Is there no future for her? Must she be an outcast forever—deceived and betrayed for her whole life? Can she never sit by her own hearth, with the arms of her children about her neck, and with a husband who loves and protects her? Is she to become a social pariah, and is this for the benefit of society?—or is it for the sake of the wretch who destroyed her life?
The ground has been taken that woman would lose her dignity if marriage could be annulled. Is it necessary to lose your liberty in order to retain your moral character—in order to be pure and womanly? Must a woman, in order to retain her virtue, become a slave, a serf, with a beast for a master, or with society for a master, or with a phantom for a master?
If an infinite being is one of the parties to the contract, is it not the duty of this being to see to it that the contract is carried out? What consideration does the infinite being give? What consideration does he receive? If a wife owes no duty to her husband because the husband has violated the contract, and has even assaulted her life, is it possible for her to feel toward him any real thrill of affection? If she does not, what is there left of marriage? What part of this contract or sacrament remains in living force? She can not sustain the relation of wife, because she abhors him; she cannot remain under the same roof, for fear that she may be killed. They sustain, then, only the relations of hunter and hunted—of tyrant and victim. Is it desirable that this relation should last through life, and that it should be rendered sacred by the ceremony of a church?
Again I ask, Is it desirable to have families raised under such circumstances? Are we in need of children born of such parents? Can the virtue of others be preserved only by this destruction of happiness, by this perpetual imprisonment?
A marriage without love is bad enough, and a marriage for wealth or position is low enough; but what shall we say of a marriage where the parties actually abhor each other? Is there any morality in this? any virtue in this? Is there virtue in retaining the name of wife, or husband, without the real and true relation? Will any good man say, will any good woman declare, that a true, loving woman should be compelled to be the mother of children whose father she detests? Is there a good woman in the world who would not shrink from this herself; and is there a woman so heartless and so immoral that she would force another to bear that from which she would shudderingly and shriekingly shrink?
Marriages are made by men and women; not by society; not by the state; not by the church; not by supernatural beings. By this time we should know that nothing is moral that does not tend to the well-being of sentient beings; that nothing is virtuous the result of which is not good. We know now, if we know anything, that all the reasons for doing right, and all the reasons against doing wrong, are here in this world. We should have imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of another. Let a man suppose himself a helpless woman beaten by a brutal husband—would he advocate divorces then?
Few people have an adequate idea of the sufferings of women and children, of the number of wives who tremble when they hear the footsteps of a returning husband, of the number of children who hide when they hear the voice of a father. Few people know the number of blows that fall on the flesh of the helpless every day, and few know the nights of terror passed by mothers who hold babes to their breasts. Compared with these, all the hardships of poverty borne by those who love each other are as nothing. Men and women truly married bear the sufferings and misfortunes of poverty together. They console each other. In the darkest night they see the radiance of a star, and their affection gives to the heart of each perpetual sunshine.
The good home is the unit of the good government. The hearthstone is the corner-stone of civilization. Society is not interested in the preservation of hateful homes, of homes where husbands and wives are selfish, cold, and cruel. It is not to the interest of society that good women should be enslaved, that they should live in fear, or that they should become mothers by husbands whom they hate. Homes should be filled with kind and generous fathers, with true and loving mothers; and when they are so filled, the world will be civilized. Intelligence will rock the cradle; justice will sit in the courts; wisdom in the legislative halls; and above all and over all, like the dome of heaven, will be the spirit of liberty.
Although marriage is the most important and the most sacred contract that human beings can make, still when that contract has been violated, courts should have the power to declare it null and void upon such conditions as may be just.
As a rule, the woman dowers the husband with her youth, her beauty, her love—with all she has; and from this contract certainly the husband should never be released, unless the wife has broken the conditions of that contract. Divorces should be granted publicly, precisely as the marriage should be solemnized. Every marriage should be known, and there should be witnesses, to the end that the character of the contract entered into should be understood; the record should be open and public. And the same is true of divorces. The conditions should be determined, the property should be divided by a court of equity, and the custody of the children given under regulations prescribed.
Men and women are not virtuous by law. Law does not of itself create virtue, nor is it the foundation or fountain of love. Law should protect virtue, and law should protect the wife, if she has kept her contract, and the husband, if he has fulfilled his. But the death of love is the end of marriage. Love is natural. Back of all ceremony burns and will forever burn the sacred flame. There has been no time in the world's history when that torch was extinguished. In all ages, in all climes, among all people, there has been true, pure, and unselfish love. Long before a ceremony was thought of, long before a priest existed, there were true and perfect marriages. Back of public opinion is natural modesty, the affections of the heart; and in spite of all law, there is and forever will be the realm of choice. Wherever love is, it is pure; and everywhere, and at all times, the ceremony of marriage testifies to that which has happened within the temple of the human heart.
Question (2). Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any circumstances?
This depends upon whether marriage is a crime. If it is not a crime, why should any penalty be attached? Can any one conceive of any reason why a woman obtaining a divorce, without fault on her part, should be compelled as a punishment to remain forever single? Why should she be punished for the dishonesty or brutality of another? Why should a man who faithfully kept his contract of marriage, and who was deserted by an unfaithful wife, be punished for the benefit of society? Why should he be doomed to live without a home?
There is still another view. We must remember that human passions are the same after as before divorce. To prevent remarriage is to give excuse for vice.
Question (3). What is the effect of divorce upon the integrity of the family?
The real marriage is back of the ceremony, and the real divorce is back of the decree. When love is dead, when husband and wife abhor each other, they are divorced. The decree records in a judicial way what has really taken place, just as the ceremony of marriage attests a contract already made.
The true family is the result of the true marriage, and the institution of the family should above all things be preserved. What becomes of the sacredness of the home, if the law compels those who abhor each other to sit at the same hearth? This lowers the standard, and changes the happy haven of home into the prison-cell. If we wish to preserve the integrity of the family, we must preserve the democracy of the fireside, the republicanism of the home, the absolute and perfect equality of husband and wife. There must be no exhibition of force, no spectre of fear. The mother must not remain through an order of court, or the command of a priest, or by virtue of the tyranny of society; she must sit in absolute freedom, the queen of herself, the sovereign of her own soul and of her own body. Real homes can never be preserved through force, through slavery, or superstition. Nothing can be more sacred than a home, no altar purer than the hearth.
Question (4). Does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists contribute to the moral purity of society?
We must define our terms. What is moral purity? The intelligent of this world seek the well-being of themselves and others. They know that happiness is the only good; and this they strive to attain. To live in accordance with the conditions of well-being is moral in the highest sense. To use the best instrumentalities to attain the highest ends is our highest conception of the moral. In other words, morality is the melody of the perfection of conduct. A man is not moral because he is obedient through fear or ignorance. Morality lives in the realm of perceived obligation, and where a being acts in accordance with perceived obligation, that being is moral. Morality is not the child of slavery. Ignorance is not the corner-stone of virtue.
The first duty of a human being is to himself. He must see to it that he does not become a burden upon others. To be self-respecting, he must endeavor to be self-sustaining. If by his industry and intelligence he accumulates a margin, then he is under obligation to do with that margin all the good he can. He who lives to the ideal does the best he can. In true marriage men and women give not only their bodies, but their souls. This is the ideal marriage; this is moral. They who give their bodies, but not their souls, are not married, whatever the ceremony may be; this is immoral.
If this be true, upon what principle can a woman continue to sustain the relation of wife after love is dead? Is there some other consideration that can take the place of genuine affection? Can she be bribed with money, or a home, or position, or by public opinion, and still remain a virtuous woman? Is it for the good of society that virtue should be thus crucified between church and state? Can it be said that this contributes to the moral purity of the human race?
Is there a higher standard of virtue in countries where divorce is prohibited than in those where it is granted? Where husbands and wives who have ceased to love cannot be divorced, there are mistresses and lovers.
The sacramental view of marriage is the shield of vice. The world looks at the wife who has been abused, who has been driven from the home of her husband, and the world pities; and when this wife is loved by some other man, the world excuses. So, too, the husband who cannot live in peace, who leaves his home, is pitied and excused.
Is it possible to conceive of anything more immoral than for a husband to insist on living with a wife who has no love for him? Is not this a perpetual crime? Is the wife to lose her personality? Has she no right of choice? Is her modesty the property of another? Is the man she hates the lord of her desire? Has she no right to guard the jewels of her soul? Is there a depth below this? And is this the foundation of morality? this the corner-stone of society? this the arch that supports the dome of civilization? Is this pathetic sacrifice on the one hand, this sacrilege on the other, pleasing in the sight of heaven?
To me, the tenderest word in our language, the most pathetic fact within our knowledge, is maternity. Around this sacred word cluster the joys and sorrows, the agonies and ecstasies, of the human race. The mother walks in the shadow of death that she may give another life. Upon the altar of love she puts her own life in pawn. When the world is civilized, no wife will become a mother against her will. Man will then know that to enslave another is to imprison himself.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
A LITTLE while ago the North American Review propounded the following questions:
1. Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances?
2. Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry, under any circumstances?
3. What is the effect of divorce on the integrity of the family?
4. Does the absolute prohibition of divorce, where it exists, contribute to the moral purity of society?
These questions were answered in the November number of the Review, 1889, by Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Henry C. Potter and myself. In the December number, the same questions were again answered by W. E. Gladstone, Justice Bradley and Senator Dolph. In the following month Mary A. Livermore, Amelia E. Barr, Rose Terry Cooke, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Jennie June gave their opinions upon the subject of divorce; and in the February number of this year, Margaret Lee and the Rev. Phillip S. Moxom contributed articles upon this subject.
I propose to review these articles, and, first, let me say a few words in answer to Cardinal Gibbons.
REPLY TO CARDINAL GIBBONS.
The indissolubility of marriage was a reaction from polygamy. Man naturally rushes from one extreme to the other. The Cardinal informs us that "God instituted in Paradise the marriage state, and sanctified it;" that "he established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility." The Cardinal, however, accounts for polygamy and divorce by saying that, "marriage suffered in the fall."
If it be true that God instituted marriage in the Garden of Eden, and declared its unity and indissolubility, how do you account for the fact that this same God afterwards upheld polygamy? How is it that he forgot to say anything on the subject when he gave the Ten Commandments to Moses? How does it happen that in these commandments he puts women on an equality with other property—"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, or thy neighbor's ox, or anything that is thy neighbor's"? How did it happen that Jacob, who was in direct communication with God, married, not his deceased wife's sister, but both sisters, while both were living? Is there any way of accounting for the fact that God upheld concubinage?
Neither is it true that "Christ reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms, the sanctity, unity, and indissolubility of marriage." Neither is it true that "Christ gave to this state an added holiness and a dignity higher far than it had 'from the beginning.'" If God declared the unity and indissolubility of marriage in the Garden of Eden, how was it possible for Christ to have "added a holiness and dignity to marriage higher far than it had from the beginning"? How did Christ make marriage a sacrament? There is nothing on that subject in the new Testament; besides, Christ did apparently allow divorce, for one cause at least. He is reported to have said: "Whosoever putteth away his wife, save for fornication, causeth her to commit adultery."
The Cardinal answers the question, "Can divorce from the bonds of marriage ever be allowed?" with an emphatic theological "NO," and as a reason for this "no," says, "Thus saith the Lord."
It is true that we regard Mormonism as a national disgrace, and that we so regard it because the Mormons are polygamists. At the same time, intelligent people admit that polygamy is no worse in Utah, than it was in Palestine—no worse under Joseph Smith, than under Jehovah—that it has been and must be forever the same, in all countries and in all times. The Cardinal takes the ground that "there are two species of polygamy—simultaneous and successive," and yet he seems to regard both species with equal horror. If a wife dies and the husband marries another woman, is not that successive polygamy?
The Cardinal takes the ground that while no dissolution of the marriage bond should be allowed, yet for grave causes a temporary or permanent separation from bed and board may be obtained, and these causes he enumerates as "mutual consent, adultery, and grave peril of soul or body." To those, however, not satisfied with this doctrine, and who are "so unhappily mated and so constituted that for them no relief can come save from absolute divorce," the Cardinal says, in a very sympathetic way, that he "Will not linger here to point out to such the need of seeking from a higher than earthly power, the grace to suffer and be strong."
At the foundation and upon the very threshold of this inquiry, one thing ought to be settled, and that is this: Are we to answer these questions in the light of human experience; are we to answer them from the standpoint of what is better here, in this world, for men and women—what is better for society here and now—or are we to ask: What is the will of God? And in order to find out what is this will of God, are we to ask the church, or are we to read what are called "the sacred writings" for ourselves? In other words, are these questions to be settled by theological and ecclesiastical authority, or by the common sense of mankind? No one, in my judgment, should marry for the sake of God, and no one should be divorced for the sake of God, and no man and woman should live together as husband and wife, for the sake of God. God being an infinite being, cannot be rendered unhappy by any action of man, neither can his well-being be increased; consequently, the will of God has nothing whatever to do with this matter. The real question then must be: What is best for man?
Only the other day, a husband sought out his wife and with his own hand covered her face with sulphuric acid, and in a moment afterward she was blind. A Cardinal of the Catholic Church tells this woman, sitting in darkness, that it is her duty to "suffer and be strong"; that she must still remain the wife of this wretch; that to break the bond that binds them together, would be an act of sacrilege. So, too, two years ago, a husband deserted his wife in Germany. He came to this country. She was poor. She had two children—one a babe. Holding one in her arm, and leading the other by the hand, she walked hundreds of miles to the shore of the sea. Overcome by fatigue, she was taken sick, and for months remained in a hospital. Having recovered, she went to work, and finally got enough money to pay her passage to New York. She came to this city, bringing her children with her. Upon her arrival, she commenced a search for her husband. One day overcome by exertion, she fainted in the street. Persons took pity upon her and carried her upstairs into a room. By a strange coincidence, a few moments afterward her husband entered. She recognized him. He fell upon her like a wild beast, and threw her down the stairs. She was taken up from the pavement bleeding, and carried to a hospital.
The Cardinal says to this woman: Remain the wife of this man; it will be very pleasing to God; "suffer and be strong." But I say to this woman: Apply to some Court; get a decree of absolute divorce; cling to your children, and if at any time hereafter some good and honest man offers you his hand and heart, and you can love him, accept him and build another home, to the end that you may sit by your own fireside, in your old age, with your children about you.
It is not true that the indissolubility of marriage preserves the virtue of mankind. The fact is exactly the opposite. If the Cardinal wishes to know why there are more divorces now than there were fifty or a hundred years ago, let me tell him: Women are far more intelligent—some of them are no longer the slaves either of husbands, or priests. They are beginning to think for themselves. They can see no good reason why they should sacrifice their lives to please Popes or Gods. They are no longer deceived by theological prophecies. They are not willing to suffer here, with the hope of being happy beyond the clouds—they want their happiness now.
REPLY TO BISHOP POTTER.
Bishop Potter does not agree with the Cardinal, yet they both study substantially the same bible—both have been set apart for the purpose of revealing the revelation. They are the persons whose duty it is to enlighten the common people. Cardinal Gibbons knows that he represents the only true church, and Bishop Potter is just as sure that he occupies that position. What is the ordinary man to do?
The Cardinal states, without the slightest hesitation, that "Christ made marriage a sacrament—made it the type of his own never-ending union with his one sinless spouse, the church." The Bishop does not agree with the Cardinal. He says: "Christ's words about divorce are not to be construed as a positive law, but as expressing the ideal of marriage, and corresponding to his words about eunuchs, which not everybody can receive." Ought not the augurs to agree among themselves? What is a man who has only been born once, to do?
The Cardinal says explicitly that marriage is a sacrament, and the Bishop cites Article xxv., that "matrimony is not to be accounted for a sacrament of the gospel," and then admits that "this might seem to reduce matrimony to a civil contract." For the purpose of bolstering up that view, he says, "The first rubric in the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony declares that the minister is left to the direction of those laws in every thing that regards a civil contract between the parties.'" He admits that "no minister is allowed, as a rule, to solemnize the marriage of any man or woman who has a divorced husband or wife still living." As a matter of fact, we know that hundreds of Episcopalians do marry where a wife or a husband is still living, and they are not turned out of the Episcopal Church for this offence. The Bishop admits that the church can do very little on the subject, but seems to gather a little consolation from the fact, that "the penalty for breach of this law might involve, for the officiating clergyman, deposition from the ministry—for the offending man or woman exclusion from the sacraments, which, in the judgment of a very large number of the clergy, involves everlasting damnation."
The Cardinal is perfectly satisfied that the prohibition of divorce is the foundation of morality, and the Bishop is equally certain that "the prohibition of divorce never prevents illicit sexual connections."
The Bishop also gives us the report of a committee of the last General Convention, forming Appendix xiii of the Journal. This report, according to the Bishop, is to the effect "that the Mosaic law of marriage is still binding upon the church unless directly abrogated by Christ himself, that it-was abrogated by him only so far that all divorce was forbidden by him excepting for the cause of fornication; that a woman might not claim divorce for any reason whatever; that the marriage of a divorced person until the death of the other party, is wholly forbidden; that marriage is not merely a civil contract but a spiritual and supernatural union, requiring for its mutual obligations a supernatural divine grace, and that such grace is only imparted in the sacrament of matrimony."
The most beautiful thing about this report is, that a woman might not claim divorce for any reason whatever. I must admit that the report is in exact accordance with the words of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the Bishop, not to leave us entirely without hope, says that "there is in his church another school, equally earnest and sincere in its zeal for the integrity of the family, which would nevertheless repudiate the greater part of the above report."
There is one thing, however, that I was exceedingly glad to see, and that is, that according to the Bishop the ideas of the early church are closely connected with theories about matter, and about the inferiority of woman, and about married life, which are no longer believed. The Bishop has, with great clearness, stated several sides of this question; but I must say, that after reading the Cardinal and the Bishop, the earnest theological seeker after truth would find himself, to say the least of it, in some doubt.
As a matter of fact, who cares what the Old Testament says upon this subject? Are we to be bound forever by the ancient barbarians?
Mr. Gladstone takes the ground, first, "that marriage is essentially a contract for life, and only expires when life itself expires"; second, "that Christian marriage involves a vow before God"; third, "that no authority has been given to the Christian Church to cancel such a vow"; fourth, "that it lies beyond the province of tie civil legislature, which, from the necessity of things, has a veto within the limits of reason, upon the making of it, but has no competency to annul it when once made"; fifth, "that according to the laws of just interpretation, remarriage is forbidden by the text of Holy Scripture"; and sixth, "that while divorce of any kind impairs the integrity of the family, divorce with remarriage destroys it root and branch; that the parental and the conjugal relations are joined together by the hand of the Almighty no less than the persons united by the marriage tie, to one another." First. Undoubtedly, a real marriage was never entered into unless the parties expected to live together as long as they lived. It does not enter into the imagination of the real lover that the time is coming when he is to desert the being he adores, neither does it enter into the imagination of his wife, or of the girl about to become a wife. But how and in what way, does a Christian marriage involve a vow before God? Is God a party to the contract? If yes, he ought to see to it that the contract is carried out. If there are three parties—the man, the woman, and God—each one should be bound to do something, and what is God bound to do? Is he to hold the man to his contract, when the woman has violated hers? Is it his business to hold the woman to the contract, when the man has violated his? And what right has he to have anything to say on the subject, unless he has agreed to do something by reason of this vow? Otherwise, it would be simply a nudum pactum—a vow without consideration.
Mr. Gladstone informs us that no authority has been given to the Christian Church to cancel such a vow. If he means by that, that God has not given any such authority to the Christian Church, I most cheerfully admit it.*
* Note.—This abrupt termination, together with the
unfinished replies to Justice Bradley and Senator Dolph,
which follow, shows that the author must have been
interrupted in his work, and on next taking it up concluded
that the colloquial and concrete form would better serve his
turn than the more formal and didactic style above employed.
He thereupon dictated his reply to the Gibbon and Gladstone
arguments in the following form which will be regarded as a
most interesting instance of the author's wonderful
versatility of style.
This unfinished matter was found among Col. Ingersoll's
manuscripts, and is given as transcribed from the
stenographic notes of Mr. I. N. Baker, his secretary,
without revision by the author.
JUSTICE BRADLEY.
Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Potter, and Mr. Gladstone represent the theological side—that is to say, the impracticable, the supernatural, the unnatural. After reading their opinions, it is refreshing to read those of Justice Bradley. It is like coming out of the tomb into the fresh air.
Speaking of the law, whether regarded as divine or human or both, Justice Bradley says: "I know no other law on the subject but the moral law, which does not consist of arbitrary enactments and decrees, but is adapted to our condition as human beings. This is so, whether it is conceived of as the will of an all-wise creator, or as the voice of humanity speaking from its experience, its necessities and its higher instincts. And that law surely does not demand that the injured party to the marriage bond should be forever tied to one who disregards and violates every obligation that it imposes—to one with whom it is impossible to cohabit—to one whose touch is contamination. Nor does it demand that such injured party, if legally free, should be forever debarred from forming other ties through which the lost hopes of happiness for life may be restored. It is not reason, and it can not be law—divine, or moral—that unfaithfulness, or willful and obstinate desertion, or persistent cruelty of the stronger party, should afford no ground for relief.......If no redress be legalized, the law itself will be set at defiance, and greater injury to soul and body will result from clandestine methods of relief."
Surely, this is good, wholesome, practical common sense.
SENATOR DOLPH.
Senator Dolph strikes a strong blow, and takes the foundation from under the idiotic idea of legal separation without divorce. He says: "As there should be no partial divorce, which leaves the parties in the condition aptly described by an eminent jurist as 'a wife without a husband and a husband without a wife,' so, as a matter of public expediency, and in the interest of public morals, whenever and however the marriage is dissolved, both parties should be left free to remarry." Again: "Prohibition of remarriage is likely to injure society more than the remarriage of the guilty party;" and the Senator says, with great force: "Divorce for proper causes, free from fraud and collusion, conserves the moral integrity of the family."
In answering the question as to whether absolute prohibition of divorce tends to morality or immorality, the Senator cites the case of South Carolina. In that State, divorces were prohibited, and in consequence of this prohibition, the proportion of his property which a married man might give to his concubine was regulated by law.
THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED, IN COLLOQUIAL FORM.
Those who have written on the subject of divorce seem to be divided into two classes—the supernaturalists and the naturalists. The first class rely on tradition, inspired books, the opinions of theologians as expressed in creeds, and the decisions of ecclesiastical tribunals. The second class take into account the nature of human beings, their own experience, and the facts of life, as they know them. The first class live for another world; the second, for this—the one in which we live.
The theological theorists regard men and women as depraved, in consequence of what they are pleased to call "the fall of man," while the men and women of common sense know that the race has slowly and painfully progressed through countless years of suffering and toil. The priests insist that marriage is a sacrament; the philosopher, that it is a contract.
The question as to the propriety of granting divorces cannot now be settled by quoting passages of Scripture, or by appealing to creeds, or by citing the acts of legislatures or the decisions of courts. With intelligent millions, the Scriptures are no longer considered as of the slightest authority. They pay no more regard to the Bible than to the Koran, the Zend-Avestas, or the Popol Vuh—neither do they care for the various creeds that were formulated by barbarian ancestors, nor for the laws and decisions based upon the savagery of the past.
In the olden times when religions were manufactured—when priest-craft and lunacy governed the world—the women were not consulted. They were regarded and treated as serfs and menials—looked upon as a species of property to be bought and sold like the other domestic animals. This view or estimation of woman was undoubtedly in the mind of the author of the Ten Commandments when he said: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,—nor his ox."
Such, however, has been the advance of woman in all departments of knowledge—such advance having been made in spite of the efforts of the church to keep her the slave of faith—that the obligations, rights and remedies growing out of the contract of marriage and its violation, cannot be finally determined without her consent and approbation. Legislators and priests must consult with wives and mothers. They must become acquainted with their wants and desires—with their profound aversions* their pure hatreds, their loving self-denials, and, above all, with the religion of the body that moulds and dominates their lives.
We have learned to suspect the truth of the old, because it is old, and for that reason was born in the days of slavery and darkness—because the probability is that the parents of the old were ignorance and superstition. We are beginning to be wise enough to take into consideration the circumstances of our own time—the theories and aspirations of the present—the changed conditions of the world—the discoveries and inventions that have modified or completely changed the standards of the greatest of the human race. We are on the eve of discovering that nothing should be done for the sake of gods, but all for the good of man—nothing for another world—everything for this.
All the theories must be tested by experience, by facts. The moment a supernatural theory comes in contact with a natural fact, it falls to chaos. Let us test all these theories about marriage and divorce—all this sacramental, indissoluble imbecility, with a real case—with a fact in life.
A few years ago a man and woman fell in love and were married in a German village. The woman had a little money and this was squandered by the husband. When the money was gone, the husband deserted his wife and two little children, leaving them to live as best they might. She had honestly given her hand and heart, and believed that if she could only see him once more—if he could again look into her eyes—he would come back to her. The husband had fled to America. The wife lived four hundred miles from the sea. Taking her two little children with her, she traveled on foot the entire distance. For eight weeks she journeyed, and when she reached the sea—tired, hungry, worn out, she fell unconscious in the street. She was taken to the hospital, and for many weeks fought for life upon the shore of death. At last she recovered, and sailed for New York. She was enabled to get just enough money to buy a steerage ticket.
A few days ago, while wandering in the streets of New York in search of her husband, she sank unconscious to the sidewalk. She was taken into the home of another. In a little while her husband entered. He caught sight of his wife. She ran toward him, threw her arms about his neck, and cried: "At last I have found you!" "With an oath, he threw her to the floor; he bruised her flesh with his feet and fists; he dragged her into the hall, and threw her into the street."
Let us suppose that this poor wife sought out Cardinal Gibbons and the Right Honorable William E. Gladstone, for the purpose of asking their advice. Let us imagine the conversation:
The Wife. My dear Cardinal, I was married four years ago. I loved my husband and I was sure that he loved me. Two babes were born. He deserted me without cause. He left me in poverty and want. Feeling that he had been overcome by some delusion—tempted by something more than he could bear, and dreaming that if I could look upon his face again he would return, I followed-him on foot. I walked, with my children in my arms, four hundred miles. I crossed the sea. I found him at last—and instead of giving me again his love, he fell upon me like a wild beast. He bruised and blackened my flesh. He threw me from him, and for my proffered love I received curses and blows. Another man, touched by the evidence of my devotion, made my acquaintance—came to my relief—supplied my wants—gave me and my children comfort, and then offered me his hand and heart, in marriage. My dear Cardinal, I told him that I was a married woman, and he told me that I should obtain a divorce, and so I have come to ask your counsel.
The Cardinal. My dear woman, God instituted in Paradise the marriage state and sanctified it, and he established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility.
The Wife. But, Mr. Cardinal, if it be true that "God instituted marriage in the Garden of Eden, and declared its unity and indissolubility," how do you account for the fact that this same God afterward upheld polygamy? How is it that he forgot to say anything on the subject when he gave the Ten Commandments to Moses?
The Cardinal. You must remember that the institution of marriage suffered in the fall of man.
The Wife. How does that throw any light upon my case? That was long ago. Surely, I was not represented at that time, and is it right that I should be punished for what was done by others in the very beginning of the world?
The Cardinal. Christ reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms, the sanctity, unity and indissolubility of marriage, and Christ gave to this state an added holiness, and a dignity higher far than it had from the beginning.
The Wife. How did it happen that Jacob, while in direct communication with God, married, not his deceased wife's sister, but both sisters while both were living? And how, my dear Cardinal, do you account for the fact that God upheld concubinage?
The Cardinal. Marriage is a sacrament. You seem to ask me whether divorce from the bond of marriage can ever be allowed? I answer with an emphatic theological No; and as a reason for this No, I say, Thus saith the Lord. To allow a divorce and to permit the divorced parties, or either of them, to remarry, is one species of polygamy. There are two kinds—the simultaneous and the successive.
The Wife. But why did God allow simultaneous polygamy in Palestine? Was it any better in Palestine then than it is in Utah now? If a wife dies, and the husband marries another wife, is not that successive polygamy?
The Cardinal. Curiosity leads to the commission of deadly sins. We should be satisfied with a Thus saith the Lord, and you should be satisfied with a Thus saith the Cardinal. If you have the right to inquire—to ask questions—then you take upon yourself the right of deciding after the questions have been answered. This is the end of authority. This undermines the cathedral. You must remember the words of our Lord: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
The Wife. Do you really think that God joined us together? Did he at the time know what kind of man he was joining to me? Did he then know that he was a wretch, an ingrate, a kind of wild beast? Did he then know that this husband would desert me—leave me with two babes in my arms, without raiment and without food? Did God put his seal upon this bond of marriage, upon this sacrament, and it was well-pleasing in his sight that my life should be sacrificed, and does he leave me now to crawl toward death, in poverty and tears?
The Cardinal. My dear woman, I will not linger here to point out to you the need of seeking from a higher than an earthly power the grace to suffer and be strong.
The Wife. Mr. Cardinal, am I under any obligation to God? Will it increase the happiness of the infinite for me to remain homeless and husbandless? Another offers to make me his wife and to give me a home,—to take care of my children and to fill my heart with joy. If I accept, will the act lessen the felicity or ecstasy of heaven? Will it add to the grief of God? Will it in any way affect his well-being?
The Cardinal. Nothing that we can do can effect the well-being of God. He is infinitely above his children.
The Wife. Then why should he insist upon the sacrifice of my life? Mr. Cardinal, you do not seem to sympathize with me. You do not understand the pangs I feel. You are too far away from my heart, and your words of consolation do not heal the bruise; they leave me as I now leave you—without hope. I will ask the advice of the Right Honorable William E. Gladstone.
The Wife. Mr. Gladstone, you know my story, and so I ask that you will give me the benefit of your knowledge, of your advice.
Mr. Gladstone. My dear woman, marriage is essentially a contract for life, and only expires when life itself expires. I say this because Christian marriage involves a vow before God, and no authority has been given to the Christian Church to cancel such a vow.
The Wife. Do you consider that God was one of the contracting parties in my marriage? Must all vows made to God be kept? Suppose the vow was made in ignorance, in excitement—must it be absolutely fulfilled? Will it make any difference to God whether it is kept or not? Does not an infinite God know the circumstances under which every vow is made? Will he not take into consideration the imperfections, the ignorance, the temptations and the passions of his children? Will God hold a poor girl to the bitter dregs of a mistaken bargain? Have I not suffered enough? Is it necessary that my heart should break? Did not God know at the time the vow was made that it ought not to have been made? If he feels toward me as a father should, why did he give no warning? Why did he accept the vow? Why did he allow a contract to be made giving only to death the annulling power? Is death more merciful than God?
Mr. Gladstone. All vows that are made to God must be kept. Do you not remember that Jephthah agreed to sacrifice the first one who came out of his house to meet him, and that he fulfilled the vow, although in doing so, he murdered his own daughter. God makes no allowance for ignorance, for temptation, for passion—nothing. Besides, my dear woman, to cancel the contract of marriage lies beyond the province of the civil legislature; it has no competency to annul the contract of marriage when once made.
The Wife. The man who has rescued me from the tyranny of my husband—the man who wishes to build me a home and to make my life worth living, wishes to make with me a contract of marriage. This will give my babes a home.
Mr. Gladstone. My dear madam, while divorce of any kind impairs the integrity of the family, divorce with remarriage destroys it root and branch.
The Wife. The integrity of my family is already destroyed. My husband deserted his home—left us in the very depths of want. I have in my arms two helpless babes. I love my children, and I love the man who has offered to give them and myself another fireside. Can you say that this is only destruction? The destruction has already occurred. A remarriage gives a home to me and mine.
Mr. Gladstone. But, my dear mistaken woman, the parental and the conjugal relations are joined together by the hand of the Almighty.
The Wife. Do you believe that the Almighty was cruel enough, in my case, to join the parental and the conjugal relations, to the end that they should endure as long as I can bear the sorrow? If there were three parties to my marriage, my husband, myself, and God, should each be bound by the contract to do something? What did God bind himself to do? If nothing, why should he interfere? If nothing, my vow to him was without consideration. You are as cruel and unsympathetic, Mr. Gladstone, as the Cardinal. You have not the imagination to put yourself in my place.
Mr. Gladstone. My dear madam, we must be governed by the law of Christ, and there must be no remarriage. The husband and wife must remain husband and wife until a separation is caused by death.
The Wife. If Christ was such a believer in the sacredness of the marriage relation, why did he offer rewards not only in this world, but in the next, to husbands who would desert their wives and follow him?
Mr. Gladstone. It is not for us to inquire. God's ways are not our ways.
The Wife. Nature is better than you. A mother's love is higher and deeper than your philosophy. I will follow the instincts of my heart. I will provide a home for my babes, and for myself. I will be freed from the infamous man who betrayed me. I will become the wife of another—of one who loves me—and after having filled his life with joy, I hope to die in his arms, surrounded by my children.
A few months ago, a priest made a confession—he could carry his secret no longer. He admitted that he was married—that he was the father of two children—that he had violated his priestly vows. He was unfrocked and cast out. After a time he came back and asked to be restored into the bosom of the church, giving as his reason that he had abandoned his wife and babes. This throws a flood of light on the theological view of marriage.
I know of nothing equal to this, except the story of the Sandwich Island chief who was converted by the missionaries, and wished to join the church. On cross-examination, it turned out that he had twelve wives, and he was informed that a polygamist could not be a Christian. The next year he presented himself again for the purpose of joining the church, and stated that he was not a polygamist—that he had only one wife. When the missionaries asked him what he had done with the other eleven he replied: "I ate them."
The indissoluble marriage was a reaction from polygamy. The church has always pretended that it was governed by the will of God, and that for all its dogmas it had a "thus saith the Lord." Reason and experience were branded as false guides. The priests insisted that they were in direct communication with the Infinite—that they spoke by the authority of God, and that the duty of the people was to obey without question and to submit with at least the appearance of gladness.
We now know that no such communication exists—that priests spoke without authority, and that the duty of the people was and is to examine for themselves. We now know that no one knows what the will of God is, or whether or not such a being exists. We now know that nature has furnished all the light there is, and that the inspired books are like all books, and that their value depends on the truth, the beauty, and the wisdom they contain. We also know that it is now impossible to substantiate the supernatural. Judging from experience—reasoning from known facts—we can safely say that society has no right to demand the sacrifice of an innocent individual.
Society has no right, under the plea of self-preservation, to compel women to remain the wives of men who have violated the contract of marriage, and who have become objects of contempt and loathing to their wives. It is not to the best interest of society to maintain such firesides—such homes.
The time has not arrived, in my judgment, for the Congress of the United States, under an amendment to the Constitution, to pass a general law applicable to all the States, fixing the terms and conditions of divorce. The States of the Union are not equally enlightened. Some are far more conservative than others. Let us wait until a majority of the States have abandoned the theological theories upon this subject.
Upon this question light comes from the West, where men have recently laid the foundations of States, and where the people are not manacled and burdened with old constitutions and statutes and decisions, and where with a large majority the tendency is to correct the mistakes of their ancestors.
Let the States in their own way solve this question, and the time will come when the people will be ready to enact sensible and reasonable laws touching this important subject, and then the Constitution can be amended and the whole subject controlled by Federal law.
The law, as it now exists in many of the States, is to the last degree absurd and cruel. In some States the husband can obtain a divorce on the ground that the wife has been guilty of adultery, but the wife cannot secure a divorce from the husband simply for the reason that he has been guilty of the same offence. So, in most of the States where divorce is granted on account of desertion for a certain number of years, the husband can return on the last day of the time fixed, and the poor wife who has been left in want is obliged to receive the wretch with open arms. In some States nothing is considered cruelty that does not endanger life or limb or health. The whole question is in great confusion, but after all there are some States where the law is reasonable, and the consequence is, that hundreds and thousands of suffering wives are released from a bondage worse than death.
The idea that marriage is something more than a contract is at the bottom of all the legal and judicial absurdities that surround this subject. The moment that it is regarded from a purely secular standpoint the infamous laws will disappear. We shall then take into consideration the real rights and obligations of the parties to the contract of marriage. We shall have some respect for the sacred feelings of mothers—for the purity of woman—the freedom of the fireside—the real democracy of the hearthstone and, above all, for love, the purest, the profoundest and the holiest of all passions.
We shall no longer listen to priests who regard celibacy as a higher state than marriage, nor to those statesmen who look upon a barbarous code as the foundation of all law.
As long as men imagine that they have property in wives; that women can be owned, body and mind; that it is the duty of wives to obey; that the husband is the master, the source of authority—that his will is law, and that he can call on legislators and courts to protect his superior rights, that to enforce obedience the power of the State is pledged—just so long will millions of husbands be arrogant, tyrannical and cruel.
No gentleman will be content to have a slave for the mother of his children. Force has no place in the world of love. It is impossible to control likes and dislikes by law. No one ever did and no one ever can love on compulsion. Courts can not obtain jurisdiction of the heart.
The tides and currents of the soul care nothing for the creeds. People who make rules for the conduct of others generally break them themselves. It is so easy to bear with fortitude the misfortunes of others.
Every child should be well-born—well fathered and mothered. Society has as great an interest in children as in parents. The innocent should not be compelled by law to suffer for the crimes of the guilty. Wretched and weeping wives are not essential to the welfare of States and Nations.
The church cries now "whom God hath joined together let not man put asunder"; but when the people are really civilized the State will say: "whom Nature hath put asunder let not man bind and manacle together."
Robert G. Ingersoll.
ANSWER TO LYMAN ABBOTT.
* This unfinished article was written as a reply to the Rev.
Lyman Abbott's article entitled, "Flaws in Ingersollism,"
which was printed in the April number of the North American
Review for 1890.
IN your Open Letter to me, published in this Review, you attack what you supposed to be my position, and ask several questions to which you demand answers; but in the same letter, you state that you wish no controversy with me. Is it possible that you wrote the letter to prevent a controversy? Do you attack only those with whom you wish to live in peace, and do you ask questions, coupled with a request that they remain unanswered?
In addition to this, you have taken pains to publish in your own paper, that it was no part of your design in the article in the North American Review, to point out errors in my statements, and that this design was distinctly disavowed in the opening paragraph of your article. You further say, that your simple object was to answer the question "What is Christianity?" May I be permitted to ask why you addressed the letter to me, and why do you now pretend that, although you did address a letter to me, I was not in your mind, and that you had no intention of pointing out any flaws in my doctrines or theories? Can you afford to occupy this position?
You also stated in your own paper, The Christian Union, that the title of your article had been changed by the editor of the Review, without your knowledge or consent; leaving it to be inferred that the title given to the article by you was perfectly consistent with your statement, that it was no part of your design in the article in the North American Review, to point out errors in my (Ingersoll's) statements; and that your simple object was to answer the question, What is Christianity? And yet, the title which you gave your own article was as follows: "To Robert G. Ingersoll: A Reply."
First. We are told that only twelve crimes were punished by death: idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, fraudulent prophesying, Sabbath-breaking, rebellion against parents, resistance to judicial officers, murder, homicide by negligence, adultery, incestuous marriages, and kidnapping. We are then told that as late as the year 1600 there were 263 crimes capital in England.
Does not the world know that all the crimes or offences punishable by death in England could be divided in the same way? For instance, treason. This covered a multitude of offences, all punishable by death. Larceny covered another multitude. Perjury—trespass, covered many others. There might still be made a smaller division, and one who had made up his mind to define the Criminal Code of England might have said that there was only one offence punishable by death—wrong-doing.
The facts with regard to the Criminal Code of England are, that up to the reign of George I. there were 167 offences punishable by death. Between the accession of George I. and termination of the reign of George III., there were added 56 new crimes to which capital punishment was attached. So that when George IV. became king, there were 223 offences capital in England.
John Bright, commenting upon this subject, says:
"During all these years, so far as this question goes, our Government was becoming more cruel and more barbarous, and we do not find, and have not found, that in the great Church of England, with its fifteen or twenty thousand ministers, and with its more than score of Bishops in the House of Lords, there ever was a voice raised, or an organization formed, in favor of a more merciful code, or in condemnation of the enormous cruelties which our law was continually inflicting. Was not Voltaire justified in saying that the English were the only people who murdered by law?"
As a matter of fact, taking into consideration the situation of the people, the number of subjects covered by law, there were far more offences capital in the days of Moses, than in the reign of George IV. Is it possible that a minister, a theologian of the nineteenth century, imagines that he has substantiated the divine origin of the Old Testament by endeavoring to show that the government of God was not quite as bad as that of England?
Mr. Abbott also informs us that the reason Moses killed so many was, that banishment from the camp during the wandering in the Wilderness was a punishment worse than death. If so, the poor wretches should at least have been given their choice. Few, in my judgment, would have chosen death, because the history shows that a large majority were continually clamoring to be led back to Egypt. It required all the cunning and power of God to keep the fugitives from returning in a body. Many were killed by Jehovah, simply because they wished to leave the camp—because they longed passionately for banishment, and thought with joy of the flesh-pots of Egypt, preferring the slavery of Pharaoh to the liberty of Jehovah. The memory of leeks and onions was enough to set their faces toward the Nile.
Second. I am charged with saying that the Christian missionaries say to the heathen: "You must examine your religion—and not only so, but you must reject it; and unless you do reject it, and in addition to such rejection, adopt ours, you will be eternally damned." Mr. Abbott denies the truth of this statement.
Let me ask him, If the religion of Jesus Christ is preached clearly and distinctly to a heathen, and the heathen understands it, and rejects it deliberately, unequivocally, and finally, can he be saved?
This question is capable of a direct answer. The reverend gentleman now admits that an acceptance of Christianity is not essential to salvation. If the acceptance of Christianity is not essential to the salvation of the heathen who has heard Christianity preached—knows what its claims are, and the evidences that support those claims, is the acceptance of Christianity essential to the salvation of an adult intelligent citizen of the United States? Will the reverend gentleman tell us, and without circumlocution, whether the acceptance of Christianity is necessary to the salvation of anybody? If he says that it is, then he admits that I was right in my statement concerning what is said to the heathen. If he says that it is not, then I ask him, What do you do with the following passages of Scripture: "There is none other name given under heaven or among men whereby we must be saved."
"Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and whosoever believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; and whosoever believeth not shall be damned"?
I am delighted to know that millions of Pagans will be found to have entered into eternal life without any knowledge of Christ or his religion.
Another question naturally arises: If a heathen can hear and reject the Gospel, and yet be saved, what will become of the heathen who never heard of the Gospel? Are they all to be saved? If all who never heard are to be saved, is it not dangerous to hear?—Is it not cruel to preach? Why not stop preaching and let the entire world become heathen, so that after this, no soul may be lost?
Third. You say that I desire to deprive mankind of their faith in God, in Christ and in the Bible. I do not, and have not, endeavored to destroy the faith of any man in a good, in a just, in a merciful God, or in a reasonable, natural, human Christ, or in any truth that the Bible may contain. I have endeavored—and with some degree of success—to destroy the faith of man in the Jehovah of the Jews, and in the idea that Christ was in fact the God of this universe. I have also endeavored to show that there are many things in the Bible ignorant and cruel—that the book was produced by barbarians and by savages, and that its influence on the world has been bad.
And I do believe that life and property will be safer, that liberty will be surer, that homes will be sweeter, and life will be more joyous, and death less terrible, if the myth called Jehovah can be destroyed from the human mind.
It seems to me that the heart of the Christian ought to burst into an efflorescence of joy when he becomes satisfied that the Bible is only the work of man; that there is no such place as perdition—that there are no eternal flames—that men's souls are not to suffer everlasting pain—that it is all insanity and ignorance and fear and horror. I should think that every good and tender soul would be delighted to know that there is no Christ who can say to any human being—to any father, mother, or child—"Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." I do believe that he will be far happier when the Psalms of David are sung no more, and that he will be far better when no one could sing the 109th Psalm without shuddering and horror. These Psalms for the most part breathe the spirit of hatred, of revenge, and of everything fiendish in the human heart. There are some good lines, some lofty aspirations—these should be preserved; and to the extent that they do give voice to the higher and holier emotions, they should be preserved.
So I believe the world will be happier when the life of Christ, as it is written now in the New Testament, is no longer believed.
Some of the Ten Commandments will fall into oblivion, and the world will be far happier when they do. Most of these commandments are universal. They were not discovered by Jehovah—they were not original with him.
"Thou shalt not kill," is as old as life. And for this reason a large majority of people in all countries have objected to being murdered. "Thou shalt not steal," is as old as industry. There never has been a human being who was willing to work through the sun and rain and heat of summer, simply for the purpose that some one who had lived in idleness might steal the result of his labor. Consequently, in all countries where it has been necessary to work, larceny has been a crime. "Thou shalt not lie," is as old as speech. Men have desired, as a rule, to know the truth; and truth goes with courage and candor. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," is as old as love. "Honor thy father and thy mother," is as old as the family relation.
All these commandments were known among all peoples thousands and thousands of years before Moses was born. The new one, "Thou shalt worship no other Gods but me," is a bad commandment—because that God was not worthy of worship. "Thou shalt make no graven image,"—a bad commandment. It was the death of art. "Thou shalt do no work on the Sabbath-day,"—a bad commandment; the object of that being, that one-seventh of the time should be given to the worship of a monster, making a priesthood necessary, and consequently burdening industry with the idle and useless.
If Professor Clifford felt lonely at the loss of such a companion as Jehovah, it is impossible for me to sympathize with his feelings. No one wishes to destroy the hope of another life—no one wishes to blot out any good that is, or that is hoped for, or the hope of which gives consolation to the world. Neither do I agree with this gentleman when he says, "Let us have the truth, cost what it may." I say: Let us have happiness—well-being. The truth upon these matters is of but little importance compared with the happiness of mankind. Whether there is, or is not, a God, is absolutely unimportant, compared with the well-being of the race. Whether the Bible is, or is not, inspired, is not of as much consequence as human happiness.
Of course, if the Old and New Testaments are true, then human happiness becomes impossible, either in this world, or in the world to come—that is, impossible to all people who really believe that these books are true. It is often necessary to know the truth, in order to prepare ourselves to bear consequences; but in the metaphysical world, truth is of no possible importance except as it affects human happiness.
If there be a God, he certainly will hold us to no stricter responsibility about metaphysical truth than about scientific truth. It ought to be just as dangerous to make a mistake in Geology as in Theology—in Astronomy as in the question of the Atonement.
I am not endeavoring to overthrow any faith in God, but the faith in a bad God. And in order to accomplish this, I have endeavored to show that the question of whether an Infinite God exists, or not, is beyond the power of the human mind. Anything is better than to believe in the God of the Bible.
Fourth. Mr. Abbott, like the rest, appeals to names instead of to arguments. He appeals to Socrates, and yet he does not agree with Socrates. He appeals to Goethe, and yet Goethe was far from a Christian. He appeals to Isaac Newton and to Mr. Gladstone—and after mentioning these names, says, that on his side is this faith of the wisest, the best, the noblest of mankind.
Was Socrates after all greater than Epicurus—had he a subtler mind—was he any nobler in his life? Was Isaac Newton so much greater than Humboldt—than Charles Darwin, who has revolutionized the thought of the civilized world? Did he do the one-hundredth part of the good for mankind that was done by Voltaire—was he as great a metaphysician as Spinoza?
But why should we appeal to names?
In a contest between Protestantism and Catholicism are you willing to abide by the tests of names? In a contest between Christianity and Paganism, in the first century, would you have considered the question settled by names? Had Christianity then produced the equals of the great Greeks and Romans? The new can always be overwhelmed with names that were in favor of the old. Sir Isaac Newton, in his day, could have been overwhelmed by the names of the great who had preceded him. Christ was overwhelmed by this same method—Moses and the Prophets were appealed to as against this Peasant of Palestine. This is the argument of the cemetery—this is leaving the open field, and crawling behind gravestones.
Newton was understood to be, all his life, a believer in the Trinity; but he dared not say what his real thought was. After his death there was found among his papers an argument that he published against the divinity of Christ. This had been published in Holland, because he was afraid to have it published in England. How do we really know what the great men of whom you speak believed, or believe?
I do not agree with you when you say that Gladstone is the greatest statesman. He will not, in my judgment, for one moment compare with Thomas Jefferson—with Alexander Hamilton—or, to come down to later times, with Gambetta; and he is immeasurably below such a man as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was not a believer. Gambetta was an atheist.
And yet, these names prove nothing. Instead of citing a name, and saying that this great man—Sir Isaac Newton, for instance—believed in our doctrine, it is far better to give the reasons that Sir Isaac Newton had for his belief.
Nearly all organizations are filled with snobbishness. Each church has a list of great names, and the members feel in duty bound to stand by their great men.
Why is idolatry the worst of sins? Is it not far better to worship a God of stone than a God who threatens to punish in eternal flames the most of his children? If you simply mean by idolatry a false conception of God, you must admit that no finite mind can have a true conception of God—and you must admit that no two men can have the same false conception of God, and that, as a consequence, no two men can worship identically the same Deity. Consequently they are all idolaters.
I do not think idolatry the worst of sins. Cruelty is the worst of sins. It is far better to worship a false God, than to injure your neighbor—far better to bow before a monstrosity of stone, than to enslave your fellow-men.
Fifth. I am glad that you admit that a bad God is worse than no God. If so, the atheist is far better than the believer in Jehovah, and far better than the believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ—because I am perfectly satisfied that none but a bad God would threaten to say to any human soul, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." So that, before any Christian can be better than an atheist, he must reform his God.
The agnostic does not simply say, "I do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know,—he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact—he drives you from the realm of reason—he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture—into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.
You say that religion tells us that "life is a battle with temptation—the result is eternal life to the victors."
But what of the victims? Did your God create these victims, knowing that they would be victims? Did he deliberately change the clay into the man—into a being with wants, surrounded by difficulties and temptations—and did he deliberately surround this being with temptations that he knew he could not withstand, with obstacles that he knew he could not overcome, and whom he knew at last would fall a victim upon the field of death? Is there no hope for this victim? No remedy for this mistake of your God? Is he to remain a victim forever? Is it not better to have no God than such a God? Could the condition of this victim be rendered worse by the death of God?
Sixth. Of course I agree with you when you say that character is worth more than condition—that life is worth more than place. But I do not agree with you when you say that being—that simple existence—is better than happiness. If a man is not happy, it is far better not to be. I utterly dissent from your philosophy of life. From my standpoint, I do not understand you when you talk about self-denial. I can imagine a being of such character, that certain things he would do for the one he loved, would by others be regarded as acts of self-denial, but they could not be so regarded by him. In these acts of so-called selfdenial, he would find his highest joy.
This pretence that to do right is to carry a cross, has done an immense amount of injury to the world. Only those who do wrong carry a cross. To do wrong is the only possible self-denial.
The pulpit has always been saying that, although the virtuous and good, the kind, the tender, and the loving, may have a very bad time here, yet they will have their reward in heaven—having denied themselves the pleasures of sin, the ecstasies of crime, they will be made happy in a world hereafter; but that the wicked, who have enjoyed larceny, and rascality in all its forms, will be punished hereafter.
All this rests upon the idea that man should sacrifice himself, not for his fellow-men, but for God—that he should do something for the Almighty—that he should go hungry to increase the happiness of heaven—that he should make a journey to Our Lady of Loretto, with dried peas in his shoes; that he should refuse to eat meat on Friday; that he should say so many prayers before retiring to rest; that he should do something that he hated to do, in order that he might win the approbation of the heavenly powers. For my part, I think it much better to feed the hungry, than to starve yourself.
You ask me, What is Christianity? You then proceed to partially answer your own question, and you pick out what you consider the best, and call that Christianity. But you have given only one side, and that side not all of it good. Why did you not give the other side of Christianity—the side that talks of eternal flames, of the worm that dieth not—the side that denounces the investigator and the thinker—the side that promises an eternal reward for credulity—the side that tells men to take no thought for the morrow but to trust absolutely in a Divine Providence?
"Within thirty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, faith in his resurrection had become the inspiration of the church." I ask you, Was there a resurrection?
What advance has been made in what you are pleased to call the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, through the instrumentality of the church? Was there as much dread of God among the Pagans as there has been among Christians?
I do not believe that the church is a conservator of civilization. It sells crime on credit. I do not believe it is an educator of good will. It has caused more war than all other causes. Neither is it a school of a nobler reverence and faith. The church has not turned the minds of men toward principles of justice, mercy and truth—it has destroyed the foundation of justice. It does not minister comfort at the coffin—it fills the mourners with fear. It has never preached a gospel of "Peace on Earth"—it has never preached "Good Will toward men."
For my part, I do not agree with you when you say that: "The most stalwart anti-Romanists can hardly question that with the Roman Catholic Church abolished by instantaneous decree, its priests banished and its churches closed, the disaster to American communities would be simply awful in its proportions, if not irretrievable in its results."
I may agree with you in this, that the most stalwart anti-Romanists would not wish to have the Roman Catholic Church abolished by tyranny, and its priests banished, and its churches closed. But if the abolition of that church could be produced by the development of the human mind; and if its priests, instead of being banished, should become good and useful citizens, and were in favor of absolute liberty of mind, then I say that there would be no disaster, but a very wide and great and splendid blessing. The church has been the Centaur—not Theseus; the church has not been Hercules, but the serpent.
So I believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any particular man. Loyalty to the truth as we perceive it—loyalty to our duty as we know it—loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart—is, to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any particular man or God. There is a kind of slavery—a kind of abdication—for any man to take any other man as his absolute pattern and to hold him up as the perfection of all life, and to feel that it is his duty to grovel in the dust in his presence. It is better to feel that the springs of action are within yourself—that you are poised upon your own feet—and that you look at the world with your own eyes, and follow the path that reason shows.
I do not believe that the world could be re-organized upon the simple but radical principles of the Sermon on the Mount. Neither do I believe that this sermon was ever delivered by one man. It has in it many fragments that I imagine were dropped from many mouths. It lacks coherence—it lacks form. Some of the sayings are beautiful, sublime and tender; and others seem to be weak, contradictory and childish.
Seventh. I do not say that I do not know whether this faith is true, or not. I say distinctly and clearly, that I know it is not true. I admit that I do not know whether there is any infinite personality or not, because I do not know that my mind is an absolute standard. But according to my mind, there is no such personality; and according to my mind, it is an infinite absurdity to suppose that there is such an infinite personality. But I do know something of human nature; I do know a little of the history of mankind; and I know enough to know that what is known as the Christian faith, is not true. I am perfectly satisfied, beyond all doubt and beyond all per-adventure, that all miracles are falsehoods. I know as well as I know that I live—that others live—that what you call your faith, is not true.
I am glad, however, that you admit that the miracles of the Old Testament, or the inspiration of the Old Testament, are not essentials. I draw my conclusion from what you say: "I have not in this paper discussed the miracles, or the inspiration of the Old Testament; partly because those topics, in my opinion, occupy a subordinate position in Christian faith, and I wish to consider only essentials." At the same time, you tell us that, "On historical evidence, and after a careful study of the arguments on both sides, I regard as historical the events narrated in the four Gospels, ordinarily regarded as miracles." At the same time, you say that you fully agree with me that the order of nature has never been violated or interrupted. In other words, you must believe that all these so-called miracles were actually in accordance with the laws, or facts rather, in nature.
Eighth. You wonder that I could write the following: "To me there is nothing of any particular value in the Pentateuch. There is not, so far as I know, a line in the Book of Genesis calculated to make a human being better." You then call my attention to "The magnificent Psalm of Praise to the Creator with which Genesis opens; to the beautiful legend of the first sin and its fateful consequences; the inspiring story of Abraham—the first selfexile for conscience sake; the romantic story of Joseph the Peasant boy becoming a Prince," which you say "would have attraction for any one if he could have found a charm in, for example, the Legends of the Round Table."
The "magnificent Psalm of Praise to the Creator with which Genesis opens" is filled with magnificent mistakes, and is utterly absurd. "The beautiful legend of the first sin and its fateful consequences" is probably the most contemptible story that was ever written, and the treatment of the first pair by Jehovah is unparalleled in the cruelty of despotic governments. According to this infamous account, God cursed the mothers of the world, and added to the agonies of maternity. Not only so, but he made woman a slave, and man something, if possible, meaner—a master.
I must confess that I have very little admiration for Abraham. (Give reasons.)
So far as Joseph is concerned, let me give you the history of Joseph,—how he conspired with Pharaoh to enslave the people of Egypt.
You seem to be astonished that I am not in love with the character of Joseph, as pictured in the Bible. Let me tell you who Joseph was.
It seems, from the account, that Pharaoh had a dream. None of his wise men could give its meaning. He applied to Joseph, and Joseph, having been enlightened by Jehovah, gave the meaning of the dream to Pharaoh. He told the king that there would be in Egypt seven years of great plenty, and after these seven years of great plenty, there would be seven years of famine, and that the famine would consume the land. Thereupon Joseph gave to Pharaoh some advice. First, he was to take up a fifth part of the land of Egypt, in the seven plenteous years—he was to gather all the food of those good years, and lay up corn, and he was to keep this food in the cities. This food was to be a store to the land against the seven years of famine. And thereupon Pharaoh said unto Joseph, "Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See I have set thee over all the land of Egypt."
We are further informed by the holy writer, that in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls, and that Joseph gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities, and that he gathered corn as the sand of the sea. This was done through the seven plenteous years. Then commenced the years of dearth. Then the people of Egypt became hungry, and they cried to Pharaoh for bread, and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph. The famine was over all the face of the earth, and Joseph opened the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians, and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. There was no bread in the land, and Egypt fainted by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, by the sale of corn, and brought the money to Pharaoh's house. After a time the money failed in the land of Egypt, and the Egyptians came unto Joseph and said, "Give us bread; why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth." And Joseph said, "Give your cattle, and I will give you for your cattle." And they brought their cattle unto Joseph, and he gave them bread in exchange for horses and flocks and herds, and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. When the year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said, "Our money is spent, our cattle are gone, naught is left but our bodies and our lands." And they said to Joseph, "Buy us, and our land, for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh; and give us seed that we may live and not die, that the land be not desolate." And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them. So the land became Pharaoh's. Then Joseph said to the people, "I have bought you this day, and your land; lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land." And thereupon the people said, "Thou hast saved our lives; we will be Pharaoh's servants." "And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part, except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's."
Yet I am asked, by a minister of the nineteenth century, whether it is possible that I do not admire the character of Joseph. This man received information from God—and gave that information to Pharaoh, to the end that he might impoverish and enslave a nation. This man, by means of intelligence received from Jehovah, took from the people what they had, and compelled them at last to sell themselves, their wives and their children, and to become in fact bondmen forever. Yet I am asked by the successor of Henry Ward Beecher, if I do not admire the infamous wretch who was guilty of the greatest crime recorded in the literature of the world.
So, it is difficult for me to understand why you speak of Abraham as "a self-exile for conscience sake." If the king of England had told one of his favorites that if he would go to North America he would give him a territory hundreds of miles square, and would defend him in its possession, and that he there might build up an empire, and the favorite believed the king, and went, would you call him "a self-exile for conscience sake"?
According to the story in the Bible, the Lord promised Abraham that if he would leave his country and kindred, he would make of him a great nation, would bless him, and make his name great, that he would bless them that blessed Abraham, and that he would curse him whom Abraham cursed; and further, that in him all the families of the earth should be blest. If this is true, would you call Abraham "a self-exile for conscience sake"? If Abraham had only known that the Lord was not to keep his promise, he probably would have remained where he was—the fact being, that every promise made by the Lord to Abraham, was broken.
Do you think that Abraham was "a self-exile for conscience sake" when he told Sarah, his wife, to say that she was his sister—in consequence of which she was taken into Pharaoh's house, and by reason of which Pharaoh made presents of sheep and oxen and man servants and maid servants to Abraham? What would you call such a proceeding now? What would you think of a man who was willing that his wife should become the mistress of the king, provided the king would make him presents?
Was it for conscience sake that the same subterfuge was adopted again, when Abraham said to Abimelech, the King of Gerar, She is my sister—in consequence of which Abimelech sent for Sarah and took her?
Mr. Ingersoll having been called to Montana, as counsel in a long and important law suit, never finished this article.
ANSWER TO ARCHDEACON FARRAR.
* This fragment (found among Col. Ingersoll's papers) is a
mere outline of a contemplated answer to Archdeacon Farrar's
article in the North American Review, May, 1810, entitled:
"A Few Words on Col. Ingersoll."
ARCHDEACON FARRAR, in the opening of his article, in a burst of confidence, takes occasion to let the world know how perfectly angelic he intends to be. He publicly proclaims that he can criticise the arguments of one with whom he disagrees, without resorting to invective, or becoming discourteous. Does he call attention to this because most theologians are hateful and ungentlemanly? Is it a rare thing for the pious to be candid? Why should an Archdeacon be cruel, or even ill-bred? Yet, in the very beginning, the Archdeacon in effect says: Behold, I show you a mystery—a Christian who can write about an infidel, without invective and without brutality. Is it then so difficult for those who love their enemies to keep within the bounds of decency when speaking of unbelievers who have never injured them?
As a matter of fact, I was somewhat surprised when I read the proclamation to the effect that the writer was not to use invective, and was to be guilty of no discourtesy; but on reading the article, and finding that he had failed to keep his promise, I was not surprised.
It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead. The arguments that cannot be answered provoke epithet.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR criticises several of my statements: The same rules or laws of probability must govern in religious questions as in others.
This apparently self-evident statement seems to excite almost the ire of this Archdeacon, and for the purpose of showing that it is not true, he states, first, that "the first postulate of revelation is that it appeals to man's spirit;" second, that "the spirit is a sphere of being which transcends the spheres of the senses and the understanding;" third, that "if a man denies the existence of a spiritual intuition, he is like a blind man criticising colors, or a deaf man criticising harmonies;" fourth, that "revelation must be judged by its own criteria;" and fifth, that "St. Paul draws a marked distinction between the spirit of the world and the spirit which is of God," and that the same Saint said that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Let us answer these objections in their order.
1. "The first postulate of revelation is that it appeals to man's spirit." What does the Archdeacon mean by "spirit"? A man says that he has received a revelation from God, and he wishes to convince another man that he has received a revelation—how does he proceed? Does he appeal to the man's reason? Will he tell him the circumstances under which he received the revelation? Will he tell him why he is convinced that it was from God? Will the Archdeacon be kind enough to tell how the spirit can be approached passing by the reason, the understanding, the judgment and the intellect? If the Archdeacon replies that the revelation itself will bear the evidence within itself, what then, I ask, does he mean by the word "evidence"? Evidence about what? Is it such evidence as satisfies the intelligence, convinces the reason, and is it in conformity with the known facts of the mind?
It may be said by the Archdeacon that anything that satisfies what he is pleased to call the spirit, that furnishes what it seems by nature to require, is of supernatural origin. We hear music, and this music seems to satisfy the desire for harmony—still, no one argues, from that fact, that music is of supernatural origin. It may satisfy a want in the brain—a want unknown until the music was heard—and yet we all agree in saying that music has been naturally produced, and no one claims that Beethoven, or Wagner, was inspired.
The same may be said of things that satisfy the palate—of statues, of paintings, that reveal to him who looks, the existence of that of which before that time he had not even dreamed. Why is it that we love color—that we are pleased with harmonies, or with a succession of sounds rising and falling at measured intervals? No one would answer this question by saying that sculptors and painters and musicians were inspired; neither would they say that the first postulate of art is that it appeals to man's spirit, and for that reason the rules or laws of probability have nothing to do with the question of art.
2. That "the spirit is a sphere of being which transcends the spheres of the senses and the understanding." Let us imagine a man without senses. He cannot feel, see, hear, taste, or smell. What is he? Would it be possible for him to have an idea? Would such a man have a spirit to which revelation could appeal, or would there be locked in the dungeon of his brain a spirit, that is to say, a "sphere of being which transcends the spheres of the senses and the understanding"? Admit that in the person supposed, the machinery of life goes on—what is he more than an inanimate machine?
3. That "if a man denies the very existence of a spiritual intuition, he is like a blind man criticising colors, or a deaf man criticising harmonies." What do you mean by "spiritual intuition"? When did this "spiritual intuition" become the property of man—before, or after, birth? Is it of supernatural, or miraculous, origin, and is it possible that this "spiritual intuition" is independent of the man? Is it based upon experience? Was it in any way born of the senses, or of the effect of nature upon the brain—that is to say, of things seen, or heard, or touched? Is a "spiritual intuition" an entity? If man can exist without the "spiritual intuition," do you insist that the "spiritual intuition" can exist without the man?
You may remember that Mr. Locke frequently remarked: "Define your terms." It is to be regretted that in the hurry of writing your article, you forgot to give an explanation of "spiritual intuition."
I will also take the liberty of asking you how a blind man could criticise colors, and how a deaf man could criticise harmonies. Possibly you may imagine that "spiritual intuition" can take cognizance of colors, as well as of harmonies. Let me ask: Why cannot a blind man criticise colors? Let me answer: For the same reason that Archdeacon Farrar can tell us nothing about an infinite personality.
4. That "revelation must be judged by its own criteria." Suppose the Bible had taught that selfishness, larceny and murder were virtues; would you deny its inspiration? Would not your denial be based upon a conclusion that had been reached by your reason that no intelligent being could have been its author—that no good being could, by any possibility, uphold the commission of such crimes? In that case would you be guided by "spiritual intuition," or by your reason?
When we examine the claims of a history—as, for instance, a history of England, or of America, are we to decide according to "spiritual intuition," or in accordance with the laws or rules of probability? Is there a different standard for a history written in Hebrew, several thousand years ago, and one written in English in the nineteenth century? If a history should now be written in England, in which the most miraculous and impossible things should be related as facts, and if I should deny these alleged facts, would you consider that the author had overcome my denial by saying, "history must be judged by its own criteria"?
5. That "the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned." The Archdeacon admits that the natural man cannot know the things of the spirit, because they are not naturally, but spiritually, discerned. On the next page we are told, that "the truths which Agnostics repudiate have been, and are, acknowledged by all except a fraction of the human race." It goes without saying that a large majority of the human race are natural; consequently, the statement of the Archdeacon contradicts the statement of St. Paul. The Archdeacon insists that all except a fraction of the human race acknowledge the truths which Agnostics repudiate, and they must acknowledge them because they are by them spiritually discerned; and yet, St. Paul says that this is impossible, and insists that "the natural man cannot know the things of the spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned."
There is only one way to harmonize the statement of the Archdeacon and the Saint, and that is, by saying that nearly all of the human race are unnatural, and that only a small fraction are natural, and that the small fraction of men who are natural, are Agnostics, and only those who accept what the Archdeacon calls "truths" are unnatural to such a degree that they can discern spiritual things.
Upon this subject, the last things to which the Archdeacon appeals, are the very things that he, at first, utterly repudiated. He asks, "Are we contemptuously to reject the witness of innumerable multitudes of the good and wise, that—with a spiritual reality more convincing to them than the material evidences which converted the apostles,"—they have seen, and heard, and their hands have handled the "Word of Life"? Thus at last the Archdeacon appeals to the evidences of the senses.
II.
THE Archdeacon then proceeds to attack the following statement: There is no subject, and can be none, concerning which any human being is under any obligation to believe without evidence.
One would suppose that it would be impossible to formulate an objection to this statement. What is or is not evidence, depends upon the mind to which it is presented. There is no possible "insinuation" in this statement, one way or the other. There is nothing sinister in it, any more than there would be in the statement that twice five are ten. How did it happen to occur to the Archdeacon that when I spoke of believing without evidence, I referred to all people who believe in the existence of a God, and that I intended to say "that one-third of the world's inhabitants had embraced the faith of Christians without evidence"?
Certain things may convince one mind and utterly fail to convince others. Undoubtedly the persons who have believed in the dogmas of Christianity have had what was sufficient evidence for them. All I said was, that "there is no subject, and can be none, concerning which any human being is under any obligation to believe without evidence." Does the Archdeacon insist that there is an obligation resting on any human mind to believe without evidence? Is he willing to go a step further and say that there is an obligation resting upon the minds of men to believe contrary to evidence? If one is under obligation to believe without evidence, it is just as reasonable to say that he is under obligation to believe in spite of evidence. What does the word "evidence" mean? A man in whose honesty I have great confidence, tells me that he saw a dead man raised to life. I do not believe him. Why? His statement is not evidence to my mind. Why? Because it contradicts all of my experience, and, as I believe, the experience of the intelligent world.
No one pretends that "one-third of the world's inhabitants have embraced the faith of Christians without evidence"—that is, that all Christians have embraced the faith without evidence. In the olden time, when hundreds of thousands of men were given their choice between being murdered and baptized, they generally accepted baptism—probably they accepted Christianity without critically examining the evidence.
Is it historically absurd that millions of people have believed in systems of religion without evidence? Thousands of millions have believed that Mohammed was a prophet of God. And not only so, but have believed in his miraculous power. Did they believe without evidence? Is it historically absurd to say that Mohammedanism is based upon mistake? What shall we say of the followers of Buddha, who far outnumber the followers of Christ? Have they believed without evidence? And is it historically absurd to say that our ancestors of a few hundred years ago were as credulous as the disciples of Buddha? Is it not true that the same gentlemen who believed thoroughly in all the miracles of the New Testament also believed the world to be flat, and were perfectly satisfied that the sun made its daily journey around the earth? Did they have any evidence? Is it historically absurd to say that they believed without evidence?
III.
Neither is there any intelligent being who can by any possibility be flattered by the exercise of ignorant credulity.
THE Archdeacon asks what I "gain by stigmatizing as ignorant credulity that inspired, inspiring, invincible conviction—the formative principle of noble efforts and self-sacrificing lives, which at this moment, as during all the long millenniums of the past, has been held not only by the ignorant and the credulous, but by those whom all the ages have regarded as the ablest, the wisest, the most learned and the most gifted of mankind?"
Does the Archdeacon deny that credulity is ignorant? In this connection, what does the word "credulity" mean? It means that condition or state of the mind in which the impossible, or the absurd, is accepted as true. Is not such credulity ignorant? Do we speak of wise credulity—of intelligent credulity? We may say theological credulity, or Christian credulity, but certainly not intelligent credulity. Is the flattery of the ignorant and credulous—the flattery being based upon that which ignorance and credulity have accepted—acceptable to any intelligent being? Is it possible that we can flatter God by pretending to believe, or by believing, that which is repugnant to reason, that which upon examination is seen to be absurd? The Archdeacon admits that God cannot possibly be so flattered. If, then, he agrees with my statement, why endeavor to controvert it?
IV.
The man who without prejudice reads and understands the Old and New Testaments will cease to be an orthodox Christian.
THE Archdeacon says that he cannot pretend to imagine what my definition of an orthodox Christian is. I will use his own language to express my definition. "By an orthodox Christian I mean one who believes what is commonly called the Apostles' Creed. I also believe that the essential doctrines of the church must be judged by her universal formulae, not by the opinions of this or that theologian, however eminent, or even of any number of theologians, unless the church has stamped them with the sanction of her formal and distinct acceptance."
This is the language of the Archdeacon himself, and I accept it as a definition of orthodoxy. With this definition in mind, I say that the man who without prejudice reads and understands the Old and New Testaments will cease to be an orthodox Christian. By "prejudice," I mean the tendencies and trends given to his mind by heredity, by education, by the facts and circumstances entering into the life of man. We know how children are poisoned in the cradle, how they are deformed in the Sunday School, how they are misled by the pulpit. And we know how numberless interests unite and conspire to prevent the individual soul from examining for itself. We know that nearly all rewards are in the hands of Superstition—that she holds the sweet wreath, and that her hands lead the applause of what is called the civilized world. We know how many men give up their mental independence for the sake of pelf and power. We know the influence of mothers and fathers—of Church and State—of Faith and Fashion. All these influences produce in honest minds what may be known as prejudice,—in other minds, what may be known as hypocrisy.
It is hardly worth my while to speak of the merits of students of Holy Writ "who," the Archdeacon was polite enough to say, "know ten thousand times more of the Scriptures" than I do. This, to say the least of it, is a gratuitous assertion, and one that does not tend to throw the slightest ray of light on any matter in controversy. Neither is it true that it was my "point" to say that all people are prejudiced, merely because they believe in God; it was my point to say that no man can read the miracles of the Old Testament, without prejudice, and believe them; it was my point to say that no man can read many of the cruel and barbarous laws said to have been given by God himself, and yet believe,—unless he was prejudiced,—that these laws were divinely given.
Neither do I believe that there is now beneath the cope of heaven an intelligent man, without prejudice, who believes in the inspiration of the Bible.
V.
The intelligent man who investigates the religion of any country, without fear and without prejudice, will not and cannot be a believer.
IN answering this statement the Archdeacon says: "Argal, every believer in any religion is either an incompetent idiot, or coward—with a dash of prejudice."
I hardly know what the gentleman means by an "incompetent idiot," as I know of no competent ones. It was not my intention to say that believers in religion are idiots or cowards. I did not mean, by using the word "fear," to say that persons actuated by fear are cowards. That was not in my mind. By "fear," I intended to convey that fear commonly called awe, or superstition,—that is to say, fear of the supernatural,—fear of the gods—fear of punishment in another world—fear of some Supreme Being; not fear of some other man—not the fear that is branded with cowardice. And, of course, the Archdeacon perfectly understood my meaning; but it was necessary to give another meaning in order to make the appearance of an answer possible.
By "prejudice," I mean that state of mind that accepts the false for the true. All prejudice is honest. And the probability is, that all men are more or less prejudiced on some subject. But on that account I do not call them "incompetent idiots, or cowards, with a dash of prejudice." I have no doubt that the Archdeacon himself believes that all Mahommedans are prejudiced, and that they are actuated more or less by fear, inculcated by their parents and by society at large. Neither have I any doubt that he regards all Catholics as prejudiced, and believes that they are governed more or less by fear. It is no answer to what I have said for the Archdeacon to say that "others have studied every form of religion with infinitely greater power than I have done." This is a personality that has nothing to do with the subject in hand. It is no argument to repeat a list of names. It is an old trick of the theologians to use names instead of arguments—to appeal to persons instead of principles—to rest their case upon the views of kings and nobles and others who pretend eminence in some department of human learning or ignorance, rather than on human knowledge.
This is the argument of the old against the new, and on this appeal the old must of necessity have the advantage. When some man announces the discovery of a new truth, or of some great fact contrary to the opinions of the learned, it is easy to overwhelm him with names. There is but one name on his side—that is to say, his own. All others who are living, and the dead, are on the other side. And if this argument is good, it ought to have ended all progress many thousands of years ago. If this argument is conclusive, the first man would have had freedom of opinion; the second man would have stood an equal chance; but if the third man differed from the other two, he would have been gone. Yet this is the argument of the church. They say to every man who advances something new: Are you greater than the dead? The man who is right is generally modest. Men in the wrong, as a rule, are arrogant; and arrogance is generally in the majority.
The Archdeacon appeals to certain names to show that I am wrong. In order for this argument to be good—that is to say, to be honest—he should agree with all the opinions of the men whose names he gives. He shows, or endeavors to show, that I am wrong, because I do not agree with St. Augustine. Does the Archdeacon agree with St. Augustine? Does he now believe that the bones of a saint were taken to Hippo—that being in the diocese of St. Augustine—and that five corpses, having been touched with these bones, were raised to life? Does he believe that a demoniac, on being touched with one of these bones, was relieved of a multitude of devils, and that these devils then and there testified to the genuineness of the bones, not only, but told the hearers that the doctrine of the Trinity was true? Does the Archdeacon agree with St. Augustine that over seventy miracles were performed with these bones, and that in a neighboring town many hundreds of miracles were performed? Does he agree with St. Augustine in his estimate of women—placing them on a par with beasts?
I admit that St. Augustine had great influence with the people of his day—but what people? I admit also that he was the founder of the first begging brotherhood—that he organized mendicancy—and that he most cheerfully lived on the labor of others.
If St. Augustine lived now he would be the inmate of an asylum. This same St. Augustine believed that the fire of hell was material—that the body itself having influenced the soul to sin, would be burned forever, and that God by a perpetual miracle would save the body from being annihilated and devoured in those eternal flames.
Let me ask the Archdeacon a question: Do you agree with St. Augustine? If you do not, do you claim to be a greater man? Is "your mole-hill higher than his Dhawalagiri"? Are you looking down upon him from the altitude of your own inferiority?
Precisely the same could be said of St. Jerome. The Archdeacon appeals to Charlemagne, one of the great generals of the world—a man who in his time shed rivers of blood, and who on one occasion massacred over four thousand helpless prisoners—a Christian gentleman who had, I think, about nine wives, and was the supposed father of some twenty children. 'This same Charlemagne had laws against polygamy, and yet practiced it himself. Are we under the same obligation to share his vices as his views? It is wonderful how the church has always appealed to the so-called great—how it has endeavored to get certificates from kings and queens, from successful soldiers and statesmen, to the truth of the Bible and the moral character of Christ! How the saints have crawled in the dust before the slayers of mankind! Think of proving the religion of love and forgiveness by Charlemagne and Napoleon!
An appeal is also made to Roger Bacon. Yet this man attained all his eminence by going contrary to the opinions and teachings of the church. In his time, it was matter of congratulation that you knew nothing of secular things. He was a student of Nature, an investigator, and by the very construction of his mind was opposed to the methods of Catholicism.
Copernicus was an astronomer, but he certainly did not get his astronomy from the church, nor from General Joshua, nor from the story of the Jewish king for whose benefit the sun was turned back in heaven ten degrees.
Neither did Kepler find his three laws in the Sermon on the Mount, nor were they the utterances of Jehovah on Mount Sinai. He did not make his discoveries because he was a Christian; but in spite of that fact.
As to Lord Bacon, let me ask, are you willing to accept his ideas? If not, why do you quote his name? Am I bound by the opinions of Bacon in matters of religion, and not in matters of science? Bacon denied the Coperni-can system, and died a believer in the Ptolemaic—died believing that the earth is stationary and that the sun and stars move around it as a center. Do you agree with Bacon? If not, do you pretend that your mind is greater? Would it be fair for a believer in Bacon to denounce you as an egotist and charge you with "obstreperousness" because you merely suggested that Mr. Bacon was a little off in his astronomical opinions? Do you not see that you have furnished the cord for me to tie your hands behind you?
I do not know how you ascertained that Shakespeare was what you call a believer. Substantially all that we know of Shakespeare is found in what we know as his "works" All else can be read in one minute. May I ask, how you know that Shakespeare was a believer? Do you prove it by the words he put in the mouths of his characters? If so, you can prove that he was anything, nothing, and everything. Have you literary bread to eat that I know not of? Whether Dante was, or was not, a Christian, I am not prepared to say. I have always admired him for one thing: he had the courage to see a pope in hell.
Probably you are not prepared to agree with Milton—especially in his opinion that marriage had better be by contract, for a limited time. And if you disagree with Milton on this point, do you thereby pretend to say that you could have written a better poem than Paradise Lost?
So Newton is supposed to have been a Trinitarian. And yet it is said that, after his death, there was found an article, which had been published by him in Holland, against the dogma of the Trinity.
After all, it is quite difficult to find out what the great men have believed. They have been actuated by so many unknown motives; they have wished for place; they have desired to be Archdeacons, Bishops, Cardinals, Popes; their material interests have sometimes interfered with the expression of their thoughts. Most of the men to whom you have alluded lived at a time when the world was controlled by what may be called a Christian mob—when the expression of an honest thought would have cost the life of the one who expressed it—when the followers of Christ were ready with sword and fagot to exterminate philosophy and liberty from the world.
Is it possible that we are under any obligation to believe the Mosaic account of the Garden of Eden, or of the talking serpent, because "Whewell had an encyclopaedic range of knowledge"? Must we believe that Joshua stopped the sun, because Faraday was "the most eminent man of science of his day"? Shall we believe the story of the fiery furnace, because "Mr. Spottiswoode was president of the Royal Society"—had "rare mathematical genius"—so rare that he was actually "buried in Westminster Abbey"? Shall we believe that Jonah spent three days and nights in the inside of a whale because "Professor Clark Maxwell's death was mourned by all"?
Are we under any obligation to believe that an infinite God sent two she bears to tear forty children in pieces because they laughed at a prophet without hair? Must we believe this because "Sir Gabriel Stokes is the living president of the Royal Society, and a Churchman" besides? Are we bound to believe that Daniel spent one of the happiest evenings of his life in the lion's den, because "Sir William Dawson of Canada, two years ago, presided over the British Association"? And must we believe in the ten plagues of Egypt, including the lice, because "Professor Max Müller made an eloquent plea in Westminster Abbey in favor of Christian missions"? Possibly he wanted missionaries to visit heathen lands so that they could see the difference for themselves between theory and practice, in what is known as the Christian religion.
Must we believe the miracles of the New Testament—the casting out of devils—because "Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning stand far above all other poets of this generation in England," or because "Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell and Whittier" occupy the same position in America? Must we admit that devils entered into swine because "Bancroft and Parkman are the leading prose writers of America"—which I take this occasion to deny?
It is to be hoped that some time the Archdeacon will read that portion of Mr. Bancroft's history in which he gives the account of how the soldiers, commonly called Hessians, were raised by the British Government during the American Revolution.
These poor wretches were sold at so much apiece. For every one that was killed, so much was paid, and for every one that was wounded a certain amount was given. Mr. Bancroft tells us that God was not satisfied with this business, and although he did not interfere in any way to save the poor soldiers, he did visit the petty tyrants who made the bargains with his wrath. I remember that as a punishment to one of these, his wife was induced to leave him; another one died a good many years afterwards; and several of them had exceedingly bad luck.
After reading this philosophic dissertation on the dealings of Providence, I doubt if the Archdeacon will still remain of the opinion that Mr. Bancroft is one of the leading prose writers of America. If the Archdeacon will read a few of the sermons of Theodore Parker, and essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, if he will read the life of Voltaire by James Parton, he may change his opinion as to the great prose writers of America.
My argument against miracles is answered by reference to "Dr. Lightfoot, a man of such immense learning that he became the equal of his successor Dr. Westcott." And when I say that there are errors and imperfections in the Bible, I am told that Dr. Westcott "investigated the Christian religion and its earliest documents au fond, and was an orthodox believer." Of course the Archdeacon knows that no one now knows who wrote one of the books of the Bible. He knows that no one now lives who ever saw one of the original manuscripts, and that no one now lives who ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had seen an original manuscript.
VI.
Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality?
THE Archdeacon says that it is, and yet in the same article he quotes the following from Job: "Canst thou by searching find out God?" "It is as high as Heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Hell; what canst thou know?" And immediately after making these quotations, the Archdeacon takes the ground of the agnostic, and says, "with the wise ancient Rabbis, we learn to say, I do not know."
It is impossible for me to say what any other human being cannot conceive; but I am absolutely certain that my mind cannot conceive of an infinite personality—of an infinite Ego.
Man is conscious of his individuality. Man has wants. A multitude of things in nature seems to work against him; and others seem to be favorable to him. There is conflict between him and nature.
If man had no wants—if there were no conflict between him and any other being, or any other thing, he could not say "I"—that is to say, he could not be conscious of personality.
Now, it seems to me that an infinite personality is a contradiction in terms, says "I."
VII.
THE same line of argument applies to the next statement that is criticised by the Archdeacon: Can the human mind conceive a beginningless being?
We know that there is such a thing as matter, but we do not know that there is a beginningless being. We say, or some say, that matter is eternal, because the human mind cannot conceive of its commencing. Now, if we knew of the existence of an Infinite Being, we could not conceive of his commencing. But we know of no such being. We do know of the existence of matter; and my mind is so, that I cannot conceive of that matter having been created by a beginningless being. I do not say that there is not a beginningless being, but I do not believe there is, and it is beyond my power to conceive of such a being.
The Archdeacon also says that "space is quite as impossible to conceive as God." But nobody pretends to love space—no one gives intention and will to space—no one, so far as I know, builds altars or temples to space. Now, if God is as inconceivable as space, why should we pray to God?
The Archdeacon, however, after quoting Sir William Hamilton as to the inconceivability of space as absolute or infinite, takes occasion to say that "space is an entity." May I be permitted to ask how he knows that space is an entity? As a matter of fact, the conception of infinite space is a necessity of the mind, the same as eternity is a necessity of the mind.
VIII.
THE next sentence or statement to which the Archdeacon objects is as follows:
He who cannot harmonize the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of Jehovah, cannot harmonize the cruelties of Nature with the goodness or wisdom of a supposed Deity. He will find it impossible to account for pestilence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery, and for the triumph of the strong over the weak.
One objection that he urges to this statement is that St. Paul had made a stronger one in the same direction. The Archdeacon however insists that "a world without a contingency, or an agony, could have had no hero and no saint," and that "science enables us to demonstrate that much of the apparent misery and anguish is transitory and even phantasmal; that many of the seeming forces of destruction are overruled to ends of beneficence; that most of man's disease and anguish is due to his own sin and folly and wilfulness."
I will not say that these things have been said before, but I will say that they have been answered before. The idea that the world is a school in which character is formed and in which men are educated is very old. If, however, the world is a school, and there is trouble and misfortune, and the object is to create character—that is to say, to produce heroes and saints—then the question arises, what becomes of those who die in infancy? They are left without the means of education. Are they to remain forever without character? Or is there some other world of suffering and sorrow?
Is it possible to form character in heaven? How did the angels become good? How do you account for the justice of God? Did he attain character through struggle and suffering?
What would you say of a school teacher who should kill one-third of the children on the morning of the first day? And what can you say of God,—if this world is a school,—who allows a large per cent, of his children to die in infancy—consequently without education—therefore, without character?
If the world is the result of infinite wisdom and goodness, why is the Christian Church engaged in endeavoring to make it better; or, rather, in an effort to change it? Why not leave it as an infinite God made it?
Is it true that most of man's diseases are due to his own sin and folly and wilfulness? Is it not true that no matter how good men are they must die, and will they not die of diseases? Is it true that the wickedness of man has created the microbe? Is it possible that the sinfulness of man created the countless enemies of human life that lurk in air and water and food? Certainly the wickedness of man has had very little influence on tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. Is it true that "the signature of beauty with which God has stamped the visible world—alike in the sky and on the earth—alike in the majestic phenomena of an intelligent creation and in its humblest and most microscopic production—is a perpetual proof that God is a God of love"?
Let us see. The scientists tell us that there is a little microscopic animal, one who is very particular about his food—so particular, that he prefers to all other things the optic nerve, and after he has succeeded in destroying that nerve and covering the eye with the mask of blindness, he has intelligence enough to bore his way through the bones of the nose in search of the other optic nerve. Is it not somewhat difficult to discover "the signature of beauty with which God has stamped" this animal? For my part, I see but little beauty in poisonous serpents, in man-eating sharks, in crocodiles, in alligators. It would be impossible for me to gaze with admiration upon a cancer. Think, for a moment, of a God ingenious enough and good enough to feed a cancer with the quivering flesh of a human being, and to give for the sustenance of that cancer the life of a mother.
It is well enough to speak of "the myriad voices of nature in their mirth and sweetness," and it is also well enough to think of the other side. The singing birds have a few notes of love—the rest are all of warning and of fear. Nature, apparently with infinite care, produces a living thing, and at the same time is just as diligently at work creating another living thing to devour the first, and at the same time a third to devour the second, and so on around the great circle of life and death, of agony and joy—tooth and claw, fang and tusk, hunger and rapine, massacre and murder, violence and vengeance and vice everywhere and through all time. [Here the manuscript ends, with the following notes.]
SAYINGS FROM THE INDIAN.
"The rain seems hardest when the wigwam leaks."
"When the tracks get too large and too numerous, the wise Indian says that he is hunting something else."
"A little crook in the arrow makes a great miss."
"A great chief counts scalps, not hairs."
"You cannot strengthen the bow by poisoning the arrows."
"No one saves water in a flood."
ORIGEN.
Origen considered that the punishment of the wicked consisted in separation from God. There was too much pity in his heart to believe in the flames of hell. But he was condemned as heretical by the Council of Carthage, A. D., 398, and afterwards by other councils.
ST. AUGUSTINE.
St. Augustine censures Origen for his merciful view, and says: "The church, not without reason, condemned him for this error." He also held that hell was in the centre of the earth, and that God supplied the centre with perpetual fire by a miracle.
DANTE.
Dante is a wonderful mixture of melancholy and malice, of religion and revenge, and he represents himself as so pitiless that when he found his political opponents in hell, he struck their faces and pulled the hair of the tormented.
AQUINAS.
Aquinas believed the same. He was the loving gentleman who believed in the undying worm.
* This unfinished and unrevised article was found among Col.
Ingersoll's papers, and is here reproduced without change.—
It is a reply to the Dean of St Paul's Contribution to the
North American Review for Dec., 1891, entitled: "Is Corporal
Punishment Degrading?"
THE Dean of St. Paul protests against the kindness of parents, guardians and teachers toward children, wards and pupils. He believes in the gospel of ferule and whips, and has perfect faith in the efficacy of flogging in homes and schools. He longs for the return of the good old days when fathers were severe, and children affectionate and obedient.
In America, for many years, even wife-beating has been somewhat unpopular, and the flogging of children has been considered cruel and unmanly. Wives with bruised and swollen faces, and children with lacerated backs, have excited pity for themselves rather than admiration for savage husbands and brutal fathers. It is also true that the church has far less power here than in England, and it may be that those who wander from the orthodox fold grow merciful and respect the rights even of the weakest.
But whatever the cause may be, the fact is that we, citizens of the Republic, feel that certain domestic brutalities are the children of monarchies and despotisms; that they were produced by superstition, ignorance, and savagery; and that they are not in accord with the free and superb spirit that founded and preserves the Great Republic.
Of late years, confidence in the power of kindness has greatly increased, and there is a wide-spread suspicion that cruelty and violence are not the instrumentalities of civilization.
Physicians no longer regard corporal punishment as a sure cure even for insanity—and it is generally admitted that the lash irritates rather than soothes the victim of melancholia.
Civilized men now insist that criminals cannot always be reformed even by the most ingenious instruments of torture. It is known that some convicts repay the smallest acts of kindness with the sincerest gratitude. Some of the best people go so far as to say that kindness is the sunshine in which the virtues grow. We know that for many ages governments tried to make men virtuous with dungeon and fagot and scaffold; that they tried to cure even disease of the mind with brandings and maimings and lashes on the naked flesh of men and women—and that kings endeavored to sow the seeds of patriotism—to plant and nurture them in the hearts of their subjects—with whip and chain.
In England, only a few years ago, there were hundreds of brave soldiers and daring sailors whose breasts were covered with honorable scars—witnesses of wounds received at Trafalgar and Balaklava—while on the backs of these same soldiers and sailors were the marks of English whips. These shameless cruelties were committed in the name of discipline, and were upheld by officers, statesmen and clergymen. The same is true of nearly all civilized nations. These crimes have been excused for the reason that our ancestors were, at that time, in fact, barbarians—that they had no idea of justice, no comprehension of liberty, no conception of the rights of men, women, and children.
At that time the church was, in most countries, equal to, or superior to, the state, and was a firm believer in the civilizing influences of cruelty and torture.
According to the creeds of that day, God intended to torture the wicked forever, and the church, according to its power, did all that it could in the same direction. Learning their rights and duties from priests, fathers not only beat their children, but their wives. In those days most homes were penitentiaries, in which wives and children were the convicts and of which husbands and fathers were the wardens and turnkeys. The king imitated his supposed God, and imprisoned, flogged, branded, beheaded and burned his enemies, and the husbands and fathers imitated the king, and guardians and teachers imitated them.
Yet in spite of all the beatings and burnings, the whippings and hangings, the world was not reformed. Crimes increased, the cheeks of wives were furrowed with tears, the faces of children white with fear—fear of their own fathers; pity was almost driven from the heart of man and found refuge, for the most part, in the breasts of women, children, and dogs.
In those days, misfortunes were punished as crimes. Honest debtors were locked in loathsome dungeons, and trivial offences were punished with death. Worse than all that, thousands of men and women were destroyed, not because they were vicious, but because they were virtuous, honest and noble. Extremes beget obstructions. The victims at last became too numerous, and the result did not seem to justify the means. The good, the few, protested against the savagery of kings and fathers.
Nothing seems clearer to me than that the world has been gradually growing better for many years. Men have a clearer conception of rights and obligations—a higher philosophy—a far nobler ideal. Even kings admit that they should have some regard for the well-being of their subjects. Nations and individuals are slowly outgrowing the savagery of revenge, the desire to kill, and it is generally admitted that criminals should neither be imprisoned nor tortured for the gratification of the public. At last we are beginning to know that revenge is a mistake—that cruelty not only hardens the victim, but makes a criminal of him who inflicts it, and that mercy guided by intelligence is the highest form of justice.
The tendency of the world is toward kindness. The religious creeds are being changed or questioned, because they shock the heart of the present. All civilized churches, all humane Christians, have given up the dogma of eternal pain. This infamous doctrine has for many centuries polluted the imagination and hardened the heart. This coiled viper no longer inhabits the breast of a civilized man.
In all civilized countries slavery has been abolished, the honest debtor released, and all are allowed the liberty of speech.
Long ago flogging was abolished in our army and navy and all cruel and unusual punishments prohibited by law. In many parts of the Republic the whip has been banished from the public schools, the flogger of children is held in abhorrence, and the wife-beater is regarded as a cowardly criminal. The gospel of kindness is not only preached, but practiced. Such has been the result of this advance of civilization—of this growth of kindness—of this bursting into blossom of the flower called pity, in the heart—that we treat our horses (thanks to Henry Bergh) better than our ancestors did their slaves, their servants or their tenants. The gentlemen of to-day show more affection for their dogs than most of the kings of England exhibited toward their wives. The great tide is toward mercy; the savage creeds are being changed; heartless laws have been repealed; shackles have been broken; torture abolished, and the keepers of prisons are no longer allowed to bruise and scar the flesh of convicts. The insane are treated with kindness—asylums are in the midst of beautiful grounds, the rooms are filled with flowers, and the wandering mind is called back by the golden voice of music.
In the midst of these tendencies—of these accomplishments—in the general harmony between the minds of men, acting together, to the end that the world may be governed by kindness through education and the blessed agencies of reformation and prevention, the Dean of St. Paul raises his voice in favor of the methods and brutalities of the past.
The reverend gentleman takes the ground that the effect of flogging on the flogged is not degrading; that the effect of corporal punishment is ennobling; that it tends to make boys manly by ennobling and teaching them to bear bodily pain with fortitude. To be flogged develops character, self-reliance, courage, contempt of pain and the highest heroism. The Dean therefore takes the ground that parents should flog their children, guardians their wards, and teachers their pupils.
If the Dean is wrong he goes too far, and if he is right he does not go far enough. He does not advocate the flogging of children who obey their parents, or of pupils who violate no rule. It follows then that such children are in great danger of growing up unmanly, without the courage and fortitude to bear bodily pain. If flogging is really a blessing it should not be withheld from the good and lavished on the unworthy. The Dean should have the courage of his convictions. The teacher should not make a pretext of the misconduct of the pupil to do him a great service. He should not be guilty of calling a benefit a punishment He should not deceive the children under his care and develop their better natures under false pretences. But what is to become of the boys and girls who "behave themselves," who attend to their studies, and comply with the rules? They lose the benefits conferred on those who defy their parents and teachers, reach maturity without character, and so remain withered and worthless.
The Dean not only defends his position by an appeal to the Bible, the history of nations, but to his personal experience. In order to show the good effects of brutality and the bad consequences of kindness, he gives two instances that came under his observation. The first is that of an intelligent father who treated his sons with great kindness and yet these sons neglected their affectionate father in his old age. The second instance is that of a mother who beat her daughter. The wretched child, it seems, was sent out to gather sticks from the hedges, and when she brought home a large stick, the mother suspected that she had obtained it wrongfully and thereupon proceeded to beat the child. And yet the Dean tells us that this abused daughter treated the hyena mother with the greatest kindness, and loved her as no other daughter ever loved a mother. In order to make this case strong and convincing the Dean states that this mother was a most excellent Christian.
From these two instances the Dean infers, and by these two instances proves, that kindness breeds bad sons, and that flogging makes affectionate daughters. The Dean says to the Christian mother: "If you wish to be loved by your daughter, you must beat her." And to the Christian father he says: "If you want to be neglected in your old age by your sons, you will treat them with kindness." The Dean does not follow his logic to the end. Let me give him two instances that support his theory.
A good man married a handsome woman. He was old, rich, kind and indulgent. He allowed his wife to have her own way. He never uttered a cross or cruel word. He never thought of beating her. And yet, as the Dean would say, in consequence of his kindness, she poisoned him, got his money and married another man.
In this city, not long ago, a man, a foreigner, beat his wife according to his habit. On this particular occasion the punishment was excessive. He beat her until she became unconscious; she was taken to a hospital and the physician said that she could not live. The husband was brought to the hospital and preparations were made to take her dying statement. After being told that she was dying, she was asked if her husband had beaten her. Her face was so bruised and swollen that the lids of her eyes had to be lifted in order that she might see the wretch who had killed her. She beckoned him to her side—threw her arms about his neck—drew his face to hers—kissed him, and said: "He is not the man. He did not do it"—then—died.
According to the philosophy of the Dean, these instances show that kindness causes crime, and that wife-beating cultivates in the highest degree the affectional nature of woman.
The Dean, if consistent, is a believer in slavery, because the lash judiciously applied brings out the finer feelings of the heart. Slaves have been known to die for their masters, while under similar circumstances hired men have sought safety in flight.
We all know of many instances where the abused, the maligned, and the tortured have returned good for evil—and many instances where the loved, the honored, and the trusted have turned against their benefactors, and yet we know that cruelty and torture are not superior to love and kindness. Yet, the Dean tries to show that severity is the real mother of affection, and that kindness breeds monsters. If kindness and affection on the part of parents demoralize children, will not kindness and affection on the part of children demoralize the parents?
When the children are young and weak, the parents who are strong beat the children in order that they may be affectionate. Now, when the children get strong and the parents are old and weak, ought not the children to beat them, so that they too may become kind and loving?
If you want an affectionate son, beat him. If you desire a loving wife, beat her.
This is really the advice of the Dean of St Paul. To me it is one of the most pathetic facts in nature that wives and children love husbands and fathers who are utterly unworthy. It is enough to sadden a life to think of the affection that has been lavished upon the brutal, of the countless pearls that Love has thrown to swine.
The Dean, quoting from Hooker, insists that "the voice of man is as the sentence of God himself,"—in other words, that the general voice, practice and opinion of the human race are true.
And yet, cannibalism, slavery, polygamy, the worship of snakes and stones, the sacrifice of babes, have during vast periods of time been practiced and upheld by an overwhelming majority of mankind. Whether the "general voice" can be depended on depends much on the time, the epoch, during which the "general voice" was uttered. There was a time when the "general voice" was in accord with the appetite of man; when all nations were cannibals and lived on each other, and yet it can hardly be said that this voice and appetite were in exact accord with divine goodness. It is hardly safe to depend on the "general voice" of savages, no matter how numerous they may have been. Like most people who defend the cruel and absurd, the Dean appeals to the Bible as the supreme authority in the moral world,—and yet if the English Parliament should re-enact the Mosaic Code every member voting in the affirmative would be subjected to personal violence, and an effort to enforce that code would produce a revolution that could end only in the destruction of the government.
The morality of the Old Testament is not always of the purest; when Jehovah tried to induce Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go, he never took the ground that slavery was wrong. He did not seek to convince by argument, to soften by pity, or to persuade by kindness. He depended on miracles and plagues. He killed helpless babes and the innocent beasts of the fields. No wonder the Dean appeals to the Bible to justify the beating of children. So, too, we are told that "all sensible persons, Christian and otherwise, will admit that there are in every child born into the world tendencies to evil that need rooting out."
The Dean undoubtedly believes in the creed of the established church, and yet he does not hesitate to say that a God of infinite goodness and intelligence never created a child—never allowed one to be born into the world without planting in its little heart "tendencies to evil that need rooting out."
So, Solomon is quoted to the effect "that he that spareth his rod hateth his son." To me it has always been a matter of amazement why civilized people, living in the century of Darwin and Humboldt, should quote as authority the words of Solomon, a murderer, an ingrate, an idolater, and a polygamist—a man so steeped and sodden in ignorance that he really believed he could be happy with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. The Dean seems to regret that flogging is no longer practiced in the British navy, and quotes with great cheerfulness a passage from Deuteronomy to prove that forty lashes on the naked back will meet with the approval of God. He insists that St. Paul endured corporal punishment without the feeling of degradation not only, but that he remembered his sufferings with a sense of satisfaction. Does the Dean think that the satisfaction of St. Paul justified the wretches who beat and stoned him? Leaving the Hebrews, the Dean calls the Greeks as witnesses to establish the beneficence of flogging. They resorted to corporal punishment in their schools, says the Dean and then naively remarks "that Plutarch was opposed to this."
The Dean admits that in Rome it was found necessary to limit by law the punishment that a father might inflict upon his children, and yet he seems to regret that the legislature interfered. The Dean observes that "Quintillian severely censured corporal punishment" and then accounts for the weakness and folly of the censure, by saying that "Quintillian wrote in the days when the glories of Rome were departed." And then adds these curiously savage words: "It is worthy of remark that no children treated their parents with greater tenderness and reverence than did those of Rome in the days when the father possessed the unlimited power of punishment."
Not quite satisfied with the strength of his case although sustained by Moses and Solomon, St. Paul and several schoolmasters, he proceeds to show that God is thoroughly on his side, not only in theory, but in practice; "whom the Lord loveth lie chasteneth, and scourgeth every sou whom he receiveth.".
The Dean asks this question: "Which custom, kindness or severity, does experience show to be the less dangerous?" And he answers from a new heart: "I fear that I must unhesitatingly give the palm to severity."
"I have found that there have been more reverence and affection, more willingness to make sacrifices for parents, more pleasure in contributing to their pleasure or happiness in that life where the tendency has been to a severe method of treatment."
Is it possible that any good mail exists who is willing to gain the affection of his children in that way? How could such a man beat and bruise the flesh of his babes, knowing that they would give him in return obedience and love; that they would fill the evening of his days—the leafless winter of his life—with perfect peace?
Think of being fed and clothed by children you had whipped—whose flesh you had scarred! Think of feeling in the hour of death upon your withered lips, your withered cheeks, the kisses and the tears of one whom, you had beaten—upon whose flesh were still the marks of your lash!
The whip degrades; a severe father teaches his children to dissemble; their love is pretence, and their obedience a species of self-defence. Fear is the father of lies.
THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.
A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.
AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.
A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.
A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.
A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.
A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.
MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.
(1877.)
Answer to San Francisco Clergymen—Definition of Liberty, Physical
and Mental—The Right to Compel Belief—Woman the Equal of Man—The
Ghosts—Immortality—Slavery—Witchcraft—Aristocracy of the
Air—Unfairness of Clerical Critics—Force and Matter—Doctrine of
Negation—Confident Deaths of Murderers—Childhood Scenes returned to
by the Dying—Death-bed of Voltaire—Thomas Paine—The First
Sectarians Were Heretics—Reply to Rev. Mr. Guard—Slaughter of
the Canaanites—Reply to Rev. Samuel Robinson—Protestant
Persecutions—Toleration—Infidelity and Progress—The
Occident—Calvinism—Religious Editors—Reply to the Rev. Mr.
Ijams—Does the Bible teach Man to Enslave his Brothers?—Reply to
California Christian Advocate—Self-Government of French People at
and Since the Revolution—On the Site of the Bastile—French
Peasant's Cheers for Jesus Christ—Was the World created in Six
Days—Geology—What is the Astronomy of the Bible?—The Earth the Centre
of the Universe—Joshua's Miracle—Change of Motion into Heat—Geography
and Astronomy of Cosmas—Does the Bible teach the Existence of
that Impossible Crime called Witchcraft?—Saul and the Woman of
Endor—Familiar Spirits—Demonology of the New Testament—Temptation of
Jesus—Possession by Devils—Gadarene Swine Story—Test of Belief—Bible
Idea of the Rights of Children—Punishment of the Rebellious
Son—Jephthah's Vow and Sacrifice—Persecution of Job—The Gallantry
of God—Bible Idea of the Rights of Women—Paul's Instructions to
Wives—Permission given to Steal Wives—Does the Bible Sanction
Polygamy and Concubinage?—Does the Bible Uphold and Justify Political
Tyranny?—Powers that be Ordained of God—Religious Liberty of
God—Sun-Worship punishable with Death—Unbelievers to be damned—Does
the Bible describe a God of Mercy?—Massacre Commanded—Eternal
Punishment Taught in the New Testament—The Plan of Salvation—Fall
and Atonement Moral Bankruptcy—Other Religions—Parsee
Sect—Brahmins—Confucians—Heretics and Orthodox.
MY CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS.
(1879.)
Rev. Robert Collyer—Inspiration of the Scriptures—Rev. Dr.
Thomas—Formation of the Old Testament—Rev. Dr. Kohler—Rev. Mr.
Herford—Prof. Swing—Rev. Dr. Ryder.
TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.
(1882.)
Rev. David Walk—Character of Jesus—Two or Three Christs Described
in the Gospels—Christ's Change of Opinions—Gospels Later than the
Epistles—Divine Parentage of Christ a Late Belief—The Man Christ
probably a Historical Character—Jesus Belittled by his Worshipers—He
never Claimed to be Divine—Christ's Omissions—Difference between
Christian and other Modern Civilizations—Civilization not Promoted
by Religion—Inventors—French and American Civilization: How
Produced—Intemperance and Slavery in Christian Nations—Advance due to
Inventions and Discoveries—Missionaries—Christian Nations Preserved by
Bayonet and Ball—Dr. T. B. Taylor—Origin of Life on this Planet—Sir
William Thomson—Origin of Things Undiscoverable—Existence after
Death—Spiritualists—If the Dead Return—Our Calendar—Christ and
Christmas-The Existence of Pain—Plato's Theory of Evil—Will God do
Better in Another World than he does in this?—Consolation—Life Not a
Probationary Stage—Rev. D.O'Donaghue—The Case of Archibald Armstrong
and Jonathan Newgate—Inequalities of Life—Can Criminals live a
Contented Life?—Justice of the Orthodox God Illustrated.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES.
(1883.)
Are the Books of Atheistic or Infidel Writers Extensively
Read?—Increase in the Number of Infidels—Spread of Scientific
Literature—Rev. Dr. Eddy—Rev. Dr. Hawkins—Rev. Dr. Haynes—Rev.
Mr. Pullman—Rev. Mr. Foote—Rev. Mr. Wells—Rev. Dr. Van Dyke—Rev.
Carpenter—Rev. Mr. Reed—Rev. Dr. McClelland—Ministers Opposed to
Discussion—Whipping Children—Worldliness as a Foe of the Church—The
Drama—Human Love—Fires, Cyclones, and Other Afflictions as Promoters
of Spirituality—Class Distinctions—Rich and Poor—Aristocracies—The
Right to Choose One's Associates—Churches Social Affairs—Progress
of the Roman Catholic Church—Substitutes for the Churches—Henry
Ward Beecher—How far Education is Favored by the Sects—Rivals of the
Pulpit—Christianity Now and One Hundred Years Ago—French Revolution
produced by the Priests—Why the Revolution was a Failure—Infidelity
of One Hundred Years Ago—Ministers not more Intellectual than a Century
Ago—Great Preachers of the Past—New Readings of Old Texts—Clerical
Answerers of Infidelity—Rev. Dr. Baker—Father Fransiola—Faith and
Reason—Democracy of Kindness—Moral Instruction—Morality Born of Human
Needs—The Conditions of Happiness—The Chief End of Man.
THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.
THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.
(1888.)
Discussion between Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon. Frederic R. Coudert,
and ex-Gov. Stewart L. Woodford before the Nineteenth Century Club of
New York—Propositions—Toleration not a Disclaimer but a Waiver of the
Right to Persecute—Remarks of Courtlandt Palmer—No Responsibility for
Thought—Intellectual Hospitality—Right of Free Speech—Origin of the
term "Toleration"—Slander and False Witness—Nobody can Control his own
Mind: Anecdote—Remarks of Mr. Coudert—Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, and
Ingersoll—General Woodford's Speech—Reply by Colonel Ingersoll—A
Catholic Compelled to Pay a Compliment to Voltaire—Responsibility for
Thoughts—The Mexican Unbeliever and his Reception in the Other Country.
A CHRISTMAS SERMON.
(1891.)
Christianity's Message of Grief—Christmas a Pagan Festival—Reply
to Dr. Buckley—Charges by the Editor of the Christian Advocate—The
Tidings of Christianity—In what the Message of Grief Consists—Fear
and Flame—An Everlasting Siberia—Dr. Buckley's Proposal to Boycott the
Telegram—Reply to Rev. J. M. King and Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr. Cana Day
be Blasphemed?—Hurting Christian feelings—For Revenue only What is
Blasphemy?—Balaam's Ass wiser than the Prophet—The Universalists—Can
God do Nothing for this World?—The Universe a Blunder if Christianity
is true—The Duty of a Newspaper—Facts Not Sectarian—The Rev.
Mr. Peters—What Infidelity Has Done—Public School System not
Christian—Orthodox Universities—Bruno on Oxford—As to Public
Morals—No Rewards or Punishments in the Universe—The Atonement
Immoral—As to Sciences and Art—Bruno, Humboldt, Darwin—Scientific
Writers Opposed by the Church—As to the Liberation of Slaves—As to
the Reclamation of Inebriates—Rum and Religion—The Humanity
of Infidelity—What Infidelity says to the Dying—The Battle
Continued—Morality not Assailed by an Attack on Christianity—The
Inquisition and Religious Persecution—Human Nature Derided by
Christianity—Dr. DaCosta—"Human Brotherhood" as exemplified by
the History of the Church—The Church and Science, Art and
Learning——Astronomy's Revenge—Galileo and Kepler—Mrs. Browning:
Science Thrust into the Brain of Europe—Our Numerals—Christianity and
Literature—Institution's of Learning—Stephen Girard—James Lick—Our
Chronology—Historians—Natural Philosophy—Philology—Metaphysical
Research—Intelligence, Hindoo, Egyptian—Inventions—John
Ericsson—Emancipators—Rev. Mr. Ballou—The Right of Goa to
Punish—Rev. Dr. Hillier—Rev. Mr. Haldeman—George A. Locey—The "Great
Physician"—Rev. Mr. Talmage—Rev. J. Benson Hamilton—How Voltaire
Died—The Death-bed of Thomas Paine—Rev. Mr. Holloway—Original
Sin—Rev. Dr. Tyler—The Good Samaritan a Heathen—Hospitals and
Asylums—Christian Treatment of the Insane—Rev. Dr. Buckley—The
North American Review Discussion—Judge Black, Dr. Field,
Mr. Gladstone—Circulation of Obscene Literature—Eulogy of
Whiskey—Eulogy of Tobacco—Human Stupidity that Defies the Gods—Rev.
Charles Deems—Jesus a Believer in a Personal Devil—The Man Christ.
SUICIDE OF JUDGE NORMILE.
(1892.)
Reply to the Western Watchman—Henry D'Arcy—Peter's
Prevarication-Some Excellent Pagans-Heartlessness of a
Catholic—Wishes do not Affect the Judgment—Devout Robbers—Penitent
Murderers—Reverential Drunkards—Luther's Distich—Judge
Normile—Self-destruction.
IS SUICIDE A SIN?
(1894.)
Col. Ingersoll's First Letter in The New York World—Under what
Circumstances a Man has the Right to take his Own Life—Medicine and the
Decrees of God—Case of the Betrayed Girl—Suicides not Cowards—Suicide
under Roman Law—Many Suicides Insane—Insanity Caused by Religion—The
Law against Suicide Cruel and Idiotic—Natural and Sufficient Cause for
Self-destruction—Christ's Death a Suicide—Col. Ingersoll's Reply to his
Critics—Is Suffering the Work of God?—It is not Man's Duty to
Endure Hopeless Suffering—When Suicide is Justifiable—The
Inquisition—Alleged Cowardice of Suicides—Propositions
Demonstrated—Suicide the Foundation of the Christian
Religion—Redemption and Atonement—The Clergy on Infidelity
and Suicide—Morality and Unbelief—Better injure yourself than
Another—Misquotation by Opponents—Cheerful View the Best—The
Wonder is that Men endure—Suicide a Sin (Interview in The New
York Journal)—Causes of Suicide—Col. Ingersoll Does Not Advise
Suicide—Suicides with Tracts or Bibles in their Pockets—Suicide a Sin
(Interview in The New York Herald)—Comments on Rev. Alerle St. Croix
Wright's Sermon—Suicide and Sanity (Interview in The York World)—As to
the Cowardice of Suicide—Germany and the Prevalence of Suicide—Killing
of Idiots and Defective Infants—Virtue, Morality, and Religion.
IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT?
(1891.)
Reply to General Rush Hawkins' Article, "Brutality and Avarice
Triumphant"—Croakers and Prophets of Evil—Medical Treatment
for Believers in Universal Evil—Alleged Fraud in Army
Contracts—Congressional Extravagance—Railroad "Wreckers"—How
Stockholders in Some Roads Lost Their Money—The Star-Route
Trials—Timber and Public Lands—Watering Stock—The Formation
of Trusts—Unsafe Hotels: European Game and Singing Birds—Seal
Fisheries—Cruelty to Animals—Our Indians—Sensible and Manly
Patriotism—Days of Brutality—Defence of Slavery by the Websters,
Bentons, and Clays—Thirty Years' Accomplishment—Ennobling Influence of
War for the Right—The Lady ana the Brakeman—American Esteem of Honesty
in Business—Republics do not Tend to Official Corruption—This the Best
Country in the World.
A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.
A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.
(1878.)
Defence of the Lecture on Moses—How Biblical Miracles are sought to
be Proved—Some Non Sequiturs—A Grammatical Criticism—Christianity
Destructive of Manners—Cuvier and Agassiz on Mosaic Cosmogony—Clerical
Advance agents—Christian Threats and Warnings—Catholicism the Upas
Tree—Hebrew Scholarship as a Qualification for Deciding Probababilities
—Contradictions and Mistranslations of the Bible—Number of Errors in
the Scriptures—The Sunday Question.
AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.
AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.
(1881.)
Charged with Blasphemy in the State of Delaware—Can a Conditionless
Deity be Injured?—Injustice the only Blasphemy—The Lecture
in Delaware—Laws of that State—All Sects in turn Charged with
Blasphemy—Heresy Consists in making God Better than he is Thought
to Be—A Fatal Biblical Passage—Judge Comegys—Wilmington
Preachers—States with Laws against Blasphemy—No Danger of Infidel
Mobs—No Attack on the State of Delaware Contemplated—Comegys a
Resurrection—Grand Jury's Refusal to Indict—Advice about the Cutting
out of Heretics' Tongues—Objections to the Whipping-post—Mr. Bergh's
Bill—One Remedy for Wife-beating.
A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.
A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.
(1882.)
Solemnity—Charged with Being Insincere—Irreverence—Old Testament
Better than the New—"Why Hurt our Feelings?"—Involuntary Action of
the Brain—Source of our Conceptions of Space—Good and Bad—Right and
Wrong—The Minister, the Horse and the Lord's Prayer—Men Responsible
for their Actions—The "Gradual" Theory Not Applicable to
the Omniscient—Prayer Powerless to Alter Results—Religious
Persecution—Orthodox Ministers Made Ashamed of their
Creed—Purgatory—Infidelity and Baptism Contrasted—Modern Conception
of the Universe—The Golden Bridge of Life—"The Only Salutation"—The
Test for Admission to Heaven—"Scurrility."
A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.
A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.
(1892.)
Dr. Hall has no Time to Discuss the subject of Starving
Workers—Cloakmakers' Strike—Warner Van Norden of the Church Extension
Society—The Uncharitableness of Organized Charity—Defence of the
Cloakmakers—Life of the Underpaid—On the Assertion that Assistance
encourages Idleness and Crime—The Man without Pity an Intellectual
Beast—Tendency of Prosperity to Breed Selfishness—Thousands Idle
without Fault—Egotism of Riches—Van Norden's Idea of Happiness—The
Worthy Poor.
A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.
A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.
(1898.)
Interview in a Boston Paper—Why should a Minister call this a "Poor"
World?—Would an Infinite God make People who Need a Redeemer?—Gospel
Gossip—Christ's Sayings Repetitions—The Philosophy of Confucius—Rev.
Mr. Mills—The Charge of "Robbery"—The Divine Plan.
A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.
(1898.)
Interview in the New York Journal—Rev. Roberts. MacArthur—A
Personal Devil—Devils who held Conversations with Christ not simply
personifications of Evil—The Temptation—The "Man of Straw"—Christ's
Mission authenticated by the Casting Out of Devils—Spain—God
Responsible for the Actions of Man—Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Parks—Rev. Dr. E.
F. Moldehnke—Patience amidst the Misfortunes of Others—Yellow Fever
as a Divine Agent—The Doctrine that All is for the Best—Rev. Mr.
Hamlin—Why Did God Create a Successful Rival?—A Compliment by the
Rev. Mr. Belcher—Rev. W. C. Buchanan—No Argument Old until it is
Answered—Why should God Create sentient Beings to be Damned?—Rev. J.
W. Campbell—Rev. Henry Frank—Rev. E. C.J. Kraeling on Christ and the
Devil—Would he make a World like This?
* This lecture was delivered by Col. Ingersoll in San
Francisco Cal., June 27, 1877. It was a reply to various
clergymen of that city, who had made violent attacks upon
him after the delivery of his lectures, "The Liberty of Man,
Woman and Child," and "The Ghosts."
I.
AGAINST the aspersions of the pulpit and the religious press, I offer in evidence this magnificent audience. Although I represent but a small part of the holy cause of intellectual liberty, even that part shall not be defiled or smirched by a single personality. Whatever I say, I shall say because I believe it will tend to make this world grander, man nearer just, the father kinder, the mother more loving, the children more affectionate, and because I believe it will make an additional flower bloom in the pathway of every one who hears me.
In the first place, what have I said? What has been my offence? What have I done? I am spoken of by the clergy as though I were a wolf that in the absence of the good shepherd had fattened upon his innocent flock. What have I said?
I delivered a lecture entitled, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child." In that lecture I said that man was entitled to physical and intellectual liberty. I defined physical liberty to be the right to do right; the right to do anything that did not interfere with the real happiness of others. I defined intellectual liberty to be the right to think right, and the right to think wrong—provided you did your best to think right.
This must be so, because thought is only an instrumentality by which we seek to ascertain the truth. Every man has the right to think, whether his thought is in reality right or wrong; and he cannot be accountable to any being for thinking wrong. There is upon man, so far as thought is concerned, the obligation to think the best he can, and to honestly express his best thought. Whenever he finds what is right, or what he honestly believes to be the right, he is less than a man if he fears to express his conviction before an assembled world.
The right to do right is my definition of physical liberty. "The right of one human being ceases where the right of another commences." My definition of intellectual liberty is, the right to think, whether you think right or wrong, provided you do your best to think right.
I believe in Liberty, Fraternity and Equality—the Blessed Trinity of Humanity.
I believe in Observation, Reason and Experience—the Blessed Trinity of Science.
I believe in Man, Woman and Child—the Blessed Trinity of Life and Joy.
I have said, and still say, that you have no right to endeavor by force to compel another to think your way—that man has no right to compel his fellow-man to adopt his creed, by torture or social ostracism. I have said, and still say, that even an infinite God has and can have no right to compel by force or threats even the meanest of mankind to accept a dogma abhorrent to his mind. As a matter of fact such a power is incapable of being exercised. You may compel a man to say that he has changed his mind. You may force him to say that he agrees with you. In this way, however, you make hypocrites, not converts. Is it possible that a god wishes the worship of a slave? Does a god desire the homage of a coward? Does he really long for the adoration of a hypocrite? Is it possible that he requires the worship of one who dare not think? If I were a god it seems to me that I had rather have the esteem and love of one grand, brave man, with plenty of heart and plenty of brain, than the blind worship, the ignorant adoration, the trembling homage of a universe of men afraid to reason. And yet I am warned by the orthodox guardians of this great city not to think. I am told that I am in danger of hell; that for me to express my honest convictions is to excite the wrath of God. They inform me that unless I believe in a certain way, meaning their way, I am in danger of everlasting fire.
There was a time when these threats whitened the faces of men with fear. That time has substantially passed away. For a hundred years hell has been gradually growing cool, the flames have been slowly dying out, the brimstone is nearly exhausted, the fires have been burning lower and lower, and the climate gradually changing. To such an extent has the change already been effected that if I were going there to-night I would take an overcoat and a box of matches.
They say that the eternal future of man depends upon his belief. I deny it. A conclusion honestly arrived at by the brain cannot possibly be a crime; and the man who says it is, does not think so. The god who punishes it as a crime is simply an infamous tyrant. As for me, I would a thousand times rather go to perdition and suffer its torments with the brave, grand thinkers of the world, than go to heaven and keep the company of a god who would damn his children for an honest belief.
The next thing I have said is, that woman is the equal of man; that she has every right that man has, and one more—the right to be protected, because she is the weaker. I have said that marriage should be an absolutely perfect partnership of body and soul; that a man should treat his wife like a splendid flower, and that she should fill his life with perfume and with joy. I have said that a husband had no right to be morose; that he had no right to assassinate the sunshine and murder the joy of life.
I have said that when he went home he should go like a ray of light, and fill his house so full of joy that it would burst out of the doors and windows and illumine even the darkness of night. I said that marriage was the holiest, highest, the most sacred institution among men; that it took millions of years for woman to advance from the condition of absolute servitude, from the absolute slavery where the Bible found her and left her, up to the position she occupies at present. I have pleaded for the rights of woman, for the rights of wives, and what is more, for the rights of little children. I have said that they could be governed by affection, by love, and that my heart went out to all the children of poverty and of crime; to the children that live in the narrow streets and in the sub-cellars; to the children that run and hide when they hear the footsteps of a brutal father, the children that grow pale when they hear their names pronounced even by a mother; to all the little children, the flotsam and jetsam upon the wide, rude sea of life. I have said that my heart goes out to them one and all; I have asked fathers and mothers to cease beating their own flesh and blood. I have said to them, When your child does wrong, put your arms around him; let him feel your heart beat against his. It is easier to control your child with a kiss than with a club.
For expressing these sentiments, I have been denounced by the religious press and by ministers in their pulpits as a demon, as an enemy of order, as a fiend, as an infamous man. Of this, however, I make no complaint. A few years ago they would have burned me at the stake and I should have been compelled to look upon their hypocritical faces through flame and smoke. They cannot do it now or they would. One hundred years ago I would have been burned, simply for pleading for the rights of men. Fifty years ago I would have been imprisoned. Fifty years ago my wife and my children would have been torn from my arms in the name of the most merciful God. Twenty-five years ago I could not have made a living in the United States at the practice of law; but I can now. I would not then have been allowed to express my thought; but I can now, and I will. And when I think about the liberty I now enjoy, the whole horizon is illuminated with glory and the air is filled with wings.
I then delivered another lecture entitled "Ghosts," in which I sought to show that man had been controlled by phantoms of his own imagination; in which I sought to show these imps of darkness, these devils, had all been produced by superstition; in which I endeavored to prove that man had groveled in the dust before monsters of his own creation; in which I endeavored to demonstrate that the many had delved in the soil that the few might live in idleness, that the many had lived in caves and dens that the few might dwell in palaces of gold; in which I endeavored to show that man had received nothing from these ghosts except hatred, except ignorance, except unhappiness, and that in the name of phantoms man had covered the face of the world with tears. And for this, I have been assailed, in the name, I presume, of universal forgiveness. So far as any argument I have produced is concerned, it cannot in any way make the slightest difference whether I am a good or a bad man. It cannot in any way make the slightest difference whether my personal character is good or bad. That is not the question, though, so far as I am concerned, I am willing to stake the whole question upon that issue. That is not, however, the thing to be discussed, nor the thing to be decided. The question is, whether what I said is true.
I did say that from ghosts we had obtained certain things—among other things a book known as the Bible. From the ghosts we received that book; and the believers in ghosts pretend that upon that book rests the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul. This I deny.
Whether or not the soul is immortal is a fact in nature and cannot be changed by any book whatever. If I am immortal, I am. If am not, no book can render me so. It is no mure wonderful that I should live again than that I do live.
The doctrine of immortality is not based upon any book. The foundation of that idea is not a creed. The idea of immortality, which, like a sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves of hope and fear against the shores and rocks of fate and time, was not born of any book, was not born of a creed. It is not the child of any religion. It was born of human affection; and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the eternal bow—Hope shining upon the tears of Grief.
I did say that these ghosts taught that human slavery was right. If there is a crime beneath the shining stars it is the crime of enslaving a human being. Slavery enslaves not only the slave, but the master as well. When you put a chain upon the limbs of another, you put a fetter also upon your own brain. I had rather be a slave than a slaveholder. The slave can at least be just—the slaveholder cannot. I had rather be robbed than be a robber. I had rather be stolen from than to be a thief. I have said, and I do say, that the Bible upheld, sustained and sanctioned the institution of human slavery; and before I get through I will prove it.
I said that to the same book we are indebted, to a great degree, for the doctrine of witchcraft. Relying upon its supposed sacred texts, people were hanged and their bodies burned for getting up storms at sea with the intent of drowning royal vermin. Every possible offence was punished under the name of witchcraft, from souring beer to high treason.
I also said, and I still say, that the book we obtained from the ghosts, for the guidance of man, upheld the infamy of infamies, called polygamy; and I will also prove that. And the same book teaches, not political liberty, but political tyranny.
I also said that the author of the book given us by the ghosts knew nothing about astronomy, still less about geology, still less, if possible, about medicine, and still less about legislation.
This is what I have said concerning the aristocracy of the air. I am well aware that having said it I ought to be able to prove the truth of my words. I have said these things. No one ever said them in better nature than I have. I have not the slightest malice—a victor never felt malice. As soon as I had said these things, various gentlemen felt called upon to answer me. I want to say that if there is anything I like in the world it is fairness. And one reason I like it so well is that I have had so little of it. I can say, if I wish, extremely mean and hateful things. I have read a great many religious papers and discussions and think that I now know all the infamous words in our language. I know how to account for every noble action by a mean and wretched motive, and that, in my judgment, embraces nearly the entire science of modern theology. The moment I delivered a lecture upon "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child," I was charged with having said that there is nothing back of nature, and that nature with its infinite arms embraces everything; and thereupon I was informed that I believed in nothing but matter and force, that I believed only in earth, that I did not believe in spirit. If by spirit you mean that which thinks, then I am a believer in spirit. If you mean by spirit the something that says "I," the something that reasons, hopes, loves and aspires, then I am a believer in spirit. Whatever spirit there is in the universe must be a natural thing, and not superimposed upon nature. All that I can say is, that whatever is, is natural. And there is as much goodness, in my judgment, as much spirit in this world as in any other; and you are just as near the heart of the universe here as you can be anywhere. One of your clergymen says in answer, as he supposes, to me, that there is matter and force and spirit. Well, can matter exist without force? What would keep it together? What would keep the finest possible conceivable atom together unless there was force? Can you imagine such a thing as matter without force? Can you conceive of force without matter? Can you conceive of force floating about attached to nothing? Can you possibly conceive of this? No human being can conceive of force without matter. "You cannot conceive of force being harnessed or hitched to matter as you would hitch horses to a carriage." You cannot. Now, what is spirit? They say spirit is the first thing that was. It seems to me, however, as though spirit was the blossom, the fruit of all, not the commencement. They say it was first. Very well. Spirit without force, a spirit without any matter—what would that spirit do? No force, no matter!—a spirit living in an infinite vacuum. What would such a spirit turn its particular attention to? This spirit, according to these theologians, created the world, the universe; and if it did, there must have been a time when it commenced to create; and back of that there must have been an eternity spent in absolute idleness. Now, is it possible that a spirit existed during an eternity without any force and without any matter? Is it possible that force could exist without matter or spirit? Is it possible that matter could exist alone, if by matter you mean something without force? The only answer I can give to all these questions is, I do not know. For my part, I do not know what spirit is, if there is any. I do not know what matter is, neither am I acquainted with the elements of force. If you mean by matter that which I can touch, that which occupies space, then I believe in matter. If you mean by force anything that can overcome weight, that can overcome what we call gravity or inertia; if you mean by force that which moves the molecules of matter, or the movement itself, then I believe in force. If you mean by spirit that which thinks and loves, then I believe in spirit. There is, however, no propriety in wasting any time about the science of metaphysics. I will give you my definition of metaphysics: Two fools get together; each admits what neither can prove, and thereupon both of them say, "hence we infer." That is all there is of metaphysics.
These gentlemen, however, say to me that all my doctrine about the treatment of wives and children, all my ideas of the rights of man, all these are wrong, because I am not exactly correct as to my notion 01 spirit. They say that spirit existed first, at least an eternity before there was any force or any matter. Exactly how spirit could act without force we do not understand. That we must take upon credit. How spirit could create matter without force is a serious question, and we are too reverent to press such an inquiry. We are bound to be satisfied, however, that spirit is entirely independent of force and matter, and any man who denies this must be "a malevolent and infamous wretch."
Another reverend gentleman proceeds to denounce all I have said as the doctrine of negation. And we are informed by him—speaking I presume from experience—that negation is a poor thing to die by. He tells us that the last hours are the grand testing hours. They are the hours when atheists disown their principles and infidels bewail their folly—"that Voltaire and Thomas Paine wrote sharply against Christianity, but their death-bed scenes are too harrowing for recital"—He also states that "another French infidel philosopher tried in vain to fortify Voltaire, but that a stronger man than Voltaire had taken possession of him, and he cried 'Retire! it is you that have brought me to my present state—Begone! what a rich glory you have brought me.'" This, my friends, is the same old, old falsehood that has been repeated again and again by the lips of hatred and hypocrisy. There is not in one of these stories a solitary word of truth; and every intelligent man knows all these death-bed accounts to be entirely and utterly false. They are taken, however, by the mass of the church as evidence that all opposition to Christianity, so-called, fills the bed of the dying infidel and scoffer with serpents and scorpions. So far as my experience goes, the bad die in many instances as placidly as the good. I have sometimes thought that a hardened wretch, upon whose memory is engraved the record of nearly every possible crime, dies without a shudder, without a tremor, while some grand, good man, remembering during his last moments an unkind word spoken to a stranger, it may be in the heat of anger, dies with remorseful words upon his lips. Nearly every murderer who is hanged, dies with an immensity of nerve, but I never thought it proved that he had lived a good and useful life. Neither have I imagined that it sanctified the crime for which he suffered death. The fact is, that when man approaches natural death, his powers, his intellectual faculties fail and grow dim. He becomes a child. He has less and less sense. And just in proportion as he loses his reasoning powers, he goes back to the superstitions of his childhood. The scenes of youth cluster about him and he is again in the lap of his mother. Of this very fact, there is not a more beautiful description than that given by Shakespeare when he takes that old mass of wit and filth, Jack Falstaff, in his arms, and Mrs Quickly says: "A' made a finer end, and went away, an it had been my christom child; a' parted ev'n just between twelve and one, ev'n at the turning o' the tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' end, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields." As the genius of Shakespeare makes Falstaff a child again upon sunny slopes, decked with daisies, so death takes the dying back to the scenes of their childhood, and they are clasped once more to the breasts of mothers. They go back, for the reason that nearly every superstition in the world has been sanctified by some sweet and placid mother. Remember, the superstition has never sanctified the mother, but the mother has sanctified the superstition. The young Mohammedan, who now lies dying upon some field of battle, thinks sweet and tender thoughts of home and mother, and will, as the blood oozes from his veins, repeat some holy verse from the blessed Koran. Every superstition in the world that is now held sacred has been made so by mothers, by fathers, by the recollections of home. I know what it has cost the noble, the brave, the tender, to throw away every superstition, although sanctified by the memory of those they loved. Whoever has thrown away these superstitions has been pursued by his fellow-men, From the day of the death of Voltaire the church has pursued him as though he had been the vilest criminal. A little over one hundred years ago, Catholicism, the inventor of instruments of torture, red with the innocent blood of millions, felt in its heartless breast the dagger of Voltaire. From that blow the Catholic Church never can recover. Livid with hatred she launched at her assassin the curse of Rome, and ignorant Protestants have echoed that curse. For myself, I like Voltaire, and whenever I think of that name, it is to me as a plume floating above some grand knight—a knight who rides to a walled city and demands an unconditional surrender. I like him. He was once imprisoned in the Bastile, and while in that frightful fortress—and I like to tell it—he changed his name. His name was Francois Marie Arouet. In his gloomy cell he changed this name to Voltaire, and when some sixty years afterward the Bastile was torn down to the very dust, "Voltaire" was the battle cry of the destroyers who did it. I like him because he did more for religious toleration than any other man who ever lived or died. I admire him because he did more to do away with torture in civil proceedings than any other man. I like him because he was always upon the side of justice, upon the side of progress. I like him in spite of his faults, because he had many and splendid virtues. I like him because his doctrines have never brought unhappiness to any country. I like him because he hated tyranny; and when he died he died as serenely as ever mortal died; he spoke to his servant recognizing him as a man. He said to him, calling him by name: "My friend, farewell." These were the last words of Voltaire. And this was the only frightful scene enacted at his bed of death. I like Voltaire, because for half a century he was the intellectual emperor of Europe. I like him, because from his throne at the foot of the Alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Christendom.
I will give to any clergyman in the city of San Francisco a thousand dollars in gold to substantiate the story that the death of Voltaire was not as peaceful as the coming of the dawn. The same absurd story is told of Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine was a patriot—he was the first man in the world to write these words: "The Free and Independent States of America." He was the first man to convince the American people that they ought to separate themselves from Great Britain. "His pen did as much, to say the least, for the liberty of America, as the sword of Washington." The men who have enjoyed the benefit of his heroic services repay them with slander and calumny. If there is in this world a crime, ingratitude is a crime. And as for myself, I am not willing to receive anything from any man without making at least an acknowledgment of my obligation. Y et these clergymen, whose very right to stand in their pulpits and preach, was secured to them by such men as Thomas Paine, delight in slandering the reputation of that great man. They tell their hearers that he died in fear,—that he died in agony, hearing devils rattle chains, and that the infinite God condescended to frighten a dying man. I will give one thousand dollars in gold to any clergyman in San Francisco who will substantiate the truth of the absurd stories concerning the death of Thomas Paine. There is not one word of truth in these accounts; not one word.
Let me ask one thing, and let me ask it, if you please, in what is called a reverent spirit. Suppose that Voltaire and Thomas Paine, and Volney and Hume and Hobbes had cried out when dying "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" what would the clergymen of this city then have said?
To resort to these foolish calumnies about the great men who have opposed the superstitions of the world, is in my judgment, unbecoming any intelligent man. The real question is not, who is afraid to die? The question is, who is right? The great question is not, who died right, but who lived right? There is infinitely more responsibility in living than in dying. The moment of death is the most unimportant moment of life. Nothing can be done then. You cannot even do a favor for a friend, except to remember him in your will. It is a moment when life ceases to be of value. While living, while you have health and strength, you can augment the happiness of your fellow-men; and the man who has made others happy need not be afraid to die. Yet these believers, as they call themselves, these believers who hope for immortality—thousands of them, will rob their neighbors, thousands of them will do numberless acts of injustice, when, according to their belief, the witnesses of their infamy will live forever; and the men whom they have injured and outraged, will meet them in every glittering star through all the ages yet to be.
As for me, I would rather do a generous action, and read the record in the grateful faces of my fellow-men.
These gentlemen who attack me are orthodox now, but the men who started their churches were heretics.
The first Presbyterian was a heretic. The first Baptist was a heretic. The first Congregationalist was a heretic. The first Christian was denounced as a blasphemer. And yet these heretics, the moment they get numerous enough to be in the majority in some locality, begin to call themselves orthodox. Can there be any impudence beyond this?
The first Baptist, as I said before, was a heretic; and he was the best Baptist that I have ever heard anything about. I always liked him. He was a good man—Roger Williams. He was the first man, so far as I know, in this country, who publicly said that the soul of man should be free. And it was a wonder to me that a man who had sense enough to say that, could think that any particular form of baptism was necessary to salvation. It does strike me that a man of great brain and thought could not possibly think the eternal welfare of a human being, the question whether he should dwell with angels, or be tossed upon eternal waves of fire, should be settled by the manner in which he had been baptized. That seems, to me so utterly destitute of thought and heart, that it is a matter of amazement to me that any man ever looked upon the ordinance of baptism as of any importance whatever. If we were at the judgment seat to-night, and the Supreme Being, in our hearing, should ask a man:
"Have you been a good man?" and the man replied:
"Tolerably good."
"Did you love your wife and children?"
"Yes."
"Did you try and make them happy?"
"Yes."
"Did you try and make your neighbors happy?" "Yes, I paid my debts: I gave heaping measure, and I never cared whether I was thanked for it or not."
Suppose the Supreme Being then should say:
"Were you ever baptized?" and the man should reply:
"I am sorry to say I never was."
Could a solitary person of sense hear that question asked, by the Supreme Being, without laughing, even if he knew that his own case was to be called next?
I happened to be in the company of six or seven Baptist elders—how I ever got into such bad company, I don't know,—and one of them asked what I thought about baptism. Well, I never thought much about it; did not know much about it; didn't want to say anything, but they insisted upon it. I said, "Well, I'll give you my opinion—with soap, baptism is a good thing."
The Reverend Mr. Guard has answered me, as I am informed, upon several occasions. I have read the reports of his remarks, and have boiled them down. He said some things about me not entirely pleasant, which I do not wish to repeat. In his reply he takes the ground:
First. That the Bible is not an immoral book, because he swore upon it or by it when he joined the Masons.
Second. He excuses Solomon for all his crimes upon the supposition that he had softening of the brain, or a fatty degeneration of the heart.
Third. That the Hebrews had the right to slay all the inhabitants of Canaan, according to the doctrine of the "survival of the fittest." He takes the ground that the destruction of these Canaanites, the ripping open of women with child by the sword of war, was an act of sublime mercy. He justifies a war of extermination; he applauds every act of cruelty and murder. He says that the Canaanites ought to have been turned from their homes; that men guilty of no crime except fighting for their country, old men with gray hairs, old mothers and little, dimpled, prattling children, ought to have been sacrificed upon the altar of war; that it was an act of sublime mercy to plunge the sword of religious persecution into the bodies of all, old and young. This is what the reverend gentleman is pleased to call mercy. If this is mercy let us have injustice. If there is in the heavens such a God I am sorry that man exists. All this, however, is justified upon the ground that God has the right to do as he pleases with the being he has created. This I deny. Such a doctrine is infamously false. Suppose I could take a stone and in one moment change it into a sentient, hoping, loving human being, would I have the right to torture it? Would I have the right to give it pain? No one but a fiend would either exercise or justify such a right. Even if there is a God who created us all he has no such right. Above any God that can exist, in the infinite serenity forever sits the figure of justice; and this God, no matter how great and infinite he may be, is bound to do justice.
Fourth. That God chose the Jews and governed them personally for thousands of years, and drove out the Canaanites in order that his peculiar people might not be corrupted by the example of idolaters; that he wished to make of the Hebrews a great nation, and that, consequently, he was justified in destroying the original inhabitants of that country. It seems to me that the end hardly justified the means. According to the account, God governed the Jews personally for many ages and succeeded in civilizing them to that degree, that they crucified him the first opportunity they had. Such an administration can hardly be called a success.
Fifth. The reverend gentleman seems to think that the practice of polygamy after all is not a bad thing when compared with the crime of exhibiting a picture of Antony and Cleopatra. Upon the corrupting influence of such pictures he descants at great length, and attacks with all the bitterness of the narrow theologian the masterpieces of art. Allow me to say one word about art. That is one of the most beautiful words in our language—Art. And it never seemed to me necessary for art to go in partnership with a rag. I like the paintings of Angelo, of Raffaelle. I like the productions of those splendid souls that put their ideas of beauty upon the canvas uncovered.
"There are brave souls in every land
Who worship nature, grand and nude,
And who with swift indignant hand
Tear off the fig leaves of the prude."
Sixth. That it may be true that the Bible sanctions slavery, but that it is not an immoral book even if it does.
I can account for these statements, for these arguments, only as the reverend gentleman has accounted for the sins of Solomon—"by a softening of the brain, or a fatty degeneration of the heart."
It does seem to me that if I were a Christian, and really thought my fellow-man was going down to the bottomless pit; that he was going to misery and agony forever, it does seem to me that I would try and save him. It does seem to me, that instead of having my mouth filled with epithets and invectives; instead of drawing the lips of malice back from the teeth of hatred, it seems to me that my eyes would be filled with tears. It seems to me that I would do what little I could to reclaim him. I would talk to him and of him, in kindness. I would put the arms of affection about him. I would not speak of him as though he were a wild beast. I would not speak to him as though he were a brute. I would think of him as a man, as a man liable to eternal torture among the damned, and my heart would be filled with sympathy, not hatred—my eyes with tears, not scorn.
If there is anything pitiable, it is to see a man so narrowed and withered by the blight and breath of superstition, as cheerfully to defend the most frightful crimes of which we have a record—a man so hardened and petrified by creed and dogma that he hesitates not to defend even the institution of human slavery—so lost to all sense of pity that he applauds murder and rapine as though they were acts of the loftiest self-denial.
The next gentleman who has endeavored to answer what I have said, is the Rev. Samuel Robinson. This he has done in his sermon entitled "Ghosts against God or Ingersoll against Honesty." I presume he imagines himself to be the defendant in both cases.
This gentleman apologized for attending an infidel lecture, upon the ground that he had to contribute to the support of a "materialistic demon." To say the least, this is not charitable. But I am satisfied. I am willing to exchange facts for epithets. I fare so much better than did the infidels in the olden time that I am more than satisfied. It is a little thing that I bear.
The brave men of the past endured the instruments of torture. They were stretched upon racks; their feet were crushed in iron boots; they stood upon the shores of exile and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land. They were taken from their firesides, from their wives, from their children; they were taken to the public square; they were chained to stakes, and their ashes were scattered by the countless hands of hatred. I am satisfied. The disciples of fear cannot touch me.
This gentlemen hated to contribute a cent to the support of a "materialistic demon." When I saw that statement I will tell you what I did. I knew the man's conscience must be writhing in his bosom to think that he had contributed a dollar toward my support, toward the support of a "materialistic demon." I wrote him a letter and I said:
"My Dear Sir: In order to relieve your conscience of the crime of having contributed to the support of an unbeliever in ghosts, I hereby enclose the amount you paid to attend my lecture." I then gave him a little good advice. I advised him to be charitable, to be kind, and regretted exceedingly that any man could listen to one of my talks for an hour and a half and not go away satisfied that all men had the same right to think.
This man denied having received the money, but it was traced to him through a blot on the envelope.
This gentleman avers that everything that I said about persecution is applicable to the Catholic Church only. That is what he says. The Catholics have probably persecuted more than any other church, simply because that church has had more power, simply because it has been more of a church. It has to-day a better organization, and as a rule, the Catholics come nearer believing what they say about their church than other Christians do. Was it a Catholic persecution that drove the Puritan fathers from England? Was it not the storm of Episcopal persecution that filled the sails of the Mayflower? Was it not a Protestant persecution that drove the Ark and Dove to America? Let us be honest. Who went to Scotland and persecuted the Presbyterians? Who was it that chained to the stake that splendid girl by the sands of the sea for not saying "God save the king"? She was worthy to have been the mother of Cæsar. She would not say "God save the king," but she would say "God save the king, if it be God's will." Protestants ordered her to say "God save the king," and no more. She said, "I will not," and they chained her to a stake in the sand and allowed her to be drowned by the rising of the inexorable tide. Who did this? Protestants. Who drove Roger Williams from Massachusetts? Protestants. Who sold white Quaker children into slavery? Protestants. Who cut out the tongues of Quakers? Who burned and destroyed men and women and children charged with impossible crimes? Protestants. The Protestants have persecuted exactly to the extent of their power. The Catholics have done the same.
I want, however, to be just. The first people to pass an act of religious toleration in the New World were the Catholics of Maryland. The next were the Baptists of Rhode Island, led by Roger Williams. The Catholics passed the act of religious toleration, and after the Protestants got into power again in England, and also in the colony of Maryland, they repealed the law of toleration and passed another law declaring the Catholics from under the protection of all law. Afterward, the Catholics again got into power and had the generosity and magnanimity to re-enact the old law. And, so far as I know, it is the only good record upon the subject of religious toleration the Catholics have in this world, and I am always willing to give them credit for it.
This gentleman also says that infidelity has done nothing for the world in the development of the arts and sciences. Does he not know that nearly every man who took a forward step was denounced by the church as a heretic and infidel? Does he not know that the church has in all ages persecuted the astronomers, the geologists, the logicians? Does he not know that even to-day the church slanders and maligns the foremost men? Has he ever heard of Tyndall, of Huxley? Is he acquainted with John W. Draper, one of the leading minds of the world? Did he ever hear of Auguste Comte, the great Frenchman? Did he ever hear of Descartes, of Laplace, of Spinoza? In short, has he ever heard of a man who took a step in advance of his time?
Orthodoxy never advances. When it advances, it ceases to be orthodoxy and becomes heresy. Orthodoxy is putrefaction. It is intellectual cloaca; it cannot advance. What the church calls infidelity is simply free thought. Every man who really owns his own brain is, in the estimation of the church, an infidel.
There is a paper published in this city called The Occident. The Editor has seen fit to speak of me, and of the people who have assembled to hear me, in the lowest, vilest and most scurrilous terms possible. I cannot afford to reply in the same spirit. He alleges that the people who assemble to hear me are the low, the debauched and the infamous. The man who reads that paper ought to read it with tongs. It is a Presbyterian sheet; and would gladly treat me as John Calvin treated Castalio. Castalio was the first minister in the history of Christendom who acknowledged the innocence of honest error, and John Calvin followed him like a sleuth-hound of perdition. He called him a "dog of Satan;" said that he had crucified Christ afresh; and pursued him to the very grave. The editor of this paper is still warming his hands at the fire that burned Servetus. He has in his heart the same fierce hatred of everything that is free. But what right have we to expect anything good of a man who believes in the eternal damnation of infants?
There may have been sometime in the history of the world a worse religion than Old School Presbyterianism, but if there ever was, from cannibalism to civilization, I have never heard of it.
I make a distinction between the members and the creed of that church. I know many who are a thousand times better than the creed—good, warm and splendid friends of mine. I would do anything in the world for them. And I have said to them a hundred times, "You are a thousand times better than your creed." But when you come down to the doctrine of the damnation of infants, it is the deformity of deformities. The editor of this paper is engaged in giving the world the cheerful doctrines of fore-ordination and damnation—those twin comforts of the Presbyterian creed, and warning them against the frightful effects of reasoning in any manner for themselves. He regards the intellectually free as the lowest, the vilest and the meanest, as men who wish to sin, as men who are longing to commit crime, men who are anxious to throw off all restraint.
My friends, every chain thrown from the body puts an additional obligation upon the soul. Every man who is free, puts a responsibility upon his brain and upon his heart. You, who never want responsibility, give your souls to some church. You, who never want the feeling that you are under obligation to yourselves, give your souls away. But if you are willing to feel and meet responsibility; if you feel that you must give an account not only to yourselves but to every human being whom you injure, then you must be free. Where there is no freedom, there can be no responsibility.
It is a mystery to me why the editors of religious papers are so malicious, why they endeavor to answer argument with calumny. Is it because they feel the sceptre slowly slipping from their hands? Is it the result of impotent rage? Is it because there is being written upon every orthodox brain a certificate of intellectual inferiority?
This same editor assures his readers that what I say is not worth answering, and yet he devotes column after column of his journal to that very purpose. He states that I am no speaker, no orator; and upon the same page admits that he did not hear me, giving as a reason that he does not think it right to pay money for such a purpose. Recollect, that in a religious paper, a man who professes honesty, criticises a statue or a painting, condemns it, and at the end of the criticism says that he never saw it. He criticises what he calls the oratory of a man, and at the end says, "I never heard him, and I never saw him."
As a matter of fact, I have never heard of any of these gentlemen who thought it necessary to hear what any man said in order to answer him.
The next gentleman who answered me is the Rev. Mr. Ijams. And I must say, so far as I can see, in his argument, or in his mode of treatment, he is a kind and considerate gentleman. He makes several mistakes as to what I really said, but the fault I suppose must have been in the report. I am made to say in the report of his sermon, "There is no sacred place in all the universe." What I did say was, "There is no sacred place in all the universe of thought. There is nothing too holy to be investigated, nothing too divine to be understood. The fields of thought are fenceless, and without a wall." I say this to-night.
Mr. Ijams also says that I had declared that man had not only the right to do right, but also the right to do wrong. What I really said was, man has the right to do right, and the right to think right, and the right to think wrong. Thought is a means of ascertaining truth, a mode by which we arrive at conclusions. And if no one has a right to think, unless he thinks right, he would only have the right to think upon self-evident propositions. In all respects, with the exception of these misstatements to which I have called your attention, so far as I can see, Mr. Ijams was perfectly fair, and treated me as though I had the ordinary rights of a human being. I take this occasion to thank him.
A great many papers, a great many people, a good many ministers and a multitude of men, have had their say, and have expressed themselves with the utmost freedom. I cannot reply to them all. I can only reply to those who have made a parade of answering me. Many have said it is not worth answering, and then proceeded to answer. They have said, he has produced no argument, and then have endeavored to refute it. They have said it is simply the old straw that has been thrashed over and over again for years and years. If all I have said is nothing, if it is all idle and foolish, why do they take up the time of their fellow-men replying to me? Why do they fill their religious papers with criticisms, if all I have said and done reminds them, according to the Rev. Mr. Guard, of "some little dog barking at a railway train"? Why stop the train, why send for the directors, why hold a consultation and finally say, we must settle with that dog or stop running these cars?
Probably the best way to answer them all, is to prove beyond cavil the truth of what I have said.
DOES THE BIBLE TEACH MAN TO ENSLAVE HIS BROTHER? II.
IF this "sacred" book teaches man to enslave his brother, it is not inspired. A god who would establish slavery is as cruel and heartless as any devil could be.
"Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession.
"And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondmen forever.
"Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids."—Leviticus xxv.
This is white slavery. This allows one white man to buy another, to buy a woman, to separate families and rob a mother of her child. This makes the whip upon the naked backs of men and women a legal tender for labor performed. This is the kind of slavery established by the most merciful God. The reason given for all this, is, that the persons whom they enslaved were heathen. You may enslave them because they are not orthodox. If you can find anybody who does not believe in me, the God of the Jews, you may steal his wife from his arms, and her babe from the cradle. If you can find a woman that does not believe in the Hebrew Jehovah, you may steal her prattling child from her breast. Can any one conceive of anything more infamous? Can any one find in the literature of this world more frightful words ascribed even to a demon? And all this is found in that most beautiful and poetic chapter known as the 25th of Leviticus—from the Bible—from this sacred gift of God—this "Magna Charta of human freedom."
2. "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
3. "If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
4. "If his master have given him a wife, and she hath borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
5. "And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and children; I w ill not go out free:
6. "Then his master shall bring him unto the judges: he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."—Exodus, xxi.
The slave is allowed to have his liberty if he will give up his wife and children. He must remain in slavery for the sake of wife and child. This is another of the laws of the most merciful God. This God changes even love into a chain. Children are used by him as manacles and fetters, and wives become the keepers of prisons. Any man who believes that such hideous laws were made by an infinitely wise and benevolent God is, in my judgment, insane or totally depraved.
These are the doctrines of the Old Testament. What is the doctrine of the New? What message had he who came from heaven's throne for the oppressed of earth? What words of sympathy, what words of cheer, for those who labored and toiled without reward? Let us see:
"Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ."—Ephesians, vi.
This is the salutation of the most merciful God to a slave, to a woman who has been robbed of her child—to a man tracked by hounds through lonely swamps—to a girl with flesh torn and bleeding—to a mother weeping above an empty cradle.
"Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the fro ward."—I Peter ii., 18.
"For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully."—I Peter ii., 19.
It certainly must be an immense pleasure to God to see a man work patiently for nothing. It must please the Most High to see a slave with his wife and child sold upon the auction block. If this slave escapes from slavery and is pursued, how musical the baying of the bloodhound must be to the ears of this most merciful God. All this is simply infamous. On the throne of this universe there sits no such monster.
"Servants, obey in all things your masters, according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God."—Col. iii., 22.
The apostle here seems afraid that the slave would not work every moment that his strength permitted. He really seems to have feared that he might not at all times do the very best he could to promote the interests of the thief who claimed to own him. And speaking to all slaves, in the name of the Father of All, this apostle says: "Obey in all things your masters, not with eye-service, but with singleness of heart, fearing God." He says to them in substance, There is no way you can so well please God as to work honestly for a thief.
1. "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed."
Think of serving God by honoring a robber! Think of bringing the name and doctrine of God into universal contempt by claiming to own yourself!
2. "And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort."
That is to say, do not despise Christians who steal the labor of others. Do not hold in contempt the "faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit," who turn the cross of Christ into a whipping post.
3. "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words even to words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness.
4. "He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,
5. "Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself."
This seems to be the opinion the apostles entertained of the early abolitionists. Seeking to give human beings their rights, seeking to give labor its just reward, seeking to clothe all men with that divine garment of the soul, Liberty,—all this was denounced by the apostle as a simple strife of words, whereof cometh envy, railings, evil surmisings and perverse disputing, destitute of truth.
6. "But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7. "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8. "And having food and raiment let us be therewith content."—I Tim., vi.
This was intended to make a slave satisfied to hear the clanking of his chains. This is the reason he should never try to better his condition. He should be contented simply with the right to work for nothing. If he only had food and raiment, and a thief to work for, he should be contented. He should solace himself with the apostolic reflection, that as he brought nothing into the world, he could carry nothing out, and that when dead he would be as happily situated as his master.
In order to show you what the inspired writer meant by the word servant, I will read from the 21st chapter of Exodus, verses 20 and 21:
"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
"Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money."
Yet, notwithstanding these passages the Christian Advocate says, "the Bible is the Magna Charta of our liberty."
After reading that, I was not surprised by the following in the same paper:
"We regret to record that Ingersoll is on a low plane of infidelity and atheism, not less offensive to good morals than have been the teachings of infidelity during the last century. France has been cursed with such teachings for a hundred years, and because of it, to-day her citizens are incapable of self-government."
What was the condition of France a century ago? Were they capable of self-government then? For fourteen hundred years the common people of France had suffered. For fourteen hundred years they had been robbed by the altar and by the throne. They had been the prey of priests and nobles. All were exempt from taxation, except the common people. The cup of their suffering was full, and the French people arose in fury and frenzy, and tore the drapery from the altars of God, and filled the air with the dust of thrones.
Surely, the slavery of fourteen centuries had not been produced by the teachings of Voltaire. I stood only a little while ago at the place where once stood the Bastile. In my imagination I saw that prison standing as it stood of yore. I could see it attacked by the populace. I could see their stormy faces and hear their cries. And I saw that ancient fortification of tyranny go down forever. And now where once stood the Bastile stands the Column of July. Upon its summit is a magnificent statue of Liberty, holding in one hand a banner, in the other a broken chain, and upon its shining forehead is the star of progress. There it stands where once stood the Bastile. And France is as much superior to what it was when Voltaire was born, as that statue, surmounting the Column of July, is more beautiful than the Bastile that stood there once with its cells of darkness, and its dungeons of horror.
And yet we are now told that the French people have rendered themselves incapable of government, simply because they have listened to the voice of progress. There are magnificent men in France. From that country have come to the human race some of the grandest and holiest messages the ear of man has ever heard. The French people have given to history some of the most touching acts of self-sacrifice ever performed beneath the amazed stars.
For my part, I admire the French people. I cannot forget the Rue San Antoine, nor the red cap of liberty. I can never cease to remember that the tricolor was held aloft in Paris, while Europe was in chains, and while liberty, with a bleeding breast, was in the Inquisition of Spain. And yet we are now told by a religious paper, that France is not capable of self-government. I suppose it was capable of self-government under the old régime, at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. I suppose it was capable of self-government when women were seen yoked with cattle pulling plows. I suppose it was capable of self-government when all who labored were in a condition of slavery.
In the old times, even among the priests, there were some good, some sincere and most excellent men. I have read somewhere of a sermon preached by one of these in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. This old priest, among other things, said that the soul of a beggar was as dear to God as the soul of the richest of his people, and that Jesus Christ died as much for a beggar as for a prince. One French peasant, rough with labor, cried out: "I propose three cheers for Jesus Christ." I like such things. I like to hear of them. I like to repeat them. Paris has been a kind of volcano, and has made the heavens lurid with its lava of hatred, but it has also contributed more than any other city to the intellectual development of man. France has produced some infamous men, among others John Calvin, but for one Calvin, she has produced a thousand benefactors of the human race.
The moment the French people rise above the superstitions of the church, they will be in the highest sense capable of self-government. The moment France succeeds in releasing herself from the coils of Catholicism—from the shadows of superstition—from the foolish forms and mummeries of the church—from the intellectual tyranny of a thousand years—she will not only be capable of self-government, but will govern herself. Let the priests be usefully employed. We want no overseers of the mind; no slave-drivers for the soul. We cannot afford to pay hypocrites for depriving us of liberty. It is a waste of money to pay priests to frighten our children, and paralyze the intellect of women.
WAS THE WORLD CREATED IN SIX DAYS? III.
FOR hundreds of years it was contended by all Christians that the earth was made in six days, literal days of twenty-four hours each, and that on the seventh day the Lord rested from his labor. Geologists have driven the church from this position, and it is now claimed that the days mentioned in the Bible are periods of time. This is a simple evasion, not in any way supported by the Scriptures. The Bible distinctly and clearly says that the world was created in six days. There is not within its lids a clearer statement. It does not say six periods. It was made according to that book in six days:
31. "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."—Genesis i.
1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2. "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3. "And God blessed the seventh day (not seventh period), and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."—Genesis ii.
From the following passages it seems clear what was meant by the word days:
15. "Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."—Served him right!
16. "Wherefore, the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath, throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.
17. "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.
18. "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God."—Exodus xxxi.
12. "Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
13. "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven; and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
14. "And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel."—Josh. x.
These passages must certainly convey the idea that this world was made in six days, not six periods. And the reason why they were to keep the Sabbath was because the Creator rested on the seventh day—not period. If you say six periods, instead of six days, what becomes of your Sabbath? The only reason given in the Bible for observing the Sabbath is that God observed it—that he rested from his work that day and was refreshed. Take this reason away and the sacredness of that day has no foundation in the Scriptures.
WHAT IS THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE? IV.
WHEN people were ignorant of all the sciences the Bible was understood by those who read it the same as by those who wrote it. From time to time discoveries were made that seemed inconsistent with the Scriptures. At first, theologians denounced the discoverers of all facts inconsistent with the Bible, as atheists and scoffers.
The Bible teaches us that the earth is the centre of the universe; that the sun and moon and stars revolve around this speck called the earth. The men who discovered that all this was a mistake were denounced by the ignorant clergy of that day, precisely as the ignorant clergy of our time denounce the advocates of free thought. When the doctrine of the earth's place in the solar system was demonstrated; when persecution could no longer conceal the mighty truth, then it was that the church made an effort to harmonize the Scriptures with the discoveries of science. When the utter absurdity of the Mosaic account of creation became apparent to all thoughtful men, the church changed the reading of the Bible. Then it was pretended that the "days" of creation were vast periods of time. When it was shown to be utterly impossible that the sun revolved around the earth, then the account given by Joshua of the sun standing still for the space of a whole day, was changed into a figure of speech. It was said that Joshua merely conformed to the mode of speech common in his day; and that when he said the sun stood still, he merely intended to convey the idea that the earth ceased turning upon its axis. They admitted that stopping the sun could not lengthen the day, and for that reason it must have been the earth that stopped. But you will remember that the moon stood still in the valley of Ajalon—that the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.
One would naturally suppose that the sun would have given sufficient light to enable the Jews to avenge themselves upon their enemies without any assistance from the moon. Of course, if the moon had not stopped, the relations between the earth and moon would have been changed.
Is there a sensible man in the world who believes this wretched piece of ignorance? Is it possible that the religion of this nineteenth century has for its basis such childish absurdities? According to this account, what was the sun, or rather the earth, stopped for? It was stopped in order that the Hebrews might avenge themselves upon the Amorites. For the accomplishment of such a purpose the earth was made to pause. Why should an almost infinite force be expended simply for the purpose of destroying a handful of men? Why this waste of force? Let me explain. I strike my hands together. They feel a sudden Heat. Where did the heat come from? Motion has been changed into heat. You will remember that there can be no destruction of force. It disappears in one form only to reappear in another. The earth, rotating at the rate of one thousand miles an hour, was stopped. The motion of this vast globe would have instantly been changed into heat. It has been calculated by one of the greatest scientists of the present day that to stop the earth would generate as much heat as could be produced by burning a world as large as this of solid coal. And yet, all this force was expended for the paltry purpose of defeating a few poor barbarians. The employment of so much force for the accomplishment of so insignificant an object would be as useless as bringing all the intellect of a great man to bear in answering the arguments of the clergymen of San Francisco.
The waste of that immense force in stopping the planets in their grand courses, for the purpose claimed, would be like using a Krupp gun to destroy an insect to which a single drop of water is "an unbounded world." How is it possible for men of ordinary intellect, not only to endorse such ignorant falsehoods, but to malign those who do not? Can anything be more debasing to the intellect of man than a belief in the astronomy of the Bible? According to the Scriptures, the world was made out of nothing, and the sun, moon, and stars, of the nothing that happened to be left. To the writers of the Bible the firmament was solid, and in it were grooves along which the stars were pushed by angels. From the Bible Cosmas constructed his geography and astronomy. His book was passed upon by the church, and was declared to be the truth concerning the subjects upon which he treated.
This eminent geologist and astronomer, taking the Bible as his guide, found and taught: First, that the earth was flat; second, that it was a vast parallelogram; third, that in the middle there was a vast body of land, then a strip of water all around it, then a strip of land. He thought that on the outer strip of land people lived before the flood—that at the time of the flood, Noah in his Ark crossed the strip of water and landed on the shore of the country, in the middle of the world, where we now are. This great biblical scholar informed the true believers of his day that in the outer strip of land were mountains, around which the sun and moon revolved; that when the sun was on the side of the mountain next the land occupied by man, it was day, and when on the other side, it was night.
Mr. Cosmas believed the Bible, and regarded Joshua as the most eminent astronomer of his day. He also taught that the firmament was solid, and that the angels pushed and drew the stars. He tells us that these angels attended strictly to their business, that each one watched the motions of all the others so that proper distances might always be maintained, and all confusion avoided. All this was believed by the gentlemen who made most of our religion. The great argument made by Cosmas to show that the earth must be flat, was the fact that the Bible stated that when Christ should come the second time, in glory, the whole world should see him. "Now," said Cosmas, "if the world is round, how could the people on the other side see the Lord when he comes?" This settled the question.
These were the ideas of the fathers of the church. These men have been for centuries regarded as almost divinely inspired. Long after they had become dust they governed the world. The superstitions they planted, their descendants watered with the best and bravest blood. To maintain their ignorant theories, the brain of the world was dwarfed for a thousand years, and the infamous work is still being prosecuted.
The Bible was regarded as not only true, but as the best of all truth. Any new theory advanced, was immediately examined in the light, or rather in the darkness, of revelation, and if according to that test it was false, it was denounced, and the person bringing it forward forced to recant. It would have been a far better course to have discovered every theory found to be in harmony with the Scriptures.
And yet we are told by the clergy and religious press of this city, that the Bible is the foundation of all science.
DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THE EXISTENCE OF THAT IMPOSSIBLE CRIME CALLED WITCHCRAFT?
V.
IT was said by Sir Thomas More that to give up witchcraft was to give up the Bible itself. This idea was entertained by nearly all the eminent theologians of a hundred years ago. In my judgment, they were right. To give up witchcraft is to give up, in a great degree at least, the supernatural. To throw away the little ghosts simply prepares the mind of man to give up the great ones. The founders of nearly all creeds, and of all religions properly so called, have taught the existence of good and evil spirits. They have peopled the dark with devils and the light with angels. They have crowded hell with demons and heaven with seraphs. The moment these good and evil spirits, these angels and fiends, disappear from the imaginations of men, and phenomena are accounted for by natural rather than by supernatural means, a great step has been taken in the direction of what is now known as materialism. While the church believes in witchcraft, it is in a greatly modified form. The evil spirits are not as plenty as in former times, and more phenomena are accounted for by natural means. Just to the extent that belief has been lost in spirits, just to that extent the church has lost its power and authority. When men ceased to account for the happening of any event by ascribing it to the direct action of good or evil spirits, and began to reason from known premises, the chains of superstition began to grow weak. Into such disrepute has witchcraft at last fallen that many Christians not only deny the existence of these evil spirits, but take the ground that no such thing is taught in the Scriptures. Let us see:
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."—Exodus xxii., 18.
7. "Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a spirit at Endor.
8. "And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee.
9. "And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land; wherefore, then, layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?
10. "And Saul sware to her by the Lord, saying, As the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing.
11. "Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel.
12. "And when the woman saw Samuel she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul.
13. "And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth.
14. "And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself.
15. "And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?"—2 Samuels xxviii.
This reads very much like an account of a modern spiritual seance. Is it not one of the wonderful things of the world that men and women who believe this account of the witch of Endor, who believe all the miracles and all the ghost stories of the Bible, deny with all their force the truth of modern Spiritualism. So far as I am concerned, I would rather believe some one who has heard what he relates, who has seen what he tells, or at least thinks he has seen what he tells. I would rather believe somebody I know, whose reputation for truth is good among those who know him. I would rather believe these people than to take the words of those who have been in their graves for four thousand years, and about whom I know nothing.
31 "Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them; I am the Lord, your God."—Leviticus xix.
6 "And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people."—Leviticus xx.
10. "There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
11. "Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12. "For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord."—Deut. xviii.
I have given you a few of the passages found in the Old Testament upon this subject, showing conclusively that the Bible teaches the existence of witches, wizards and those who have familiar spirits. In the New Testament there are passages equally strong, showing that the Savior himself was a believer in the existence of evil spirits, and in the existence of a personal devil. Nothing can be plainer than the teaching of the following:
1. "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2. "And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.
3. "And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4. "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5. "Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple.
6. "And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7. "Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord, thy God.
8. "Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.
9. "And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10. "Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11. "Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."—Matt. iv.
If this does not teach the existence of a personal devil, there is nothing within the lids of the Scriptures teaching the existence of a personal God. If this does not teach the existence of evil spirits, there is nothing in the Bible going to show that good spirits exist either in this world or the next.
16. "When the even was come they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick."—Matt. vii.
1. "And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.
2. "And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
3. "Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
4. "Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
5. "And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones.
6. "But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,
7. "And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
8. "For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
9. "And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many.
11. "Now, there was nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
12. "And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
13. "And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and they were about two thousand; and were choked in the sea."—Mark v.
The doctrine of witchcraft does not stop here. The power of casting out devils was bequeathed by the Savior to his apostles and followers, and to all who might believe in him throughout all the coming time:
17. "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.
18. "And they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."—Mark xvi.
I would like to see the clergy who have been answering me, tested in this way: Let them drink poison, let them take up serpents, let them cure the sick by the laying on of hands, and I will then believe that they believe.
I deny the witchcraft stories of the world. Witches are born in the ignorant, frightened minds of men. Reason will exorcise them. "They are tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." These devils have covered the world with blood and tears. They have filled the earth with fear. They have filled the lives of children with darkness and horror. They have peopled the sweet world of imagination with monsters. They have made religion a strange mingling of fear and ferocity. I am doing what I can to reave the heavens of these monsters. For my part, I laugh at them all. I hold them all in contempt, ancient and modern, great and small.
THE BIBLE IDEA OF THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN. VI.
ALL religion has for its basis the tyranny of God and the slavery of man.
18. "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them.
19. "Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto, the gate of his place.
20. "And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard.
21. "And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."—Deut. xxi.
Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. He proceeded to obey. And the boy, being then about thirty years of age, was not consulted. At the command of a phantom of the air, a man was willing to offer upon the altar his only son. And such was the slavery of children, that the only son had not the spirit to resist.
Have you ever read the story of Jephthah?
30 "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
31. "Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
32. "So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands.
33. "And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
34."And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
35. "And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back....
39. "And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed."—Judges xi.
Is there in the history of the world a sadder thing than this? What can we think of a father who would sacrifice his daughter to a demon God? And what can we think of a God who would accept such a sacrifice? Can such a God be worthy of the worship of man? I plead for the rights of children. I plead for the government of kindness and love. I plead for the republic of home, the democracy of the fireside. I plead for affection. And for this I am pursued by invective. For this I am called a fiend, a devil, a monster, by Christian editors and clergymen, by those who pretend to love their enemies and pray for those that despitefully use them.
Allow me to give you another instance of affection related in the Scriptures. There was, it seems, a most excellent man by the name of Job. The Lord was walking up and down, and happening to meet Satan, said to him: "Are you acquainted with my servant Job? Have you noticed what an excellent man he is?" And Satan replied to him and said: "Why should he not be an excellent man—you have given him everything he wants? Take from him what he has and he will curse you." And thereupon the Lord gave Satan the power to destroy the property and children of Job. In a little while these high contracting parties met again; and the Lord seemed somewhat elated with his success, and called again the attention of Satan to the sinlessness of Job. Satan then told him to touch his body and he would curse him. And thereupon power was given to Satan over the body of Job, and he covered his body with boils. Yet in all this, Job did not sin with his lips.
This book seems to have been written to show the excellence of patience, and to prove that at last God will reward all who will bear the afflictions of heaven with fortitude and without complaint. The sons and daughters of Job had been slain, and then the Lord, in order to reward Job, gave him other children, other sons and other daughters—not the same ones he had lost; but others. And this, according to the writer, made ample amends. Is that the idea we now have of love? If I have a child, no matter how deformed that child may be, and if it dies, nobody can make the loss to me good by bringing a more beautiful child. I want the one I loved and the one I lost.
THE GALLANTRY OF GOD. VII.
I HAVE said that the Bible is a barbarous book; that it has no respect for the rights of woman. Now I propose to prove it. It takes something besides epithets and invectives to prove or disprove anything. Let us see what the sacred volume says concerning the mothers and daughters of the human race.
A man who does not in his heart of hearts respect woman, who has not there an altar at which he worships the memory of mother, is less than a man.
11. "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
12. "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."
The reason given for this, and the only reason that occurred to the sacred writer, was:
13. "For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
14. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15. "Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."—1 Tim. ii.
3. "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God."
That is to say, the woman sustains the same relation to the man that man does to Christ, and man sustains the same relation to Christ that Christ does to God.
This places the woman infinitely below the man. And yet this barbarous idiocy is regarded as divinely inspired. How can any woman look other than with contempt upon such passages? How can any woman believe that this is the will of a most merciful God?
7. "For a man, indeed, ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man."
And this is justified from the remarkable fact set forth in the next verse:
8. "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man."
This same chivalric gentleman also says:
9. "Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."—1 Cor. xi.
22. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."
Is it possible for abject obedience to go beyond this?
23. "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church, and he is the saviour of the body.
24. "Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."—Eph. v.
Even the Savior did not put man and woman upon an equality. A man could divorce his wife, but the wife could not divorce her husband.
Every noble woman should hold such apostles and such ideas in contempt. According to the Old Testament, woman had to ask pardon and had to be purified from the crime of having born sons and daughters. To make love and maternity crimes is infamous.
10. "When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,
11. "And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife,
12. "Then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails."—Deut. xxi.
This is barbarism, no matter whether it came from heaven or from hell, from a God or from a devil, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem or from the very Sodom of perdition. It is barbarism complete and utter.
DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION POLYGAMY AND CONCUBINAGE? VIII.
READ the infamous order of Moses in the 31st chapter of Numbers—an order unfit to be reproduced in print—an order which I am unwilling to repeat. Read the 31 st chapter of Exodus. Read the 21 st chapter of Deuteronomy. Read the-life of Abraham, of David, of Solomon, of Jacob, and then tell me the sacred Bible does not teach polygamy and concubinage. All the languages of the world are insufficient to express the filth of polygamy. It makes man a beast—woman a slave. It destroys the fireside. It makes virtue an outcast. It makes home a lair of wild beasts. It is the infamy of infamies. Yet this is the doctrine of the Bible—a doctrine defended even by Luther and Melancthon. It is by the Bible that Brigham Young justifies the practice of this beastly horror. It takes from language those sweetest words, husband, wife, father mother, child and lover. It takes us back to the barbarism of animals, and leaves the heart a den in which crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of loathsome lust. Yet the book justifying this infamy is the book upon which rests the civilization of the nineteenth century. And because I denounce this frightful thing, the clergy denounce me as a demon, and the infamous Christian Advocate says that the moral sentiment of this State ought to denounce this Illinois Catiline for his blasphemous utterances and for his base and debasing scurrility.
DOES THE BIBLE UPHOLD AND JUSTIFY POLITICAL TYRANNY? IX.
FOR my part, I insist that man has not only the capacity, but the right to govern himself. All political authority is vested in the people themselves, They have the right to select their officers and agents, and these officers and agents are responsible to the people. Political authority does not come from the clouds. Man should not be governed by the aristocracy of the air. The Bible is not a Republican or Democratic book. Exactly the opposite doctrine is taught. From that volume we learn that the people have no power whatever; that all power and political authority comes from on high, and that all the kings, all the potentates and powers, have been ordained of God; that all the ignorant and cruel kings have been placed upon the world's thrones by the direct act of Deity. The Scriptures teach us that the common people have but one duty—the duty of obedience. Let me read to you some of the political ideas in the great "Magna Charta" of human liberty.
1. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.
2. "Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
According to this, George III. was ordained of God. He was King of Great Britian by divine right, and by divine right was the lawful King of the American Colonies. The leaders in the Revolutionary struggle resisted the power, and according to these passages, resisted the ordinances of God; and for that resistance they are promised the eternal recompense of damnation.
3. "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same....
5. "Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
6. "For, for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing."—Romans, xiii.
13. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the king as supreme.
14. "Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well.
15. "For so is the will of God."—1 Pet. ii.
Had these ideas been carried out, political progress in the world would have been impossible. Upon the necks of the people still would have been the feet of kings. I deny this wretched, this infamous doctrine. Whether higher powers are ordained of God or not, if those higher powers endeavor to destroy the rights of man, I for one shall resist. Whenever and wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in support of a human right, I am a rebel. The despicable doctrine of submission to titled wrong and robed injustice finds no lodgment in the brain of a man. The real rulers are the people, and the rulers so-called are but the servants of the people. They are not ordained of any God. All political power comes from and belongs to man. Upon these texts of Scripture rest the thrones of Europe. For fifteen hundred years these verses have been repeated by brainless kings and heardess priests. For fifteen hundred years each one of these texts has been a bastile in which has been imprisoned the pioneers of progress. Each one of these texts has been an obstruction on the highway of humanity. Each one has been a fortification behind which have crouched the sainted hypocrites and the titled robbers. According to these texts, a robber gets his right to rob from God. And it is the duty of the robbed to submit. The thief gets his right to steal from God. The king gets his right to trample upon human liberty from God. I say, fight the king—fight the priest.
THE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY OF GOD. X.
THE Bible denounces religious liberty. After covering the world with blood, after having made it almost hollow with graves, Christians are beginning to say that men have a right to differ upon religious questions provided the questions about which they differ are not considered of great importance. The motto of the Evangelical Alliance is: "In non-essentials, Liberty; in essentials, Unity."
The Christian world have condescended to say that upon all non-essential points we shall have the right to think for ourselves; but upon matters of the least importance, they will think and speak for us. In this they are consistent. They but follow the teachings of the God they worship. They but adhere to the precepts and commands of the sacred Scriptures. Within that volume there is no such thing as religious toleration. Within that volume there is not one particle of mercy for an unbeliever. For all who think for themselves, for all who are the owners of their own souls, there are threatenings, curses and anathemas. Any Christian who to-day exercises the least toleration is to that extent false to his religion. Let us see what the "Magna Charta" of liberty says upon this subject:
6. "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers.
7. "Namely of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or afar off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth.
8. "Thou shalt not consent unto him; nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.
9. "But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
10. "And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."—Deut. xiii.
That is the religious liberty of the Bible. If the wife of your bosom had said, "I like the religion of India better than the religion of Palestine," it was then your duty to kill her, and the merciful Most High—understand me, I do not believe in any merciful Most High—said:
"Thou shalt not pity her but thou shalt surely kill; thy hand shall be the first upon her to put her to death."
This I denounce as infamously infamous. If it is necessary to believe in such a God, if it is necessary to adore such a Deity in order to be saved, I will take my part joyfully in perdition. Let me read you a few more extracts from the "Magna Charta" of human liberty.
2. "If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant,
3. "And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded.
4. "And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel.
5. "Then shalt thou bring forth that man, or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die."
Under this law if the woman you loved had said: "Let us worship the sun; I am tired of this jealous and bloodthirsty Jehovah; let us worship the sun; let us kneel to it as it rises over the hills, filling the world with light and love, when the dawn stands jocund on the mountain's misty top; it is the sun whose beams illumine and cover the earth with verdure and with beauty; it is the sun that covers the trees with leaves, that carpets the earth with grass and adorns the world with flowers; I adore the sun because in its light I have seen your eyes; it has given to me the face of my babe; it has clothed my life with joy; let us in gratitude fall down and worship the glorious beams of the sun."
For this offence she deserved not only death, but death at your hands:
"Thine eye shall not pity her; neither shalt thou spare; neither shalt thou conceal her.
"But thou shalt surely kill her: thy hand shall be the first upon her to put her to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
"And thou shalt stone her with stones that she die."
For my part I had a thousand times rather worship the sun than a God who would make such a law or give such a command. This you may say is the doctrine of the Old Testament—what is the doctrine of the New?
"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned."
That is the religious liberty of the New Testament. That is the "tidings of great joy."
Every one of these words has been a chain upon the limbs, a whip upon the backs of men. Every one has been a fagot. Every one has been a sword. Every one has been a dungeon, a scaffold, a rack. Every one has been a fountain of tears. These words have filled the hearts of men with hatred. These words invented all the instruments of torture. These words covered the earth with blood.
For the sake of argument, suppose that the Bible is an inspired book. If then, as is contended, God gave these frightful laws commanding religious intolerance to his chosen people, and afterward this same God took upon himself flesh, and came among the Jews and taught a different religion, and they crucified him, did he not reap what he had sown?
DOES THE BIBLE DESCRIBE A GOD OF MERCY? XI.
IS it possible to conceive of a more jealous, revengeful, changeable, unjust, unreasonable, cruel being than the Jehovah of the Hebrews? Is it possible to read the words said to have been spoken by this Deity, without a shudder? Is it possible to contemplate his character without hatred?
"I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh."—Deut. xxxii.
Is this the language of an infinitely kind and tender parent to his weak, his wandering and suffering children?
"Thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." Psalms, lxviii.
Is it possible that a God takes delight in seeing dogs lap the blood of his children?
22. "And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.
23. "But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.
24. "And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them."—Deut. vii.
If these words had proceeded from the mouth of a demon, if they had been spoken by some enraged and infinitely malicious fiend, I should not have been surprised. But these things are attributed to a God of infinite mercy.
40. "So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded."—Josh, x.
14. "And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe."—Josh. xi.
19. "There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all other they took in battle.
20. "For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses."—Josh. xi.
There are no words in our language with which to express the indignation I feel when reading these cruel and heartless words.
"When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
"Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth."
These terrible instructions were given to an army of invasion. The men who were thus ruthlessly murdered were fighting for their homes, their firesides, for their wives and for their little children. Yet these things, by the clergy of San Francisco, are called acts of sublime mercy.
All this is justified by the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The Old Testament is filled with anathemas, with curses, with words of vengeance, of revenge, of jealousy, of hatred and of almost infinite brutality. Do not, I pray you, pluck from the heart the sweet flower of pity and trample it in the bloody dust of superstition. Do not, I beseech you, justify the murder of women, the assassination of dimpled babes. Do not let the gaze of the gorgon of superstition turn your hearts to stone.
Is there an intelligent Christian in the world who would not with joy and gladness receive conclusive testimony to the effect that all the passages in the Bible upholding and sustaining polygamy and concubinage, political tyranny, the subjection of woman, the enslavement of children, establishing domestic and political tyranny, and that all the commands to destroy men, women and children, are but interpolations of kings and priests, made for the purpose of subjugating mankind through the instrumentality of fear? Is there a Christian in the world who would not think vastly more of the Bible if all these infamous things were eliminated from it?
Surely the good things in that book are not rendered more sacred from the fact that in the same volume are found the frightful passages I have quoted. In my judgment the Bible should be read and studied precisely as we read and study any book whatever. The good in it should be preserved and cherished, and that which shocks the human heart should be cast aside forever.
While the Old Testament threatens men, women and children with disease, famine, war, pestilence and death, there are no threatenings of punishment beyond this life. The doctrine of eternal punishment is a dogma of the New Testament. This doctrine, the most cruel, the most infamous of which the human mind can conceive, is taught, if taught at all, in the Bible—in the New Testament. One cannot imagine what the human heart has suffered by reason of the frightful doctrine of eternal damnation. It is a doctrine so abhorrent to every drop of my blood, so infinitely cruel, that it is impossible for me to respect either the head or heart of any human being who teaches or fears it. This doctrine necessarily subverts all ideas of justice. To inflict infinite punishment for finite crimes, or rather for crimes committed by finite beings, is a proposition so monstrous that I am astonished it ever found lodgment in the brain of man. Whoever says that we can be happy in heaven while those we loved on earth are suffering infinite torments in eternal fire, defames and calumniates the human heart.
THE PLAN OF SALVATION. XII.
WE are told, however, that a way has been provided for the salvation of all men, and that in this plan the infinite mercy of God is made manifest to the children of men. According to the great scheme of the atonement, the innocent suffers for the guilty in order to satisfy a law. What kind of law must it be that is satisfied with the agony of innocence? Who made this law? If God made it he must have known that the innocent would have to suffer as a consequence. The whole scheme is to me a medley of contradictions, impossibilities and theological conclusions. We are told that if Adam and Eve had not sinned in the Garden of Eden death never would have entered the world. We are further informed that had it not been for the devil, Adam and Eve would not have been led astray; and if they had not, as I said before, death never would have touched with its icy hand the human heart. If our first parents had never sinned, and death never had entered the world, you and I never would have existed. The earth would have been filled thousands of generations before you and I were born. At the feast of life, death made seats vacant for us. According to this doctrine, we are indebted to the devil for our existence. Had he not tempted Eve—no sin. If there had been no sin—no death. If there had been no death the world would have been filled ages before you and I were born. Therefore, we owe our existence to the devil. We are further informed that as a consequence of original sin the scheme called the atonement became necessary; and that if the Savior had not taken upon himself flesh and come to this atom called the earth, and if he had not been crucified for us, we should all have been cast forever into hell. Had it not been for the bigotry of the Jews and the treachery of Judas Iscariot, Christ would not have been crucified; and if he had not been crucified, all of us would have had our portion in the lake that burneth with eternal fire.
According to this great doctrine, according to this vast and most wonderful scheme, we owe, as I said before, our existence to the devil, our salvation to Judas Iscariot and the bigotry of the Jews.
So far as I am concerned, I fail to see any mercy in the plan of salvation. Is it mercy to reward a man forever in consideration of believing a certain thing, of the truth of which there is, to his mind, ample testimony? Is it mercy to punish a man with eternal fire simply because there is not testimony enough to satisfy his mind? Can there be such a thing as mercy in eternal punishment?
And yet this same Deity says to me, "resist not evil; pray for those that despitefully use you; love your enemies, but I will eternally damn mine." It seems to me that even gods should practice what they preach.
All atonement, after all, is a kind of moral bankruptcy. Under its provisions, man is allowed the luxury of sinning upon a credit. Whenever he is guilty of a wicked action he says, "charge it." This kind of bookkeeping, in my judgment, tends to breed extravagance in sin.
The truth is, most Christians are better than their creeds; most creeds are better than the Bible, and most men are better than their God.
OTHER RELIGIONS. XIII.
WE must remember that ours is not the only religion. Man has in all ages endeavored to answer the great questions Whence? and Whither? He has endeavored to read his destiny in the stars, to pluck the secret of his existence from the night. He has questioned the spectres of his own imagination. He has explored the mysterious avenues of dreams. He has peopled the heavens with spirits. He has mistaken his visions for realities. In the twilight of ignorance he has mistaken shadows for gods. In all ages he has been the slave of misery, the dupe of superstition and the fool of hope. He has suffered and aspired.
Religion is a thing of growth, of development. As we advance we throw aside the grosser and absurder forms of faith—practically at first by ceasing to observe them, and lastly, by denying them altogether. Every church necessarily by its constitution endeavors to prevent this natural growth or development. What has happened to other religions must happen to ours. Ours is not superior to many that have passed, or are passing away. Other religions have been lived for and died for by men as noble as ours can boast. Their dogmas and doctrines have, to say the least, been as reasonable, as full of spiritual grandeur, as ours.
Man has had beautiful thoughts. Man has tried to solve these questions in all the countries of the world, and I respect all such men and women; but let me tell you one little thing. I want to show you that in other countries there is something.
The Parsee sect of Persia say: A Persian saint ascended the three stairs that lead to heaven's gate, and knocked; a voice said: "Who is there?" "Thy servant, O God!" But the gates would not open. For seven years he did every act of kindness; again he came, and the voice said: "Who is there?" And he replied: "Thy slave, O God!" Yet the gates were shut. Yet seven other years of kindness, and the man again knocked; and the voice cried and said: "Who is there?" "Thyself, O God!" And the gates wide open flew.
I say there is no more beautiful Christian poem than this.
A Persian after having read our religion, with its frightful descriptions of perdition, wrote these words: "Two angels flying out from the blissful city of God—the angel of love and the angel of pity—hovered over the eternal pit where suffered the captives of hell. One smile of love illumined the darkness and one tear of pity extinguished all the fires." Has orthodoxy produced anything as generously beautiful as this? Let me read you this: Sectarians, hear this: Believers in eternal damnation, hear this: Clergy of America who expect to have your happiness in heaven increased by seeing me burning in hell, hear this:
This is the prayer of the Brahmins—a prayer that has trembled from human lips toward heaven for more than four thousand years:
"Never will I seek or receive private individual salvation. Never will I enter into final bliss alone. But forever and everywhere will I labor and strive for the final redemption of every creature throughout all worlds, and until all are redeemed. Never will I wrongly leave this world to sin, sorrow and struggle, but will remain and work and suffer where I am."
Has the orthodox religion produced a prayer like this? See the infinite charity, not only for every soul in this world, but of all the shining worlds of the universe. Think of that, ye parsons who imagine that a large majority are going to eternal ruin.
Compare it with the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, and compare it with the imprecation of Christ: "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels;" with the ideas of Jeremy Taylor, with the creeds of Christendom, with all the prayers of all the saints, and in no church except the Universalist will you hear a prayer like this.
"When thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it."
Since the days of Zoroaster has there been any rule for human conduct given superior to this?
Are the principles taught by us superior to those of Confucius? He was asked if there was any single word comprising the duties of man. He replied: "Reciprocity." Upon being asked what he thought of the doctrine of returning benefits for injuries, he replied: "That is not my doctrine. If you return benefits for injuries what do you propose for benefits? My doctrine is; For benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of revenge."
To return good for evil is to pay a premium upon wickedness. I cannot put a man under obligation to do me a favor by doing him an injury.
Now, to-day, right now, what is the church doing? What is it doing, I ask you honestly? Does it satisfy the craving hearts of the nineteenth century? Are we satisfied? I am not saying this except from the honesty of my heart. Are we satisfied? Is it a consolation to us now? Is it even a consolation when those we love die? The dead are so near and the promises are so far away. It is covered with the rubbish of the past. I ask you, is it all that is demanded by the brain and heart of the nineteenth century?
We want something better; we want something grander; we want something that has more brain in it, and more heart in it. We want to advance—that is what we want; and you cannot advance without being a heretic—you cannot do it.
Nearly all these religions have been upheld by persecution and bloodshed. They have been rendered stable by putting fetters upon the human brain. They have all, however, been perfectly natural productions, and under similar circumstances would all be reproduced. Only by intellectual development are the old superstitions outgrown. As only the few intellectually advance, the majority is left on the side of superstition, and remains there until the advanced ideas of the few thinkers become general; and by that time there are other thinkers still in advance.
And so the work of development and growth slowly and painfully proceeds from age to age. The pioneers are denounced as heretics, and the heretics denounce their denouncers as the disciples of superstition and ignorance. Christ was a heretic. Herod was orthodox. Socrates was a blasphemer. Anytus worshiped all the gods. Luther was a skeptic, while the sellers of indulgences were the best of Catholics. Roger Williams was a heretic, while the Puritans who drove him from Massachusetts were all orthodox. Every step in advance in the religious history of the world has been taken by heretics. No superstition has been destroyed except by a heretic. No creed has been bettered except by a heretic. Heretic is the name that the orthodox laggard hurls at the disappearing pioneer. It is shouted by the dwellers in swamps to the people upon the hills. It is the opinion that midnight entertains of the dawn. It is what the rotting says of the growing. Heretic is the name that a stench gives to a perfume.
With this word the coffin salutes the cradle. It is taken from the lips of the dead. Orthodoxy is a shroud—heresy is a banner. Orthodoxy is an epitaph—heresy is a prophecy. Orthodoxy is a cloud, a fog, a mist—heresy the star shining forever above the child of truth.
I am a believer in the eternity of progress. I do not believe that Want will forever extend its withered hand, its wan and shriveled palms, for charity. I do not believe that the children will forever be governed by cruelty and brute force. I do not believe that poverty will dwell with man forever. I do not believe that prisons will forever cover the earth, or that the shadow of the gallows will forever fall upon the ground. I do not believe that injustice will sit forever upon the bench, or that malice and superstition will forever stand in the pulpit.
I believe the time will come when there will be charity in every heart, when there will be love in every family, and when law and liberty and justice, like the atmosphere, will surround this world.
We have worshiped the ghosts long enough. We have prostrated ourselves before the ignorance of the past.
Let us stand erect and look with hopeful eyes toward the brightening future. Let us stand by our convictions. Let us not throw away our idea of justice for the sake of any book or of any religion whatever. Let us live according to our highest and noblest and purest ideal.
By this time we should know that the real Bible has not been written.
The real Bible is not the work of inspired men, or prophets, or apostles, or evangelists, or of Christs.
Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles, or signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies to its perfection. The earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth.
Ladies and gentlemen you cannot tell how I thank you this evening; you cannot tell how I feel toward the intellectual hospitality of this great city by the Pacific sea. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you—I thank you again and again, a thousand times.
* Chicago Times, 1879.
To the Editor:—
NOTHING is more gratifying than to see ideas that were received with scorn, flourishing in the sunshine of approval. Only a few weeks ago, I stated that the Bible was not inspired; that Moses was mistaken; that the "flood" was a foolish myth; that the Tower of Babel existed only in credulity; that God did not create the universe from nothing, that he did not start the first woman with a rib; that he never upheld slavery; that he was not a polygamist; that he did not kill people for making hair-oil; that he did not order his generals to kill the dimpled babes; that he did not allow the roses of love and the violets of modesty to be trodden under the brutal feet of lust; that the Hebrew language was written without vowels; that the Bible was composed of many books, written by unknown men; that all translations differed from each other; and that this book had filled the world with agony and crime.
At that time I had not the remotest idea that the most learned clergymen in Chicago would substantially agree with me—in public. I have read the replies of the Rev. Robert Collyer, Dr. Thomas, Rabbi Kohler, Rev. Brooke Herford, Prof. Swing and Dr. Ryder, and will now ask them a few questions, answering them in their own words.
First. Rev. Robert Collyer.
Question. What is your opinion of the Bible? Answer. "It is a splendid book. It makes the noblest type of Catholics and the meanest bigots. Through this book men give their hearts for good to God, or for evil to the devil. The best argument for the intrinsic greatness of the book is that it can touch such wide extremes, and seem to maintain us in the most unparalleled cruelty, as well as the most tender mercy; that it can inspire purity like that of the great saints, and afford arguments in favor of polygamy. The Bible is the text book of ironclad Calvinism and sunny Universalism. It makes the Quaker quiet, and the Millerite crazy. It inspired the Union soldier to live and grandly die for the right, and Stonewall Jackson to live nobly, and die grandly for the wrong."
Question. But, Mr. Collyer, do you really think that a book with as many passages in favor of wrong as right, is inspired?
Answer. "I look upon the Old Testament as a rotting tree. When it falls it will fertilize a bank of violets."
Question. Do you believe that God upheld slavery and polygamy? Do you believe that he ordered the killing of babes and the violation of maidens?
Answer. "There is threefold inspiration in the Bible, the first, peerless and perfect, the word of God to man; the second, simply and purely human, and then below this again, there is an inspiration born of an evil heart, ruthless and savage there and then as anything well can be. A threefold inspiration, of heaven first, then of the earth, and then of hell, all in the same book, all sometimes in the same chapter, and then, besides, a great many things that need no inspiration."
Question. Then after all you do not pretend that the Scriptures are really inspired?
Answer. "The Scriptures make no such claim for themselves as the church makes for them. They leave me free to say this is false, or this is true. The truth even within the Bible, dies and lives, makes on this side and loses on that."
Question. What do you say to the last verse in the Bible, where a curse is threatened to any man who takes from or adds to the book?
Answer. "I have but one answer to this question, and it is: Let who will have written this, I cannot for an instant believe that it was written by a divine inspiration. Such dogmas and threats as these are not of God, but of man, and not of any man of a free spirit and heart eager for the truth, but a narrow man who would cripple and confine the human soul in its quest after the whole truth of God, and back those who have done the shameful things in the name of the most high."
Question. Do you not regard such talk as "slang"?
(Supposed) Answer. If an infidel had said that the writer of Revelation was narrow and bigoted, I might have denounced his discourse as "slang," but I think that Unitarian ministers can do so with the greatest propriety.
Question. Do you believe in the stories of the Bible, about Jael, and the sun standing still, and the walls falling at the blowing of horns?
Answer. "They may be legends, myths, poems, or what they will, but they are not the word of God. So I say again, it was not the God and Father of us all, who inspired the woman to drive that nail crashing through the king's temple after she had given him that bowl of milk and bid him sleep in safety, but a very mean devil of hatred and revenge, that I should hardly expect to find in a squaw on the plains. It was not the ram's horns and the shouting before which the walls fell flat. If they went down at all, it was through good solid pounding. And not for an instant did the steady sun stand still or let his planet stand still while barbarian fought barbarian. He kept just the time then he keeps now. They might believe it who made the record. I do not. And since the whole Christian world might believe it, still we do not who gather in this church. A free and reasonable mind stands right in our way. Newton might believe it as a Christian, and disbelieve it as a philosopher. We stand then with the philosopher against the Christian, for we must believe what is true to us in the last test, and these things are not true."
Second. Rev. Dr. Thomas.
Question. What is your opinion of the Old Testament?
Answer. "My opinion is that it is not one book, but many—thirty-nine books bound up in one. The date and authorship of most of these books are wholly unknown. The Hebrews wrote without vowels, and without dividing the letters into syllables, words, or sentences. The books were gathered up by Ezra. At that time only two of the Jewish tribes remained. All progress has ceased. In gathering up the sacred book, copyists exercised great liberty in making changes and additions."
Question. Yes, we know all that, but is the Old Testament inspired?
Answer. "There maybe the inspiration of art, of poetry, or oratory; of patriotism—and there are such inspirations. There are moments when great truths and principles come to men. They seek the man, and not the man them."
Question. Yes, we all admit that, but is the Bible inspired?
Answer. "But still I know of no way to convince anyone of spirit, and inspiration, and God, only as his reason may take hold of these things."
Question. Do you think the Old Testament true?
Answer. "The story of Eden may be an allegory. The history of the children of Israel may have mistakes."
Question. Must inspiration claim infallibility? Answer. "It is a mistake to say that if you believe one part of the Bible you must believe all. Some of the thirty-nine books may be inspired, others not; or there may be degrees of inspiration."
Question. Do you believe that God commanded the soldiers to kill the children and the married women, and save for themselves, the maidens, as recorded in Numbers xxxi, 2,
Do you believe that God upheld slavery?
Do you believe that God upheld polygamy?
Answer. "The Bible may be wrong in some statements. God and right cannot be wrong. We must not exalt the Bible above God. It may be that we have claimed too much for the Bible, and thereby given not a little occasion for such men as Mr. Ingersoll to appear at the other extreme, denying too much."
Question. What then shall be done?
Answer. "We must take a middle ground. It is not necessary to believe that the bears devoured the forty-two children, nor that Jonah was swallowed by the whale."
Third. Rev. Dr. Kohler.
Question. What is your opinion about the Old Testament?
Answer. "I will not make futile attempts of artificially interpreting the letter of the Bible so as to make it reflect the philosophical, moral and scientific views of our time. The Bible is a sacred record of humanity's childhood."
Question. Are you an orthodox Christian?
Answer. "No. Orthodoxy, with its face turned backward to a ruined temple or a dead Messiah, is fast becoming like Lot's wife, a pillar of salt."
Question. Do you really believe the Old Testament was inspired?
Answer. "I greatly acknowledge our indebtedness to men like Voltaire and Thomas Paine, whose bold denial and cutting wit were so instrumental in bringing about this glorious era of freedom, so congenial and blissful, particularly to the long-abused Jewish race."
Question. Do you believe in the inspiration of the Bible?
Answer. "Of course there is a destructive axe needed to strike down the old building in order to make room for the grander new. The divine origin claimed by the Hebrews for their national literature, was claimed by all nations for their old records and laws as preserved by the priesthood. As Moses, the Hebrew law-giver, is represented as having received the law from God on the holy mountain, so is Zoroaster the Persian, Manu the Hindoo, Minos the Cretan, Lycurgus the Spartan, and Numa the Roman."
Question. Do you believe all the stories in the Bible?
Answer. "All that can and must be said against them is that they have been too long retained around the arms and limbs of grown-up manhood, to check the spiritual progress of religion; that by Jewish ritualism and Christian dogmatism they became fetters unto the soul, turning the light of heaven into a misty haze to blind the eye, and even into a hell-fire of fanaticism to consume souls."
Question. Is the Bible inspired?
Answer. "True, the Bible is not free from errors, nor is any work of man and time. It abounds in childish views and offensive matter. I trust that it will in a time not far off be presented for common use in families, schools, synagogues and churches, in a refined shape, cleansed from all dross and chaff, and stumbling blocks in which the scoffer delights to dwell."
Fourth. Rev. Mr. Herford.
Question. Is the Bible true?
Answer. "Ingersoll is very fond of saying 'The question is not, is the Bible inspired, but is it true?' That sounds very plausible, but you know as applied to any ancient book it is simply nonsense."
Question. Do you think the stories in the Bible exaggerated?
Answer. "I dare say the numbers are immensely exaggerated."
Question. Do you think that God upheld polygamy?
Answer. "The truth of which simply is, that four thousand years ago polygamy existed among the Jews, as everywhere else on earth then, and even their prophets did not come to the idea of its being wrong. But what is there to be indignant about in that?"
Question. And so you really wonder why any man should be indignant at the idea that God upheld and sanctioned that beastliness called polygamy?
Answer. "What is there to be indignant about in that?"
Fifth. Prof. Swing.
Question. What is your idea of the Bible?
Answer. "I think it is a poem."
Sixth. Rev. Dr. Ryder.
Question. And what is your idea of the sacred Scriptures?
Answer. "Like other nations, the Hebrews had their patriotic, descriptive, didactic and lyrical poems in the same varieties as other nations; but with them, unlike other nations, whatever may be the form of their poetry, it always possesses the characteristic of religion."
Question. I suppose you fully appreciate the religious characteristics of the Song of Solomon.
No answer.
Question. Does the Bible uphold polygamy?
Answer. "The law of Moses did not forbid it, but contained many provisions against its worst abuses, and such as were intended to restrict it within narrow limits."
Question. So you think God corrected some of the worst abuses of polygamy, but preserved the institution itself?
I might question many others, but have concluded not to consider those as members of my Bible Class who deal in calumnies and epithets. From the so-called "replies" of such ministers, it appears that while Christianity changes the heart, it does not improve the manners, and that one can get into heaven in the next world without having been a gentleman in this.
It is difficult for me to express the deep and thrilling satisfaction I have experienced in reading the admissions of the clergy of Chicago. Surely, the battle of intellectual liberty is almost won, when ministers admit that the Bible is filled with ignorant and cruel mistakes; that each man has the right to think for himself, and that it is not necessary to believe the Scriptures in order to be saved. From the bottom of my heart I congratulate my pupils on the advance they have made, and hope soon to meet them on the serene heights of perfect freedom.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Washington, D. C., May 7, 1879.
* The Iconoclast, Indianapolis, Indiana. 1883.
THE following questions have been submitted to me by the Rev. David Walk, Dr. T. B. Taylor, the Rev. Myron W. Reed, and the Rev. D. O'Donaghue, of Indianapolis, with the request that I answer.
Question. Is the Character of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in the Four Gospels, Fictional or Real?—Rev. David Walk.
Answer. In all probability, there was a man by the name of Jesus Christ, who was, in his day and generation, a reformer—a man who was infinitely shocked at the religion of Jehovah—who became almost insane with pity as he contemplated the sufferings of the weak, the poor, and the ignorant at the hands of an intolerant, cruel, hypocritical, and bloodthirsty church. It is no wonder that such a man predicted the downfall of the temple. In all probability, he hated, at last, every pillar and stone in it, and despised even the "Holy of Holies." This man, of course, like other men, grew. He did not die with the opinion he held in his youth. He changed his views from time to time—fanned the spark of reason into a flame, and as he grew older his horizon extended and widened, and he became gradually a wiser, greater, and better man.
I find two or three Christs described in the four Gospels. In some portions you would imagine that he was an exceedingly pious Jew. When he says that people must not swear by Jerusalem, because it is God's holy city, certainly no Pharisee could have gone beyond that expression. So, too, when it is recorded that he drove the money changers from the temple. This, had it happened, would have been the act simply of one who had respect for this temple and not for the religion taught in it.
It would seem that, at first, Christ believed substantially in the religion of his time; that afterward, seeing its faults, he wished to reform it; and finally, comprehending it in all its enormity, he devoted his life to its destruction. This view shows that he "increased in stature and grew in knowledge."
This view is also supported by the fact that, at first, according to the account, Christ distinctly stated that his gospel was not for the Gentiles. At that time he had altogether more patriotism than philosophy. In my own opinion, he was driven to like the Gentiles by the persecution he endured at home. He found, as every Freethinker now finds, that there are many saints not in churches and many devils not out.
The character of Christ, in many particulars, as described in the Gospels, depends upon who wrote the Gospels. Each one endeavored to make a Christ to suit himself. So that Christ, after all, is a growth; and since the Gospels were finished, millions of men have been adding to and changing the character of Christ.
There is another thing that should not be forgotten, and that is that the Gospels were not written until after the Epistles. I take it for granted that Paul never saw any of the Gospels, for the reason that he quotes none of them. There is also this remarkable fact: Paul quotes none of the miracles of the New Testament. He says not one word about the multitude being fed miraculously, not one word about the resurrection of Lazarus, nor of the widow's son. He had never heard of the lame, the halt, and the blind that had been cured; or if he had, he did not think these incidents of enough importance to be embalmed in an epistle.
So we find that none of the early fathers ever quoted from the four Gospels. Nothing can be more certain than that the four Gospels were not written until after the Epistles, and nothing can be more certain than that the early Christians knew nothing of what we call the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All these things have been growths. At first it was believed that Christ was a direct descendant from David. At that time the disciples of Christ, of course, were Jews. The Messiah was expected through the blood of David.—For that reason, the genealogy of Joseph, a descendant of David, was given. It was not until long after, that the idea came into the minds of Christians that Christ was the son of the Holy Ghost. If they, at the time the genealogy was given, believed that Christ was in fact the son of the Holy Ghost, why did they give the genealogy of Joseph to show that Christ was related to David? In other words, why should the son of God attempt to get glory out of the fact that he had in his veins the blood of a barbarian king? There is only one answer to this. The Jews expected the Messiah through David, and in order to prove that Christ was the Messiah, they gave the genealogy of Joseph. Afterward, the idea became popularized that Christ was the son of God, and then were interpolated the words "as was supposed" in the genealogy of Christ. It was a long time before the disciples became great enough to include the world in their scheme, and before they thought it proper to tell the "glad tidings of great joy" beyond the limits of Judea.
My own opinion is that the man called Christ lived; but whether he lived in Palestine, or not, is of no importance. His life is worth its example, its moral force, its benevolence, its self-denial and heroism. It is of no earthly importance whether he changed water into wine or not. All his miracles are simply dust and darkness compared with what he actually said and actually did. We should be kind to each other whether Lazarus was raised or not. We should be just and forgiving whether Christ lived or not. All the miracles in the world are of no use to virtue, morality, or justice. Miracles belong to superstition, to ignorance, to fear and folly.
Neither does it make any difference who wrote the Gospels. They are worth the truth that is in them and no more.
The words of Paul are often quoted, that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God." Of course that could not have applied to anything written after that time. It could have applied only to the Scriptures then written and then known. It is perfectly clear that the four Gospels were not at that time written, and therefore this statement of Paul's does not apply to the four Gospels. Neither does it apply to anything written after that statement was written. Neither does it apply to that statement. If it applied to anything it was the Old Testament, and not the New.
Christ has been belittled by his worshipers. When stripped of the miraculous; when allowed to be, not divine but divinely human, he will have gained a thousandfold in the estimation of mankind. I think of him as I do of Buddha, as I do of Confucius, of Epictetus, of Bruno. I place him with the great, the generous, the self-denying of the earth, and for the man Christ, I feel only admiration and respect. I think he was in many things mistaken. His reliance upon the goodness of God was perfect. He seemed to believe that his father in heaven would protect him. He thought that if God clothed the lilies of the field in beauty, if he provided for the sparrows, he would surely protect a perfectly just and loving man. In this he was mistaken; and in the darkness of death, overwhelmed, he cried out: "Why hast thou forsaken me?"
I do not believe that Christ ever claimed to be divine; ever claimed to be inspired; ever claimed to work a miracle. In short, I believe that he was an honest man. These claims were all put in his mouth by others—by mistaken friends, by ignorant worshipers, by zealous and credulous followers, and sometimes by dishonest and designing priests. This has happened to all the great men of the world. All historical characters are, in part, deformed or reformed by fiction. There was a man by the name of George Washington, but no such George Washington ever existed as we find portrayed in history. The historical Cæsar never lived. The historical Mohammed is simply a myth. It is the task of modern criticism to rescue these characters, and in the mass of superstitious rubbish to find the actual man. Christians borrowed the old clothes of the Olympian gods and gave them to Christ. To me, Christ the man is far greater than Christ the god.
To me, it has always been a matter of wonder that Christ said nothing as to the obligation man is under to his country, nothing as to the rights of the people as against the wish and will of kings, nothing against the frightful system of human slavery—almost universal in his time. What he did not say is altogether more wonderful than what he did say. It is marvelous that he said nothing upon the subject of intemperance, nothing about education, nothing about philosophy, nothing about nature, nothing about art. He said nothing in favor of the home, except to offer a reward to those who would desert their wives and families. Of course, I do not believe that he said the words that were attributed to him, in which a reward is offered to any man who will desert his kindred. But if we take the account given in the four Gospels as the true account, then Christ did offer a reward to a father who would desert his children. It has always been contended that he was a perfect example of mankind, and yet he never married. As a result of what he did not teach in connection with what he did teach, his followers saw no harm in slavery, no harm in polygamy. They belittled this world and exaggerated the importance of the next. They consoled the slave by telling him that in a little while he would exchange his chains for wings. They comforted the captive by saying that in a few days he would leave his dungeon for the bowers of Paradise. His followers believed that he had said that "Whosoever believeth not shall be damned." This passage was the cross upon which intellectual liberty was crucified.
If Christ had given us the laws of health; if he had told us how to cure disease by natural means; if he had set the captive free; if he had crowned the people with their rightful power; if he had placed the home above the church; if he had broken all the mental chains; if he had flooded all the caves and dens of fear with light, and filled the future with a common joy, he would in truth have been the Savior of this world.
Question. How do you account for the difference between the Christian and other modern civilizations?
Answer. I account for the difference between men by the difference in their ancestry and surroundings—the difference in soil, climate, food, and employment. There would be no civilization in England were it not for the Gulf Stream. There would have been very little here had it not been for the discovery of Columbus. And even now on this continent there would be but little civilization had the soil been poor. I might ask: How do you account for the civilization of Egypt? At one time that was the greatest civilization in the world. Did that fact prove that the Egyptian religion was of divine origin? So, too, there was a time when the civilization of India was beyond all others. Does that prove that Vishnu was a God? Greece dominated the intellectual world for centuries. Does that fact absolutely prove that Zeus was the creator of heaven and earth? The same may be said of Rome. There was a time when Rome governed the world, and yet I have always had my doubts as to the truth of the Roman mythology. As a matter of fact, Rome was far better than any Christian nation ever was to the end of the seventeenth century. A thousand years of Christian rule produced no fellow for the greatest of Rome. There were no poets the equals of Horace or Virgil, no philosophers as great as Lucretius, no orators like Cicero, no emperors like Marcus Aurelius, no women like the mothers of Rome.
The civilization of a country may be hindered by a religion, but it has never been increased by any form of superstition. When America was discovered it had the same effect upon Europe that it would have, for instance, upon the city of Chicago to have Lake Michigan put the other side of it. The Mediterranean lost its trade. The centers of commerce became deserted. The prow of the world turned westward, and, as a result, France, England, and all countries bordering on the Atlantic became prosperous. The world has really been civilized by discoverers—by thinkers. The man who invented powder, and by that means released hundreds of thousands of men from the occupations of war, did more for mankind than religion. The inventor of paper—and he was not a Christian—did more than all the early fathers for mankind. The inventors of plows, of sickles, of cradles, of reapers; the inventors of wagons, coaches, locomotives; the inventors of skiffs, sail-vessels, steamships; the men who have made looms—in short, the inventors of all useful things—they are the civilizers taken in connection with the great thinkers, the poets, the musicians, the actors, the painters, the sculptors. The men who have invented the useful, and the men who have made the useful beautiful, are the real civilizers of mankind.
The priests, in all ages, have been hindrances—stumbling-blocks. They have prevented man from using his reason. They have told ghost stories to courage until courage became fear. They have done all in their power to keep men from growing intellectually, to keep the world in a state of childhood, that they themselves might be deemed great and good and wise. They have always known that their reputation for wisdom depended upon the ignorance of the people.
I account for the civilization of France by such men as Voltaire. He did good by assisting to destroy the church. Luther did good exactly in the same way. He did harm in building another church. I account, in part, for the civilization of England by the fact that she had interests greater than the church could control; and by the further fact that her greatest men cared nothing for the church. I account in part for the civilization of America by the fact that our fathers were wise enough, and jealous of each other enough, to absolutely divorce church and state. They regarded the church as a dangerous mistress—one not fit to govern a president. This divorce was obtained because men like Jefferson and Paine were at that time prominent in the councils of the people. There is this peculiarity in our country—the only men who can be trusted with human liberty are the ones who are not to be angels hereafter. Liberty is safe so long as the sinners have an opportunity to be heard.
Neither must we imagine that our civilization is the only one in the world. They had no locks and keys in Japan until that country was visited by Christians, and they are now used only in those ports where Christians are allowed to enter. It has often been claimed that there is but one way to make a man temperate, and that is by making him a Christian; and this is claimed in face of the fact that Christian nations are the most intemperate in the world. For nearly thirteen centuries the followers of Mohammed have been absolute teetotalers—not one drunkard under the flag of the star and crescent. Wherever, in Turkey, a man is seen under the influence of liquor, they call him a Christian. You must also remember that almost every Christian nation has held slaves. Only a few years ago England was engaged in the slave trade. A little while before that our Puritan ancestors sold white Quaker children in the Barbadoes, and traded them for rum, sugar, and negro slaves. Even now the latest champion of Christianity upholds slavery, polygamy, and wars of extermination.
Sometimes I suspect that our own civilization is not altogether perfect. When I think of the penitentiaries crammed to suffocation, and of the many who ought to be in; of the want, the filth, the depravity of the great cities; of the starvation in the manufacturing centers of Great Britain, and, in fact, of all Europe; when I see women working like beasts of burden, and little children deprived, not simply of education, but of air, light and food, there is a suspicion in my mind that Christian civilization is not a complete and overwhelming success.
After all, I am compelled to account for the advance that we have made, by the discoveries and inventions of men of genius. For the future I rely upon the sciences; upon the cultivation of the intellect. I rely upon labor; upon human interests in this world; upon the love of wife and children and home. I do not rely upon sacred books, but upon good men and women. I do not rely upon superstition, but upon knowledge; not upon miracles, but upon facts; not upon the dead, but upon the living; and when we become absolutely civilized, we shall look back upon the superstitions of the world, not simply with contempt, but with pity.
Neither do I rely upon missionaries to convert those whom we are pleased to call "the heathen." Honest commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics. The effort to force a religion upon the people always ends in war. Commerce, founded upon mutual advantage, makes peace. An honest merchant is better than a missionary.
Spain was blessed with what is called Christian civilization, and yet, for hundreds of years, that government was simply an organized crime. When one pronounces the name of Spain, he thinks of the invasion of the New World, the persecution in the Netherlands, the expulsion of the Jews, and the Inquisition. Even to-day, the Christian nations of Europe preserve themselves from each other by bayonet and ball. Prussia has a standing army of six hundred thousand men, France a half million, and all their neighbors a like proportion. These countries are civilized. They are in the enjoyment of Christian governments—have their hundreds of a thousands of ministers, and the land covered with cathedrals and churches—and yet every nation is nearly beggared by keeping armies in the field. Christian kings have no confidence in the promises of each other. What they call peace is the little time necessarily spent in reloading their guns. England has hundreds of ships of war to protect her commerce from other Christians, and to force China to open her ports to the opium trade. Only the other day the Prime Minister of China, in one of his dispatches to the English government, used substantially the following language: "England regards the opium question simply as one of trade, but to China, it has a moral aspect." Think of Christian England carrying death and desolation to hundreds of thousands in the name of trade. Then think of heathen China protesting in the name of morality. At the same time England has the impudence to send missionaries to China.
What has been called Christianity has been a disturber of the public peace in all countries and at all times. Nothing has so alienated nations, nothing has so destroyed the natural justice of mankind, as what has been known as religion. The idea that all men must worship the same God, believe the same dogmas, has for thousands of years plucked with bloody hands the flower of pity from the human heart.
Our civilization is not Christian. It does not come from the skies. It is not a result of "inspiration." It is the child of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge—that is to say, of science. When man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow-men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized.
Question. Since Laplace and other most distinguished astronomers hold to the theory that the earth was originally in a gaseous state, and then a molten mass in which the germs, even, of vegetable or animal life, could not exist, how do you account for the origin of life on this planet without a "Creator"?—Dr. T. B. Taylor.
Answer. Whether or not "the earth was originally in a gaseous state and afterwards a molten mass in which the germs of vegetable and animal life could not exist," I do not know. My belief is that the earth as it is, and as it was, taken in connection with the influence of the sun, and of other planets, produced whatever has existed or does exist on the earth. I do not see why gas would not need a "creator" as much as a vegetable. Neither can I imagine that there is any more necessity for some one to start life than to start a molten mass. There may be now portions of the world in which there is not one particle of vegetable life. It may be that on the wide waste fields of the Arctic zone there are places where no vegetable life exists, and there may be many thousand miles where no animal life can be found. But if the poles of the earth could be changed, and if the Arctic zone could be placed in a different relative position to the sun, the snows would melt, the hills would appear, and in a little while even the rocks would be clothed with vegetation. After a time vegetation would produce more soil, and in a few thousand years forests would be filled with beasts and birds.
I think it was Sir William Thomson who, in his effort to account for the origin of life upon this earth, stated that it might have come from some meteoric stone falling from some other planet having in it the germs of life. What would you think of a farmer who would prepare his land and wait to have it planted by meteoric stones? So, what would you think of a Deity who would make a world like this, and allow it to whirl thousands and millions of years, barren as a gravestone, waiting for some vagrant comet to sow the seeds of life?
I believe that back of animal life is the vegetable, and back of the vegetable, it may be, is the mineral. It may be that crystallization is the first step toward what we call life, and yet I believe life is back of that. In my judgment, if the earth ever was in a gaseous state, it was filled with life. These are subjects about which we know but little. How do you account for chemistry? How do you account for the fact that just so many particles of one kind seek the society of just so many particles of another, and when they meet they instantly form a glad and lasting union? How do you know but atoms have love and hatred? How do you know that the vegetable does not enjoy growing, and that crystallization itself is not an expression of delight? How do you know that a vine bursting into flower does not feel a thrill? We find sex in the meanest weeds—how can you say they have no loves?
After all, of what use is it to search for a creator? The difficulty is not thus solved. You leave your creator as much in need of a creator as anything your creator is supposed to have created. The bottom of your stairs rests on nothing, and the top of your stairs leans upon nothing. You have reached no solution.
The word "God" is simply born of our ignorance. We go as far as we can, and we say the rest of the way is "God." We look as far as we can, and beyond the horizon, where there is nought so far as we know but blindness, we place our Deity. We see an infinitesimal segment of a circle, and we say the rest is "God."
Man must give up searching for the origin of anything. No one knows the origin of life, or of matter, or of what we call mind. The whence and the whither are questions that no man can answer. In the presence of these questions all intellects are upon a level. The barbarian knows exactly the same as the scientist, the fool as the philosopher. Only those who think that they have had some supernatural information pretend to answer these questions, and the unknowable, the impossible, the unfathomable, is the realm wholly occupied by the "inspired."
We are satisfied that all organized things must have had a beginning, but we cannot conceive that matter commenced to be. Forms change, but substance remains eternally the same. A beginning of substance is unthinkable. It is just as easy to conceive of anything commencing to exist without a cause as with a cause. There must be something for cause to operate upon. Cause operating upon nothing—were such a thing possible—would produce nothing. There can be no relation between cause and nothing. We can understand how things can be arranged, joined or separated—and how relations can be changed or destroyed, but we cannot conceive of creation—of nothing being changed into something, nor of something being made—except from preexisting materials.
Question. Since the universal testimony of the ages is in the affirmative of phenomena that attest the continued existence of man after death—which testimony is overwhelmingly sustained by the phenomena of the nineteenth century—what further evidence should thoughtful people require in order to settle the question, "Does death end all?"
Answer. I admit that in all ages men have believed in spooks and ghosts and signs and wonders. This, however, proves nothing. Men have for thousands of ages believed the impossible, and worshiped the absurd. Our ancestors have worshiped snakes and birds and beasts. I do not admit that any ghost ever existed. I know that no miracle was ever performed except in imagination; and what you are pleased to call the "phenomena of the nineteenth century," I fear are on an exact equality with the phenomena of the Dark Ages.
We do not yet understand the action of the brain. No one knows the origin of a thought. No one knows how he thinks, or why he thinks, any more than one knows why or how his heart beats. People, I imagine, have always had dreams. In dreams they often met persons whom they knew to be dead, and it may be that much of the philosophy of the present was born of dreams. I cannot admit that anything supernatural ever has happened or ever will happen. I cannot admit the truth of what you call the "phenomena of the nineteenth century," if by such "phenomena" you mean the reappearance of the dead. I do not deny the existence of a future state, because I do not know. Neither do I aver that there is one, because I do not know. Upon this question I am simply honest. I find that people who believe in immortality—or at least those who say they do—are just as afraid of death as anybody else. I find that the most devout Christian weeps as bitterly above his dead, as the man who says that death ends all. You see the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near. Still, I do not say that man is not immortal; but I do say that there is nothing in the Bible to show that he is. The Old Testament has not a word upon the subject—except to show us how we lost immortality. According to that book, man was driven from the Garden of Eden, lest he should put forth his hand and eat of the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. So the fact is, the Old Testament shows us how we lost immortality. In the New Testament we are told to seek for immortality, and it is also stated that "God alone hath immortality."
There is this curious thing about Christians and Spiritualists: The Spiritualists laugh at the Christians for believing the miracles of the New Testament; they laugh at them for believing the story about the witch of Endor. And then the Christians laugh at the Spiritualists for believing that the same kind of things happen now. As a matter of fact, the Spiritualists have the best of it, because their witnesses are now living, whereas the Christians take simply the word of the dead—of men they never saw and of men about whom they know nothing. The Spiritualist, at least, takes the testimony of men and women that he can cross-examine. It would seem as if these gentlemen ought to make common cause. Then the Christians could prove their miracles by the Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists could prove their "phenomena" by the Christians.
I believe that thoughtful people require some additional testimony in order to settle the question, "Does death end all?" If the dead return to this world they should bring us information of value.
There are thousands of questions that studious historians and savants are endeavoring to settle—questions of history, of philosophy, of law, of art, upon which a few intelligent dead ought to be able to shed a flood of light. All the questions of the past ought to be settled. Some modern ghosts ought to get acquainted with some of the Pharaohs, and give us an outline of the history of Egypt. They ought to be able to read the arrow-headed writing and all the records of the past. The hieroglyphics of all ancient peoples should be unlocked, and thoughts and facts that have been imprisoned for so many thousand years should be released and once again allowed to visit brains. The Spiritualists ought to be able to give us the history of buried cities. They should clothe with life the dust of all the past. If they could only bring us valuable information; if they could only tell us about some steamer in distress so that succor could be sent; if they could only do something useful, the world would cheerfully accept their theories and admit their "facts." I think that thoughtful people have the right to demand such evidence. I would like to have the spirits give us the history of all the books of the New Testament and tell us who first told of the miracles. If they could give us the history of any religion, or nation, or anything, I should have far more confidence in the "phenomena of the nineteenth century."
There is one thing about the Spiritualists I like, and that is, they are liberal. They give to others the rights they claim for themselves. They do not pollute their souls with the dogma of eternal pain. They do not slander and persecute even those who deny their "phenomena." But I cannot admit that they have furnished conclusive evidence that death does not end all. Beyond the horizon of this life we have not seen. From the mysterious beyond no messenger has come to me.
For the whole world I would not blot from the sky of the future a single star. Arched by the bow of hope let the dead sleep.
Question. How, when, where, and by whom was our present calendar originated,—that is "Anno Domini,"—and what event in the history of the nations does it establish as a fact, if not the birth of Jesus of Nazareth?
Answer. I have already said, in answer to a question by another gentleman, that I believe the man Jesus Christ existed, and we now date from somewhere near his birth. I very much doubt about his having been born on Christmas, because in reading other religions, I find that that time has been celebrated for thousands of years, and the cause of it is this:
About the 21st or 22d of December is the shortest day. After that the days begin to lengthen and the sun comes back, and for many centuries in most nations they had a festival in commemoration of that event. The Christians, I presume, adopted this day, and made the birth of Christ fit it. Three months afterward—the 21st of March—the days and nights again become equal, and the day then begins to lengthen. For centuries the nations living in the temperate zones have held festivals to commemorate the coming of spring—the yearly miracle of leaf, of bud and flower. This is the celebration known as Easter, and the Christians adopted that in commemoration of Christ's resurrection. So that, as a matter of fact, these festivals of Christmas and Easter do not even tend to show that they stand for or are in any way connected with the birth or resurrection of Christ. In fact the evidence is overwhelmingly the other way.
While we are on the calendar business it may be well enough to say that we get our numerals from the Arabs, from whom also we obtained our ideas of algebra. The higher mathematics came to us from the same source. So from the Arabs we receive chemistry, and our first true notions of geography. They gave us also paper and cotton.
Owing to the fact that the earth does not make its circuit in the exact time of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, and owing to the fact that it was a long time before any near approach was made to the actual time, all calendars after awhile became too inaccurate for general use, and they were from time to time changed.
Right here, it may be well enough to remark, that all the monuments and festivals in the world are not sufficient to establish an impossible event. No amount of monumental testimony, no amount of living evidence, can substantiate a miracle. The monument only proves the belief of the builders.
If we rely upon the evidence of monuments, calendars, dates, and festivals, all the religions on the earth can be substantiated. Turkey is filled with such monuments and much of the time wasted in such festivals. We celebrate the Fourth of July, but such celebration does not even tend to prove that God, by his special providence, protected Washington from the arrows of an Indian. The Hebrews celebrate what is called the Passover, but this celebration does not even tend to prove that the angel of the Lord put blood on the door-posts in Egypt. The Mohammedans celebrate to-day the flight of Mohammed, but that does not tend to prove that Mohammed was inspired and was a prophet of God.
Nobody can change a falsehood to a truth by the erection of a monument. Monuments simply prove that people endeavor to substantiate truths and falsehoods by the same means.
Question. Letting the question as to hell hereafter rest for the present, how do you account for the hell here—namely, the existence of pain? There are people who, by no fault of their own, are at this present time in misery. If for these there is no life to come, their existence is a mistake; but if there is a life to come, it may be that the sequel to the acts of the play to come will justify the pain and misery of this present time?—Rev. Myron W. Reed.
Answer. There are four principal theories:
First—That there is behind the universe a being of infinite power and wisdom, kindness, and justice.
Second—That the universe has existed from eternity, and that it is the only eternal existence, and that behind it is no creator.
Third—That there is a God who made the universe, but who is not all-powerful and who is, under the circumstances, doing the best he can.
Fourth—That there is an all-powerful God who made the universe, and that there is also a nearly all-powerful devil, and this devil ravels about as fast as this God knits.
By the last theory, as taught by Plato, it is extremely easy to account for the misery in this world. If we admit that there is a malevolent being with power enough, and with cunning enough, to frequently circumvent God, the problem of evil becomes solved so far as this world is concerned. But why this being was evil is still unsolved; why the devil is malevolent is still a mystery. Consequently you will have to go back of this world, on that theory, to account for the origin of evil. If this devil always existed, then, of course, the universe at one time was inhabited only by this God and this devil.
If the third theory is correct, we can account for the fact that God does not see to it that justice is always done.
If the second theory is true, that the universe has existed from eternity, and is without a creator, then we must account for the existence of evil and good, not by personalities behind the universe, but by the nature of things.
If there is an infinitely good and wise being who created all, it seems to me that he should have made a world in which innocence should be a sufficient shield. He should have made a world where the just man should have nothing to fear.
My belief is this: We are surrounded by obstacles. We are filled with wants. We must have clothes. We must have food. We must protect ourselves from sun and storm, from heat and cold. In our conflict with these obstacles, with each other, and with what may be called the forces of nature, all do not succeed. It is a fact in nature that like begets like; that man gives his constitution, at least in part, to his children; that weakness and strength are in some degree both hereditary. This is a fact in nature. I do not hold any god responsible for this fact—filled as it is with pain and joy. But it seems to me that an infinite God should so have arranged matters that the bad would not pass—that it would die with its possessor—that the good should survive, and that the man should give to his son, not the result of his vices, but the fruit of his virtues.
I cannot see why we should expect an infinite God to do better in another world than he does in this. If he allows injustice to prevail here, why will he not allow the same thing in the world to come? If there is any being with power to prevent it, why is crime permitted? If a man standing upon the railway should ascertain that a bridge had been carried off by a flood, and if he also knew that the train was coming filled with men, women, and children; with husbands going to their wives, and wives rejoining their families; if he made no effort to stop that train; if he simply sat down by the roadside to witness the catastrophe, and so remained until the train dashed off the precipice, and its load of life became a mass of quivering flesh, he would be denounced by every good man as the most monstrous of human beings. And yet this is exactly what the supposed God does. He, if he exists, sees the train rushing to the gulf. He gives no notice. He sees the ship rushing for the hidden rock. He makes no sign. And he so constructed the world that assassins lurk in the air—hide even in the sunshine—and when we imagine that we are breathing the breath of life, we are taking into ourselves the seeds of death.
There are two facts inconsistent in my mind—a martyr and a God. Injustice upon earth renders the justice of heaven impossible.
I would not take from those suffering in this world the hope of happiness hereafter. My principal object has been to take away from them the fear of eternal pain hereafter. Still, it is impossible for me to explain the facts by which I am surrounded, if I admit the existence of an infinite Being. I find in this world that physical and mental evils afflict the good. It seems to me that I have the same reason to expect the bad to be rewarded hereafter. I have no right to suppose that infinite wisdom will ever know any more, or that infinite benevolence will increase in kindness, or that the justice of the eternal can change. If, then, this eternal being allows the good to suffer pain here, what right have we to say that he will not allow them to suffer forever?
Some people have insisted that this life is a kind of school for the production of self-denying men and women—that is, for the production of character. The statistics show that a large majority die under five years of age. What would we think of a schoolmaster who killed the most of his pupils the first day? If this doctrine is true, and if manhood cannot be produced in heaven, those who die in childhood are infinitely unfortunate.
I admit that, although I do not understand the subject, still, all pain, all misery may be for the best. I do not know. If there is an infinitely wise Being, who is also infinitely powerful, then everything that happens must be for the best. That philosophy of special providence, going to the extreme, is infinitely better than most of the Christian creeds. There seems to be no half-way house between special providence and atheism. You know some of the Buddhists say that when a man commits murder, that is the best thing he could have done, and that to be murdered was the best thing that could have happened to the killed. They insist that every step taken is the necessary step and the best step; that crimes are as necessary as virtues, and that the fruit of crime and virtue is finally the same.
But whatever theories we have, we have at last to be governed by the facts. We are in a world where vice, deformity, weakness, and disease are hereditary. In the presence of this immense and solemn truth rises the religion of the body. Every man should refuse to increase the misery of this world. And it may be that the time will come when man will be great enough and grand enough utterly to refrain from the propagation of disease and deformity, and when only the healthy will be fathers and mothers. We do know that the misery in this world can be lessened; consequently I believe in the religion of this world. And whether there is a heaven or hell here, or hereafter, every good man has enough to do to make this world a little better than it is. Millions of lives are wasted in the vain effort to find the origin of things, and the destiny of man. This world has been neglected. We have been taught that life should be merely a preparation for death.
To avoid pain we must know the conditions of health. For the accomplishment of this end we must rely upon investigation instead of faith, upon labor in place of prayer. Most misery is produced by ignorance. Passions sow the seeds of pain.
Question. State with what words you can comfort those who have, by their own fault, or by the fault of others, found this life not worth living?
Answer. If there is no life beyond this, and so believing I come to the bedside of the dying—of one whose life has been a failure—a "life not worth living," I could at least say to such an one, "Your failure ends with your death. Beyond the tomb there is nothing for you—neither pain nor misery, neither grief nor joy." But if I were a good orthodox Christen, then I would have to say to this man, "Your life has been a failure; you have not been a Christian, and the failure will be extended eternally; you have not only been a failure for a time, but you will be a failure forever."
Admitting that there is another world, and that the man's life had been a failure in this, then I should say to him, "If you live again, you will have the eternal opportunity to reform. There will be no time, no date, no matter how many millions and billions of ages may have passed away, at which you will not have the opportunity of doing right."
Under no circumstances could I consistently say to this man: "Although your life has been a failure; although you have made hundreds and thousands of others suffer; although you have deceived and betrayed the woman who loved you; although you have murdered your benefactor; still, if you will now repent and believe a something that is unreasonable or reasonable to your mind, you will, at the moment of death, be transferred to a world of eternal joy." This I could not say. I would tell him, "If you die a bad man here, you will commence the life to come with the same character you leave this. Character cannot be made by another for you. You must be the architect of your own." There is to me unspeakably more comfort in the idea that every failure ends here, than that it is to be perpetuated forever.
How can a Christian comfort the mother of a girl who has died without believing in Christ? What doctrine is there in Christianity to wipe away her tears? What words of comfort can you offer to the mother whose brave boy fell in defence of his country, she knowing and you knowing, that the boy was not a Christian, that he did not believe in the Bible, and had no faith in the blood of the atonement? What words of comfort have you for such fathers and for such mothers?
To me, there is no doctrine so infinitely absurd as the idea that this life is a probationary state—that the few moments spent here decide the fate of a human soul forever. Nothing can be conceived more merciless, more unjust. I am doing all I can to destroy that doctrine. I want, if possible, to get the shadow of hell from the human heart.
Why has any life been a failure here? If God is a being of infinite wisdom and kindness, why does he make failures? What excuse has infinite wisdom for peopling the world with savages? Why should one feel grateful to God for having made him with a poor, weak and diseased brain; for having allowed him to be the heir of consumption, of scrofula, or of insanity? Why should one thank God, who lived and died a slave?
After all, is it not of more importance to speak the absolute truth? Is it not manlier to tell the fact than to endeavor to convey comfort through falsehood? People must reap not only what they sow, but what others have sown. The people of the whole world are united in spite of themselves.
Next to telling a man, whose life has been a failure, that he is to enjoy an immortality of delight—next to that, is to assure him that a place of eternal punishment does not exist.
After all, there are but few lives worth living in any great and splendid sense. Nature seems filled with failure, and she has made no exception in favor of man. To the greatest, to the most successful, there comes a time when the fevered lips of life long for the cool, delicious kiss of death—when, tired of the dust and glare of day, they hear with joy the rustling garments of the night.
Archibald Armstrong and Jonathan Newgate were fast friends. Their views in regard to the question of a future life, and the existence of a God, were in perfect accord. They said:
"'We know so little about these matters that we are not justified in giving them any serious consideration. Our motto and rule of life shall be for each one to make himself as comfortable as he can, and enjoy every pleasure within his reach, not allowing himself to be influenced at all by thoughts of a future life.'
"Both had some money. Archibald had a large amount. Once upon a time when no human eye saw him—and he had no belief in a God—Jonathan stole every dollar of his friend's wealth, leaving him penniless. He had no fear, no remorse; no one saw him do the deed. He became rich, enjoyed life immensely, lived in contentment and pleasure, until in mellow old age he went the way of all flesh. Archibald fared badly. The odds were against him.
"His money was gone. He lived in penury and discontent, dissatisfied with mankind and with himself, until at last, overcome by misfortune, and depressed by an incurable malady, he sought rest in painless suicide."
Question. What are we to think of the rule of life laid down by these men? Was either of them inconsistent or illogical? Is there no remedy to correct such irregularities?—Rev. D. O'Donaghue.
Answer. The Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue seems to entertain strange ideas as to right and wrong. He tells us that Archibald Armstrong and Jonathan Newgate concluded to make themselves as comfortable as they could and enjoy every pleasure within their reach, and the Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue states that one of the pleasures within the reach of Mr. Newgate was to steal what little money Mr. Armstrong had. Does the reverend gentleman think that Mr. Newgate made or could make himself comfortable in that way? He tells us that Mr. Newgate "had no remorse,"—that he "became rich and enjoyed life immensely,"—that he "lived in contentment and pleasure, until, in mellow old age, he went the way of all flesh."
Does the reverend gentleman really believe that a man can steal without fear, without remorse? Does he really suppose that one can enjoy the fruits of theft, that a criminal can live a contented and happy life, that one who has robbed his friend can reach a mellow and delightful old age? Is this the philosophy of the Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue?
And right here I may be permitted to ask, Why did the Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue's God allow a thief to live without fear, without remorse, to enjoy life immensely and to reach a mellow old age? And why did he allow Mr. Armstrong, who had been robbed, to live in penury and discontent, until at last, overcome by misfortune, he sought rest in suicide? Does the Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue mean to say that if there is no future life it is wise to steal in this? If the grave is the eternal home, would the Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue advise people to commit crimes in order that they may enjoy this life? Such is not my philosophy. Whether there is a God or not, truth is better than falsehood. Whether there is a heaven or hell, honesty is always the best policy. There is no world, and can be none, where vice can sow the seed of crime and reap the sheaves of joy.
According to my view, Mr. Armstrong was altogether more fortunate than Mr. Newgate. I had rather be robbed than to be a robber, and I had rather be of such a disposition that I would be driven to suicide by misfortune than to live in contentment upon the misfortunes of others. The reverend gentleman, however, should have made his question complete—he should have gone the entire distance. He should have added that Mr. Newgate, after having reached a mellow old age, was suddenly converted, joined the church, and died in the odor of sanctity on the very day that his victim committed suicide.
But I will answer the fable of the reverend gentleman with a fact.
A young man was in love with a girl. She was young, beautiful, and trustful. She belonged to no church—knew nothing about a future world—basked in the sunshine of this. All her life had been filled with gentle deeds. The tears of pity had sanctified her cheeks. She believed in no religion, worshiped no God, believed no Bible, but loved everything. Her lover in a fit of jealous rage murdered her. He was tried; convicted; a motion for a new trial overruled and a pardon refused. In his cell, in the shadow of death, he was converted—he became a Catholic. With the white lips of fear he confessed to a priest. He received the sacrament.
He was hanged, and from the rope's end winged his way to the realms of bliss. For months the murdered girl had suffered all the pains and pangs of hell.
The poor girl will endure the agony of the damned forever, while her murderer will be ravished with angelic chant and song. Such is the justice of the orthodox God.
Allow me to use the language of the reverend gentleman: "Is there no remedy to correct such irregularities?"
As long as the idea of eternal punishment remains a part of the Christian system, that system will be opposed by every man of heart and brain. Of all religious dogmas it is the most shocking, infamous, and absurd. The preachers of this doctrine are the enemies of human happiness; they are the assassins of natural joy. Every father, every mother, every good man, every loving woman, should hold this doctrine in abhorrence; they should refuse to pay men for preaching it; they should not build churches in which this infamy is taught; they should teach their little children that it is a lie; they should take this horror from childhood's heart—a horror that makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin.
* Brooklyn Union, 1883.
Question. The clergymen who have been interviewed, almost unanimously have declared that the church is suffering very little from the skepticism of the day, and that the influence of the scientific writers, whose opinions are regarded as atheistic or infidel, is not great; and that the books of such writers are not read as much as some people think they are. What is your opinion with regard to that subject?
Answer. It is natural for a man to defend his business, to stand by his class, his caste, his creed. And I suppose this accounts for the ministers all saying that infidelity is not on the increase. By comparing long periods of time, it is very easy to see the progress that has been made. Only a few years ago men who are now considered quite orthodox would have been imprisoned, or at least mobbed, for heresy. Only a few years ago men like Huxley and Tyndall and Spencer and Darwin and Humboldt would have been considered as the most infamous of monsters.
Only a few years ago science was superstition's hired man. The scientific men apologized for every fact they happened to find. With hat in hand they begged pardon of the parson for finding a fossil, and asked the forgiveness of God for making any discovery in nature. At that time every scientific discovery was something to be pardoned. Moses was authority in geology, and Joshua was considered the first astronomer of the world. Now everything has changed, and everybody knows it except the clergy. Now religion is taking off its hat to science. Religion is finding out new meanings for old texts. We are told that God spoke in the language of the common people; that he was not teaching any science; that he allowed his children not only to remain in error, but kept them there. It is now admitted that the Bible is no authority on any question of natural fact; it is inspired only in morality, in a spiritual way. All, except the Brooklyn ministers, see that the Bible has ceased to be regarded as authority. Nobody appeals to a passage to settle a dispute of fact. The most intellectual men of the world laugh at the idea of inspiration. Men of the greatest reputations hold all supernaturalism in contempt. Millions of people are reading the opinions of men who combat and deny the foundation of orthodox Christianity. Humboldt stands higher than all the apostles. Darwin has done more to change human thought than all the priests who have existed. Where there was one infidel twenty-five years ago, there are one hundred now. I can remember when I would be the only infidel in the town. Now I meet them thick as autumn leaves; they are everywhere. In all the professions, trades, and employments, the orthodox creeds are despised. They are not simply disbelieved; they are execrated. They are regarded, not with indifference, but with passionate hatred. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of mechanics in this country abhor orthodox Christianity. Millions of educated men hold in immeasurable contempt the doctrine of eternal punishment. The doctrine of atonement is regarded as absurd by millions. So with the dogma of imputed guilt, vicarious virtue, and vicarious vice. I see that the Rev. Dr. Eddy advises ministers not to answer the arguments of infidels in the pulpit, and gives this wonderful reason: That the hearers will get more doubts from the answer than from reading the original arguments. So the Rev. Dr. Hawkins admits that he cannot defend Christianity from infidel attacks without creating more infidelity. So the Rev. Dr. Haynes admits that he cannot answer the theories of Robertson Smith in popular addresses. The only minister who feels absolutely safe on this subject, so far as his congregation is concerned, seems to be the Rev. Joseph Pullman. He declares that the young people in his church don't know enough to have intelligent doubts, and that the old people are substantially in the same condition. Mr. Pullman feels that he is behind a breastwork so strong that other defence is unnecessary. So the Rev. Mr. Foote thinks that infidelity should never be refuted in the pulpit. I admit that it never has been successfully done, but I did not suppose so many ministers admitted the impossibility. Mr. Foote is opposed to all public discussion. Dr. Wells tells us that scientific atheism should be ignored; that it should not be spoken of in the pulpit. The Rev, Dr. Van Dyke has the same feeling of security enjoyed by Dr. Pullman, and he declares that the great majority of the Christian people of to-day know nothing about current infidel theories. His idea is to let them remain in ignorance; that it would be dangerous for the Christian minister even to state the position of the infidel; that, after stating it, he might not, even with the help of God, successfully combat the theory. These ministers do not agree. Dr. Carpenter accounts for infidelity by nicotine in the blood. It is all smoke.
He thinks the blood of the human family has deteriorated. He thinks that the church is safe because the Christians read. He differs with his brothers Pullman and Van Dyke. So the Rev. George E. Reed believes that infidelity should be discussed in the pulpit. He has more confidence in his general and in the weapons of his warfare than some of his brethren. His confidence may arise from the fact that he has never had a discussion. The Rev. Dr. McClelland thinks the remedy is to stick by the catechism; that there is not now enough of authority; not enough of the brute force; thinks that the family, the church, and the state ought to use the rod; that the rod is the salvation of the world; that the rod is a divine institution; that fathers ought to have it for their children; that mothers ought to use it. This is a part of the religion of universal love. The man who cannot raise children without whipping them ought not to have them. The man who would mar the flesh of a boy or girl is unfit to have the control of a human being. The father who keeps a rod in his house keeps a relic of barbarism in his heart. There is nothing reformatory in punishment; nothing reformatory in fear. Kindness, guided by intelligence, is the only reforming force. An appeal to brute force is an abandonment of love and reason, and puts father and child upon a savage equality; the savageness in the heart of the father prompting the use of the rod or club, produces a like savageness in the victim; The old idea that a child's spirit must be broken is infamous. All this is passing away, however, with orthodox Christianity. That children are treated better than formerly shows conclusively the increase of what is called infidelity. Infidelity has always been a protest against tyranny in the state, against intolerance in the church, against barbarism in the family. It has always been an appeal for light, for justice, for universal kindness and tenderness.
Question. The ministers say, I believe, Colonel, that worldliness is the greatest foe to the church, and admit that it is on the increase?
Answer. I see that all the ministers you have interviewed regard worldliness as the great enemy of the church. What is worldliness? I suppose worldliness consists in paying attention to the affairs of this world; getting enjoyment out of this life; gratifying the senses, giving the ears music, the eyes painting and sculpture, the palate good food; cultivating the imagination; playing games of chance; adorning the person; developing the body; enriching the mind; investigating the facts by which we are surrounded; building homes; rocking cradles; thinking; working; inventing; buying; selling; hoping—all this, I suppose, is worldliness. These "worldly" people have cleared the forests, plowed the land, built the cities, the steamships, the telegraphs, and have produced all there is of worth and wonder in the world. Yet the preachers denounce them. Were it not for "worldly" people how would the preachers get along? Who would build the churches? Who would fill the contribution boxes and plates, and who (most serious of all questions) would pay the salaries? It is the habit of the ministers to belittle men who support them—to slander the spirit by which they live. "It is as though the mouth should tear the hand that feeds it." The nobility of the Old World hold the honest workingman in contempt, and yet are so contemptible themselves that they are willing to live upon his labor. And so the minister pretending to be spiritual—pretending to be a spiritual guide—looks with contempt upon the men who make it possible for him to live. It may be said by "worldliness" they only mean enjoyment—that is, hearing music, going to the theater and the opera, taking a Sunday excursion to the silvery margin of the sea. Of course, ministers look upon theaters as rival attractions, and most of their hatred is born of business views. They think people ought to be driven to church by having all other places closed. In my judgment the theater has done good, while the church has done harm. The drama never has insisted upon burning anybody. Persecution is not born of the stage. On the contrary, upon the stage have forever been found impersonations of patriotism, heroism, courage, fortitude, and justice, and these impersonations have always been applauded, and have been represented that they might be applauded. In the pulpit, hypocrites have been worshiped; upon the stage they have been held up to derision and execration. Shakespeare has done far more for the world than the Bible. The ministers keep talking about spirituality as opposed to worldliness. Nothing can be more absurd than this talk of spirituality. As though readers of the Bible, repeaters of texts, and sayers of prayers were engaged in a higher work than honest industry. Is there anything higher than human love? A man is in love with a girl, and he has determined to work for her and to give his life that she may have a life of joy. Is there anything more spiritual than that—anything higher? They marry. He clears some land. He fences a field. He builds a cabin; and she, of this hovel, makes a happy home. She plants flowers, puts a few simple things of beauty upon the walls. This is what the preachers call "worldliness." Is there anything more spiritual? In a little while, in this cabin, in this home, is heard the drowsy rhythm of the cradle's rock, while softly floats the lullaby upon the twilight air. Is there anything more spiritual, is there anything more infinitely tender than to see husband and wife bending, with clasped hands, over a cradle, gazing upon the dimpled miracle of love? I say it is spiritual to work for those you love; spiritual to improve the physical condition of mankind—for he who improves the physical condition improves the mental. I believe in the plowers instead of the prayers. I believe in the new firm of "Health & Heresy" rather than the old partnership of "Disease & Divinity," doing business at the old sign of the "Skull & Crossbones." Some of the ministers that you have interviewed, or at least one of them, tells us the cure for worldliness. He says that God is sending fires, and cyclones, and things of that character for the purpose of making people spiritual; of calling their attention to the fact that everything in this world is of a transitory nature. The clergy have always had great faith in famine, in affliction, in pestilence. They know that a man is a thousand times more apt to thank God for a crust or a crumb than for a banquet. They know that prosperity has the same effect on the average Christian that thick soup has, according to Bumble, on the English pauper: "It makes 'em impudent." The devil made a mistake in not doubling Job's property instead of leaving him a pauper. In prosperity the ministers think that we forget death and are too happy. In the arms of those we love, the dogma of eternal fire is for the moment forgotten. According to the ministers, God kills our children in order that we may not forget him. They imagine that the man who goes into Dakota, cultivates the soil and rears him a little home, is getting too "worldly." And so God starts a cyclone to scatter his home and the limbs of wife and children upon the desolate plains, and the ministers in Brooklyn say this is done because we are getting too "worldly." They think we should be more "spiritual;" that is to say, willing to live upon the labor of others; willing to ask alms, saying, in the meantime, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." If this is so, why not give the money back? "Spiritual" people are those who eat oatmeal and prunes, have great confidence in dried apples, read Cowper's "Task" and Pollok's "Course of Time," laugh at the jokes in Harper's Monthly, wear clothes shiny at the knees and elbows, and call all that has elevated the world "beggarly elements."
Question. Some of the clergymen who have been interviewed admit that the rich and poor no longer meet together, and deprecate the establishment of mission chapels in connection with the large and fashionable churches.
Answer. The early Christians supposed that the end of the world was at hand. They were all sitting on the dock waiting for the ship. In the presence of such a belief what are known as class distinctions could not easily exist. Most of them were exceedingly poor, and poverty is a bond of union. As a rule, people are hospitable in the proportion that they lack wealth. In old times, in the West, a stranger was always welcome. He took in part the place of the newspaper. He was a messenger from the older parts of the country. Life was monotonous. The appearance of the traveler gave variety. As people grow wealthy they grow exclusive. As they become educated there is a tendency to pick their society. It is the same in the church. The church no longer believes the creed, no longer acts as though the creed were true. If the rich man regarded the sermon as a means of grace, as a kind of rope thrown by the minister to a man just above the falls; if he regarded it as a lifeboat, or as a lighthouse, he would not allow his coachman to remain outside. If he really believed that the coachman had an immortal soul, capable of eternal joy, liable to everlasting pain, he would do his utmost to make the calling and election of the said coachman sure. As a matter of fact the rich man now cares but little for servants. They are not included in the scheme of salvation, except as a kind of job lot. The church has become a club. It is a social affair, and the rich do not care to associate in the week days with the poor they may happen to meet at church. As they expect to be in heaven together forever, they can afford to be separated here. There will certainly be time enough there to get acquainted. Another thing is the magnificence of the churches. The church depends absolutely upon the rich. Poor people feel out of place in such magnificent buildings. They drop into the nearest seat; like poor relations, they sit on the extreme edge of the chair. At the table of Christ they are below the salt.
They are constantly humiliated. When subscriptions are asked for they feel ashamed to have their mite compared with the thousands given by the millionaire. The pennies feel ashamed to mingle with the silver in the contribution plate. The result is that most of them avoid the church. It costs too much to worship God in public. Good clothes are necessary, fashionably cut. The poor come in contact with too much silk, too many jewels, too many evidences of what is generally assumed to be superiority.
Question. Would this state of affairs be remedied if, instead of churches, we had societies of ethical culture? Would not the rich there predominate and the poor be just as much out of place?
Answer. I think the effect would be precisely the same, no matter what the society is, what object it has, if composed of rich and poor. Class distinctions, to a greater or less extent, will creep in—in fact, they do not have to creep in. They are there at the commencement, and they are born of the different conditions of the members.
These class distinctions are not always made by men of wealth. For instance, some men obtain money, and are what we call snobs. Others obtain it and retain their democratic principles, and meet men according to the law of affinity, or general intelligence, on intellectual grounds, for instance.
There is not only the distinction produced by wealth and power, but there are the distinctions born of intelligence, of culture, of character, of end, object, aim in life. No one can blame an honest mechanic for holding a wealthy snob in utter contempt. Neither can any one blame respectable poverty for declining to associate with arrogant wealth. The right to make the distinction is with all classes, and with the individuals of all classes. It is impossible to have any society for any purpose—that is, where they meet together—without certain embarrassments being produced by these distinctions. Nowt for instance, suppose there should be a society simply of intelligent and cultured people. There, wealth, to a great degree, would be disregarded. But, after all, the distinction that intelligence draws between talent and genius is as marked and cruel as was ever drawn between poverty and wealth. Wherever the accomplishment of some object is deemed of such vast importance that, for the moment, all minor distinctions are forgotten, then it is possible for the rich and poor, the ignorant and intelligent, to act in concert. This happens in political parties, in time of war, and it has also happened whenever a new religion has been founded. Whenever the rich wish the assistance of the poor, distinctions are forgotten. It is upon the same principle that we gave liberty to the slave during the Civil war, and clad him in the uniform of the nation; we wanted him, we needed him; and, for the time, we were perfectly willing to forget the distinction of color. Common peril produces pure democracy. It is with societies as with individuals. A poor young man coming to New York, bent upon making his fortune, begins to talk about the old fogies; holds in contempt many of the rules and regulations of the trade; is loud in his denunciation of monopoly; wants competition; shouts for fair play, and is a real democrat. But let him succeed; let him have a palace in Fifth Avenue, with his monogram on spoons and coaches; then, instead of shouting for liberty, he will call for more police. He will then say: "We want protection; the rabble must be put down." We have an aristocracy of wealth. In some parts of our country an aristocracy of literature—men and women who imagine themselves writers and who hold in contempt all people who cannot express commonplaces in the most elegant diction—people who look upon a mistake in grammar as far worse than a crime. So, in some communities we have an aristocracy of muscle. The only true aristocracy, probably, is that of kindness. Intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel; as cruel as wealth without a sense of justice; as cruel as muscle without mercy. So that, after all, the real aristocracy must be that of goodness where the intellect is directed by the heart.
Question. You say that the aristocracy of intellect is quite as cruel as the aristocracy of wealth—what do you mean by that?
Answer. By intellect, I mean simply intellect; that is to say, the aristocracy of education—of simple brain—expressed in innumerable ways—in invention, painting, sculpture, literature. And I meant to say that that aristocracy was as cruel as that of simple arrogant wealth. After all, why should a man be proud of something given him by nature—something that he did not earn, did not produce—something that he could not help? Is it not more reasonable to be proud of wealth which you have accumulated than of brain which nature gave you? And, to carry this idea clearly out, why should we be proud of anything? Is there any proper occasion on which to crow? If you succeed, your success crows for you; if you fail, certainly crowing is not in the best of taste. And why should a man be proud of brain? Why should he be proud of disposition or of good acts?
Question. You speak of the cruelty of the intellect, and yet, of course, you must recognize the right of every one to select his own companions. Would it be arrogant for the intellectual man to prefer the companionship of people of his own class in preference to commonplace and unintelligent persons?
Answer. All men should have the same rights, and one right that every man should have is to associate with congenial people. There are thousands of good men whose society I do not covet. They may be stupid, or they may be stupid only in the direction in which I am interested, and may be exceedingly intelligent as to matters about which I care nothing. In either case they are not congenial. They have the right to select congenial company; so have I. And while distinctions are thus made, they are not cruel; they are not heartless. They are for the good of all concerned, spring naturally from the circumstances, and are consistent with the highest philanthropy. Why we notice these distinctions in the church more than we do in the club is that the church talks one way and acts another; because the church insists that a certain line of conduct is essential to salvation, and that every human being is in danger of eternal pain. If the creed were true, then, in the presence of such an infinite verity, all earthly distinctions should instantly vanish. Every Christian should exert himself for the salvation of the soul of a beggar with the same degree of earnestness that he would show to save a king. The accidents of wealth, education, social position, should be esteemed as naught, and the richest should gladly work side by side with the poorest. The churches will never reach the poor as long as they sell pews; as long as the rich members wear their best clothes on Sunday. As long as the fashions of the drawing-room are taken to the table of the last supper, the poor will remain in the highways and hedges. Present fashion is more powerful than faith. So long as the ministers shut up their churches, and allow the poor to go to hell in summer; as long as they leave the devil without a competitor for three months in the year, the churches will not materially impede the march of human progress. People often, unconsciously and without any malice, say something or do something that throws an unexpected light upon a question. The other day, in one of the New York comic papers, there was a picture representing the foremost preachers of the country at the seaside together. It was regarded as a joke that they could enjoy each others society. These ministers are supposed to be the apostles of the religion of kindness. They tell us to love even our enemies, and yet the idea that they could associate happily together is regarded as a joke! After all, churches are like other institutions, they have to be managed, and they now rely upon music and upon elocution rather than upon the gospel. They are becoming social affairs. They are giving up the doctrine of eternal punishment, and have consequently lost their hold. The orthodox churches used to tell us there was to be a fire, and they offered to insure; and as long as the fire was expected the premiums were paid and the policies were issued. Then came the Universalist Church, saying that there would be no fire, and yet asking the people to insure. For such a church there is no basis. It undoubtedly did good by its influence upon other churches. So with the Unitarian. That church has no basis for organization; no reason, because no hell is threatened, and heaven is but faintly promised. Just as the churches have lost their belief in eternal fire, they have lost their influence, and the reason they have lost their belief is on account of the diffusion of knowledge. That doctrine is becoming absurd and infamous. Intelligent people are ashamed to broach it. Intelligent people can no longer believe it. It is regarded with horror, and the churches must finally abandon it, and when they do, that is the end of the church militant.
Question. What do you say to the progress of the Roman Catholic Church, in view of the fact that they have not changed their belief, in any particular, in regard to future punishment?
Answer. Neither Catholicism nor Protestantism will ever win another battle. The last victory of Protestantism was won in Holland. Nations have not been converted since then. The time has passed to preach with sword and gun, and for that reason Catholicism can win no more victories. That church increases in this country mostly from immigration. Catholicism does not belong to the New World. It is at war with the idea of our Government, antagonistic to true republicanism, and is in every sense anti-American. The Catholic Church does not control its members. That church prevents no crime. It is not in favor of education. It is not the friend of liberty. In Europe it is now used as a political power, but here it dare not assert itself. There are thousands of good Catholics. As a rule they probably believe the creed of the church. That church has lost the power to anathematize. It can no longer burn. It must now depend upon other forces—upon persuasion, sophistry, ignorance, fear, and heredity.
Question. You have stated your objections to the churches, what would you have to take their place?
Answer. There was a time when men had to meet together for the purpose of being told the law. This was before printing, and for hundreds and hundreds of years most people depended for their information on what they heard. The ear was the avenue to the brain. There was a time, of course, when Freemasonry was necessary, so that a man could carry, not only all over his own country, but to another, a certificate that he was a gentleman; that he was an honest man. There was a time, and it was necessary, for the people to assemble. They had no books, no papers, no way of reaching each other. But now all that is changed. The daily press gives you the happenings of the world. The libraries give you the thoughts of the greatest and best. Every man of moderate means can command the principal sources of information. There is no necessity for going to the church and hearing the same story forever. Let the minister write what he wishes to say. Let him publish it. If it is worth buying, people will read it. It is hardly fair to get them in a church in the name of duty and there inflict upon them a sermon that under no circumstances they would read. Of course, there will always be meetings, occasions when people come together to exchange ideas, to hear what a man has to say upon some questions, but the idea of going fifty-two days in a year to hear anybody on the same subject is absurd.
Question. Would you include a man like Henry Ward Beecher in that statement?
Answer. Beecher is interesting just in proportion that he is not orthodox, and he is altogether more interesting when talking against his creed. He delivered a sermon the other day in Chicago, in which he takes the ground that Christianity is kindness, and that, consequently, no one could be an infidel. Every one believes in kindness, at least theoretically. In that sermon he throws away all creed, and comes to the conclusion that Christianity is a life, not an aggregation of intellectual convictions upon certain subjects. The more sermons like that are preached, probably the better. What I intended was the eternal repetition of the old story: That God made the world and a man, and then allowed the devil to tempt him, and then thought of a scheme of salvation, of vicarious atonement, 1500 years afterwards; drowned everybody except Noah and his family, and afterward, when he failed to civilize the Jewish people, came in person and suffered death, and announced the doctrine that all who believed on him would be saved, and those who did not, eternally lost. Now, this story, with occasional references to the patriarchs and the New Jerusalem, and the exceeding heat of perdition, and the wonderful joys of Paradise, is the average sermon, and this story is told again, again, and again, by the same men, listened to by the same people without any effect except to tire the speaker and the hearer. If all the ministers would take their texts from Shakespeare; if they would read every Sunday a selection from some of the great plays, the result would be infinitely better. They would all learn something; the mind would be enlarged, and the sermon would appear short. Nothing has shown more clearly the intellectual barrenness of the pulpit than baccalaureate sermons lately delivered. The dignified dullness, the solemn stupidity of these addresses has never been excelled. No question was met. The poor candidates for the ministry were given no new weapons. Armed with the theological flintlock of a century ago, they were ordered to do battle for doctrines older than their weapons. They were told to rely on prayer, to answer all arguments by keeping out of discussions, and to overwhelm the skeptic by ignoring the facts. There was a time when the Protestant clergy were in favor of education; that is to say, education enough to make a Catholic a Protestant, but not enough to make a Protestant a philosopher. The Catholics are also in favor of education enough to make a savage a Catholic, and there they stop. The Christian should never unsettle his belief. If he studies, if he reads, he is in danger. A new idea is a doubt; a doubt is the threshold of infidelity. The young ministers are warned against inquiry. They are educated like robins; they swallow whatever is thrown in the mouth, worms or shingle-nails, it makes no difference, and they are expected to get their revenge by treating their flocks precisely as the professors treated them. The creeds of the churches are being laughed at. Thousands of young men say nothing, because they do not wish to hurt the feelings of mothers and maiden aunts.
Thousands of business men say nothing, for fear it may interfere with trade. Politicians keep quiet for fear of losing influence. But when you get at the real opinions of people, a vast majority have outgrown the doctrines of orthodox Christianity. Some people think these things good for women and children, and use the Lord as an immense policeman to keep order. Every day ministers are uttering a declaration of independence. They are being examined by synods and committees of ministers, and they are beginning everywhere to say that they do not regard this life as a probationary stage; that the doctrine of eternal punishment is too bad; that the Bible is, in many things, foolish, absurd, and infamous; that it must have been written by men. And the people at large are beginning to find that the ministers have kept back the facts; have not told the history of the Bible; have not given to their congregations the latest advices, and so the feeling is becoming almost general that orthodox Christianity has outlived its usefulness. The church has a great deal to contend with. The scientific men are not religious. Geology laughs at Genesis, and astronomy has concluded that Joshua knew but very little of the motions of heavenly bodies. Statesmen do not approve of the laws of Moses; the intellect of the world is on the other side. There is something besides preaching on Sunday. The newspaper is the rival of the pulpit. Nearly all the cars are running on that blessed day. Steamers take hundreds of thousands of excursionists. The man who has been at work all the week seeks the sight of the sea, and this has become so universal that the preacher is following his example. The flock has ceased to be afraid of the wolf, and the shepherd deserts the sheep. In a little while all the libraries will be open—all the museums. There will be music in the public parks; the opera, the theater. And what will churches do then? The cardinal points will be demonstrated to empty pews, unless the church is wise enough to meet the intellectual demands of the present.
Question. You speak as if the influences working against Christianity to-day will tend to crush it out of existence. Do you think that Christianity is any worse off now than it was during the French Revolution, when the priests were banished from the country and reason was worshiped; or in England, a hundred years ago, when Hume, Bolingbroke, and others made their attacks upon it?
Answer. You must remember that the French Revolution was produced by Catholicism; that it was a reaction; that it went to infinite extremes; that it was a revolution seeking revenge. It is not hard to understand those times, provided you know the history of the Catholic Church. The seeds of the French Revolution were sown by priests and kings. The people had suffered the miseries of slavery for a thousand years, and the French Revolution came because human nature could bear the wrongs no longer. It was something not reasoned; it was felt. Only a few acted from intellectual convictions. The most were stung to madness, and were carried away with the desire to destroy. They wanted to shed blood, to tear down palaces, to cut throats, and in some way avenge the wrongs of all the centuries. Catholicism has never recovered—it never will. The dagger of Voltaire struck the heart; the wound was mortal. Catholicism has staggered from that day to this.
It has been losing power every moment. At the death of Voltaire there were twenty millions less Catholics than when he was born. In the French Revolution muscle outran mind; revenge anticipated reason. There was destruction without the genius of construction. They had to use materials that had been rendered worthless by ages of Catholicism.
The French Revolution was a failure because the French people were a failure, and the French people were a failure because Catholicism had made them so. The ministers attack Voltaire without reading him. Probably there are not a dozen orthodox ministers in the world who have read the works of Voltaire. I know of no one who has. Only a little while ago, a minister told me he had read Voltaire. I offered him one hundred dollars to repeat a paragraph, or to give the title, even, of one of Voltaire's volumes. Most ministers think he was an atheist. The trouble with the infidels in England a hundred years ago was that they did not go far enough. It may be that they could not have gone further and been allowed to live. Most of them took the ground that there was an infinite, all-wise, beneficent God, creator of the universe, and that this all-wise, beneficent God certainly was too good to be the author of the Bible. They, however, insisted that this good God was the author of nature, and the theologians completely turned the tables by showing that this god of nature was in the pestilence and plague business, manufactured earthquakes, overwhelmed towns and cities, and was, of necessity, the author of all pain and agony. In my judgment, the Deists were all successfully answered. The god of nature is certainly as bad as the God of the Old Testament. It is only when we discard the idea of a deity, the idea of cruelty or goodness in nature, that we are able ever to bear with patience the ills of life. I feel that I am neither a favorite nor a victim. Nature neither loves nor hates me. I do not believe in the existence of any personal god. I regard the universe as the one fact, as the one existence—that is, as the absolute thing. I am a part of this. I do not say that there is no God; I simply say that I do not believe there is. There may be millions of them. Neither do I say that man is not immortal. Upon that point I admit that I do not know, and the declarations of all the priests in the world upon that subject give me no light, and do not even tend to add to my information on the subject, because I know that they know that they do not know. The infidelity of a hundred years ago knew nothing, comparatively speaking, of geology; nothing of astronomy; nothing of the ideas of Lamarck and Darwin; nothing of evolution; nothing, comparatively speaking, of other religions; nothing of India, that womb of metaphysics; in other words, the infidels of a hundred years ago knew the creed of orthodox Christianity to be false, but had not the facts to demonstrate it. The infidels of to-day have the facts; that is the difference. A hundred years ago it was a guessing prophecy; to-day it is the fact and fulfillment. Everything in nature is working against superstition to-day. Superstition is like a thorn in the flesh, and everything, from dust to stars, is working together to destroy the false. The smallest pebble answers the greatest parson. One blade of grass, rightly understood, destroys the orthodox creed.
Question. You say that the pews will be empty in the future unless the church meets the intellectual demands of the present. Are not the ministers of to-day, generally speaking, much more intellectual than those of a hundred years ago, and are not the "liberal" views in regard to the inspiration of the Bible, the atonement, future punishment, the fall of man, and the personal divinity of Christ which openly prevail in many churches, an indication that the church is meeting the demands of many people who do not care to be classed as out-and-out disbelievers in Christianity, but who have advanced views on those and other questions?
Answer. As to the first part of this question, I do not think the ministers of to-day are more intellectual than they were a hundred years ago; that is, I do not think they have greater brain capacity, but I think on the average, the congregations have a higher amount. The amelioration of orthodox Christianity is not by the intelligence in the pulpit, but by the brain in the pews. Another thing: One hundred years ago the church had intellectual honors to bestow. The pulpit opened a career. Not so now. There are too many avenues to distinction and wealth—too much worldliness. The best minds do not go into the pulpit. Martyrs had rather be burned than laughed at. Most ministers of to-day are not naturally adapted to other professions promising eminence. There are some great exceptions, but those exceptions are the ministers nearest infidels. Theodore Parker was a great man. Henry Ward Beecher is a great man—not the most consistent man in the world—but he is certainly a man of mark, a remarkable genius. If he could only get rid of the idea that Plymouth Church is necessary to him—after that time he would not utter an orthodox word. Chapin was a man of mind. I might mention some others, but, as a rule, the pulpit is not remarkable for intelligence. The intelligent men of the world do not believe in orthodox Christianity. It is to-day a symptom of intellectual decay. The conservative ministers are the stupid ones. The conservative professors are those upon whose ideas will be found the centuries' moss, old red sandstone theories, pre-historic silurian. Now, as to the second part of the question: The views of the church are changing, the clergy of Brooklyn to the contrary, notwithstanding. Orthodox religion is a kind of boa-constrictor; anything it can not dodge it will swallow. The church is bound to have something for sale that somebody wants to buy. According to the pew demand will be the pulpit supply. In old times the pulpit dictated to the pews. Things have changed. Theology is now run on business principles. The gentleman who pays for the theories insists on having them suit him. Ministers are intellectual gardeners, and they must supply the market with such religious vegetables as the congregations desire. Thousands have given up belief in the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, the atonement idea and original sin. Millions believe now, that this is not a state of probation; that a man, provided he is well off and has given liberally to the church, or whose wife has been a regular attendant, will, in the next world, have another chance; that he will be permitted to file a motion for a new trial. Others think that hell is not as warm as it used to be supposed; that, while it is very hot in the middle of the day, the nights are cool; and that, after all, there is not so much to fear from the future. They regard the old religion as very good for the poor, and they give them the old ideas on the same principle that they give them their old clothes. These ideas, out at the elbows, out at the knees, buttons off, somewhat raveled, will, after all, do very well for paupers. There is a great trade of this kind going on now—selling old theological clothes to the colored people in the South. All I have said applies to all churches. The Catholic Church changes every day. It does not change its ceremonies; but the spirit that begot the ceremonies, the spirit that clothed the skeleton of ceremony with the flesh and blood and throb of life and love, is gone. The spirit that built the cathedrals, the spirit that emptied the wealth of the world into the lap of Rome, has turned in another direction. Of course, the churches are all going to endeavor to meet the demands of the hour. They will find new readings for old texts. They will re-punctuate and re-parse the Old Testament. They will find that "flat" meant "a little rounding;" that "six days" meant "six long times;" that the word "flood" should have been translated "dampness," "dew," or "threatened rain;" that Daniel in the lion's den was an historical myth; that Samson and his foxes had nothing to do with this world. All these things will be gradually explained and made to harmonize with the facts of modern science. They will not change the words of the creed; they will simply give "new meanings and the highest criticism to-day is that which confesses and avoids. In other words, the churches will change as the people change. They will keep for sale that which can be sold. Already the old goods are being "marked down." If, however, the church should fail, why then it must go. I see no reason, myself, for its existence. It apparently does no good; it devours without producing; it eats without planting, and is a perpetual burden. It teaches nothing of value. It misleads, mystifies, and misrepresents. It threatens without knowledge and promises without power. In my judgment, the quicker it goes the better for all mankind. But if it does not go in name, it must go in fact, because it must change; and, therefore, it is only a question of time when it ceases to divert from useful channels the blood and muscle of the world.
Question. You say that in the baccalaureate sermons delivered lately the theological students were told to answer arguments by keeping out of discussion. Is it not the fact that ministers have of late years preached very largely on scientific disbelief, agnosticism, and infidelity, so much so as to lead to their being reprimanded by some of their more conservative brethren?
Answer. Of course there are hundreds of thousands of ministers perpetually endeavoring to answer infidelity. Their answers have done so much harm that the more conservative among the clergy have advised them to stop. Thousands have answered me, and their answers, for the most part, are like this: Paine was a blackguard, therefore the geology of Genesis is on a scientific basis. We know the doctrine of the atonement is true, because in the French Revolution they worshiped reason. And we know, too, all about the fall of man and the Garden of Eden because Voltaire was nearly frightened to death when he came to die. These are the usual arguments, supplemented by a few words concerning myself. And, in my view, they are the best that can be made. Failing to answer a man's argument, the next best thing is to attack his character. "You have no case," said an attorney to the plaintiff. "No matter," said the plaintiff, "I want you to give the defendant the devil."
Question. What have you to say to the Rev. Dr. Baker's statement that he generally buys five or six tickets for your lectures and gives them to young men, who are shocked at the flippant way in which you are said to speak of the Bible?
Answer. Well, as to that, I have always wondered why I had such immense audiences in Brooklyn and New York. This tends to clear away the mystery. If all the clergy follow the example of Dr. Baker, that accounts for the number seeking admission. Of course, Dr. Baker would not misrepresent a thing like that, and I shall always feel greatly indebted to him, shall hereafter regard him as one of my agents, and take this occasion to return my thanks. He is certainly welcome to all the converts to Christianity made by hearing me. Still, I hardly think it honest in young men to play a game like that on the doctor.
Question. You speak of the eternal repetition of the old story of Christianity and say that the more sermons like the one Mr. Beecher preached lately the better. Is it not the fact that ministers, at the present time, do preach very largely on questions of purely moral, social, and humanitarian interest, so much so, indeed, as to provoke criticism on the part of the secular newspaper press?
Answer. I admit that there is a general tendency in the pulpit to preach about things happening in this world; in other words, that the preachers themselves are beginning to be touched with worldliness. They find that the New Jerusalem has no particular interest for persons dealing in real estate in this world. And thousands of people are losing interest in Abraham, in David, Haggai, and take more interest in gentlemen who have the cheerful habit of living. They also find that their readers do not wish to be reminded perpetually of death and coffins; and worms and dust and gravestones and shrouds and epitaphs and hearses, biers, and cheerful subjects of that character. That they prefer to hear the minister speak about a topic in which they have a present interest, and about which something cheerful can be said. In fact, it is a relief to hear about politics, a little about art, something about stocks or the crops, and most ministers find it necessary to advertise that they are going to speak on something that has happened within the last eighteen hundred years, and that, for the time being, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego will be left in the furnace. Of course, I think that most ministers are reasonably honest. Maybe they don't tell all their doubts, but undoubtedly they are endeavoring to make the world better, and most of the church members think that they are doing the best that can be done. I am not criticising their motives, but their methods. I am not attacking the character or reputation of ministers, but simply giving my ideas, avoiding anything personal. I do not pretend to be very good, nor very bad—-just fair to middling.
Question. You say that Christians will not read for fear that they will unsettle their belief. Father Fransiola (Roman Catholic) said in the interview I had with him: "If you do not allow man to reason you crush his manhood. Therefore, he has to reason upon the credibility of his faith, and through reason, guided by faith, he discovers the truth, and so satisfies his wants."
Answer. Without calling in question the perfect sincerity of Father Fransiola, I think his statement is exactly the wrong end to. I do not think that reason should be guided by faith; I think that faith should be guided by reason. After all, the highest possible conception of faith would be the science of probabilities, and the probable must not be based on what has not happened, but upon what has; not upon something we know nothing about, but the nature of the things with which we are acquainted. The foundation we must know something about, and whenever we reason, we must have something as a basis, something secular, something that we think we know. About these facts we reason, sometimes by analogy, and we say thus and so has happened, therefore thus and so may happen. We do not say thus and so may happen, therefore something else has happened. We must reason from the known to the unknown, not from the unknown to the known. This Father admits that if you do not allow a man to reason you crush his manhood. At the same time he says faith must govern reason. Who makes the faith? The church. And the church tells the man that he must take the faith, reason or no reason, and that he may afterward reason, taking the faith as a fact. This makes him an intellectual slave, and the poor devil mistakes for liberty the right to examine his own chains. These gentlemen endeavor to satisfy their prisoners by insisting that there is nothing beyond the walls.
Question. You criticise the church for not encouring the poor to mingle with the rich, and yet you defend the right of a man to choose his own company. Are not these same distinctions made by non-confessing Christians in real life, and will not there always be some greater, richer, wiser, than the rest?
Answer. I do not blame the church because there are these distinctions based on wealth, intelligence, and culture. What I blame the church for is pretending to do away with these distinctions. These distinctions in men are inherent; differences in brain, in race, in blood, in education, and they are differences that will eternally exist—that is, as long as the human race exists. Some will be fortunate, some unfortunate, some generous, some stingy, some rich, some poor. What I wish to do away with is the contempt and scorn and hatred existing between rich and poor. I want the democracy of kindness—what you might call the republicanism of justice. I do not have to associate with a man to keep from robbing him. I can give him his rights without enjoying his company, and he can give me my rights without inviting me to dinner. Why should not poverty have rights? And has not honest poverty the right to hold dishonest wealth in contempt, and will it not do it, whether it belongs to the same church or not? We cannot judge men by their wealth, or by the position they hold in society. I like every kind man; I hate every cruel one. I like the generous, whether they are poor or rich, ignorant or cultivated. I like men that love their families, that are kind to their wives, gentle with their children, no matter whether they are millionaires or mendicants. And to me the blossom of benevolence, of charity, is the fairest flower, no matter whether it blooms by the side of a hovel, or bursts from a vine climbing the marble pillar of a palace. I respect no man because he is rich; I hold in contempt no man because he is poor.
Question. Some of the clergymen say that the spread of infidelity is greatly exaggerated; that it makes more noise and creates more notice than conservative Christianity simply on account of its being outside of the accepted line of thought.
Answer. There was a time when an unbeliever, open and pronounced, was a wonder. At that time the church had great power; it could retaliate; it could destroy. The church abandoned the stake only when too many men objected to being burned. At that time infidelity was clad not simply in novelty, but often in fire. Of late years the thoughts of men have been turned, by virtue of modern discoveries, as the result of countless influences, to an investigation of the foundation of orthodox religion. Other religions were put in the crucible of criticism, and nothing was found but dross. At last it occurred to the intelligent to examine our own religion, and this examination has excited great interest and great comment. People want to hear, and they want to hear because they have already about concluded themselves that the creeds are founded in error.
Thousands come to hear me because they are interested in the question, because they want to hear a man say what they think. They want to hear their own ideas from the lips of another. The tide has turned, and the spirit of investigation, the intelligence, the intellectual courage of the world is on the other side. A real good old-fashioned orthodox minister who believes the Thirty-nine articles with all his might, is regarded to-day as a theological mummy, a kind of corpse acted upon by the galvanic battery of faith, making strange motions, almost like those of life—not quite.
Question. How would you convey moral instruction from youth up, and what kind of instruction would you give?
Answer. I regard Christianity as a failure. Now, then, what is Christianity? I do not include in the word "Christianity" the average morality of the world or the morality taught in all systems of religion; that is, as distinctive Christianity. Christianity is this: A belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, the atonement, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, an eternal reward for the believers in Christ, and eternal punishment for the rest of us. Now, take from Christianity its miracles, its absurdities of the atonement and fall of man and the inspiration of the Scriptures, and I have no objection to it as I understand it. I believe, in the main, in the Christianity which I suppose Christ taught, that is, in kindness, gentleness, forgiveness. I do not believe in loving enemies; I have pretty hard work to love my friends. Neither do I believe in revenge. No man can afford to keep the viper of revenge in his heart. But I believe in justice, in self-defence. Christianity—that is, the miraculous part—must be abandoned. As to morality—morality is born, is born of the instinct of self-preservation. If man could not suffer, the word "conscience" never would have passed his lips. Self-preservation makes larceny a crime. Murder will be regarded as a bad thing as long as a majority object to being murdered. Morality does not come from the clouds; it is born of human want and human experience. We need no inspiration, no inspired work. The industrious man knows that the idle has no right to rob him of the product of his labor, and the idle man knows that he has no right to do it. It is not wrong because we find it in the Bible, but I presume it was put in the Bible because it is wrong. Then, you find in the Bible other things upheld that are infamous. And why? Because the writers of the Bible were barbarians, in many things, and because that book is a mixture of good and evil. I see no trouble in teaching morality without miracle. I see no use of miracle. What can men do with it? Credulity is not a virtue. The credulous are not necessarily charitable. Wonder is not the mother of wisdom. I believe children should be taught to investigate and to reason for themselves, and that there are facts enough to furnish a foundation for all human virtue. We will take two families; in the one, the father and mother are both Christians, and they teach their children their creed; teach them that they are naturally totally depraved; that they can only hope for happiness in a future life by pleading the virtues of another, and that a certain belief is necessary to salvation; that God punishes his children forever. Such a home has a certain atmosphere. Take another family; the father and mother teach their children that they should be kind to each other because kindness produces happiness; that they should be gentle; that they should be just, because justice is the mother of joy. And suppose this father and mother say to their children: "If you are happy it must be as a result of your own actions; if you do wrong you must suffer the consequences. No Christ can redeem you; no savior can suffer for you. You must suffer the consequences of your own misdeeds. If you plant you must reap, and you must reap what you plant." And suppose these parents also say: "You must find out the conditions of happiness. You must investigate the circumstances by which you are surrounded. You must ascertain the nature and relation of things so that you can act in accordance with known facts, to the end that you may have health and peace." In such a family, there would be a certain atmosphere, in my judgment, a thousand times better and purer and sweeter than in the other. The church generally teaches that rascality pays in this world, but not in the next; that here virtue is a losing game, but the dividends will be large in another world. They tell the people that they must serve God on credit, but the devil pays cash here. That is not my doctrine. My doctrine is that a thing is right because it pays, in the highest sense. That is the reason it is right. The reason a thing is wrong is because it is the mother of misery. Virtue has its reward here and now. It means health; it means intelligence, contentment, success. Vice means exactly the opposite. Most of us have more passion than judgment, carry more sail than ballast, and by the tempest of passion we are blown from port, we are wrecked and lost. We cannot be saved by faith or by belief. It is a slower process: We must be saved by knowledge, by intelligence—the only lever capable of raising mankind.
Question. The shorter catechism, Colonel, you may remember says "that man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." What is your idea of the chief end of man?
Answer. It has always seemed a little curious to me that joy should be held in such contempt here, and yet promised hereafter as an eternal reward. Why not be happy here, as well as in heaven. Why not have joy here? Why not go to heaven now—that is, to-day? Why not enjoy the sunshine of this world, and all there is of good in it? It is bad enough; so bad that I do not believe it was ever created by a beneficent deity; but what little good there is in it, why not have it? Neither do I believe that it is the end of man to glorify God. How can the Infinite be glorified? Does he wish for reputation? He has no equals, no superiors. How can he have what we call reputation? How can he achieve what we call glory? Why should he wish the flattery of the average Presbyterian? What good will it do him to know that his course has been approved of by the Methodist Episcopal Church? What does he care, even, for the religious weeklies, or the presidents of religious colleges? I do not see how we can help God, or hurt him. If there be an infinite Being, certainly nothing we can do can in any way affect him. We can affect each other, and therefore man should be careful not to sin against man. For that reason I have said a hundred times, injustice is the only blasphemy. If there be a heaven I want to associate there with the ones who have loved me here. I might not like the angels and the angels might not like me. I want to find old friends. I do not care to associate with the Infinite; there could be no freedom in such society. I suppose I am not spiritual enough, and am somewhat touched with worldliness. It seems to me that everybody ought to be honest enough to say about the Infinite "I know nothing of eternal joy, I have no conception about another world, I know nothing." At the same time, I am not attacking anybody for believing in immortality. The more a man can hope, and the less he can fear, the better. I have done what I could to drive from the human heart the shadow of eternal pain. I want to put out the fires of an ignorant and revengeful hell.
* A discussion between Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon.
Frederic R. Coudert, Ex-Gov. Stewart L. Woodford, before the
Nineteenth Century Club of New York, at the Metropolitan
Opera House, May 8, 1888. The points for discussion, as
submitted in advance, were the following propositions:
Colonel Ingersoll's Opening.
Ladies, Mr. President and Gentlemen:
I AM here to-night for the purpose of defending your right to differ with me. I want to convince you that you are under no compulsion to accept my creed; that you are, so far as I am concerned, absolutely free to follow the torch of your reason according to your conscience; and I believe that you are civilized to that degree that you will extend to me the right that you claim for yourselves.
First. Thought is a necessary natural product—the result of what is called impressions made through the medium of the senses upon the brain, not forgetting the Fact of heredity.
Second. No human being is accountable to any being-human or divine—for his thoughts.
Third. Human beings have a certain interest in the thoughts of each other, and one who undertakes to tell his thoughts should be honest.
Fourth. All have an equal right to express their thoughts upon all subjects.
Fifth. For one man to say to another, "I tolerate you," is an assumption of authority—not a disclaimer, but a waiver, of the right to persecute.
Sixth. Each man has the same right to express to the whole world his ideas, that the rest of the world have to express their thoughts to him.
Courtlandt Palmer, Esq., President of the Club, in introducing Mr. Ingersoll, among other things said:
"The inspiration of the orator of the evening seems to be that of the great Victor Hugo, who uttered the august saying, 'There shall be no slavery of the mind.'
"When I was in Paris, about a year ago, I visited the tomb of Victor Hugo. It was placed in a recess in the crypt of the Pantheon. Opposite it was the tomb of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Near by, in another recess, was the memorial statue of Voltaire; and I felt, as I looked at these three monuments, that had Colonel Ingersoll been born in France, and had he passed in his long life account, the acclaim of the liberal culture of France would have enlarged that trio into a quartette.
"Colonel Ingersoll has appeared in several important debates in print, notably with Judge Jeremiah S. Black formerly Attorney-General of the United States: lately in the pages of The North American Review with the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Field, and last but not least the Right Hon. William E Gladstone, England's greatest citizen, has taken up the cudgel against him in behalf of his view of Orthodoxy To-night, I believe-for the first time, the colonel has consented to appear in a colloquial discussion. I have now the honor to introduce this distinguished orator."
I admit, at the very threshold, that every human being thinks as he must; and the first proposition really is, whether man has the right to think. It will bear but little discussion, for the reason that no man can control his thought. If you think you can, what are you going to think to-morrow? What are you going to think next year? If you can absolutely control your thought, can you stop thinking?
The question is, Has the will any power over the thought? What is thought? It is the result of nature—of the outer world—first upon the senses—those impressions left upon the brain as pictures of things in the outward world, and these pictures are transformed into, or produce, thought; and as long as the doors of the senses are open, thoughts will be produced. Whoever looks at anything in nature, thinks. Whoever hears any sound—or any symphony—no matter what—thinks. Whoever looks upon the sea, or on a star, or on a flower, or on the face of a fellow-man, thinks, and the result of that look is an absolute necessity. The thought produced will depend upon your brain, upon your experience, upon the history of your life.
One who looks upon the sea, knowing that the one he loved the best had been devoured by its hungry waves, will have certain thoughts; and he who sees it for the first time, will have different thoughts. In other words, no two brains are alike; no two lives have been or are or ever will be the same. Consequently, nature cannot produce the same effect upon any two brains, or upon any two hearts.
The only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different. If we were all the same, we would die dumb. No thought would be expressed after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. We differ—our thoughts are different. Therefore the commerce that we call conversation.
Back of language is thought. Back of language is the desire to express our thought to another. This desire not only gave us language—this desire has given us the libraries of the world. And not only the libraries; this desire to express thought, to show to others the splendid children of the brain, has written every book, formed every language, painted every picture, and chiseled every statue—this desire to express our thought to others, to reap the harvest of the brain.
If, then, thought is a necessity, "it follows as the night the day" that there is, there can be, no responsibility for thought to any being, human or divine.
A camera contains a sensitive plate. The light flashes upon it, and the sensitive plate receives a picture. Is it in fault, is it responsible, for the picture? So with the brain. An image is left on it, a picture is imprinted there. The plate may not be perfectly level—it may be too concave, or too convex, and the picture may be a deformity; so with the brain. But the man does not make his own brain, and the consequence is, if the picture is distorted it is not the fault of the brain.
We take then these two steps: first, thought is a necessity; and second, the thought depends upon the brain.
Each brain is a kind of field where nature sows with careless hands the seeds of thought. Some brains are poor and barren fields, producing weeds and thorns, and some are like the tropic world where grow the palm and pine—children of the sun and soil.
You read Shakespeare. What do you get out of Shakespeare? All that your brain is able to hold. It depends upon your brain. If you are great—if you have been cultivated—if the wings of your imagination have been spread—if you have had great, free, and splendid thoughts—'r you have stood upon the edge of things—if you have had the courage to meet all that can come—you get an immensity from Shakespeare. If you have lived nobly—if you have loved with every drop of your blood and every fibre of your being—if you have suffered—if you have enjoyed—then you get an immensity from Shakespeare. But if you have lived a poor, little, mean, wasted, barren, weedy life—you get very little from that immortal man.
So it is from every source in nature—what you get depends upon what you are.
Take then the second step. If thought is a necessity, there can be no responsibility for thought. And why has man ever believed that his fellow-man was responsible for his thought?
Everything that is, everything that has been, has been naturally produced. Man has acted as, under the same circumstances, we would have acted; because when you say "under the circumstances," it is the same as to say that you would do exactly as they have done.
There has always been in men the instinct of self-preservation. There was a time when men believed, and honestly believed, that there was above them a God. Sometimes they believed in many, but it will be sufficient for my illustration to say, one. Man believed that there was in the sky above him a God who attended to the affairs of men. He believed that that God, sitting upon his throne, rewarded virtue and punished vice. He believed also, that that God held the community responsible for the sins of individuals. He honestly believed it. When the flood came, or when the earthquake devoured, he really believed that some God was filled with anger—with holy indignation—at his children. He believed it, and so he looked about among his neighbors to see who was in fault, and if there was any man who had failed to bring his sacrifice to the altar, had failed to kneel, it may be to the priest, failed to be present in the temple, or had given it as his opinion that the God of that tribe or of that nation was of no use, then, in order to placate the God, they seized the neighbor and sacrificed him on the altar of their ignorance and of their fear.
They believed when the lightning leaped from the cloud and left its blackened mark upon the man, that he had done something—that he had excited the wrath of the gods.
And while man so believed, while he believed that it was necessary, in order to defend himself, to kill his neighbor—he acted simply according to the dictates of his nature.
What I claim is that we have nov-advanced far enough not only to think, but to know, that the conduct of man has nothing to do with the phenomena of nature. We are now advanced far enough to absolutely know that no man can be bad enough and no nation infamous enough to cause an earthquake. I think we have got to that point that we absolutely know that no man can be wicked enough to entice one of the bolts from heaven—that no man can be cruel enough to cause a drought—and that you could not have infidels enough on the earth to cause another flood. I think we have advanced far enough not only to say that, but to absolutely know it—I mean people who have thought, and in whose minds there is something like reasoning.
We know, if we know anything, that the lightning is just as apt to hit a good man as a bad man. We know it. We know that the earthquake is just as liable to swallow virtue as to swallow vice. And you know just as well as I do that a ship loaded with pirates is just as apt to outride the storm as one crowded with missionaries. You know it.
I am now speaking of the phenomena of nature. I believe, as much as I believe that I live, that the reason a thing is right is because it tends to the happiness of mankind. I believe, as much as I be-believe that I live, that on the average the good man is not only the happier man, but that no man is happy who is not good.
If then we have gotten over that frightful, that awful superstition—we are ready to enjoy hearing the thoughts of each other.
I do not say, neither do I intend to be understood as saying, that there is no God. All I intend to say is, that so far as we can see, no man is punished, no nation is punished by lightning, or famine, or storm. Everything happens to the one as to the other.
Now, let us admit that there is an infinite God. That has nothing to do with the sinlessness of thought—nothing to do with the fact that no man is accountable to any being, human or divine, for what he thinks. And let me tell you why.
If there be an infinite God, leave him to deal with men who sin against him. You can trust him, if you believe in him. He has the power. He has a heaven full of bolts. Trust him. And now that you are satisfied that the earthquake will not swallow you, or the lightning strike you, simply because you tell your thoughts, if one of your neighbors differs with you, and acts improperly or thinks or speaks improperly of your God, leave him with your God—he can attend to him a thousand times better than you can, He has the time. He lives from eternity to eternity. More than that, he has the means. So that, whether there be this Being or not, you have no right to interfere with your neighbor.
The next proposition is, that I have the same right to express my thought to the whole world, that the whole world has to express its thought to me.
I believe that this realm of thought is not a democracy, where the majority rule; it is not a republic. It is a country with one inhabitant. This brain is the world in which my mind lives, and my mind is the sovereign of that realm. We are all kings, and one man balances the rest of the world as one drop of water balances the sea. Each soul is crowned. Each soul wears the purple and the tiara; and only those are good citizens of the intellectual world who give to every other human being every right that they claim for themselves, and only those are traitors in the great realm of thought who abandon reason and appeal to force.
If now I have got out of your minds the idea that you must abuse your neighbors to keep on good terms with God, then the question of religion is exactly like every question—I mean of thought, of mind—I have nothing to say now about action.
Is there authority in the world of art? Can a legislature pass a law that a certain picture is beautiful, and can it pass a law putting in the penitentiary any impudent artistic wretch who says that to him it is not beautiful? Precisely the same with music. Our ears are not all the same; we are not touched by the same sounds—the same beautiful memories* do not arise. Suppose you have an authority in music? You may make men, it may be, by offering them office or by threatening them with punishment, swear that they all like that tune—but you never will know till the day of your death whether they do or not. The moment you introduce a despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites—and you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks.
So in the great realm of religion, there can be no force. No one can be compelled to pray. No matter how you tie him down, or crush him down on his face or on his knees, it is above the power of the human race to put in that man, by force, the spirit of prayer. You cannot do it. Neither can you compel anybody to worship a God. Worship rises from the heart like perfume from a flower. It cannot obey; it cannot do that which some one else commands. It must be absolutely true to the law of its own nature. And do you think any God would be satisfied with compulsory worship? Would he like to see long rows of poor, ignorant slaves on their terrified knees repeating words without a soul—giving him what you might call the shucks of sound? Will any God be satisfied with that? And so I say, we must be as free in one department of thought as another.
Now, I take the next step, and that is, that the rights of all are absolutely equal.
I have the same right to give you my opinion that you have to give me yours. I have no right to compel you to hear, if you do not want to. I have no right to compel you to speak if you do not want to. If you do not wish to know my thought, I have no right to force it upon you.
The next thing is, that this liberty of thought, this liberty of expression, is of more value than any other thing beneath the stars. Of more value than any religion, of more value than any government, of more value than all the constitutions that man has written and all the laws that he has passed, is this liberty—the absolute liberty of the human mind. Take away that word from language, and all other words become meaningless sounds, and there is then no reason for a man being and living upon the earth.
So then, I am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality—that is all. You come to me with a new idea. I invite you into the house. Let us see what you have. Let us talk it over. If I do not like your thought, I will bid it a polite "good day." If I do like it, I will say: "Sit down; stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world." That is all.
And how any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who speaks—who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty—the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak? Is there any limitation beyond that?
So, whoever has spoken against the right to speak has admitted that he violated his own doctrine. No man can open his mouth against the freedom of speech without denying every argument he may put forward. Why? He is exercising the right that he denies. How did he get it? Suppose there is one man on an island. You will all admit now that he would have the right to do his own thinking. You will all admit that he has the right to express his thought. Now, will somebody tell me how many men would have to emigrate to that island before the original settler would lose his right to think and his right to express himself?
If there be an infinite Being—and it is a question that I know nothing about—you would be perfectly astonished to know how little I do know on that subject, and yet I know as much as the aggregated world knows, and as little as the smallest insect that ever fanned with happy wings the summer air—if there be such a Being, I have the same right to think that he has simply because it is a necessity of my nature—because I cannot help it. And the Infinite would be just as responsible to the smallest intelligence living in the infinite spaces—he would be just as responsible to that intelligence as that intelligence can be to him, provided that intelligence thinks as a necessity of his nature.
There is another phrase to which I object—"toleration." "The limits of toleration." Why say "toleration"? I will tell you why. When the thinkers were in the minority—when the philosophers were vagabonds—when the men with brains furnished fuel for bonfires—when the majority were ignorantly orthodox—when they hated the heretic as a last year's leaf hates a this year's bud—in that delightful time these poor people in the minority had to say to ignorant power, to conscientious rascality, to cruelty born of universal love: "Don't kill us; don't be so arrogantly meek as to burn us; tolerate us." At that time the minority was too small to talk about rights, and the great big ignorant majority when tired of shedding blood, said: "Well, we will tolerate you; we can afford to wait; you will not live long, and when the Being of infinite compassion gets hold of you we will glut our revenge through an eternity of joy; we will ask you every now and then, 'What is your opinion now?'"
Both feeling absolutely sure that infinite goodness would have his revenge, they "tolerated" these thinkers, and that word finally took the place almost of liberty. But I do not like it. When you say "I tolerate," you do not say you have no right to punish, no right to persecute. It is only a disclaimer for a few moments and for a few years, but you retain the right. I deny it.
And let me say here to-night—it is your experience, it is mine—that the bigger a man is the more charitable he is; you know it. The more brain he has, the more excuses he finds for all the world; you know it. And if there be in heaven an infinite Being, he must be grander than any man; he must have a thousand times more charity than the human heart can hold, and is it possible that he is going to hold his ignorant children responsible for the impressions made by nature upon their brain? Let us have some sense.
There is another side to this question, and that is with regard to the freedom of thought and expression in matters pertaining to this world.
No man has a right to hurt the character of a neighbor. He has no right to utter slander. He has no right to bear false witness. He has no right to be actuated by any motive except for the general good—but the things he does here to his neighbor—these are easily defined and easily punished. All that I object to is setting up a standard of authority in the world of art, the world of beauty, the world of poetry, the world of worship, the world of religion, and the world of metaphysics. That is what I object to; and if the old doctrines had been carried out, every human being that has benefited this world would have been destroyed. If the people who believe that a certain belief is necessary to insure salvation had had control of this world, we would have been as ignorant to-night as wild beasts. Every step in advance has been made in spite of them. There has not been a book of any value printed since the invention of that art—and when I say "of value," I mean that contained new and splendid truths—that was not anathematized by the gentlemen who believed that man is responsible for his thought. Every step has been taken in spite of that doctrine.
Consequently I simply believe in absolute liberty of mind. And I have no fear about any other world—not the slightest. When I get there, I will give my honest opinion of that country; I will give my honest thought there; and if for that I lose my soul, I will keep at least my self-respect.
A man tells me a story. I believe it, or disbelieve it. I cannot help it. I read a story—no matter whether in the original Hebrew, or whether it has been translated. I believe it or I disbelieve it. No matter whether it is written in a very solemn or a very flippant manner—I have my idea about its truth. And I insist that each man has the right to judge that for himself, and for that reason, as I have already said, I am defending your right to differ with me—that is all. And if you do differ with me, all that it proves is that I do not agree with you. There is no man that lives to-night beneath the stars—there is no being—that can force my soul upon its knees, unless the reason is given. I will be no slave. I do not care how big my master is, I am just as small, if a slave, as though the master were small. It is not the greatness of the master that can honor the slave. In other words, I am going to act according to my right, as I understand it, without interfering with any other human being. And now, if you think—any of you, that you can control your thought, I want you to try it. There is not one here who can by any possibility think, only as he must.
You remember the story of the Methodist minister who insisted that he could control his thoughts. A man said to him, "Nobody can control his own mind." "Oh, yes, he can," the preacher replied. "My dear sir," said the man, "you cannot even say the Lord's Prayer without thinking of something else." "Oh, yes, I can." "Well, if you will do it, I will give you that horse, the best riding horse in this county." "Well, who is to judge?" said the preacher. "I will take your own word for it, and if you say the Lord's Prayer through without thinking of anything else, I will give you that horse." So the minister shut his eyes and began: "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,"—"I suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?"
I say to you to-night, ladies and gentlemen, that I feel more interest in the freedom of thought and speech than in all other questions, knowing, as I do, that it is the condition of great and splendid progress for the race; remembering, as I do, that the opposite idea has covered the cheek of the world with tears; remembering, and knowing, as I do, that the enemies of free thought and free speech have covered this world with blood. These men have filled the heavens with an infinite monster; they have filled the future with fire and flame, and they have made the present, when they have had the power, a perdition. These men, these doctrines, have carried fagots to the feet of philosophy. These men, these doctrines, have hated to see the dawn of an intellectual day. These men, these doctrines, have denied every science, and denounced and killed every philosopher they could lay their bloody, cruel, ignorant hands upon.
And for that reason, I am for absolute liberty of thought, everywhere, in every department, domain, and realm of the human mind.
REMARKS OF MR. COUDERT.
Ladies and Gentlemen and Mr. President: It is not only "the sense of the church" that I am lacking now, I am afraid it is any sense at all; and I am only wondering how a reasonably intelligent being—meaning myself—could in view of the misfortune that befell Mr. Kernan, have undertaken to speak to-night.
This is a new experience. I have never sung in any of Verdi's operas—I have never listened to one through—but I think I would prefer to try all three of these performances rather than go on with this duty which, in a vain moment of deluded vanity, I heedlessly undertook.
I am in a new field here. I feel very much like the master of a ship who thinks that he can safely guide his bark. (I am not alluding to the traditional bark of St. Peter, in which I hope that I am and will always be, but the ordinary bark that requires a compass and a rudder and a guide.) And I find that all these ordinary things, which we generally take for granted, and which are as necessary to our safety as the air which we breathe, or the sunshine that we enjoy, have been quietly, pleasantly, and smilingly thrown overboard by the gentleman who has just preceded me.
Carlyle once said—and the thought came to me as the gentleman was speaking—"A Comic History of England!"—for some wretch had just written such a book—(talk of free thought and free speech when men do such things!)—"A Comic History of England!" The next thing we shall hear of will be "A Comic History of the Bible!" I think we have heard the first chapter of that comic history to-night; and the only comfort that I have—and possibly some other antiquated and superannuated persons of either sex, if such there be within my hearing—is that such things as have seemed to me charmingly to partake of the order of blasphemy, have been uttered with such charming bonhomie, and received with such enthusiastic admiration, that I have wondered whether we are in a Christian audience of the nineteenth century, or in a possible Ingersollian audience of the twenty-third.
And let me first, before I enter upon the very few and desultory remarks, which are the only ones that I can make now and with which I may claim your polite attention—let me say a word about the comparison with which your worthy President opened these proceedings.
There are two or three things upon which I am a little sensitive: One, aspersions upon the land of my birth—the city of New York; the next, the land of my fathers; and the next, the bark that I was just speaking of.
Now your worthy President, in his well-meant efforts to exhibit in the best possible style the new actor upon his stage, said that he had seen Victor Hugo's remains, and Voltaire's, and Jean Jacques Rousseau's, and that he thought the niche might well be filled by Colonel Ingersoll. If that had been merely the expression of a natural desire to see him speedily annihilated, I might perhaps in the interests of the Christian community have thought, but not said, "Amen!" (Here you will at once observe the distinction I make between free thought and free speech!)
I do not think, and I beg that none of you, and particularly the eloquent rhetorician who preceded me, will think, that in anything I may say I intend any personal discourtesy, for I do believe to some extent in freedom of speech upon a platform like this. Such a debate as this rises entirely above and beyond the plane of personalities.
I suppose that your President intended to compare Colonel Ingersoll to Voltaire, to Hugo and to Rousseau. I have no retainer from either of those gentlemen, but for the reason that I just gave you, I wish to defend their memory from what I consider a great wrong. And so I do not think—with all respect to the eloquent and learned gentleman—that he is entitled to a place in that niche. Voltaire did many wrong things. He did them for many reasons, and chiefly because he was human. But Voltaire did a great deal to build up. Leaving aside his noble tragedies, which charmed and delighted his audiences, and dignified the stage, throughout his work was some effort to ameliorate the condition of the human race. He fought against torture; he fought against persecution; he fought against bigotry; he clamored and wrote against littleness and fanaticism in every way, and he was not ashamed when he entered upon his domains at Fernay, to erect a church to the God of whom the most our friend can say is, "I do not know whether he exists or not."
Rousseau did many noble things, but he was a madman, and in our day would probably have been locked up in an asylum and treated by intelligent doctors. His works, however, bear the impress of a religious education, and if there be in his works or sayings anything to parallel what we have heard tonight—whether a parody on divine revelation, or a parody upon the prayer of prayers—I have not seen it.
Victor Hugo has enriched the literature of his day with prose and poetry that have made him the Shakespeare of the nineteenth century—poems as deeply imbued with a devout sense of responsibility to the Almighty as the writings of an archbishop or a cardinal. He has left the traces of his beneficent action all over the literature of his day, of his country, and of his race.
All these men, then, have built up something. Will anyone, the most ardent admirer of Colonel Ingersoll, tell me what he has built up?
To go now to the argument. The learned gentleman says that freedom of thought is a grand thing. Unfortunately, freedom of thought exists. What one of us would not put manacles and fetters upon his thoughts, if he only could? What persecution have any of us suffered to compare with the involuntary recurrence of these demons that enter our brain—that bring back past events that we would wipe out with our tears, or even with our blood—and make us slaves of a power unseen but uncontrollable and uncontrolled? Is it not unworthy of so eloquent and intelligent a man to preach before you here to-night that thought must always be free?
When in the history of the world has thought ever been fettered? If there be a page in history upon which such an absurdity is written, I have failed to find it.
Thought is beyond the domain of man. The most cruel and arbitrary ruler can no more penetrate into your bosom and mine and extract the inner workings of our brain, than he can scale the stars or pull down the sun from its seat. Thought must be free. Thought is unseen, unhandled and untouched, and no despot has yet been able to reach it, except when the thoughts burst into words. And therefore, may we not consider now, and say, that liberty of word is what he wants, and not liberty of thought, which no one has ever gainsaid, or disputed?
Liberty of speech!—and the gentleman generously tells us, "Why, I only ask for myself what I would cheerfully extend to you. I wish you to be free; and you can even entertain those old delusions which your mothers taught, and look with envious admiration upon me while I scale the giddy heights of Olympus, gather the honey and approach the stars and tell you how pure the air is in those upper regions which you are unable to reach."
Thanks for his kindness! But I think that it is one thing for us to extend to him that liberty that he asks for—the liberty to destroy—and another thing for him to give us the liberty which we claim—the liberty to conserve.
Oh, destruction is so easy, destruction is so pleasant! It marks the footsteps all through our life. The baby begins by destroying his bib; the older child by destroying his horse, and when the man is grown up and he joins the regiment with the latent instinct that when he gets a chance he will destroy human life.
This building cost many thousand days' work. It was planned by more or less skillful architects (ignorant of ventilation, but well-meaning). Men lavished their thought, and men lavished their sweat for a pittance, upon this building. It took months and possibly years to build it and to adorn it and to beautify it. And yet, as it stands complete tonight with all of you here in the vigor of your life and in the enjoyment of such entertainment as you may get here this evening, I will find a dozen men who with a few pounds of dynamite will reduce it and all of us to instant destruction.
The dynamite man may say to me, "I give you full liberty to build and occupy and insure, if you will give me liberty to blow up." Is that a fair bargain? Am I bound in conscience and in good sense to accept it? Liberty of speech! Tell me where liberty of speech has ever existed. There have been free societies, England was a free country. France has struggled through crisis after crisis to obtain liberty of speech. We think we have liberty of speech, as we understand it, and yet who would undertake to say that our society could live with liberty of speech? We have gone through many crises in our short history, and we know that thought is nothing before the law, but the word is an act—as guilty at times as the act of killing, or burglary, or any of the violent crimes that disgrace humanity and require the police.
A word is an act—an act of the tongue; and why should my tongue go unpunished, and I who wield it mercilessly toward those who are weaker than I, escape, if my arm is to be punished when I use it tyrannously? Whom would you punish for the murder of Desdemona—is it Iago, or Othello? Who was the villain, who was the criminal, who deserved the scaffold—who but free speech? Iago exercised free speech. He poisoned the ear of Othello and nerved his arm and Othello was the murderer—but Iago went scot free. That was a word.
"Oh," says the counsel, "but that does not apply to individuals; be tender and charitable to individuals." Tender and charitable to men if they endeavor to destroy all that you love and venerate and respect!
Are you tender and charitable to me if you enter my house, my castle, and debauch my children from the faith that they have been taught? Are you tender and charitable to them and to me when you teach them that I have instructed them in falsehood, that their mother has rocked them in blasphemy, and that they are now among the fools and the witlings of the world because they believe in my precepts? Is that the charity that you speak of? Heaven forbid that liberty of speech such as that, should ever invade my home or yours!
We all understand, and the learned gentleman will admit, that his discourse is but an eloquent apology for blasphemy. And when I say this, I beg you to believe me incapable of resorting to the cheap artifice of strong words to give point to a pointless argument, or to offend a courteous adversary. I think if I put it to him he would, with characteristic candor, say, "Yes, that is what I claim—the liberty to blaspheme; the world has outgrown these things; and I claim to-day, as I claimed a few months ago in the neighboring gallant little State of New Jersey, that while you cannot slander man, your tongue is free to revile and insult man's maker." New Jersey was behind in the race for progress, and did not accept his argument. His unfortunate client was convicted and had to pay the fine which the press—which is seldom mistaken—says came from the pocket of his generous counsel.
The argument was a strong one; the argument was brilliant, and was able; and I say now, with all my predilections for the church of my fathers, and for your church (because it is not a question of our differences, but it is a question whether the tree shall be torn up by the roots, not what branches may bear richer fruit or deserve to be lopped off)—I say, why has every Christian State passed these statutes against blasphemy? Turning into ridicule sacred things—firing off the Lord's Prayer as you would a joke from Joe Miller or a comic poem—that is what I mean by blasphemy. If there is any other or better definition, give it me, and I will use it.
Now understand. All these States of ours care not one fig what our religion is. Behave yourselves properly, obey the laws, do not require the intervention of the police, and the majesty of your conscience will be as exalted as the sun. But the wisest men and the best men—possibly not so eloquent as the orator, but I may say it without offence to him—other names that shine brightly in the galaxy of our best men, have insisted and maintained that the Christian faith was the ligament that kept our modern society together, and our laws have said, and the laws of most of our States say, to this day, "Think what you like, but do not, like Samson, pull the pillars down upon us all."
If I had anything to say, ladies and gentlemen, it is time that I should say it now. My exordium has been very long, but it was no longer than the dignity of the subject, perhaps, demanded.
Free speech we all have. Absolute liberty of speech we never had. Did we have it before the war? Many of us here remember that if you crossed an imaginary line and went among some of the noblest and best men that ever adorned this continent, one word against slavery meant death. And if you say that that was the influence of slavery, I will carry you to Boston, that city which numbers within its walls as many intelligent people to the acre as any city on the globe—was it different there?
Why, the fugitive, beaten, blood-stained slave, when he got there, was seized and turned back; and when a few good and brave men, in defence of free speech, undertook to defend the slave and to try and give him liberty, they were mobbed and pelted and driven through the city. You may say, "That proves there was no liberty of speech." No; it proves this: that wherever, and wheresoever, and whenever, liberty of speech is incompatible with the safety of the State, liberty of speech must fall back and give way, in order that the State may be preserved.
First, above everything, above all things, the safety of the people is the supreme law. And if rhetoricians, anxious to tear down, anxious to pluck the faith from the young ones who are unable to defend it, come forward with nickel-plated platitudes and commonplaces clothed in second-hand purple and tinsel, and try to tear down the temple, then it is time, I shall not say for good men—for I know so few they make a small battalion—but for good women, to come to the rescue.
GENERAL WOODFORD'S SPEECH.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen>: At this late hour, I could not attempt—even if I would—the eloquence of my friend Colonel Ingersoll; nor the wit and rapier-like sarcasm of my other valued friend Mr. Coudert. But there are some things so serious about this subject that we discuss to-night, that I crave your pardon if, without preface, and without rhetoric, I get at once to what from my Protestant standpoint seems the fatal logical error of Mr. Inger-soll's position.
Mr. Ingersoll starts with the statement—and that I may not, for I could not, do him injustice, nor myself injustice, in the quotation, I will give it as he stated it—he starts with this statement: that thought is a necessary natural product, the result of what we call impressions made through the medium of the senses upon the brain.
Do you think that is thought? Now stop—turn right into your own minds—is that thought? Does not will power take hold? Does not reason take hold? Does not memory take hold, and is not thought the action of the brain based upon the impression and assisted or directed by manifold and varying influences?
Secondly, our friend Mr. Ingersoll says that no human being is accountable to any being, human or divine, for his thought.
He starts with the assumption that thought is the inevitable impression burnt upon the mind at once, and then jumps to the conclusion that there is no responsibility. Now, is not that a fair logical analysis of what he has said?
My senses leave upon my mind an impression, and then my mind, out of that impression, works good or evil. The glass of brandy, being presented to my physical sense, inspires thirst—inspires the thought of thirst—inspires the instinct of debauchery. Am I not accountable for the result of the mind given me, whether I yield to the debauch, or rise to the dignity of self-control?
Every thing of sense leaves its impression upon the mind. If there be no responsibility anywhere, then is this world blind chance. If there be no responsibility anywhere, then my friend deserves no credit if he be guiding you in the path of truth, and I deserve no censure if I be carrying you back into the path of superstition. Why, admit for a moment that a man has no control over his thought, and you destroy absolutely the power of regenerating the world, the power of improving the world. The world swings one way, or it swings the other. If it be true that in all these ages we have come nearer and nearer to a perfect liberty, that is true simply and alone because the mind of man through reason, through memory, through a thousand inspirations and desires and hopes, has ever tended toward better results and higher achievements.
No accountability? I speak not for my friend, but I recognize that I am accountable to myself; I recognize that whether I rise or fall, that whether my life goes upward or downward, I am responsible to myself. And so, in spite of all sophistry, so in spite of all dream, so in spite of all eloquence, each woman, each man within this audience is responsible—first of all to herself and himself—whether when bad thoughts, when passion, when murder, when evil come into the heart or brain he harbors them there or he casts them out.
I am responsible further—I am responsible to my neighbor. I know that I am my neighbor's keeper, I know that as I touch your life, as you touch mine, I am responsible every moment, every hour, every day, for my influence upon you. I am either helping you up, or I am dragging you down; you are either helping me up or you are dragging me down—and you know it. Sophistry cannot get away from this; eloquence cannot seduce us from it. You know that if you look back through the record of your life, there are lives that you have helped and lives that you have hurt. You know that there are lives on the downward plane that went down because in an evil hour you pushed them; you know, perhaps with blessing, lives that have gone up because you have reached out to them a helping hand. That responsibility for your neighbor is a responsibility and an accountability that you and I cannot avoid or evade.
I believe one thing further: that because there is a creation there is a Creator. I believe that because there is force, there is a Projector of force; because there is matter, there is spirit. I reverently believe these things. I am not angry with my neighbor because he does not; it may be that he is right, that I am wrong; but if there be a Power that sent me into this world, so far as that Power has given me wrong direction, or permitted wrong direction, that Power will judge me justly. So far as I disregard the light that I have, whatever it may be—whether it br light of reason, light of conscience, light of history—so far as I do that which my judgment tells me is wrong, I am responsible and I am accountable.
Now the Protestant theory, as I understand it, is simply this: It would vary from the theory as taught by the mother church—it certainly swings far away from the theory as suggested by my friend; I understand the Protestant theory to be this: That every man is responsible to himself, to his neighbor, and to his God, for his thought. Not for the first impression—but for that impression, for that direction and result which he intelligently gives to the first impression or deduces from it. I understand that the Protestant idea is this: that man may think—we know he will think—for himself; but that he is responsible for it. That a man may speak his thought, so long as he does not hurt his neighbor. He must use his own liberty so that he shall not injure the well-being of any other one—so that when using this liberty, when exercising this freedom, he is accountable at the last to his God. And so Protestantism sends me into the world with this terrible and solemn responsibility.
It leaves Mr. Ingersoll free to speak his thought at the bar of his conscience, before the bar of his fellow-man, but it holds him in the inevitable grip of absolute responsibility for every light word idly spoken.
God grant that he may use that power so that he can face that responsibility at the last!
It leaves to every churchman liberty to believe and stand by his church according to his own conviction.
It stands for this; the absolute liberty of each individual man to think, to write, to speak, to act, according to the best light within him; limited as to his fellows, by the condition that he shall not use that liberty so as to injure them; limited in the other direction, by those tremendous laws which are laws in spite of all rhetoric, and in spite of all logic.
If I put my finger into the fire, that fire burns. If I do a wrong, that wrong remains. If I hurt my neighbor, the wrong reacts upon myself. If I would try to escape what you call judgment, what you call penalty, I cannot escape the working of the inevitable-law that follows a cause by effect; I cannot escape that inevitable law—not the creation of some dark monster flashing through the skies—but, as I believe, the beneficent creation which puts into the spiritual life the same control of law that guides the material life, which wisely makes me responsible, that in the solemnity of that responsibility I am bound to lift my brother up and never to drag my brother down.
REPLY OF COLONEL INGERSOLL.
The first gentleman who replied to me took the ground boldly that expression is not free—that no man has the right to express his real thoughts—and I suppose that he acted in accordance with that idea. How are you to know whether he thought a solitary thing that he said, or not? How is it possible for us to ascertain whether he is simply the mouthpiece of some other? Whether he is a free man, or whether he says that which he does not believe, it is impossible for us to ascertain.
He tells you that I am about to take away the religion of your mothers. I have heard that said a great many times. No doubt Mr. Coudert has the religion of his mother, and judging from the argument he made, his mother knew at least as much about these questions as her son. I believe that every good father and good mother wants to see the son and the daughter climb higher upon the great and splendid mount of thought than they reached.
You never can honor your father by going around swearing to his mistakes. You never can honor your mother by saying that ignorance is blessed because she did not know everything. I want to honor my parents by finding out more than they did.
There is another thing that I was a little astonished at—that Mr. Coudert, knowing that he would be in eternal felicity with his harp in his hand, seeing me in the world of the damned, could yet grow envious here to-night at my imaginary monument.
And he tells you—this Catholic—that Voltaire was an exceedingly good Christian compared with me. Do you know I am glad that I have compelled a Catholic—one who does not believe he has the right to express his honest thoughts—to pay a compliment to Voltaire simply because he thought it was at my expense?
I have an almost infinite admiration for Voltaire; and when I hear that name pronounced, I think of a plume floating over a mailed knight—I think of a man that rode to the beleaguered City of Catholicism and demanded a surrender—I think of a great man who thrust the dagger of assassination into your Mother Church, and from that wound she never will recover.
One word more. This gentleman says that children are destructive—that the first thing they do is to destroy their bibs. The gentleman, I should think from his talk, has preserved his!
They talk about blasphemy. What is blasphemy? Let us be honest with each other. Whoever lives upon the unpaid labor of others is a blasphemer. Whoever slanders, maligns, and betrays is a blasphemer. Whoever denies to others the rights that he claims for himself is a blasphemer.
Who is a worshiper? One who makes a happy home—one who fills the lives of wife and children with sunlight—one who has a heart where the flowers of kindness burst into blossom and fill the air with perfume—the man who sits beside his wife, prematurely old and wasted, and holds her thin hands in his and kisses them as passionately and loves her as truly and as rapturously as when she was a bride—he is a worshiper—that is worship.
And the gentleman brought forward as a reason why we should not have free speech, that only a few years ago some of the best men in the world, if you said a word in favor of liberty, would shoot you down. What an argument was that! They were not good men. They were the whippers of women and the stealers of babes—robbers of the trundlebed—assassins of human liberty. They knew no better, but I do not propose to follow the example of a barbarian because he was honestly a barbarian.
So much for debauching his family by telling them that his precepts are false. If he has taught them as he has taught us to-night, he has debauched their minds. I would be honest at the cradle. I would not tell a child anything as a certainty that I did not know. I would be absolutely honest.
But he says that thought is absolutely free—nobody can control thought. Let me tell him: Superstition is the jailer of the mind. You can so stuff a child with superstition that its poor little brain is a bastile and its poor little soul a convict. Fear is the jailer of the mind, and superstition is the assassin of liberty.
So when anybody goes into his family and tells these great and shining truths, instead of debauching his children they will kill the snakes that crawl in their cradles. Let us be honest and free.
And now, coming to the second gentleman. He is a Protestant. The Catholic Church says: "Don't think; pay your fare; this is a through ticket, and we will look out for your baggage." The Protestant Church says: "Read that Bible for yourselves; think for yourselves; but if you do not come to a right conclusion you will be eternally damned." Any sensible man will say, "Then I won't read it—I'll believe it without reading it." And that is the only way you can be sure you will believe it; don't read it.
Governor Woodford says that we are responsible for our thoughts. Why? Could you help thinking as you did on this subject? No, Could you help believing the Bible? I suppose not. Could you help believing that story of Jonah? Certainly not—it looks reasonable in Brooklyn.
I stated that thought was the result of the impressions of nature upon the mind through the medium of the senses. He says you cannot have thought without memory. How did you get the first one?
Of course I intended to be understood—and the language is clear—that there could be no thought except through the impressions made upon the brain by nature through the avenues called the senses. Take away the senses, how would you think then? If you thought at all, I think you would agree with Mr. Coudert.
Now, I admit—so we need never have a contradiction about it—I admit that every human being is responsible to the person he injures. If he injures any man, woman, or child, or any dog, or the lowest animal that crawls, he is responsible to that animal, to that being—in other words, he is responsible to any being that he has injured.
But you cannot injure an infinite Being, if there be one. I will tell you why. You cannot help him, and you cannot hurt him. If there be an infinite Being, he is conditionless—he does not want anything—he has it. You cannot help anybody that does not want something—you cannot help him. You cannot hurt anybody unless he is a conditioned being and you change his condition so as to inflict a harm. But if God be conditionless, you cannot hurt him, and you cannot help him. So do not trouble yourselves about the Infinite. All our duties lie within reach—all our duties are right here; and my religion is simply this:
First. Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.
Second. If you tell your thought at all, tell your honest thought. Do not be a parrot—do not be an instrumentality for an organization. Tell your own thought, honor bright, what you think.
My next idea is, that the only possible good in the universe is happiness. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to try and make somebody else so.
My good friend General Woodford—and he is a good man telling the best he knows—says that I will be accountable at the bar up yonder. I am ready to settle that account now, and expect to be, every moment of my life—and when that settlement comes, if it does come, I do not believe that a solitary being can rise and say that I ever injured him or her.
But no matter what they say. Let me tell you a story, how we will settle if we do get there.
You remember the story told about the Mexican who believed that his country was the only one in the world, and said so. The priest told him that there was another country where a man lived who was eleven or twelve feet high, that made the whole world, and if he denied it, when that man got hold of him he would not leave a whole bone in his body. But he denied it. He was one of those men who would not believe further than his vision extended.
So one day in his boat, he was rocking away when the wind suddenly arose and he was blown out of sight of his home. After several days he was blown so far that he saw the shores of another country. Then he said, "My Lord; I am gone! I have been swearing all my life that there was no other country, and here it is!" So he did his best—paddled with what little strength he had left, reached the shore, and got out of his boat. Sure enough, there came down a man to meet him about twelve feet high. The poor little wretch was frightened almost to death, so he said to the tall man as he saw him coming down: "Mister, whoever you are, I denied your existence—I did not believe you lived; I swore there was no such country as this; but I see I was mistaken, and I am gone. You are going to kill me, and the quicker you do it the better and get me out of my misery. Do it now!"
The great man just looked at the little fellow, and said nothing, till he asked, "What are you going to do with me, because over in that other country I denied your existence?" "What am I going to do with you?" said the supposed God. "Now that you have got here, if you behave yourself I am going to treat you well."
* This is the famous Christmas Sermon written by Colonel
Ingersoll and printed in the Evening Telegram, on December
19,1891.
I.
THE good part of Christmas is not always Christian—it is generally Pagan; that is to say, human, natural.
Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. It came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips. It meant war on earth and perdition hereafter.
It taught some good things—the beauty of love and kindness in man. But as a torch-bearer, as a bringer of joy, it has been a failure. It has given infinite consequences to the acts of finite beings, crushing the soul with a responsibility too great for mortals to bear. It has filled the future with fear and flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men. Not satisfied with that, it has deprived God of the pardoning power.
In answer to this "Christmas Sermon" the Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley, editor of the Christian Advocate, the recognized organ of the Methodist Church, wrote an article, calling upon the public to boycott the Evening Telegram for publishing such a "sermon."
This attack was headed "Lies That Are Mountainous." The Telegram promptly accepted the issue raised by Dr. Buckley and dared him to do his utmost. On the very same day it published an answer from Colonel Ingersoll that echoed throughout America.'
And yet it may have done some good by borrowing from the Pagan world the old festival called Christmas.
Long before Christ was born the Sun-God triumphed over the powers of Darkness. About the time that we call Christmas the days begin perceptibly to lengthen. Our barbarian ancestors were worshipers of the sun, and they celebrated his victory over the hosts of night. Such a festival was natural and beautiful. The most natural of all religions is the worship of the sun. Christianity adopted this festival. It borrowed from the Pagans the best it has.
I believe in Christmas and in every day that has been set apart for joy. We in America have too much work and not enough play. We are too much like the English.
I think it was Heinrich Heine who said that he thought a blaspheming Frenchman was a more pleasing object to God than a praying Englishman. We take our joys too sadly. I am in favor of all the good free days—the more the better.
Christmas is a good day to forgive and forget—a good day to throw away prejudices and hatreds—a good day to fill your heart and your house, and the hearts and houses of others, with sunshine.
R. G Ingersoll.
COL. INGERSOLL'S REPLY TO Dr. BUCKLEY.
II.
WHENEVER an orthodox editor attacks an unbeliever, look out for kindness, charity and love.
The gentle editor of the Christian Advocate charges me with having written three "gigantic falsehoods," and he points them out as follows: First—"Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy? but with a message of eternal grief."
Second—"It [Christianity] has filled the future with fear and flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men."
Third—"Not satisfied with that, it [Christianity] has deprived God of the pardoning power."
Now, let us take up these "gigantic falsehoods" in their order and see whether they are in accord with the New Testament or not—whether they are supported by the creed of the Methodist Church.
I insist that Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief.
According to the orthodox creeds, Christianity came with the tidings that the human race was totally depraved, and that all men were in a lost condition, and that all who rejected or failed to believe the new religion, would be tormented in eternal fire.
These were not "tidings of great joy."
If the passengers on some great ship were told that the ship was to be wrecked, that a few would be saved and that nearly all would go to the bottom, would they talk about "tidings of great joy"? It is to be presumed that Christ knew what his mission was, and what he came for. He says: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother." In my judgment, these are not "tidings of great joy."
Now, as to the message of eternal grief:
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous [meaning the Methodists] into life eternal."
"He that believeth not shall be damned."
"He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."
"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
"And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever."
Knowing, as we do, that but few people have been believers, that during the last eighteen hundred years not one in a hundred has died in the faith, and that consequently nearly all the dead are in hell, it can truthfully be said that Christianity came with a message of eternal grief.
Now, as to the second "gigantic falsehood," to the effect that Christianity filled the future with fear and flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men.
In the Old Testament there is nothing about punishment in some other world, nothing about the flames and torments of hell. When Jehovah killed one of his enemies he was satisfied. His revenge was glutted when the victim was dead. The Old Testament gave the future to sleep and oblivion. But in the New Testament we are told that the punishment in another world is everlasting, and that "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever."
This awful doctrine, these frightful texts, filled the future with fear and flame. Building on these passages, the orthodox churches have constructed a penitentiary, in which nearly all the sons of men are to be imprisoned and tormented forever, and of this prison God is the keeper. The doors are opened only to receive.
The doctrine of eternal punishment is the infamy of infamies. As I have often said, the man who believes in eternal torment, in the justice of endless pain, is suffering from at least two diseases—petrifaction of the heart and putrefaction of the brain.
The next question is whether Christianity has deprived God of the pardoning power.
The Methodist Church and every orthodox church teaches that this life is a period of probation; that there is no chance given for reformation after death; that God gives no opportunity to repent in another world.
This is the doctrine of the Christian world. If this dogma be true, then God will never release a soul from hell—the pardoning power will never be exercised.
How happy God will be and how happy all the saved will be, knowing that billions and billions of his children, of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, and children are convicts in the eternal dungeons, and that the words of pardon will never be spoken!
Yet this is in accordance with the promise contained in the New Testament, of happiness here and eternal joy hereafter, to those who would desert brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children.
It seems to me clear that Christianity did not bring "tidings of great joy," but that it came with a "message of eternal grief"—that it did "fill the future with fear and flame," that it did make God "the keeper of an eternal penitentiary," that the penitentiary "was destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men," and that "it deprived God of the pardoning power."
Of course you can find passages full of peace, in the Bible, others of war—some filled with mercy, and others cruel as the fangs of a wild beast.
According to the Methodists, God has an eternal prison—an everlasting Siberia. There is to be an eternity of grief, of agony and shame.
What do I think of what the Doctor says about the Telegram for having published my Christmas sermon?
The editor of the Christian Advocate has no idea of what intellectual liberty means. He ought to know that a man should not be insulted because another man disagrees with him.
What right has Dr. Buckley to disagree with Cardinal Gibbons, and what right has Cardinal Gibbons to disagree with Dr. Buckley? The same right that I have to disagree with them both.
I do not warn people against reading Catholic or Methodist papers or books. But I do tell them to investigate for themselves—to stand by what they believe to be true, to deny the false, and, above all things, to preserve their mental manhood. The good Doctor wants the Telegram destroyed—wants all religious people to unite for the purpose of punishing the Telegram—because it published something with which the reverend Doctor does not agree, or rather that does not agree with the Doctor.
It is too late. That day has faded in the West of the past. The doctor of theology has lost his power. Theological thunder has lost its lightning—it is nothing now but noise, pleasing those who make it and amusing those who hear.
The Telegram has nothing to fear. It is, in the highest sense, a newspaper—wide-awake, alive, always on time, good to its friends, fair with its enemies, and true to the public.
What have I to say to the Doctor's personal abuse?
Nothing. A man may call me a devil, or the devil, or he may say that I am incapable of telling the truth, or that I tell lies, and yet all this proves nothing. My arguments remain unanswered.
I cannot afford to call Dr. Buckley names, I have good mental manners. The cause I represent (in part) is too great, too sacred, to be stained by an ignorant or a malicious personality.
I know that men do as they must with the light they have, and so I say—More light!
III.
THE Rev. James M. King—who seems to have taken this occasion to become known—finds fault because "blasphemous utterances concerning Christmas" were published in the Telegram, and were allowed "to greet the eyes of innocent children and pure women."
How is it possible to blaspheme a day? One day is not, in and of itself, holier than another—that is to say, two equal spaces of time are substantially alike. We call a day "good" or "bad" according to what happens in the day. A day filled with happiness, with kind words, with noble deeds, is a good day. A day filled with misfortunes and anger and misery we call a bad day. But how is it possible to blaspheme a day?
A man may or may not believe that Christ was born on the 2 5th of December, and yet he may fill that day, so far as he is concerned, with good thoughts and words and deeds. Another may really believe that Christ was born on that day, and yet do his worst to make all his friends unhappy. But how can the rights of what are called "clean families" be violated by reading the honest opinions of others as to whether Christmas is kept in honor of the birth of Christ, or in honor of the triumph of the sun over the hosts of darkness? Are Christian families so weak intellectually that they cannot bear to hear the other side? Or is their case so weak that the slightest evidence overthrows it? Why do all these ministers insist that it is ill-bred to even raise a question as to the truth of the improbable, or as to the improbability of the impossible?
A minister says to me that I am going to hell—that I am bound to be punished forever and ever—and thereupon I say to him: "There is no hell you are mistaken; your Bible is not inspired; no human being is to suffer agony forever;" and thereupon, with an injured look, he asks me this question: "Why do you hurt my feelings?" It does not occur to him that I have the slightest right to object to his sentence of eternal grief.
Does the gentleman imagine that true men and pure women cannot differ with him? There are many thousands of people who love and honor the memory of Jesus Christ, who yet have not the slightest belief in his divine origin, and who do not for one moment imagine that he was other than a good and heroic man. And there are thousands of people who admire the character of Jesus Christ who do not believe that he ever existed—who admire the character of Christ as they admire Imogen, or Per-dita, not believing that any of the characters mentioned actually lived.
And it may be well enough here to state that no human being hates any really good man or good woman—that is, no human being hates a man known to be good—a woman known to be pure and good. No human being hates a lovable character.
It is perfectly easy for any one with the slightest imagination to understand how other people differ from him. I do not attribute a bad motive to a man simply because he disagrees with me. I do not say that a man is a Christian or a Mohammedan "for revenue only." I do not say that a man joins the Democratic party simply for office, or that he marches with the Republicans simply for position. I am willing to hear his reasons—with his motives I have nothing to do.
Mr. King imagines that I have denounced Christianity "for revenue only." Is he willing to admit that we have drifted so far from orthodox religion that the way to make money is to denounce Christianity? I can hardly believe, for joy, that liberty of thought has advanced so far. I regret exceedingly that there is not an absolute foundation for his remark. I am indeed sorry that it is possible in this world of ours for any human being to make a living out of the ignorance and fear of his fellow-men. Still, it gives me great hope for the future to read, even in this ignorant present, that there is one man, and that man myself, who advocates human liberty—the absolute enfranchisement of the soul—and does it "for revenue"—because this charge is such a splendid compliment to my fellow-men.
Possibly the remark of the Rev. Mr. King will be gratifying to the Telegram and will satisfy that brave and progressive sheet that it is in harmony with the intelligence of the age.
My opinion is that the Telegram will receive the praise of enlightened and generous people.
Personally I judge a man not so much by his theories as by his practice, and I would much rather meet on the desert—were I about to perish for want of water—a Mohammedan who would give me a drink than a Christian who would not; because, after all is said and done, we are compelled to judge people by their actions.
I do not know what takes place in the invisible world called the brain, inhabited by the invisible something we call the mind. All that takes place there is invisible and soundless. This mind, hidden in this brain, masked by flesh, remains forever unseen, and the only evidence we can possibly have as to what occurs in that world, we obtain from the actions of the man, of the woman. By these actions we judge of the character, of the soul. So I make up my mind as to whether a man is good or bad, not by his theories, but by his actions.
Under no circumstances can the expression of an honest opinion, couched in becoming language, amount to blasphemy. And right here it may be well enough to inquire: What is blasphemy?
A man who knowingly assaults the true, who knowingly endeavors to stain the pure, who knowingly maligns the good and noble, is a blasphemer. A man who deserts the truth because it is unpopular is a blasphemer. He who runs with the hounds knowing that the hare is in the right is a blasphemer.
In the soul of every man, or in the temple inhabited by the soul, there is one niche in which can be found the statue of the ideal. In the presence of this statue the good man worships—the bad man blasphemes—that is to say, he is not true to the ideal.
A man who slanders a pure woman or an honest man is a blasphemer. So, too, a man who does not give the honest transcript of his mind is a blasphemer. If a man really thinks the character of Jehovah, as portrayed in the Old Testament, is good, and he denounces Jehovah as bad, he is a blasphemer. If he really believes that the character of Jehovah, as portrayed in the Old Testament, is bad, and he pronounces it good, he is a blasphemer and a coward.
All laws against "blasphemy" have been passed by the numerically strong and intellectually weak. These laws have been passed by those who, finding no help in logic, appealed to the legislature.
Back of all these superstitions you will find some self-interest. I do not say that this is true in every case, but I do say that if priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrificed to God. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always so happened that God wanted what his agents liked.
Now, I will not say that all priests have been priests "for revenue only," but I must say that the history of the world tends to show that the sacerdotal class prefer revenue without religion to religion without revenue.
I am much obliged to the Rev. Mr. King for admitting that an infidel has a right to publish his views at his own expense, and with the utmost cheerfulness I accord that right to a Christian. The only thing I have ever objected to is the publication of his views at the expense of others.
I cannot admit, however, that the ideas contained in what is known as the Christmas Sermon are "revolting to a vast majority of the people who give character to the community in which we live." I suppose that a very large majority of men and women who disagree with me are perfectly satisfied that I have the right to disagree with them, and that I do not disagree with them to any greater degree than they disagree with me. And I also imagine that a very large majority of intelligent people are perfectly willing to hear the other side.
I do not regard religious opinions or political opinions as exotics that have to be kept under glass, protected from the frosts of common sense or the tyrannous north wind of logic. Such plants are hardly worth preserving. They certainly ought to be hardy enough to stand the climate of free discussion, and if they cannot, the sooner they die the better.
I do not think there was anything blasphemous or impure in the words published by, the Telegram. The most that can possibly be said against them, calculated to excite the prejudice of Christians, is that they were true—that they cannot be answered except by abuse.
It is not possible, in this day and generation, to stay the rising flood of intellectual freedom by keeping the names of thinkers out of print. The church has had the field for eighteen hundred years. For most of this time it has held the sword and purse of the world. For many centuries it controlled colleges and universities and schools. It had within its gift wealth and honor. It held the keys, so far as this world is concerned, of heaven and hell—that is to say, of prosperity and misfortune. It pursued its enemies even to the grave. It reddened the scaffold with the best blood, and kept the sword of persecution wet for many centuries. Thousands and thousands have died in its dungeons. Millions of reputations have been blasted by its slanders. It has made millions of widows and orphans, and it has not only ruled this world, but it has pretended to hold the keys of eternity, and under this pretence it has sentenced countless millions to eternal flames.
At last the spirit of independence rose against its monstrous assumptions. It has been growing some-what weaker. It has been for many years gradually losing its power. The sword of the state belongs now to the people. The partnership between altar and throne has in many countries been dissolved. The adulterous marriage of church and state has ceased to exist. Men are beginning to express their honest thoughts. In the arena where speech is free, superstition is driven to the wall. Man relies more and more on the facts in nature, and the real priest is the interpreter of nature. The pulpit is losing its power. In a little while religion will take its place with astrology, with the black art, and its ministers will take rank with magicians and sleight-of-hand performers.
With regard to the letter of the Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., I have but little to say.
I am glad that he believes in a free platform and a free press—that he, like Lucretia Mott, believes in "truth for authority, and not authority for truth." At the same time I do not see how the fact that I am not a scientist has the slightest bearing upon the question; but if there is any fact that I have avoided or misstated, then I wish that fact to be pointed out. I admit also, that I am a "sentimentalist"—that is, that I am governed, to a certain extent, by sentiment—that my mind is so that cruelty is revolting and that mercy excites my love and admiration. I admit that I am so much of "a sentimentalist" that I have no love for the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and that it is impossible for me to believe a creed that fills the prison house of hell with countless billions of men, women and children.
I am also glad that the reverend gentleman admits that I have "stabbed to the heart hundreds of superstitions and lies," and I hope to stab many, many more, and if I succeed in stabbing all lies to the heart there will be no foundation left for what I called "orthodox" Christianity—but goodness will survive, justice will live, and the flower of mercy will shed its perfume forever.
When we take into consideration the fact that the Rev. Mr. Dixon is a minister and believes that he is called upon to deliver to the people a divine message, I do not wonder that he makes the following assertion: "If God could choose Balaam's ass to speak a divine message, I do not see why he could not utilize the Colonel." It is natural for a man to justify himself and to defend his own occupation. Mr. Dixon, however, will remember that the ass was much superior to the prophet of God, and that the argument was all on the side of the ass. And, furthermore, that the spiritual discernment of the ass far exceeded that of the prophet. It was the ass who saw the angel when the prophet's eye was dim. I suggest to the Rev. Mr. Dixon that he read the account once more, and he will find:—
First, that the ass first saw the angel of the Lord; second, that the prophet Balaam was cruel, unreasonable, and brutal; third, that the prophet so lost his temper that he wanted to kill the innocent ass, and the ass, not losing her temper, reasoned with the prophet and demonstrated not only her intellectual but her moral superiority. In addition to all this the angel of the Lord had to open the eyes of the prophet—in other words, had to work a miracle—in order to make the prophet equal to the ass, and not only so, but rebuked him for his cruelty. And this same angel admitted that without any miracle whatever the ass saw him—the angel—showing that the spiritual discernment of the ass in those days was far superior to that of the prophet.
I regret that the Rev. Mr. King loses his temper and that the Rev. Mr. Dixon is not quite polite.
All of us should remember that passion clouds the judgment, and that he who seeks for victory loses sight of the cause.
And there is another thing: He who has absolute confidence in the justice of his position can afford to be good-natured. Strength is the foundation of kindness; weakness is often malignant, and when argument fails passion comes to the rescue.
Let us be good-natured. Let us have respect for the rights of each other.
The course pursued by the Telegram is worthy of all praise. It has not only been just to both sides, but it has been—as is its custom—true to the public.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
INGERSOLL AGAIN ANSWERS HIS CRITICS. IV.
To the Editor of the Evening Telegram :
SOME of the gentlemen who have given their ideas through the columns of the Telegram have wandered from the questions under discussion. It may be well enough to state what is really in dispute.
I was called to account for having stated that Christianity did not bring "tidings of great joy," but a message of eternal grief—that it filled the future with fear and flame—made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, in which most of the children of men were to be imprisoned forever, and that, not satisfied with that, it had deprived God of the pardoning power.
These statements were called "mountainous lies" by the Rev. Dr. Buckley, and because the Telegram had published the "Christmas Sermon" containing these statements, he insisted that such a paper should not be allowed in the families of Christians or of Jews—in other words, that the Telegram should be punished, and that good people should refuse to allow that sheet to come into their homes.
It will probably be admitted by all fair-minded people that if the orthodox creeds be true, then Christianity was and is the bearer of a message of eternal grief, and a large majority of the human race are to become eternal convicts, and God has deprived himself of the pardoning power. According to those creeds, no word of mercy to any of the lost can ever fall from the lips of the Infinite.
The Universalists deny that such was or is the real message of Christianity. They insist that all are finally to be saved. If that doctrine be true, then I admit that Christianity came with "tidings of great joy."
Personally I have no quarrel with the Univer-salist Church. I have no quarrel with any creed that expresses hope for all of the human race. I find fault with no one for filling the future with joy—for dreaming splendid dreams and for uttering splendid prophecies. I do not object to Christianity because it promises heaven to a few, but because it threatens the many with perdition.
It does not seem possible to me that a God who loved men to that degree that he died that they might be saved, abandons his children the moment they are dead. It seems to me that an infinite God might do something for a soul after it has reached the other world.
Is it possible that infinite wisdom can do no more than is done for a majority of souls in this world?
Think of the millions born in ignorance and filth, raised in poverty and crime. Think of the millions who are only partially developed in this world. Think of the weakness of the will, of the power of passion. Think of the temptations innumerable. Think, too, of the tyranny of man, of the arrogance of wealth and position, of the sufferings of the weak—and can we then say that an infinite God has done, in this world, all that could be done for the salvation of his children? Is it not barely possible that something may be done in another world? Is there nothing left for God to do for a poor, ignorant, criminal human soul after it leaves this world? Can God do nothing except to pronounce the sentence of eternal pain?
I insist that if the orthodox creed be true, Christianity did not come with "tidings of great joy," but that its message was and is one of eternal grief.
If the orthodox creed be true, the universe is a vast blunder—an infinite crime. Better, a thousand times, that every pulse of life should cease—better that all the gods should fall palsied from their thrones, than that the creed of Christendom should be true.
There is another question and that involves the freedom of the press.
The Telegram has acted with the utmost fairness and with the highest courage. After all, the American people admire the man who takes his stand and bravely meets all comers. To be an instrumentality of progress, the press must be free. Only the free can carry a torch. Liberty sheds light.
The editor or manager of a newspaper occupies a public position, and he must not treat his patrons as though they were weak and ignorant children. He must not, in the supposed interest of any ism, suppress the truth—neither must he be dictated to by any church or any society of believers or unbelievers. The Telegram, by its course, has given a certificate of its manliness, and the public, by its course, has certified that it appreciates true courage.
All Christians should remember that facts are not sectarian, and that the sciences are not bound by the creeds. We should remember that there are no such things as Methodist mathematics, or Baptist botany, or Catholic chemistry. The sciences are secular. .
The Rev. Mr. Peters seems to have mistaken the issues—and yet, in some things, I agree with him. He is certainly right when he says that "Mr. Buckley's cry to boycott the Telegram is unmanly and un-American," but I am not certain that he is right when he says that it is un-Christian.
The church has not been in the habit of pursuing enemies with kind words and charitable deeds. To tell the truth, it has always been rather relentless. It has preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven. There is in the history of Christendom no instance where the church has extended the hand of friendship to a man who denied the truth of its creed.
There is in the church no spirit—no climate—of compromise. In the nature of things there can be none, because the church claims that it is absolutely right—that there is only one road leading to heaven. It demands unconditional surrender. It will not bear contradiction. It claims to have the absolute truth. For these reasons it cannot consistently compromise, any more than a mathematician could change the multiplication table to meet the view of some one who should deny that five times five are twenty-five.
The church does not give its opinion—it claims to know—it demands belief. Honesty, industry, generosity count for nothing in the absence of belief. It has taught and still teaches that no man can reach heaven simply through good and honest deeds. It believes and teaches that the man who relies upon himself will be eternally punished—and why should the church forgive a man whom it thinks its God is waiting somewhat impatiently to damn?
The Rev. Mr. Peters asks—and probably honestly thinks that the questions are pertinent to the issues involved—"What has infidelity done for the world? What colleges, hospitals, and schools has it founded? What has it done for the elevation of public morals?" And he inquires what science or art has been originated by infidelity. He asks how many slaves it has liberated, how many inebriates it has reclaimed, how many fallen women it has restored, and what it did for the relief of the wounded and dying soldiers; and concludes by asking what life it ever assisted to higher holiness, and what death it has ever cheered.
Although these questions have nothing whatever to do with the matters under discussion, still it may be well enough to answer them.
It is cheerfully admitted that hospitals and asylums have been built by Christians in Christian countries, and it is also admitted that hospitals and asylums have been built in countries not Christian; that there were such institutions in China thousands of years before Christ was born, and that many centuries before the establishment of any orthodox church there were asylums on the banks of the Nile—asylums for the old, the poor, the infirm—asylums for the blind and for the insane, and that the Egyptians, even of those days, endeavored to cure insanity with kindness and affection. The same is true of India and probably of most ancient nations.
There has always been more or less humanity in man—more or less goodness in the human heart. So far as we know, mothers have always loved their children. There must always have been more good than evil, otherwise the human race would have perished. The best things in the Christian religion came from the heart of man. Pagan lips uttered the sublimest of truths, and all ages have been redeemed by honesty, heroism, and love.
But let me answer these questions in their order.
First—As to the schools.
It is most cheerfully admitted that the Catholics have always been in favor of education—that is to say, of education enough to make a Catholic out of a heathen. It is also admitted that Protestants have always been in favor of enough education to make a Protestant out of a Catholic. Many schools and many colleges have been established for the spread of what is called the Gospel and for the education of the clergy. Presbyterians have founded schools for the benefit of their creed. The Methodists have established colleges for the purpose of making Methodists. The same is true of nearly all the sects. As a matter of fact, these schools have in many important directions hindered rather than helped the cause of real education. The pupils were not taught to investigate for themselves. They were not allowed to think. They were told that thought is dangerous. They were stuffed and crammed with creeds—with the ideas of others. Their credulity was applauded and their curiosity condemned. If all the people had been educated in these sectarian schools, all the people would have been far more ignorant than they are. These schools have been, and most of them still are, the enemies of higher education, and just to the extent that they are under the control of theologians they are hindrances, and just to the extent that they have become secularized they have been and are a benefit.
Our public-school system is not Christian. It is secular. Yet I admit that it never could have been established without the assistance of Christians—neither could it have been supported without the assistance of others. But such is the value placed upon education that people of nearly all denominations, and of nearly all religions, and of nearly all opinions, for the most part agree that the children of a nation should be educated by the nation. Some religious people are opposed to these schools because they are not religious—because they do not teach some creed—but a large majority of the people stand by the public schools as they are. These schools are growing better and better, simply because they are growing less and less theological, more and more secular.
Infidelity, or agnosticism, or free thought, has insisted that only that should be taught in schools which somebody knows or has good reason to believe.
The greatest professors in our colleges to-day are those who have the least confidence in the supernatural, and the schools that stand highest in the estimation of the most intelligent are those that have drifted farthest from the orthodox creeds. Free thought has always been and ever must be the friend of education. Without free thought there can be no such thing—in the highest sense—as a school. Unless the mind is free, there are no teachers and there are no pupils, in any just and splendid sense.
The church has been and still is the enemy of education, because it has been in favor of intellectual slavery, and the theological schools have been what might be called the deformatories of the human mind.
For instance: A man is graduated from an orthodox university. In this university he has studied astronomy, and yet he believes that Joshua stopped the sun. He has studied geology, and yet he asserts the truth of the Mosaic cosmogony. He has studied chemistry, and yet believes that water was turned into wine. He has been taught the ordinary theory of cause and effect, and at the same time he thoroughly believes in the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. Can such an institution, with any propriety, be called a seat of learning? Can we not say of such a university what Bruno said of Oxford: "Learning is dead and Oxford is its widow."
Year after year the religious colleges are improving—simply because they are becoming more and more secular, less and less theological. Whether infidelity has founded universities or not, it can truthfully be said that the spirit of investigation, the spirit of free thought, the attitude of mental independence, contended for by those who are called infidels, have made schools useful instead of hurtful.
Can it be shown that any infidel has ever raised his voice against education? Can there be found in the literature of free thought one line against the enlightenment of the human race? Has free thought ever endeavored to hide or distort, a fact? Has it not always appealed to the senses—to demonstration? It has not said, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," but it has said, "He that hath brains to think, let him think."
The object of a school should be to ascertain truth in every direction, to the end that man may know the conditions of happiness—and every school should be absolutely free. No teacher should be bound by anything except a perceived fact. He should not be the slave of a creed, engaged in the business of enslaving others.
So much for schools.
Second—As to public morals.
Christianity teaches that all offences can be forgiven. Every church unconsciously allows people to commit crimes on a credit. I do not mean by this that any church consciously advocates immorality. I most cheerfully admit that thousands and thousands of ministers are endeavoring to do good—that they are pure, self-denying men, trying to make this world better. But there is a frightful defect in their philosophy. They say to the bank cashier: You must not steal, you must not take a dollar—larceny is wrong, it is contrary to all law, human and divine—but if you do steal every cent in the bank, God will as gladly, quickly forgive you in Canada as he will in the United States. On the other hand, what is called infidelity says: There is no being in the universe who rewards, and there is no being who punishes—every act has its consequences. If the act is good, the consequences are good; if the act is bad, the consequences are bad; and these consequences must be borne by the actor. It says to every human being: You must reap what you sow. There is no reward, there is no punishment, but there are consequences, and these consequences are the invisible and implacable police of nature. They cannot be avoided. They cannot be bribed. No power can awe them, and there is not gold enough in the world to make them pause. Even a God cannot induce them to release for one instant their victim.
This great truth is, in my judgment, the gospel of morality. If all men knew that they must inevitably bear the consequences of their own actions—if they absolutely knew that they could not injure another without injuring themselves, the world, in my judgment, would be far better than it is.
Free thought has attacked the morality of what is called the atonement. The innocent should not suffer for the guilty, and if the innocent does suffer for the guilty, that cannot by any possibility justify the guilty. The reason a thing is wrong is because it, in some way, causes the innocent to suffer. This being the very essence of wrong, how can the suffering of innocence justify the guilty? If there be a world of joy, he who is worthy to enter that world must be willing to carry his own burdens in this.
So much for morality.
Third—As to sciences and art.
I do not believe that we are indebted to Christianity for any science. I do not remember that one science is mentioned in the New Testament. There is not one word, so far as I remember, about education—nothing about any science, nothing about art. The writers of the New Testament seem to have thought that the world was about coming to an end. This world was to be sacrificed absolutely to the next. The affairs of this life were not worth speaking of. All people were exhorted to prepare at once for the other life.
The sciences have advanced in the proportion that they did not interfere with orthodox theology. To the extent that they were supposed to interfere with theology they have been obstructed and denounced. Astronomy was found to be inconsistent with the Scriptures, and the astronomers were imprisoned and despised. Geology contradicted the Mosaic account, and the geologists were denounced and persecuted. Every step taken in astronomy was taken in spite of the church, and every fact in geology had to fight its way. The same is true as to the science of medicine. The church wished to cure disease by necromancy, by charm and prayer, and with the bones of the saints. The church wished man to rely entirely upon God—that is to say, upon the church—and not upon himself. The physician interfered with the power and prosperity of the priest, and those who appealed to physicians were denounced as lacking faith in God. This state of things existed even in the Old Testament times. A king failed to send for the prophets, but sent for a physician, and then comes this piece of grim humor: "And Asa slept with his fathers."
The great names in science are not those of recognized saints.
Bruno—one of the greatest and bravest of men—greatest of all martyrs—perished at the stake, because he insisted on the existence of other worlds and taught the astronomy of Galileo.
Humboldt—in some respects the wisest man known to the scientific world—denied the existence of the supernatural and "the truths of revealed religion," and yet he revolutionized the thought of his day and left a legacy of intellectual glory to the race.
Darwin—greatest of scientists—so great that our time will probably be known as "Darwin's Century"—had not the slightest confidence in any possible phase of the so-called supernatural. This great man left the creed of Christendom without a foundation. He brought as witnesses against the inspiration of the Scriptures such a multitude of facts, such an overwhelming amount of testimony, that it seems impossible to me that any unprejudiced man can, after hearing the testimony, remain a believer in evangelical religion. He accomplished more than all the schools, colleges, and universities that Christianity has founded. He revolutionized the philosophy of the civilized world.
The writers who have done most for science have been the most bitterly opposed by the church. There is hardly a valuable book in the libraries of the world that cannot be found on the "Index Expurgatorius." Kant and Fichte and Spinoza were far above and beyond the orthodox-world. Voltaire did more for freedom than any other man, and yet the church denounced him with a fury amounting to insanity—called him an atheist, although he believed not only in God, but in special providence. He was opposed to the church—that is to say, opposed to slavery, and for that reason he was despised.
And what shall I say of D'Holbach, of Hume, of Buckle, of Draper, of Haeckel, of Büchner, of Tyndall and Huxley, of Auguste Comte, and hundreds and thousands of others who have filled the scientific world with light and the heart of man with love and kindness?
It may be well enough, in regard to art, to say that Christianity is indebted to Greece and Rome for its highest conceptions, and it may be well to add that for many centuries Christianity did the best it could to destroy the priceless marbles of Greece and Rome. A few were buried, and in that way were saved from Christian fury.
The same is true of the literature of the classic world. A few fragments were rescued, and these became the seeds of modern literature. A few statues were preserved, and they are to-day models for all the world.
Of course it will be admitted that there is much art in Christian lands, because, in spite of the creeds, Christians, so-called, have turned their attention to this world. They have beautified their homes, they have endeavored to clothe themselves in purple and fine linen. They have been forced from banquets or from luxury by the difficulty of camels going through the eyes of needles or the impossibility of carrying water to the rich man. They have cultivated this world, and the arts have lived. Did they obey the precepts that they find in their sacred writings there would be no art, they would "take no thought for the morrow," they would "consider the lilies of the field."
Fourth—As to the liberation of slaves.
It was exceedingly unfortunate for the Rev. Mr. Peters that he spoke of slavery. The Bible upholds human slavery—white slavery. The Bible was quoted by all slaveholders and slave-traders. The man who went to Africa to steal women and children took the Bible with him. He planted himself firmly on the Word of God. As Whittier says of Whitefield:
"He bade the slave ship speed from coast to coast,
Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost."
So when the poor wretches were sold to the planters, the planters defended their action by reading the Bible. When a poor woman was sold, her children torn from her breast, the auction block on which she stood was the Bible; the auctioneer who sold her quoted the Scriptures; the man who bought her repeated the quotations, and the ministers from the pulpit said to the weeping woman, as her child was carried away: "Servants, be obedient unto your masters."
Freethinkers in all ages have been opposed to slavery. Thomas Paine did more for human liberty than any other man who ever stood upon the western world. The first article he ever wrote in this country was one against the institution of slavery. Freethinkers have also been in favor of free bodies. Freethinkers have always said "free hands," and the infidels, the wide world over, have been friends of freedom.
Fifth—As to the reclamation of inebriates.
Much has been said, and for many years, on the subject of temperance—much has been uttered by priests and laymen—and yet there seems to be a subtle relation between rum and religion. Scotland is extremely orthodox, yet it is not extremely temperate. England is nothing if not religious, and London is, par excellence, the Christian city of the world, and yet it is the most intemperate. The Mohammedans—followers of a false prophet—do not drink.
Sixth—As to the humanity of infidelity.
Can it be said that people have cared for the wounded and dying only because they were orthodox?
Is it not true that religion, in its efforts to propagate the creed of forgiveness by the sword, has caused the death of more than one hundred and fifty millions of human beings? Is it not true that where the church has cared for one orphan it has created hundreds? Can Christianity afford to speak of war?
The Christian nations of the world to-day are armed against each other. In Europe, all that can be gathered by taxation—all that can be borrowed by pledging the prosperity of the future—the labor of those yet unborn—is used for the purpose of keeping Christians in the field, to the end that they may destroy other Christians, or at least prevent other Christians from destroying them. Europe is covered with churches and fortifications, with temples and with forts—hundreds of thousands of priests, millions of soldiers, countless Bibles and countless bayonets—and that whole country is oppressed and impoverished for the purpose of carrying on war. The people have become deformed by labor, and yet Christianity boasts of peace.
Seventh—"And what death has infidelity ever cheered?"
Is it possible for the orthodox Christian to cheer the dying when the dying is told that there is a world of eternal pain, and that he, unless he has been forgiven, is to be an eternal convict? Will it cheer him to know that, even if he is to be saved, countless millions are to be lost? Is it possible for the Christian religion to put a smile upon the face of death?
On the other hand, what is called infidelity says to the dying: What happens to you will happen to all. If there be another world of joy, it is for all. If there is another life, every human being will have the eternal opportunity of doing right—the eternal opportunity to live, to reform, to enjoy. There is no monster in the sky. There is no Moloch who delights in the agony of his children. These frightful things are savage dreams.
Infidelity puts out the fires of hell with the tears of pity.
Infidelity puts the seven-hued arch of Hope over every grave.
Let us then, gentlemen, come back to the real questions under discussion. Let us not wander away.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Jan'y 9, 1891.
INGERSOLL CONTINUES THE BATTLE. V.
NO one objects to the morality of Christianity.
The industrious people of the world—those who have anything—are, as a rule, opposed to larceny; a very large majority of people object to being murdered, and so we have laws against larceny and murder. A large majority of people believe in what they call, or what they understand to be, justice—at least as between others. There is no very great difference of opinion among civilized people as to what is or is not moral.
It cannot truthfully be said that the man who attacks Buddhism attacks all morality. He does not attack goodness, justice, mercy, or anything that tends in his judgment to the welfare of mankind; but he attacks Buddhism. So one attacking what is called Christianity does not attack kindness, charity, or any virtue. He attacks something that has been added to the virtues. He does not attack the flower, but what he believes to be the parasite.
If people, when they speak of Christianity, include the virtues common to all religions, they should not give Christianity credit for all the good that has been done. There were millions of virtuous men and women, millions of heroic and self-denying souls before Christianity was known.
It does not seen possible to me that love, kindness, justice, or charity ever caused any one who possessed and practiced these virtues to persecute his fellow-man on account of a difference of belief. If Christianity has persecuted, some reason must exist outside of the virtues it has inculcated. If this reason—this cause—is inherent in that something else, which has been added to the ordinary virtues, then Christianity can properly be held accountable for the persecution. Of course back of Christianity is the nature of man, and, primarily, it may be responsible.
Is there anything in Christianity that will account for such persecutions—for the Inquisition? It certainly was taught by the church that belief was necessary to salvation, and it was thought at the same time that the fate of man was eternal punishment; that the state of man was that of depravity, and that there was but one way by which he could be saved, and that was through belief—through faith. As long as this was honestly believed, Christians would not allow heretics or infidels to preach a doctrine to their wives, to their children, or to themselves which, in their judgment, would result in the damnation of souls.
The law gives a father the right to kill one who is about to do great bodily harm to his son. Now, if a father has the right to take the life of a man simply because he is attacking the body of his son, how much more would he have the right to take the life of one who was about to assassinate the soul of his son!
Christians reasoned in this way. In addition to this, they felt that God would hold the community responsible if the community allowed a blasphemer to attack the true religion. Therefore they killed the freethinker, or rather the free talker, in self-defence.
At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: "It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest"—if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution.
If he had added to this: "You must not persecute in my name. The religion I teach is the Religion of Love—not the Religion of Force and Hatred. You must not imprison your fellow-men. You must not stretch them upon racks, or crush their bones in iron boots. You must not flay them alive. You must not cut off their eyelids, or pour molten lead into their ears. You must treat all with absolute kindness. If you cannot convert your neighbor by example, persuasion, argument, that is the end. You must never resort to force, and, whether he believes as you do or not, treat him always with kindness"—his followers then would not have murdered their fellows in his name.
If Christ was in fact God, he knew the persecutions that would be carried on in his name; he knew the millions that would suffer death through torture; and yet he died without saying one word to prevent what he must have known, if he were God, would happen.
All that Christianity has added to morality is worthless and useless. Not only so—it has been hurtful. Take Christianity from morality and the useful is left, but take morality from Christianity and the useless remains.
Now, falling back on the old assertion, "By its fruits we may know Christianity," then I think we are justified in saying that, as Christianity consists of a mixture of morality and something else, and as morality never has persecuted a human being, and as Christianity has persecuted millions, the cause of the persecution must be the something else that was added to morality.
I cannot agree with the reverend gentleman when he says that "Christianity has taught mankind the priceless value and dignity of human nature." On the other hand, Christianity has taught that the whole human race is by nature depraved, and that if God should act in accordance with his sense of justice, all the sons of men would be doomed to eternal pain. Human nature has been derided, has been held up to contempt and scorn, all our desires and passions denounced as wicked and filthy.
Dr. Da Costa asserts that Christianity has taught mankind the value of freedom. It certainly has not been the advocate of free thought; and what is freedom worth if the mind is to be enslaved?
Dr. Da Costa knows that millions have been sacrificed in their efforts to be free; that is, millions have been sacrificed for exercising their freedom as against the church.
It is not true that the church "has taught and established the fact of human brotherhood." This has been the result of a civilization to which Christianity itself has been hostile.
Can we prove that "the church established human brotherhood" by banishing the Jews from Spain; by driving out the Moors; by the tortures of the Inquisition; by butchering the Covenanters of Scotland; by the burning of Bruno and Servetus; by the persecution of the Irish; by whipping and hanging Quakers in New England; by the slave trade; and by the hundreds of wars waged in the name of Christ?
We all know that the Bible upholds slavery in its very worst and most cruel form; and how it can be said that a religion founded upon a Bible that upholds the institution of slavery has taught and established the fact of human brotherhood, is beyond my imagination to conceive.
Neither do I think it true that "we are indebted to Christianity for the advancement of science, art, philosophy, letters and learning."
I cheerfully admit that we are indebted to Christianity for some learning, and that the human mind has been developed by the discussion of the absurdities of superstition. Certainly millions and millions have had what might be called mental exercise, and their minds may have been somewhat broadened by the examination, even, of these absurdities, contradictions, and impossibilities. The church was not the friend of science or learning when it burned Vanini for writing his "Dialogues Concerning Nature." What shall we say of the "Index Expurgatorius"? For hundreds of years all books of any particular value were placed on the "Index," and good Catholics forbidden to read them. Was this in favor of science and learning?
That we are indebted to Christianity for the advancement of science seems absurd. What science? Christianity was certainly the enemy of astronomy, and I believe that it was Mr. Draper who said that astronomy took her revenge, so that not a star that glitters in all the heavens bears a Christian name.
Can it be said that the church has been the friend of geology, or of any true philosophy? Let me show how this is impossible.
The church accepts the Bible as an inspired book. Then the only object is to find its meaning, and if that meaning is opposed to any result that the human mind may have reached, the meaning stands and the result reached by the mind must be abandoned.
For hundreds of years the Bible was the standard, and whenever anything was asserted in any science contrary to-the Bible, the church immediately denounced the scientist. I admit the standard has been changed, and ministers are very busy, not trying to show that science does not agree with the Bible, but that the Bible agrees with science.
Certainly Christianity has done little for art. The early Christians destroyed all the marbles of Greece and Rome upon which they could lay their violent hands; and nothing has been produced by the Christian world equal to the fragments that were accidentally preserved. There have been many artists who were Christians; but they were not artists because they were Christians; because there have been many Christians who were not artists. It cannot be said that art is born of any creed. The mode of expression may be determined, and probably is to a certain degree, by the belief of the artist; but not his artistic perception and feeling.
So, Galileo did not make his discoveries because he was a Christian, but in spite of it. His Bible was the other way, and so was his creed. Consequently, they could not by any possibility have assisted him. Kepler did not discover or announce what are known as the "Three Laws" because he was a Christian; but, as I said about Galileo, in spite of his creed.
Every Christian who has really found out and demonstrated and clung to a fact inconsistent with the absolute inspiration of the Scriptures, has done so certainly without the assistance of his creed.
Let me illustrate this: When our ancestors were burning each other to please God; when they were ready to destroy a man with sword and flame for teaching the rotundity of the world, the Moors in Spain were teaching geography to their children with brass globes. So, too, they had observatories and knew something of the orbits of the stars.
They did not find out these things because they were Mohammedans, or on account of their belief in the impossible. They were far beyond the Christians, intellectually, and it has been very poetically said by Mrs. Browning, that "Science was thrust into the brain of Europe on the point of a Moorish lance."
From the Arabs we got our numerals, making mathematics of the higher branches practical. We also got from them the art of making cotton paper, which is almost at the foundation of modern intelligence. We learned from them to make cotton cloth, making cleanliness possible in Christendom.
So from among people of different religions we have learned many useful things; but they did not discover them on account of their religion.
It will not do to say that the religion of Greece was true because the Greeks were the greatest sculptors. Neither is it an argument in favor of monarchy that Shakespeare, the greatest of men, was born and lived in a monarchy.
Dr. Da Costa takes one of the effects of a general cause, or of a vast number of causes, and makes it the cause, not only of other effects, but of the general cause. He seems to think that all events for many centuries, and especially all the good ones, were caused by Christianity.
As a matter of fact, the civilization of our time is the result of countless causes with which Christianity had little to do, except by way of hindrance.
Does the Doctor think that the material progress of the world was caused by this passage: "Take no thought for the morrow"?
Does he seriously insist that the wealth of Christendom rests on this inspired declaration: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven"?
The Rev. Mr. Peters, in answer, takes the ground that the Bible has produced the richest and most varied literature the world has ever seen.
This, I think, is hardly true. Has not most of modern literature been produced in spite of the Bible? Did not Christians, for many generations, take the ground that the Bible was the only important book, and that books differing from the Bible should be destroyed?
If Christianity—Catholic and Protestant—could have had its way, the works of Voltaire, Spinoza, Hume, Paine, Humboldt, Darwin, Haeckel, Spencer, Comte, Huxley, Tyndall, Draper, Goethe, Gibbon, Buckle and Büchner would not have been published. In short, the philosophy that enlightens and the fiction that enriches the brain would not exist.
The greatest literature the world has ever seen is, in my judgment, the poetic—the dramatic; that is to say, the literature of fiction in its widest sense. Certainly if the church could have had control, the plays of Shakespeare never would have been written; the literature of the stage could not have existed; most works of fiction, and nearly all poetry, would have perished in the brain. So I think it hardly fair to say that "the Bible has produced the richest and most varied literature the world has ever seen."
Thousands of theological books have been written on thousands of questions of no possible importance. Libraries have been printed on subjects not worth discussing—not worth thinking about—and that will, in a few years, be regarded as puerile by the whole world.
Mr. Peters, in his enthusiasm, asks this question:
"Who raised our great institutions of learning? Infidels never a stone of them!"
Stephen Girard founded the best institution of learning, the best charity, the noblest ever founded in this or any other land; and under the roof built by his wisdom and his wealth many thousands of orphans have been reared, clothed, fed and educated, not only in books, but in avocations, and become happy and useful citizens. Under his will there has been distributed to the poor, fuel to the value of more than $500,000; and this distribution goes on year after year.
One of the best observatories in the world was built by the generosity of James Lick, an infidel. I call attention to these two cases simply to show that the gentleman is mistaken, and that he was somewhat carried away by his zeal.
So, too, Mr. Peters takes the ground that "we are indebted to Christianity for our chronology."
According to Christianity this world has been peopled about six thousand years. Christian chronology gives the age of the first man, and then gives the line from father to son down to the flood, and from the flood down to the coming of Christ, showing that men have been upon the earth only about six thousand years. This chronology is infinitely absurd, and I do not believe that there is an intelligent, well-educated Christian in the world, having examined the subject, who will say that the Christian chronology is correct.
Neither can it, I think, truthfully be said that "we are indebted to Christianity for the continuation of history." The best modern historians of whom I have any knowledge are Voltaire, Hume, Gibbon, Buckle and Draper.
Neither can I admit that "we are indebted to Christianity for natural philosophy."
I do not deny that some natural philosophers have also been Christians, or, rather, that some Christians have been natural philosophers to the extent that their Christianity permitted. But Lamarck and Humboldt and Darwin and Spencer and Haeckel and Huxley and Tyndall have done far more for natural philosophy than they have for orthodox religion.
Whoever believes in the miraculous must be the enemy of natural philosophy. To him there is something above nature, liable to interfere with nature. Such a man has two classes of ideas in his mind, each inconsistent with the other. To the extent that he believes in the supernatural he is incapacitated for dealing with the natural, and to that extent fails to be a philosopher. Philosophy does not include the caprice of the Infinite. It is founded on the absolute integrity and invariability of nature.
Neither do I agree with the reverend gentleman when he says that "we are indebted to Christianity for our knowledge of philology."
The church taught for a long time that Hebrew was the first language and that other languages had been derived from that; and for hundreds and hundreds of years the efforts of philologists were arrested simply because they started with that absurd assumption and believed in the Tower of Babel.
Christianity cannot now take the credit for "metaphysical research." It has always been the enemy of metaphysical research. It never has said to any human being, "Think!" It has always said, "Hear!" It does not ask anybody to investigate. It lays down certain doctrines as absolutely true, and, instead of asking investigation, it threatens every investigator with eternal pain. Metaphysical research is destroying what has been called Christianity, and Christians have always feared it.
This gentleman makes another mistake, and a very common one. This is his argument: Christian countries are the most intelligent; therefore they owe that intelligence to Christianity. Then the next step is taken. Christianity, being the best, having produced these results, must have been of divine origin.
Let us see what this proves. There was a time when Egypt was the first nation in the world. Could not an Egyptian, at that time have used the same arguments that Mr. Peters uses now, to prove that the religion of Egypt was divine? Could he not then have said: "Egypt is the most intelligent, the most civilized and the richest of all nations; it has been made so by its religion; its religion is, therefore, divine"?
So there was a time when a Hindoo could have made the same argument. Certainly this argument could have been made by a Greek. It could have been repeated by a Roman. And yet Mr. Peters will not admit that the religion of Egypt was divine, or that the mythology of Greece was true, or that Jupiter was in fact a god.
Is it not evident to all that if the churches in Europe had been institutions of learning; if the domes of cathedrals had been observatories; if priests had been teachers of the facts in nature, the world would have been far in advance of what it is to-day?
Countries depend on something besides their religion for progress. Nations with a good soil can get along quite well with an exceedingly poor religion; and no religion yet has been good enough to give wealth or happiness to human beings where the climate and soil were bad and barren.
Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labor of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver.
Mr. Peters makes this exceedingly strange statement: "Every discovery in science, invention and art has been the work of Christian men. Infidels have contributed their share, but never one of them has reached the grandeur of originality."
This, I think, so far as invention is concerned, can be answered with one name—John Ericsson, one of the profoundest agnostics I ever met.
I am almost certain that Humboldt and Goethe were original. Darwin was certainly regarded as such.
I do not wish to differ unnecessarily with Mr. Peters, but I have some doubts about Morse having been the inventor of the telegraph.
Neither can I admit that Christianity abolished slavery. Many of the abolitionists in this country were infidels; many of them were Christians. But the church itself did not stand for liberty. The Quakers, I admit, were, as a rule, on the side of freedom. But the Christians of New England persecuted these Quakers, whipped them from town to town, lacerated their naked backs, and maimed their bodied, not only, but took their lives.
Mr. Peters asks: "What name is there among the world's emancipators after which you cannot write the name 'Christian?'" Well, let me give him a few—Voltaire, Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, Lincoln, Darwin.
Mr. Peters asks: "Why is it that in Christian countries you find the greatest amount of physical and intellectual liberty, the greatest freedom of thought, speech, and action?"
Is this true of all? How about Spain and Portugal? There is more infidelity in France than in Spain, and there is far more liberty in France than in Spain.
There is far more infidelity in England than there was a century ago, and there is far more liberty than there was a century ago. There is far more infidelity in the United States than there was fifty years ago, and a hundred infidels to-day where there was one fifty years ago; and there is far more intellectual liberty, far greater freedom of speech and action, than ever before.
A few years ago Italy was a Christian country to the fullest extent. Now there are a thousand times more liberty and a thousand times less religion.
Orthodoxy is dying; Liberty is growing.
Mr. Ballou, a grandson, or grand-nephew, of Hosea Ballou, seems to have wandered from the faith. As a rule, Christians insist that when one denies the religion of Christian parents he is an exceedingly bad man, but when he denies the religion of parents not Christians, and becomes a Christian, that he is a very faithful, good and loving son.
Mr. Ballou insists that God has the same right to punish us that Nature has, or that the State has. I do not think he understands what I have said. The State ought not to punish for the sake of punishment. The State may imprison, or inflict what is called punishment, first, for its own protection, and, secondly, for the reformation of the punished. If no one could do the State any injury, certainly the State would have no right to punish under the plea of protection; and if no human being could by any possibility be reformed, then the excuse of reformation could not be given.
Let us apply this: If God be infinite, no one can injure him. Therefore he need not punish anybody or damn anybody or burn anybody for his protection.
Let us take another step. Punishment being justified only on two grounds—that is, the protection of society and the reformation of the punished—how can eternal punishment be justified? In the first place, God does not punish to protect himself, and, in the second place, if the punishment is to be forever, he does not punish to reform the punished. What excuse then is left?
Let us take still another step. If, instead of punishment, we say "consequences," and that every good man has the right to reap the good consequences of good actions, and that every bad man must bear the consequences of bad actions, then you must say to the good: If you stop doing good you will lose the harvest. You must say to the bad: If you stop doing bad you need not increase your burdens. And if it be a fact in Nature that all must reap what they sow, there is neither mercy nor cruelty in this fact, and I hold no God responsible for it. The trouble with the Christian creed is that God is described as the one who gives rewards and the one who inflicts eternal pain.
There is still another trouble. This God, if infinite, must have known when he created man, exactly who would be eternally damned. What right had he to create men, knowing that they were to be damned?
So much for Mr. Ballou.
The Rev. Dr. Hillier seems to reason in a kind of circle. He takes the ground, in the first place, that "infidelity, Christianity, science, and experience all agree, without the slightest tremor of uncertainty, in the inexorable law that whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." He then takes the ground that, "if we wish to be rid of the harvest, we must not sow the seed; if we would avoid the result, we must remove the cause; the only way to be rid of hell is to stop doing evil; that this, and this only, is the way to abolish an eternal penitentiary."
Very good; but that is not the point. The real thing under discussion is this: Is this life a state of probation, and if a man fails to live a good life here, will he have no opportunity for reformation in another world, if there be one? Can he cease to do evil in the eternal penitentiary? and if he does, can he be pardoned—can he be released?
It is admitted that man must bear the consequences of his acts. If the consequences are good, then the acts are good. If the consequences are bad, the acts are bad. Through experience we find that certain acts tend to unhappiness and others to happiness.
Now, the only question is whether we have wisdom enough to live in harmony with our conditions here; and if we fail here, will we have an opportunity of reforming in another world? If not, then the few years that we live here determine whether we shall be angels or devils forever.
It seems to me, if there be another life, that in that life men may do good, and men may do evil; and if they may do good it seems to me that they may reform.
I do not see why God, if there be one, should lose all interest in his children, simply because they leave this world and go where he is. Is it possible that an infinite God does all for his children here, in this poor ignorant world, that it is possible for him to do, and that if he fails to reform them here, nothing is left to do except to make them eternal convicts?
The Rev. Mr. Haldeman mistakes my position. I do not admit that "an infinite God, as revealed in Nature, has allowed men to grow up under conditions which no ordinary mortal can look at in all their concentrated agony and not break his heart."
I do not confess that God reveals himself in Nature as an infinite God, without mercy. I do not admit that there is an infinite Being anywhere responsible for the agonies and tears, for the barbarities and horrors of this life. I cannot believe that there is in the universe a Being with power to prevent these things. I hold no God responsible. I attribute neither cruelty nor mercy to Nature. Nature neither weeps nor rejoices. I cannot believe that this world, as it now is, as it has been, was created by an infinitely wise, powerful, and benevolent God. But it is far better that we should all go down "with souls unsatisfied" to the dreamless grave, to the tongueless silence of the voiceless dust, than that countless millions of human souls should suffer forever.
Eternal sleep is better than eternal pain. Eternal punishment is eternal revenge, and can be inflicted only by an eternal monster.
Mr. George A. Locey endeavors to put his case in an extremely small compass, and satisfies himself with really one question, and that is: "If a man in good health is stricken with disease, is assured that a physician can cure him, but refuses to take the medicine and dies, ought there to be any escape?"
He concludes that the physician has done his duty; that the patient was obdurate and suffered the penalty.
The application he makes is this:
"The Christian's 'tidings of great joy' is the message that the Great Physician tendered freely. Its acceptance is a cure certain, and a life of eternal happiness the reward. If the soul accepts, are they not tidings of great joy; and if the soul rejects, is it not unreasonable on the part of Colonel Ingersoll to try and sneak out and throw the blame on God?"
The answer to this seems easy. The cases are not parallel. If an infinite God created us all, he knew exactly what we would do. If he gave us free will it does not change the result, because he knew how we would use the free will.
Now, if he knew that billions upon billions would refuse to take the remedy, and consequently would suffer eternal pain, why create them? There would have been much less misery in the world had he left them dust.
What right has a God to make a failure? Why should he change dust into a sentient being, knowing that that being was to be the heir of endless agony?
If the supposed physician had created the patient who refused to take the medicine, and had so created him that he knew he would refuse to take it, the cases might be parallel.
According to the orthodox creed, millions are to be damned who never heard of the medicine or of the "Great Physician."
There is one thing said by the Rev. Mr. Talmage that I hardly think he could have intended. Possibly there has been a misprint. It is the following paragraph:
"Who" (speaking of Jesus) "has such an eye to our need; such a lip to kiss away our sorrow; such a hand to snatch us out of the fire; such a foot to trample our enemies; such a heart to embrace all our necessities?"
What does the reverend gentleman mean by "such a foot to trample our enemies"?
This, to me, is a terrible line. But it is in accordance with the history of the church. In the name of its founder it has "trampled on its enemies," and beneath its cruel feet have perished the noblest of the world.
The Rev. J. Benson Hamilton, of Brooklyn, comes into this discussion with a great deal of heat and considerable fury. He states that "Infidelity is the creed of prosperity, but when sickness or trouble or sorrow comes he" (meaning the infidel) "does not paw nor mock nor cry 'Ha! ha!' He sneaks and cringes like a whipped cur, and trembles and whines and howls."
The spirit of Mr. Hamilton is not altogether admirable. He seems to think that a man establishes the truth of his religion by being brave, or demonstrates its falsity by trembling in the presence of death.
Thousands of people have died for false religions and in honor of false gods. Their heroism did not prove the truth of the religion, but it did prove the sincerity of their convictions.
A great many murderers have been hanged who exhibited on the scaffold the utmost contempt of death; and yet this courage exhibited by dying murderers has never been appealed to in justification of murder.
The reverend gentleman tells again the story of the agonies endured by Thomas Paine when dying; tells us that he then said that he wished his work had been thrown into the fire, and that if the devil ever had any agency in any work he had in the writing of that book (meaning "The Age of Reason,") and that he frequently asked the Lord Jesus to have mercy upon him.
Of course there is not a word of truth in this story. Its falsity has been demonstrated thousands and thousands of times, and yet ministers of the Gospel go right on repeating it just the same.
So this gentleman tells us that Voltaire was accustomed to close his letters with the words, "Crush the wretch!" (meaning Christ). This is not so. He referred to superstition, to religion, not to Christ.
This gentleman also says that "Voltaire was the prey of anguish and dread, alternately supplicating and blaspheming God; that he complained that he was abandoned by God; that when he died his friends fled from the room, declaring the sight too terrible to be endured."
There is not one word of truth in this. Everybody who has read the life of Voltaire knows that he died with the utmost serenity.
Let me tell you how Voltaire died.
He was an old man of eighty-four. He had been surrounded by the comforts of life. He was a man of wealth—of genius. Among the literary men of the world he stood first. God had allowed him to have the appearance of success. His last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery. He stood at the summit of his age. The priests became anxious. They began to fear that God would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of Voltaire.
Toward the last of May, 1788, it was whispered in Paris that Voltaire was dying. Upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey.
"Two days before his death his nephew went to seek the Curé of St. Sulpice and the Abbé Gautier, and brought them into his uncle's sick-chamber, who was informed that they were there.
"'Ah, well,' said Voltaire; 'give them my compliments and my thanks.'
"The abbé spoke some words to Voltaire, exhorting him to patience. The Curé of St. Sulpice then came forward, having announced himself, and asked Voltaire, lifting his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The sick man pushed one of his hands against the curé's coif shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side:
"'Let me die in peace!'
"The curé seemingly considered his person soiled and his coif dishonored by the touch of the philosopher. He made the nurse give him a little brushing and went out with the Abbé Gautier.
"He expired," says Wagniere, "on the 30th of May, 1788, at about a quarter past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity.
"Ten minutes before his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his valet-de-chambre, who was watching by him, pressed it and said: 'Adieu, my dear Morand. I am gone!'
"These were his last words."
From this death, so simple and serene, so natural and peaceful—from these words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch—all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances have been drawn and made. From these materials, and from these alone, have been constructed all the shameless calumnies about the death of this great and wonderful man.
Voltaire was the intellectual autocrat of his time. From his throne at the foot of the Alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Europe. He was the pioneer of his century. He was the assassin of superstition. Through the shadows of faith and fable; through the darkness of myth and miracle; through the midnight of Christianity; through the blackness of bigotry; past cathedral and dungeon; past rack and stake; past altar and throne, he carried, with chivalric hands, the sacred torch of Reason.
Let me also tell you about the death of Thomas Paine. After the publication of his "Rights of Man" and "The Age of Reason", every falsehood that malignity could coin and malice pass, was given to the world. On his return to America, although Thomas Jefferson, another infidel, was President, it was hardly safe for Paine to appear in the public streets.
Under the very flag he had helped to put in heaven, his rights were not respected. Under the Constitution that he had first suggested, his life was insecure. He had helped to give liberty to more than three millions of his fellow-citizens, and they were willing to deny it unto him.
He was deserted, ostracized, shunned, maligned and cursed. But he maintained his integrity. He stood by the convictions of his mind, and never for one moment did he hesitate or waver. He died almost alone.
The moment he died the pious commenced manufacturing horrors for his death-bed. They had his chamber filled with devils rattling chains, and these ancient falsehoods are certified to by the clergy even of the present day.
The truth is that Thomas Paine died as he had lived. Some ministers were impolite enough to visit him against his will. Several of them he ordered from his room. A couple of Catholic priests, in all the meekness of arrogance, called that they might enjoy the agonies of the dying friend of man. Thomas Paine, rising in his bed, the few moments of expiring life fanned into flame by the breath of indignation, had the goodness to curse them both.
His physician, who seems to have been a meddling fool, just as the cold hand of Death was touching the patriot's heart, whispered in the dulled ear of the dying man: "Do you believe, or do you wish to believe, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?"
And the reply was: "I have no wish to believe on that subject."
These were the last remembered words of Thomas Paine. He died as serenely as ever mortal passed away. He died in the full possession of his mind, and on the brink and edge of death proclaimed the doctrines of his life.
Every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty, every lover of the great Republic, should feel under obligation to Thomas Paine for the splendid services rendered by him in the darkest days of the American Revolution. In the midnight of Valley Forge, "The Crisis" was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair.
We should remember that Thomas Paine was the first man to write these words: "The United States of America."
The Rev. Mr. Hamilton seems to take a kind of joy in imagining what infidels will suffer when they come to die, and he writes as though he would like to be present.
For my part I hope that all the sons and daughters of men will die in peace; that they will pass away as easily as twilight fades to night.
Of course when I said that "Christianity did not bring tidings of great joy, but a message of eternal grief," I meant orthodox Christianity; and when I said that "Christianity fills the future with fire and flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, in which most of the children of men were to be imprisoned forever," I was giving what I understood to be the Evangelical belief on that subject.
If the churches have given up the doctrine of eternal punishment, then for one I am delighted, and I shall feel that what little I have done toward that end has not been done in vain.
The Rev. Mr. Hamilton, enjoying my dying agony in imagination, says: "Let the world wait but for a few years at the most, when Death's icy fingers feel for the heartstrings of the boaster, and, as most of his like who have gone before him have done, he will sing another strain."
How shall I characterize the spirit that could prompt the writing of such a sentence?
The reverend gentleman "loves his enemies," and yet he is filled with glee when he thinks of the agonies I shall endure when Death's icy fingers feel for the strings of my heart! Yet I have done him no harm.
He then quotes, as being applicable to me, a passage from the prophet Isaiah, commencing: "The vile person will speak villainy."
Is this passage applicable only to me?
The Rev. Mr. Holloway is not satisfied with the "Christmas Sermon." For his benefit I repeat, in another form, what the "Christmas Sermon" contains:
If orthodox Christianity teaches that this life is a period of probation, that we settle here our eternal destiny, and that all who have heard the Gospel and who have failed to believe it are to be eternally lost, then I say that Christianity did not "bring tidings of great joy," but a Message of Eternal Grief. And if the orthodox churches are still preaching the doctrine of Endless Pain, then I say it would be far better if every church crumbled into dust than that such preaching and such teaching should be continued.
It would be far better yet, however, if the ministers could be converted and their congregations enlightened.
I admit that the orthodox churches preach some things beside hell; but if they do not believe in the eternity of punishment they ought publicly to change their creeds.
I admit, also, that the average minister advises his congregation to be honest and to treat all with kindness, and I admit that many of these ministers fail to follow their own advice when they make what they call "replies" to me.
Of course there are many good things about the church. To the extent that it is charitable, or rather to the extent that it causes charity, it is good. To the extent that it causes men and women to lead moral lives it is good. But to the extent that it fills the future with fear it is bad. To the extent that it convinces any human being that there is any God who not only can, but will, inflict eternal torments on his own children, it is bad.
And such teaching does tend to blight humanity. Such teaching does pollute the imagination of childhood. Such teaching does furrow the cheeks of the best and tenderest with tears..Such teaching does rob old age of all its joy, and covers every cradle with a curse!
The Rev. Mr. Holloway seems to be extremely familiar with God. He says: "God seems to have delayed his advent through all the ages to give unto the world the fullest opportunity to do all that the human mind could suggest for the weal of the race."
According to this gentleman, God just delayed his advent for the purpose of seeing what the world would do, knowing all the time exactly what would be done.
Let us make a suggestion: If the orthodox creed be true, then all people became tainted or corrupted or depraved, or in some way spoiled by what is known as "Original Sin."
According to the Old Testament, these people kept getting worse and worse. It does not seem that Jehovah made any effort to improve them, but he patiently waited for about fifteen hundred years without having established any church, without having given them a Bible, and then he drowned all but eight persons.
Now, those eight persons were also depraved. The taint of Original Sin was also in their blood.
It seems to me that Jehovah made a mistake. He should also have killed the remaining eight, and started new, kept the serpent out of his garden, and furnished the first pair with a Bible and the Presbyterian Confession of Faith.
The Rev. Dr. Tyler takes it for granted that all charity and goodness are the children of Christianity. This is a mistake. All the virtues were in the world long before Christ came. Probably Mr. Tyler will be convinced by the words of Christ himself. He will probably remember the story of the Good Samaritan, and if he does he will see that it is exactly in point. The Good Samaritan was not a Hebrew. He was not one of "the chosen people." He was a poor, "miserable heathen," who knew nothing about the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and who had never heard of the "scheme of salvation." And yet, according to Christ, he was far more charitable than the Levites—the priests of Jehovah, the highest of "the chosen people." Is it not perfectly plain from this story that charity was in the world before Christianity was established?
A great deal has been said about asylums and hospitals, as though the Christians are entitled to great credit on that score. If Dr. Tyler will read what is said in the British Encyclopaedia, under the head of "Mental Diseases," he will find that the Egyptians treated the insane with the utmost kindness, and that they called reason back to its throne by the voice of music; that the temples were resorted to by crowds of the insane; and that "whatever gifts of nature or productions of art were calculated to impress the imagination were there united. Games and recreations were instituted in the temples. Groves and gardens surrounded these holy retreats. Gayly decorated boats sometimes transported patients to breathe the pure breezes of the Nile."
So in ancient Greece it is said that "from the hands of the priest the cure of the disordered mind first passed into the domain of medicine, with the philosophers. Pythagoras is said to have employed music for the cure of mental diseases. The order of the day for his disciples exhibits a profound knowledge of the relations of body and mind. The early morning was divided between gentle exercise, conversation and music. Then came conversation, followed by gymnastic exercise and a temperate diet. Afterward, a bath and supper with a sparing allowance of wine; then reading, music and conversation concluded the day."
So "Asclepiades was celebrated for his treatment of mental disorders. He recommended that bodily restraint should be avoided as much as possible." It is also stated that "the philosophy and arts of Greece spread to Rome, and the first special treatise on insanity is that of Celsus, which distinguishes varieties of insanity and their proper treatment."
"Over the arts and sciences of Greece and Rome the errors and ignorance of the Middle Ages gradually crept, until they enveloped them in a cloud worse than Egyptian darkness. The insane were again consigned to the miracle-working-ordinances of o o priests or else totally neglected. Idiots and imbeciles were permitted to go clotheless and homeless. The frantic and furious were chained in lonesome dungeons and exhibited for money, like wild beasts. The monomaniacs became, according to circumstance, the objects of superstitious horror or reverence. They were regarded as possessed with demons and subjected either to priestly exorcism, or cruelly destroyed as wizards and witches. This cruel treatment of the insane continued with little or no alleviation down to the end of the last century in all the civilized countries of Europe."
Let me quote a description of these Christian asylums.
"Public asylums indeed existed in most of the metropolitan cities of Europe, but the insane were more generally, if at all troublesome, confined in jails, where they were chained in the lowest dungeons or made the butts and menials of the most debased criminals. In public asylums the inmates were confined in cellars, isolated in cages, chained to floors or walls. These poor victims were exhibited to the public like wild beasts. They were often killed by the ignorance and brutality of their keepers."
I call particular attention to the following paragraph: "Such was the state of the insane generally throughout Europe at the commencement of this century. Such it continued to be in England so late as 1815 and in Ireland as 1817, as revealed by the inquiries of parliamentary commissions in those years respectively."
Dr. Tyler is entirely welcome to all the comfort these facts can give.
Not only were the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians far in advance of the Christians in the treatment of the mentally diseased, but even the Mohammedans were in advance of the Christians about 700 years, and in addition to this they treated their lunatics with great kindness.
The temple of Diana of Ephesus was a refuge for insolvent debtors, and the Thesium was a refuge for slaves.
Again, I say that hundreds of years before the establishment of Christianity there were in India not only hospitals and asylums for people, but even for animals. The great mistake of the Christian clergy is that they attribute all goodness to Christianity. They have always been engaged in maligning human nature—in attacking the human heart—in efforts to destroy all natural passions.
Perfect maxims for the conduct of life were uttered and repeated in India and China hundreds and hundreds of years before the Christian era. Every virtue was lauded and every vice denounced. All the good that Christianity has in it came from the human heart. Everything in that system of religion came from this world; and in it you will find not only the goodness of man, but the imperfections of man—not only the love of man, but the malice of man.
Let me tell you why the Christians for so many centuries neglected or abused the insane. They believed the New Testament, and honestly supposed that the insane were filled with devils.
In regard to the contest between Dr. Buckley, who, as I understand it, is a doctor of theology—and I should think such theology stood in need of a doctor—and the Telegram, I have nothing to say. There is only one side to that contest; and so far as the Doctor heretofore criticised what is known as the "Christmas Sermon," I have answered him, leaving but very little to which I care to reply in his last article.
Dr. Buckley, like many others, brings forward names instead of reasons—instead of arguments. Milton, Pascal, Elizabeth Fry, John Howard, and Michael Faraday are not arguments. They are only names; and, instead of giving the names, Dr. Buckley should give the reasons advanced by those whose names he pronounces.
Jonathan Edwards may have been a good man, but certainly his theology was infamous. So Father Mathew was a good man, but it was impossible for him to be good enough to convince Dr. Buckley of the doctrine of the "Real Presence."
Milton was a very good man, and he described God as a kind of brigadier-general, put the angels in uniform and had regular battles; but Milton's goodness can by no possibility establish the truth of his poetical and absurd vagaries.
All the self-denial and goodness in the world do not even tend to prove the existence of the supernatural or of the miraculous. Millions and millions of the most devoted men could not, by their devotion, substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures.
There are, however, some misstatements in Dr. Buckley's article that ought not to be passed over in silence.
The first is to the effect that I was invited to write an article for the North American Review, Judge Jeremiah Black to reply, and that Judge Black was improperly treated.
Now, it is true that I was invited to write an article, and did write one; but I did not know at the time who was to reply. It is also true that Judge Black did reply, and that my article and his reply appeared in the same number of the Review.
Dr. Buckley alleges that the North American Review gave me an opportunity to review the Judge, but denied to Judge Black an opportunity to respond. This is without the slightest foundation in fact. Mr. Metcalf, who at that time was manager of the Review, is still living and will tell the facts. Personally I had nothing to do with it, one way or the other. I did not regard Judge Black's reply as formidable, and was not only willing that he should be heard again, but anxious that he should.
So much for that.
As to the debate, with Dr. Field and Mr. Gladstone, I leave them to say whether they were or were not fairly treated. Dr. Field, by his candor, by his fairness, and by the manly spirit he exhibited won my respect and love.
Most ministers imagine that any man who differs from them is a blasphemer. This word seems to leap unconsciously from their lips. They cannot imagine that another man loves liberty as much and with as sincere devotion as they love God. They cannot imagine that another prizes liberty above all gods, even if gods exist. They cannot imagine that any mind is so that it places Justice above all persons, a mind that cannot conceive even of a God who is not bound to do justice.
If God exists, above him, in eternal calm, is the figure of Justice.
Neither can some ministers understand a man who regards Jehovah and Jupiter as substantially the same, with this exception—that he thinks far more of Jupiter, because Jupiter had at least some human feelings.
I do not understand that a man can be guilty of blasphemy who states his honest thoughts in proper language, his object being, not to torture the feelings of others, but simply to give his thought—to find and establish the truth.
Dr. Buckley makes a charge that he ought to have known to be without foundation. Speaking of myself, he said: "In him the laws to prevent the circulation of obscene publications through the mails have found their most vigorous opponent."
It is hardly necessary for me to say that this is untrue. The facts are that an effort was made to classify obscene literature with what the pious call "blasphemous and immoral works." A petition was forwarded to Congress to amend the law so that the literature of Freethought could not be thrown from the mails, asking that, if no separation could be made, the law should be repealed.
It was said that I had signed this petition, and I certainly should have done so had it been presented to me. The petition was absolutely proper.
A few years ago I found the petition, and discovered that while it bore my name it had never been signed by me. But for the purposes of this answer I am perfectly willing that the signature should be regarded as genuine, as there is nothing in the petition that should not have been granted.
The law as it stood was opposed by the Liberal League—but not a member of that society was in favor of the circulation of obscene literature; but they did think that the privacy of the mails had been violated, and that it was of the utmost importance to maintain the inviolability of the postal service.
I disagreed with these people, and favored the destruction of obscene literature not only, but that it be made a criminal offence to send it through the mails. As a matter of fact I drew up resolutions to that effect that were passed. Afterward they were changed, or some others were passed, and I resigned from the League on that account.
Nothing can be more absurd than that I was, directly or indirectly, or could have been, interested in the circulation of obscene publications through the mails; and I will pay a premium of $1,000 a word for each and every word I ever said or wrote in favor of sending obscene publications through the mails.
I might use much stronger language. I might follow the example of Dr. Buckley himself. But I think I have said enough to satisfy all unprejudiced people that the charge is absurdly false.
Now, as to the eulogy of whiskey. It gives me a certain pleasure to read that even now, and I believe the readers of the Telegram would like to read it once more; so here it is:
"I send you some of the most wonderful whiskey that ever drove the skeleton from a feast or painted landscapes in the brain of man. It is the mingled souls of wheat and corn. In it you will find the sunshine and the shadow that chased each other over the billowy fields; the breath of June; the carol of the lark; the dews of night; the wealth of summer and autumn's rich content, all golden with imprisoned light. Drink it and you will hear the voices of men and maidens singing the 'Harvest Home,' mingled with the laughter of children. Drink it and you will feel within your blood the star-lit dawns, the dreamy, tawny dusks of many perfect days. For forty years this liquid joy has been within the happy staves of oak, longing to touch the lips of men."
I re-quote this for the reason that Dr. Buckley, who is not very accurate, made some mistakes in his version.
Now, in order to show the depth of degradation to which I have sunk in this direction, I will confess that I also wrote a eulogy of tobacco, and here it is:
"Nearly four centuries ago Columbus, the adventurous, in the blessed island of Cuba, saw happy people with rolled leaves between their lips. Above their heads were little clouds of smoke. Their faces were serene, and in their eyes was the autumnal heaven of content. These people were kind, innocent, gentle and loving.
"The climate of Cuba is the friendship of the earth and air, and of this climate the sacred leaves were born—the leaves that breed in the mind of him who uses them the cloudless, happy days in which they grew.
"These leaves make friends, and celebrate with gentle rites the vows of peace. They have given consolation to the world. They are the companions of the lonely—the friends of the imprisoned, of the exile, of workers in mines, of fellers of forests, of sailors on the desolate seas. They are the givers of strength and calm to the vexed and wearied minds of those who build with thought and dream the temples of the soul.
"They tell of hope and rest. They smooth the wrinkled brows of pain—drive fears and strange misshapen dreads from out the mind and fill the heart with rest and peace. Within their magic warp and woof some potent gracious spell imprisoned lies, that, when released by fire, doth softly steal within the fortress of the brain and bind in sleep the captured sentinels of care and grief.
"These leaves are the friends of the fireside, and their smoke, like incense, rises from myriads of happy homes. Cuba is the smile of the sea."
There are some people so constituted that there is no room in the heaven of their minds for the butterflies and moths of fancy to spread their wings. Everything is taken in solemn and stupid earnest. Such men would hold Shakespeare responsible for what Falstaff said about "sack," and for Mrs. Quickly's notions of propriety.
There is an old Greek saying which is applicable here: "In the presence of human stupidity, even the gods stand helpless."
John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, lacked all sense of humor. He preached a sermon on "The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes." He insisted that they were caused by the wickedness of man, and that the only way to cure them was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The man who does not carry the torch of Humor is always in danger of falling into the pit of Absurdity.
The Rev. Charles Deems, pastor of the Church of the Strangers, contributes his part to the discussion.
He took a text from John, as follows: "He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."
According to the orthodox creed of the Rev. Dr. Deems all have committed sin, and consequently all are of the devil. The Doctor is not a metaphysician. He does not care to play at sleight of hand with words. He stands on bed-rock, and he asserts that the devil is no Persian myth, but a personality, who works unhindered by the limitations of a physical body, and gets human personalities to aid him in his works.
According to the text, it seems that the devil was a sinner from the beginning. I suppose that must mean from his beginning, or from the beginning of things. According to Dr. Deems' creed, his God is the Creator of all things, and consequently must have been the Creator of the devil. According to the Scriptures the devil is the father of lies, and Dr. Deems' God is the father of the devil—that is to say, the grandfather of lies. This strikes me as almost "blasphemous."
The Doctor also tells us "that Jesus believed as much in the personality of the devil as in that of Herod or Pilate or John or Peter."
That I admit. There is not the slightest doubt, if the New Testament be true, that Christ believed in a personal devil—a devil with whom he had conversations; a devil who took him to the pinnacle of the Temple and endeavored to induce him to leap to the earth below.
Of course he believed in a personal devil. Not only so; he believed in thousands of personal devils. He cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene. He cast a legion of devils out of the man in the tombs, or, rather, made a bargain with these last-mentioned devils that they might go into a drove or herd of swine, if they would leave the man.
I not only admit that Christ believed in devils, but he believed that some devils were deaf and dumb, and so declared.
Dr. Deems is right, and I hope he will defend against all comers the integrity of the New Testament.
The Doctor, however, not satisfied exactly with what he finds in the New Testament, draws a little on his own imagination. He says:
"The devil is an organizing, imperial intellect, vindictive, sharp, shrewd, persevering, the aim of whose works is to overthrow the authority of God's law."
How does the Doctor know that the devil has an organizing, imperial intellect? How does he know that he is vindictive and sharp and shrewd and persevering?
If the devil has an "imperial intellect," why does he attempt the impossible?
Robert Burns shocked Scotland by saying of the devil, or, rather, to the devil, that he was sorry for him, and hoped he would take a thought and mend.
Dr. Deems has gone far in advance of Burns. For a clergyman he seems to be exceedingly polite. Speaking of the "Arch Enemy of God"—of that "organizing, imperial intellect who is seeking to undermine the church"—the Doctor says:
"The devil may be conceded to be sincere."
It has been said:
"An honest God is the noblest work of man," and it may now be added: A sincere devil is the noblest work of Dr. Deems.
But, with all the devil's smartness, sharpness, and shrewdness, the Doctor says that he "cannot write a book; that he cannot deliver lectures" (like myself, I suppose), "edit a newspaper" (like the editor of the Telegram), "or make after-dinner speeches; but he can get his servants to do these things for him."
There is one thing in the Doctor's address that I feel like correcting (I quote from the Telegram's report):
"Dr. Deems showed at length how the Son of God, the Christ of the Bible—not the Christ of the lecture platform caricatures—is operating to overcome all these works."
I take it for granted that he refers to what he supposes I have said about Christ, and, for fear that he may not have read it, I give it here:
"And let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man, is holy ground. And let me say, once for all, that to that great and serene man I gladly pay, the tribute of my admiration and my tears. He was a reformer in his day. He was an infidel in his time. He was regarded as a blasphemer, and his life was destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample freedom and manhood out of the human mind. Had I lived at that time I would have been his friend, and should he come again he will not find a better friend than I will be. That is for the man. For the theological creation I have a different feeling."
I have not answered each one who has attacked by name. Neither have I mentioned those who have agreed with me. But I do take this occasion to thank all, irrespective of their creeds, who have manfully advocated the right of free speech, and who have upheld the Telegram in the course it has taken.
I thank all who have said a kind word for me, and I also feel quite grateful to those who have failed to say unkind words. Epithets are not arguments. To abuse is not to convince. Anger is stupid and malice illogical.
And, after all that has appeared by way of reply, I still insist that orthodox Christianity did not come with "tidings of great joy," but with a message of eternal grief.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
New York, February 5, 1892.
*A reply to the Western Watchman, published in the St. Louis
Globe Democrat, Sept. 1, 1892.
Question. Have you read an article in the Western Watchman, entitled "Suicide of Judge Normile"? If so, what is your opinion of it?
Answer. I have read the article, and I think the spirit in which it is written is in exact accord with the creed, with the belief, that prompted it.
In this article the writer speaks not only of Judge Normile, but of Henry D'Arcy, and begins by saying that a Catholic community had been shocked, but that as a matter of fact the Catholics had no right "to feel special concern in the life or death of either," for the reason, "that both had ceased to be Catholics, and had lived as infidels and scoffers."
According to the Catholic creed all infidels and scoffers are on the direct road to eternal pain; and yet, if the Watchman is to be believed, Catholics have no right to have special concern for the fate of such people, even after their death.
The church has always proclaimed that it was seeking the lost—that it was trying in every way to convert the infidels and save the scoffers—that it cared less for the ninety-nine sheep safe in the fold than for the one that had strayed. We have been told that God so loved infidels and scoffers, that he came to this poor world and gave his life that they might be saved. But now we are told by the Western Watchman that the church, said to have been founded by Christ, has no right to feel any special concern about the fate of infidels and scoffers.
Possibly the Watchman only refers to the infidels and scoffers who were once Catholics.
If the New Testament is true, St. Peter was at one time a Christian; that is to say, a good Catholic, and yet he fell from grace and not only denied his Master, but went to the extent of swearing that he did not know him; that he never had made his acquaintance. And yet, this same Peter was taken back and became the rock on which the Catholic Church is supposed to rest.
Are the Catholics of St. Louis following the example of Christ, when they publicly declare that they care nothing for the fate of one who left the church and who died in his sins?
The Watchman, in order to show that it was simply doing its duty, and was not actuated by hatred or malice, assures us as follows: "A warm personal friendship existed between D'Arcy and Normile and the managers of this paper." What would the Watchman have said if these men had been the personal enemies of the managers of that paper? Two warm personal friends, once Catholics, had gone to hell; but the managers of the Watchman, "warm personal friends" of the dead, had no right to feel any special concern about these friends in the flames of perdition. One would think that pity had changed to piety.
Another wonderful statement is that "both of these men determined to go to hell, if there was a hell, and to forego the joys of heaven, if there was a heaven."
Admitting that heaven and hell exist, that heaven is a good place, and that hell, to say the least, is, and eternally will be, unpleasant, why should any sane man unalterably determine to go to hell? It is hard to think of any reason, unless he was afraid of meeting those Catholics in heaven who had been his "warm personal friends" in this world. The truth is that no one wishes to be unhappy in this or any other country. The truth is that Henry D'Arcy and Judge Normile both became convinced that the Catholic Church is of human origin, that its creed is not true, that it is the enemy of progress, and the foe of freedom. It may be that they were in part led to these conclusions by the conduct of their "warm personal friends."
It is claimed that these men, Henry D'Arcy and Judge Normile "studied" to convince themselves "that there was no God, that they went back to Paganism and lived among the ancients," and "that they soon revelled in the grossness of Paganism." If they went back to Paganism, they certainly found plenty of gods. The Pagans filled heaven and earth with deities. The Catholics have only three, while the Pagans had hundreds. And yet there were some very good Pagans. By associating with Socrates and Plato one would not necessarily become a groveling wretch. Zeno was not altogether abominable. He would compare favorably, at least, with the average pope. Aristotle was not entirely despicable, although wrong, it may be, in many things. Epicurus was temperate, frugal and serene. He perceived the beauty of use, and celebrated the marriage of virtue and joy. He did not teach his disciples to revel in grossness, although his maligners have made this charge. Cicero was a Pagan, and yet he uttered some very sublime and generous sentiments. Among other things, he said this: "When we say that we should love Romans, but not foreigners, we destroy the bond of universal brotherhood and drive from our hearts charity and justice."
Suppose a Pagan had written about "two warm personal friends" of his, who had joined the Catholic Church, and suppose he had said this: "Although our two warm personal friends have both died by their own hands, and although both have gone to the lowest hell, and are now suffering inconceivable agonies, we have no right to feel any special concern about them or about their sufferings; and, to speak frankly, we care nothing for their agonies, nothing for their tears, and we mention them only to keep other Pagans from joining that blasphemous and ignorant church. Both of our friends were raised as Pagans, both were educated in our holy religion, and both had read the works of our greatest and wisest authors, and yet they fell into apostasy, and studied day and night, in season and out of season, to convince themselves that a young carpenter of Palestine was in fact, Jupiter, whom we call Stator, the creator, the sustainer and governor of all."
It is probable that the editor of the Watchman was perfectly conscientious in his attack on the dead. Nothing but a sense of religious duty could induce any man to attack the character of a "warm personal friend," and to say that although the friend was in hell, he felt no special concern as to his fate.
The Watchman seems to think that it is hardly probable or possible that a sane Catholic should become an infidel. People of every religion feel substantially in this way. It is probable that the Mohammedan is of the opinion that no sane believer in the religion of Islam could possibly become a Catholic. Probably there are no sane Mohammedans. I do not know.
Now, it seems to me, that when a sane Catholic reads the history of his church, of the Inquisition, of centuries of flame and sword, of philosophers and thinkers tortured, flayed and burned by the "Bride of God," and of all the cruelties of Christian years, he may reasonably come to the conclusion that the Church of Rome is not the best possible church in this, the best possible of all worlds.
It would hardly impeach his sanity if, after reading the history of superstition, he should denounce the Hierarchy, from priest to pope. The truth is, the real opinions of all men are perfectly honest no matter whether they are for or against the Catholic creed. All intelligent people are intellectually hospitable. Every man who knows something of the operations of his own mind is absolutely certain that his wish has not, to his knowledge, influenced his judgment. He may admit that his wish has influenced his speech, but he must certainly know that it has not affected his judgment.
In other words, a man cannot cheat himself in a game of solitaire and really believe that he has won the game. No matter what the appearance of the cards may be, he knows whether the game was lost or won. So, men may say that their judgment is a certain way, and they may so affirm in accordance with their wish, but neither the wish, nor the declaration can affect the real judgment. So, a man must know whether he believes a certain creed or not, or, at least, what the real state of his mind is. When a man tells me that he believes in the supernatural, in the miraculous, and in the inspiration of the Scriptures, I take it for granted that he is telling the truth, although it seems impossible to me that the man could reach that conclusion. When another tells me that he does not know whether there is a Supreme Being or not, but that he does not believe in the supernatural, and is perfectly satisfied that the Scriptures are for the most part false and barbarous, I implicitly believe every word he says.
I admit cheerfully that there are many millions of men and women who believe what to me seems impossible and infinitely absurd; and, undoubtedly, what I believe seems to them equally impossible.
Let us give to others the liberty which we claim for ourselves.
The Watchman seems to think that unbelief, especially when coupled with what they call "the sins of the flesh," is the lowest possible depth, and tells us that "robbers may be devout," "murderers penitent," and "drunkards reverential."
In some of these statements the Watchman is probably correct. There have been "devout robbers." There have been gentlemen of the highway, agents of the road, who carried sacred images, who bowed, at holy shrines for the purpose of securing success. For many centuries the devout Catholics robbed the Jews. The devout Ferdinand and Isabella were great robbers. A great many popes have indulged in this theological pastime, not to speak of the rank and file. Yes, the Watchman is right. There is nothing in robbery that necessarily interferes with devotion.
There have been penitent murderers, and most murderers, unless impelled by a religious sense of duty to God, have been penitent. David, with dying breath, advised his son to murder the old friends of his father. He certainly was not penitent. Undoubtedly Torquemada murdered without remorse, and Calvin burned his "warm personal friend" to gain the applause of God. Philip the Second was a murderer, not penitent, because he deemed it his duty. The same may be said of the Duke of Alva, and of thousands of others.
Robert Burns was not, according to his own account, strictly virtuous, and yet I like him better than I do those who planned and carried into bloody execution the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Undoubtedly murderers have been penitent. A man in California cut the throat of a woman, although she begged for mercy, saying at the same time that she was not prepared to die. He cared nothing for her prayers. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. He made a motion for a new trial. This was denied. He appealed to the governor, but the executive refused to interfere. Then he became penitent and experienced religion. On the scaffold he remarked that he was going to heaven; that his only regret was that he would not meet the woman he had murdered, as she was not a Christian when she died. Undoubtedly murderers can be penitent.
An old Spaniard was dying. He sent for a priest to administer the last sacraments of the church. The priest told him that he must forgive all his enemies. "I have no enemies," said the dying man, "I killed the last one three weeks ago." Undoubtedly murderers can be penitent.
So, I admit that drunkards have been pious and reverential, and I might add, honest and generous.
Some good Catholics and some good Protestants have enjoyed a hospitable glass, and there have been priests who used the blood of the grape for other than a sacramental purpose. Even Luther, a good Catholic in his day, a reformer, a Doctor of Divinity, gave to the world this couplet:
"Who loves not woman, wine and song,
Will live a fool his whole life long."
The Watchman, in effect, says that a devout robber is better than an infidel; that a penitent murderer is superior to a freethinker, in the sight of God.
Another curious thing in this article is that after sending both men to hell, the Watchman says: "As to their moral habits we know nothing."
It may then be taken for granted, if these "warm personal friends" knew nothing against the dead, that their lives were, at least, what the church calls moral. We know, if we know anything, that there is no necessary connection between what is called religion and morality. Certainly there were millions of moral people, those who loved mercy and dealt honestly, before the Catholic Church existed. The virtues were well known, and practiced, before a triple crown surrounded the cunning brain of an Italian Vicar of God, and before the flames of the Auto da fé delighted the hearts of a Christian mob. Thousands of people died for the right, before the wrong organized the infallible church.
But why should any man deem it his duty or feel it a pleasure to say harsh and cruel things of the dead? Why pierce the brow of death with the thorns of hatred? Suppose the editor of the Watchman had died, and Judge Normile had been the survivor, would the infidel and scoffer have attacked the unreplying dead?
Henry D'Arcy I did not know; but Judge Normile was my friend and I was his. Although we met but a few times, he excited my admiration and respect. He impressed me as being an exceedingly intelligent man, well informed on many subjects, of varied reading, possessed of a clear and logical mind, a poetic temperament, enjoying the beautiful things in literature and art, and the noble things in life. He gave his opinions freely, but without the least arrogance, and seemed perfectly willing that others should enjoy the privilege of differing with him. He was, so far as I could perceive, a gentleman, tender of the feelings of others, free and manly in his bearing, "of most excellent fancy," and a most charming and agreeable companion.
According, however, to the Watchman, such a man is far below a "devout robber" or a "penitent murderer." Is it possible that an assassin like Ravillac is far better than a philosopher like Voltaire; and that all the Catholic robbers and murderers who retain their faith, give greater delight to God than the Humboldts, Haeckels and Darwins who have filled the world with intellectual light?
Possibly the Catholic Church is mistaken. Possibly the Watchman is in error, and possibly there may be for the erring, even in another world, some asylum besides hell.
Judge Normile died by his own hand. Certainly he was not afraid of the future. He was not appalled by death. He died by his own hand. Can anything be more pitiful—more terrible? How can a man in the flowing tide and noon of life destroy himself? What storms there must have been within the brain; what tempests must have raved and wrecked; what lightnings blinded and revealed; what hurrying clouds obscured and hid the stars; what monstrous shapes emerged from gloom; what darkness fell upon the day; what visions filled the night; how the light failed; how paths were lost; how highways disappeared; how chasms yawned; until one thought—the thought of death—swift, compassionate and endless—became the insane monarch of the mind.
Standing by the prostrate form of one who thus found death, it is far better to pity than to revile—to kiss the clay than curse the man.
The editor of the Watchman has done himself injustice. He has not injured the dead, but the living.
I am an infidel—an unbeliever—and yet I hope that all the children of men may find peace and joy. No matter how they leave this world, from altar or from scaffold, crowned with virtue or stained with crime, I hope that good may come to all.
R. G. Ingersoll.
* These letters were published in the New York World, 1894.
Col. Ingersoll's First Letter.
I DO not know whether self-killing is on the increase or not. If it is, then there must be, on the average, more trouble, more sorrow, more failure, and, consequently, more people are driven to despair. In civilized life there is a great struggle, great competition, and many fail. To fail in a great city is like being wrecked at sea. In the country a man has friends; he can get a little credit, a little help, but in the city it is different. The man is lost in the multitude. In the roar of the streets, his cry is not heard. Death becomes his only friend. Death promises release from want, from hunger and pain, and so the poor wretch lays down his burden, dashes it from his shoulders and falls asleep.
To me all this seems very natural. The wonder is that so many endure and suffer to the natural end, that so many nurse the spark of life in huts and prisons, keep it and guard it through years of misery and want; support it by beggary, by eating the crust found in the gutter, and to whom it only gives days of weariness and nights of fear and dread. Why should the man, sitting amid the wreck of all he had, the loved ones dead, friends lost, seek to lengthen, to preserve his life? What can the future have for him?
Under many circumstances a man has the right to kill himself. When life is of no value to him, when he can be of no real assistance to others, why should a man continue? When he is of no benefit, when he is a burden to those he loves, why should he remain? The old idea was that God made us and placed us here for a purpose and that it was our duty to remain until he called us. The world is outgrowing this absurdity. What pleasure can it give God to see a man devoured by a cancer; to see the quivering flesh slowly eaten; to see the nerves throbbing with pain? Is this a festival for God? Why should the poor wretch stay and suffer? A little morphine would give him sleep—the agony would be forgotten and he would pass unconsciously from happy dreams to painless death.
If God determines all births and deaths, of what use is medicine and why should doctors defy with pills and powders, the decrees of God? No one, except a few insane, act now according to this childish superstition. Why should a man, surrounded by flames, in the midst of a burning building, from which there is no escape, hesitate to put a bullet through his brain or a dagger in his heart? Would it give God pleasure to see him burn? When did the man lose the right of self-defence?
So, when a man has committed some awful crime, why should he stay and ruin his family and friends? Why should he add to the injury? Why should he live, filling his days and nights, and the days and nights of others, with grief and pain, with agony and tears?
Why should a man sentenced to imprisonment for life hesitate to still his heart? The grave is better than the cell. Sleep is sweeter than the ache of toil. The dead have no masters.
So the poor girl, betrayed and deserted, the door of home closed against her, the faces of friends averted, no hand that will help, no eye that will soften with pity, the future an abyss filled with monstrous shapes of dread and fear, her mind racked by fragments of thoughts like clouds broken by storm, pursued, surrounded by the serpents of remorse, flying from horrors too great to bear, rushes with joy through the welcome door of death.
Undoubtedly there are many cases of perfectly justifiable suicide—cases in which not to end life would be a mistake, sometimes almost a crime.
As to the necessity of death, each must decide for himself. And if a man honestly decides that death is best—best for him and others—and acts upon the decision, why should he be blamed?
Certainly the man who kills himself is not a physical coward. He may have lacked moral courage, but not physical. It may be said that some men fight duels because they are afraid to decline. They are between two fires—the chance of death and the certainty of dishonor, and they take the chance of death. So the Christian martyrs were, according to their belief, between two fires—the flames of the fagot that could burn but for a few moments, and the fires of God, that were eternal. And they chose the flames of the fagot.
Men who fear death to that degree that they will bear all the pains and pangs that nerves can feel, rather than die, cannot afford to call the suicide a coward. It does not seem to me that Brutus was a coward or that Seneca was. Surely Antony had nothing left to live for. Cato was not a craven. He acted on his judgment. So with hundreds of others who felt that they had reached the end—-that the journey was done, the voyage was over, and, so feeling, stopped. It seems certain that the man who commits suicide, who "does the thing that ends all other deeds, that shackles accident and bolts up change" is not lacking in physical courage.
If men had the courage, they would not linger in prisons, in almshouses, in hospitals; they would not bear the pangs of incurable disease, the stains of dishonor; they would not live in filth and want, in poverty and hunger, neither would they wear the chain of slavery. All this can be accounted for only by the fear of death or "of something after."
Seneca, knowing that Nero intended to take his life, had no fear. He knew that he could defeat the Emperor. He knew that "at the bottom of every river, in the coil of every rope, on the point of every dagger, Liberty sat and smiled." He knew that it was his own fault if he allowed himself to be tortured to death by his enemy. He said: "There is this blessing, that while life has but one entrance, it has exits innumerable, and as I choose the house in which I live, the ship in which I will sail, so will I choose the time and manner of my death."
To me this is not cowardly, but manly and noble. Under the Roman law persons found guilty of certain offences were not only destroyed, but their blood was polluted and their children became outcasts. If, however, they died before conviction their children were saved. Many committed suicide to save their babes. Certainly they were not cowards. Although guilty of great crimes they had enough of honor, of manhood, left to save their innocent children. This was not cowardice.
Without doubt many suicides are caused by insanity. Men lose their property. The fear of the future overpowers them. Things lose proportion, they lose poise and balance, and in a flash, a gleam of frenzy, kill themselves. The disappointed in love, broken in heart—the light fading from their lives—seek the refuge of death.
Those who take their lives in painful, barbarous ways—who mangle their throats with broken glass, dash themselves from towers and roofs, take poisons that torture like the rack—such persons must be insane. But those who take the facts into account, who weigh the arguments for and against, and who decide that death is best—the only good—and then resort to reasonable means, may be, so far as I can see, in full possession of their minds.
Life is not the same to all—to some a blessing, to some a curse, to some not much in any way. Some leave it with unspeakable regret, some with the keenest joy and some with indifference.
Religion, or the decadence of religion, has a bearing upon the number of suicides. The fear of God, of judgment, of eternal pain will stay the hand, and people so believing will suffer here until relieved by natural death. A belief in eternal agony beyond the grave will cause such believers to suffer the pangs of this life. When there is no fear of the future, when death is believed to be a dreamless sleep, men have less hesitation about ending their lives. On the other hand, orthodox religion has driven millions to insanity. It has caused parents to murder their children and many thousands to destroy themselves and others.
It seems probable that all real, genuine orthodox believers who kill themselves must be insane, and to such a degree that their belief is forgotten. God and hell are out of their minds.
I am satisfied that many who commit suicide are insane, many are in the twilight or dusk of insanity, and many are perfectly sane.
The law we have in this State making it a crime to attempt suicide is cruel and absurd and calculated to increase the number of successful suicides. When a man has suffered so much, when he has been so persecuted and pursued by disaster that he seeks the rest and sleep of death, why should the State add to the sufferings of that man? A man seeking death, knowing that he will be punished if he fails, will take extra pains and precautions to make death certain.
This law was born of superstition, passed by thoughtlessness and enforced by ignorance and cruelty.
When the house of life becomes a prison, when the horizon has shrunk and narrowed to a cell, and when the convict longs for the liberty of death, why should the effort to escape be regarded as a crime?
Of course, I regard life from a natural point of view. I do not take gods, heavens or hells into account. My horizon is the known, and my estimate of life is based upon what I know of life here in this world. People should not suffer for the sake of supernatural beings or for other worlds or the hopes and fears of some future state. Our joys, our sufferings and our duties are here.
The law of New York about the attempt to commit suicide and the law as to divorce are about equal. Both are idiotic. Law cannot prevent suicide. Those who have lost all fear of death, care nothing for law and its penalties. Death is liberty, absolute and eternal.
We should remember that nothing happens but the natural. Back of every suicide and every attempt to commit suicide is the natural and efficient cause. Nothing happens by chance. In this world the facts touch each other. There is no space between—no room for chance. Given a certain heart and brain, certain conditions, and suicide is the necessary result. If we wish to prevent suicide we must change conditions. We must by education, by invention, by art, by civilization, add to the value of the average life. We must cultivate the brain and heart—do away with false pride and false modesty. We must become generous enough to help our fellows without degrading them. We must make industry—useful work of all kinds—honorable. We must mingle a little affection with our charity—a little fellowship. We should allow those who have sinned to really reform. We should not think only of what the wicked have done, but we should think of what we have wanted to do. People do not hate the sick. Why should they despise the mentally weak—the diseased in brain?
Our actions are the fruit, the result, of circumstances—of conditions—and we do as we must.
This great truth should fill the heart with pity for the failures of our race.
Sometimes I have wondered that Christians denounced the suicide; that in olden times they buried him where the roads crossed, drove a stake through his body, and then took his property from his children and gave it to the State.
If Christians would only think, they would see that orthodox religion rests upon suicide—that man was redeemed by suicide, and that without suicide the whole world would have been lost.
If Christ were God, then he had the power to protect himself from the Jews without hurting them. But instead of using his power he allowed them to take his life.
If a strong man should allow a few little children to hack him to death with knives when he could easily have brushed them aside, would we not say that he committed suicide?
There is no escape. If Christ were, in fact, God, and allowed the Jews to kill him, then he consented to his own death—refused, though perfectly able, to defend and protect himself, and was, in fact, a suicide.
We cannot reform the world by law or by superstition. As long as there shall be pain and failure, want and sorrow, agony and crime, men and women will untie life's knot and seek the peace of death.
To the hopelessly imprisoned—to the dishonored and despised—to those who have failed, who have no future, no hope—to the abandoned, the brokenhearted, to those who are only remnants and fragments of men and women—how consoling, how enchanting is the thought of death!
And even to the most fortunate, death at last is a welcome deliverer. Death is as natural and as merciful as life. When we have journeyed long—when we are weary—when we wish for the twilight, for the dusk, for the cool kisses of the night—when the senses are dull—when the pulse is faint and low—when the mists gather on the mirror of memory—when the past is almost forgotten, the present hardly perceived—when the future has but empty hands—death is as welcome as a strain of music.
After all, death is not so terrible as joyless life. Next to eternal happiness is to sleep in the soft clasp of the cool earth, disturbed by no dream, by no thought, by no pain, by no fear, unconscious of all and forever.
The wonder is that so many live, that in spite of rags and want, in spite of tenement and gutter, of filth and pain, they, limp and stagger and crawl beneath their burdens to the natural end. The wonder is that so few of the miserable are brave enough to die—that so many are terrified by the "something after death"—by the spectres and phantoms of superstition.
Most people are in love with life. How they cling to it in the arctic snows—how they struggle in the waves and currents of the sea—how they linger in famine—how they fight disaster and despair! On the crumbling edge of death they keep the flag flying and go down at last full of hope and courage.
But many have not such natures. They cannot bear defeat. They are disheartened by disaster. They lie down on the field of conflict and give the earth their blood.
They are our unfortunate brothers and sisters. We should not curse or blame—we should pity. On their pallid faces our tears should fall.
One of the best men I ever knew, with an affectionate wife, a charming and loving daughter, committed suicide. He was a man of generous impulses. His heart was loving and tender. He was conscientious, and so sensitive that he blamed himself for having done what at the time he thought was wise and best. He was the victim of his virtues. Let us be merciful in our judgments.
All we can say is that the good and the bad, the loving and the malignant, the conscientious and the vicious, the educated and the ignorant, actuated by many motives, urged and pushed by circumstances and conditions—sometimes in the calm of judgment, sometimes in passion's storm and stress, sometimes in whirl and tempest of insanity—raise their hands against themselves and desperately put out the light of life.
Those who attempt suicide should not be punished. If they are insane they should if possible be restored to reason; if sane, they should be reasoned with, calmed and assisted.
R. G. Ingersoll.
COL. INGERSOLL'S REPLY TO HIS CRITICS.
IN the article written by me about suicide the ground was taken that "under many circumstances a man has the right to kill himself."
This has been attacked with great fury by clergymen, editors and the writers of letters. These people contend that the right of self-destruction does not and cannot exist. They insist that life is the gift of God, and that he only has the right to end the days of men; that it is our duty to bear the sorrows that he sends with grateful patience. Some have denounced suicide as the worst of crimes—worse than the murder of another.
The first question, then, is:
Has a man under any circumstances the right to kill himself?
A man is being slowly devoured by a cancer—his agony is intense—his suffering all that nerves can feel. His life is slowly being taken. Is this the work of the good God? Did the compassionate God create the cancer so that it might feed on the quiverering flesh of this victim?
This man, suffering agonies beyond the imagination to conceive, is of no use to himself. His life is but a succession of pangs. He is of no use to his wife, his children, his friends or society. Day after day he is rendered unconscious by drugs that numb the nerves and put the brain to sleep.
Has he the right to render himself unconscious? Is it proper for him to take refuge in sleep?
If there be a good God I cannot believe that he takes pleasure in the sufferings of men—that he gloats over the agonies of his children. If there be a good God, he will, to the extent of his power, lessen the evils of life.
So I insist that the man being eaten by the cancer—a burden to himself and others, useless in every way—has the right to end his pain and pass through happy sleep to dreamless rest.
But those who have answered me would say to this man: "It is your duty to be devoured. The good God wishes you to suffer. Your life is the gift of God. You hold it in trust and you have no right to end it. The cancer is the creation of God and it is your duty to furnish it with food."
Take another case: A man is on a burning ship, the crew and the rest of the passengers have escaped—gone in the lifeboats—and he is left alone. In the wide horizon there is no sail, no sign of help. He cannot swim. If he leaps into the sea he drowns, if he remains on the ship he burns. In any event he can live but a few moments.
Those who have answered me, those who insist that under no circumstances a man has the right to take his life, would say to this man on the deck, "Remain where you are. It is the desire of your loving, heavenly Father that you be clothed in flame—that you slowly roast—that your eyes be scorched to blindness and that you die insane with pain. Your life is not your own, only the agony is yours."
I would say to this man: Do as you wish. If you prefer drowning to burning, leap into the sea. Between inevitable evils you have the right of choice. You can help no one, not even God, by allowing yourself to be burned, and you can injure no one, not even God, by choosing the easier death.
Let us suppose another case:
A man has been captured by savages in Central Africa. He is about to be tortured to death. His captors are going to thrust splinters of pine into his flesh and then set them on fire. He watches them as they make the preparations. He knows what they are about to do and what he is about to suffer. There is no hope of rescue, of help. He has a vial of poison. He knows that he can take it and in one moment pass beyond their power, leaving to them only the dead body.
Is this man under obligation to keep his life because God gave it, until the savages by torture take it? Are the savages the agents of the good God? Are they the servants of the Infinite? Is it the duty of this man to allow them to wrap his body in a garment of flame? Has he no right to defend himself? Is it the will of God that he die by torture? What would any man of ordinary intelligence do in a case like this? Is there room for discussion?
If the man took the poison, shortened his life a few moments, escaped the tortures of the savages, is it possible that he would in another world be tortured forever by an infinite savage?
Suppose another case: In the good old days, when the Inquisition flourished, when men loved their enemies and murdered their friends, many frightful and ingenious ways were devised to touch the nerves of pain.
Those who loved God, who had been "born twice," would take a fellow-man who had been convicted of "heresy," lay him upon the floor of a dungeon, secure his arms and legs with chains, fasten him to the earth so that he could not move, put an iron vessel, the opening downward, on his stomach, place in the vessel several rats, then tie it securely to his body. Then these worshipers of God would wait until the rats, seeking food and liberty, would gnaw through the body of the victim.
Now, if a man about to be subjected to this torture, had within his hand a dagger, would it excite the wrath of the "good God," if with one quick stroke he found the protection of death?
To this question there can be but one answer.
In the cases I have supposed it seems to me that each person would have the right to destroy himself. It does not seem possible that the man was under obligation to be devoured by a cancer; to remain upon the ship and perish in flame; to throw away the poison and be tortured to death by savages; to drop the dagger and endure the "mercies" of the church.
If, in the cases I have supposed, men would have the right to take their lives, then I was right when I said that "under many circumstances a man has a right to kill himself."
Second.—I denied that persons who killed themselves were physical cowards. They may lack moral courage; they may exaggerate their misfortunes, lose the sense of proportion, but the man who plunges the dagger in his heart, who sends the bullet through his brain, who leaps from some roof and dashes himself against the stones beneath, is not and cannot be a physical coward.
The basis of cowardice is the fear of injury or the fear of death, and when that fear is not only gone, but in its place is the desire to die, no matter by what means, it is impossible that cowardice should exist. The suicide wants the very thing that a coward fears. He seeks the very thing that cowardice endeavors to escape.
So, the man, forced to a choice of evils, choosing the less is not a coward, but a reasonable man.
It must be admitted that the suicide is honest with himself. He is to bear the injury; if it be one. Certainly there is no hypocrisy, and just as certainly there is no physical cowardice.
Is the man who takes morphine rather than be eaten to death by a cancer a coward?
Is the man who leaps into the sea rather than be burned a coward? Is the man that takes poison rather than be tortured to death by savages or "Christians" a coward?
Third.—I also took the position that some suicides were sane; that they acted on their best judgment, and that they were in full possession of their minds. Now, if under some circumstances, a man has the right to take his life, and, if, under such circumstances, he does take his life, then it cannot be said that he was insane.
Most of the persons who have tried to answer me have taken the ground that suicide is not only a crime, but some of them have said that it is the greatest of crimes. Now, if it be a crime, then the suicide must have been sane. So all persons who denounce the suicide as a criminal admit that he was sane. Under the law, an insane person is incapable of committing a crime. All the clergymen who have answered me, and who have passionately asserted that suicide is a crime, have by that assertion admitted that those who killed themselves were sane.
They agree with me, and not only admit, but assert that "some who have committed suicide were sane and in the full possession of their minds."
It seems to me that these three propositions have been demonstrated to be true: First, that under some circumstances a man has the right to take his life; second, that the man who commits suicide is not a physical coward, and, third, that some who have committed suicide were at the time sane and in full possession of their minds.
Fourth.—I insisted, and still insist, that suicide was and is the foundation of the Christian religion.
I still insist that if Christ were God he had the power to protect himself without injuring his assailants—that having that power it was his duty to use it, and that failing to use it he consented to his own death and was guilty of suicide.
To this the clergy answer that it was self-sacrifice for the redemption of man, that he made an atonement for the sins of believers. These ideas about redemption and atonement are born of a belief in the "fall of man," on account of the sins of our first "parents," and of the declaration that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." The foundation has crumbled. No intelligent person now believes in the "fall of man"—that our first parents were perfect, and that their descendants grew worse and worse, at least until the coming of Christ.
Intelligent men now believe that ages and ages before the dawn of history, man was a poor, naked, cruel, ignorant and degraded savage, whose language consisted of a few sounds of terror, of hatred and delight; that he devoured his fellow-man, having all the vices, but not all the virtues of the beasts; that the journey from the den to the home, the palace, has been long and painful, through many centuries of suffering, of cruelty and war; through many ages of discovery, invention, self-sacrifice and thought.
Redemption and atonement are left without a fact on which to rest. The idea that an infinite God, creator of all worlds, came to this grain of sand, learned the trade of a carpenter, discussed with Pharisees and scribes, and allowed a few infuriated Hebrews to put him to death that he might atone for the sins of men and redeem a few believers from the consequences of his own wrath, can find no lodgment in a good and natural brain.
In no mythology can anything more monstrously unbelievable be found.
But if Christ were a man and attacked the religion of his times because it was cruel and absurd; if he endeavored to found a religion of kindness, of good deeds, to take the place of heartlessness and ceremony, and if, rather than to deny what he believed to be right and true, he suffered death, then he was a noble man—a benefactor of his race. But if he were God there was no need of this. The Jews did not wish to kill God. If he had only made himself known all knees would have touched the ground. If he were God it required no heroism to die. He knew that what we call death is but the opening of the gates of eternal life. If he were God there was no self-sacrifice. He had no need to suffer pain. He could have changed the crucifixion to a joy.
Even the editors of religious weeklies see that there is no escape from these conclusions—from these arguments—and so, instead of attacking the arguments, they attack the man who makes them.
Fifth.—I denounced the law of New York that makes an attempt to commit suicide a crime.
It seems to me that one who has suffered so much that he passionately longs for death should be pitied, instead of punished—helped rather than imprisoned.
A despairing woman who had vainly sought for leave to toil, a woman without home, without friends, without bread, with clasped hands, with tear-filled eyes, with broken words of prayer, in the darkness of night leaps from the dock, hoping, longing for the tearless sleep of death. She is rescued by a kind, courageous man, handed over to the authorities, indicted, tried, convicted, clothed in a convict's garb and locked in a felon's cell.
To me this law seems barbarous and absurd, a law that only savages would enforce.
Sixth.—In this discussion a curious thing has happened. For several centuries the clergy have declared that while infidelity is a very good thing to live by, it is a bad support, a wretched consolation, in the hour of death. They have in spite of the truth, declared that all the great unbelievers died trembling with fear, asking God for mercy, surrounded by fiends, in the torments of despair. Think of the thousands and thousands of clergymen who have described the last agonies of Voltaire, who died as peacefully as a happy child smilingly passes from play to slumber; the final anguish of Hume, who fell into his last sleep as serenely as a river, running between green and shaded banks, reaches the sea; the despair of Thomas Paine, one of the bravest, one of the noblest men, who met the night of death untroubled as a star that meets the morning.
At the same time these ministers admitted that the average murderer could meet death on the scaffold with perfect serenity, and could smilingly ask the people who had gathered to see him killed to meet him in heaven.
But the honest man who had expressed his honest thoughts against the creed of the church in power could not die in peace. God would see to it that his last moments should be filled with the insanity of fear—that with his last breath he should utter the shriek of remorse, the cry for pardon.
This has all changed, and now the clergy, in their sermons answering me, declare that the atheists, the freethinkers, have no fear of death—that to avoid some little annoyance, a passing inconvenience, they gladly and cheerfully put out the light of life. It is now said that infidels believe that death is the end—that it is a dreamless sleep—that it is without pain—that therefore they have no fear, care nothing for gods, or heavens or hells, nothing for the threats of the pulpit, nothing for the day of judgment, and that when life becomes a burden they carelessly throw it down.
The infidels are so afraid of death that they commit suicide.
This certainly is a great change, and I congratulate myself on having forced the clergy to contradict themselves.
Seventh.—The clergy take the position that the atheist, the unbeliever, has no standard of morality—that he can have no real conception of right and wrong. They are of the opinion that it is impossible for one to be moral or good unless he believes in some Being far above himself.
In this connection we might ask how God can be moral or good unless he believes in some Being superior to himself?
What is morality? It is the best thing to do under the circumstances. What is the best thing to do under the circumstances? That which will increase the sum of human happiness—or lessen it the least. Happiness in its highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which increases or preserves or creates happiness is moral—that which decreases it, or puts it in peril, is immoral.
It is not hard for an atheist—for an unbeliever—to keep his hands out of the fire. He knows that burning his hands will not increase his well-being, and he is moral enough to keep them out of the flames.
So it may be said that each man acts according to his intelligence—so far as what he considers his own good is concerned. Sometimes he is swayed by passion, by prejudice, by ignorance—but when he is really intelligent, master of himself, he does what he believes is best for him. If he is intelligent enough he knows that what is really good for him is good for others—for all the world.
It is impossible for me to see' why any belief in the supernatural is necessary to have a keen perception of right and wrong. Every man who has the capacity to suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the same capacity to others, has within himself the natural basis of all morality. The idea of morality was born here, in this world, of the experience, the intelligence of mankind. Morality is not of supernatural origin. It did not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no supernatural heavens or hells to give it force and life. Subjects who are governed by the threats and promises of a king are merely slaves. They are not governed by the ideal, by noble views of right and wrong. They are obedient cowards, controlled by fear, or beggars governed by rewards—by alms.
Right and wrong exist in the nature of things. Murder was just as criminal before as after the promulgation of the Ten Commandments.
Eighth.—The clergy take the position that the atheist, the unbeliever, has no standard of morality—that he can have no real conception of right and wrong. They are of the opinion that it is impossible for one to be moral or good unless he believes in some Being far above himself.
In this connection we might ask how God can be moral or good unless he believes in some Being superior to himself?
What is morality? It is the best thing to do under the circumstances. What is the best thing to do under the circumstances? That which will increase the sum of human happiness—or lessen it the least. Happiness in its highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which increases or preserves or creates happiness is moral—that which decreases it, or puts it in peril, is immoral.
It is not hard for an atheist—for an unbeliever—to keep his hands out of the fire. He knows that burning his hands will not increase his well-being, and he is moral enough to keep them out of the flames.
So it may be said that each man acts according to his intelligence—so far as what he Considers his own good is concerned. Sometimes he is swayed by passion, by prejudice, by ignorance—but when he is really intelligent, master of himself, he does what he believes is best for him. If he is intelligent enough he knows that what is really good for him is food for others—for all the world.
It is impossible for me to see why any belief in the supernatural is necessary to have a keen perception of right and wrong. Every man who has the capacity to suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the same capacity to others, has within himself the natural basis of all morality. The idea of morality was born here, in this world, of the experience, the intelligence of mankind. Morality is not of supernatural origin. It did not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no supernatural heavens or hells to give it force and life. Subjects who are governed by the threats and promises of a king are merely slaves. They are not governed by the ideal, by noble views of right and wrong. They are obedient cowards, controlled by fear, or beggars governed by rewards—by alms.
Right and wrong exist in the nature of things.
Murder was just as criminal before as after the promulgation of the Ten Commandments.
Eighth.—Many of the clergy, some editors and some writers of letters who have answered me, have said that suicide is the worst of crimes—that a man had better murder somebody else than himself. One clergyman gives as a reason for this statement that the suicide dies in an act of sin, and therefore he had better kill another person. Probably he would commit a less crime if he would murder his wife or mother.
I do not see that it is any worse to die than to live in sin. To say that it is not as wicked to murder another as yourself seems absurd. The man about to kill himself wishes to die. Why is it better for him to kill another man, who wishes to live?
To my mind it seems clear that you had better injure yourself than another. Better be a spendthrift than a thief. Better throw away your own money than steal the money of another—better kill yourself if you wish to die than murder one whose life is full of joy.
The clergy tell us that God is everywhere, and that it is one of the greatest possible crimes to rush into his presence. It is wonderful how much they know about God and how little about their fellow-men. Wonderful the amount of their information about other worlds and how limited their knowledge is of this.
There may or may not be an infinite Being. I neither affirm nor deny. I am honest enough to say that I do not know. I am candid enough to admit that the question is beyond the limitations of my mind. Yet I think I know as much on that subject as any human being knows or ever knew, and that is—nothing. I do not say that there is not another world, another life; neither do I say that there is. I say that I do not know. It seems to me that every sane and honest man must say the same. But if there is an infinitely good God and another world, then the infinitely good God will be just as good to us in that world as he is in this. If this infinitely good God loves his children in this world, he will love them in another. If he loves a man when he is alive, he will not hate him the instant he is dead.
If we are the children of an infinitely wise and powerful God, he knew exactly what we would do—the temptations that we could and could not withstand—knew exactly the effect that everything would have upon us, knew under what circumstances we would take our lives—and produced such circumstances himself. It is perfectly apparent that there are many people incapable by nature of bearing the burdens of life, incapable of preserving their mental poise in stress and strain of disaster, disease and loss, and who by failure, by misfortune and want, are driven to despair and insanity, in whose darkened minds there comes like a flash of lightning in the night, the thought of death, a thought so strong, so vivid, that all fear is lost, all ties broken, all duties, all obligations, all hopes forgotten, and naught remains except a fierce and wild desire to die. Thousands and thousands become moody, melancholy, brood upon loss of money, of position, of friends, until reason abdicates and frenzy takes possession of the soul. If there be an infinitely wise and powerful God, all this was known to him from the beginning, and he so created things, established relations, put in operation causes and effects, that all that has happened was the necessary result of his own acts.
Ninth.—Nearly all who have tried to answer what I said have been exceedingly careful to misquote me, and then answer something that I never uttered. They have declared that I have advised people who were in trouble, somewhat annoyed, to kill themselves; that I have told men who have lost their money, who had failed in business, who were not good in health, to kill themselves at once, without taking into consideration any duty that they owed to wives, children, friends, or society.
No man has a right to leave his wife to fight the battle alone if he is able to help. No man has a right to desert his children if he can possibly be of use. As long as he can add to the comfort of those he loves, as long as he can stand between wife and misery, between child and want, as long as he can be of any use, it is his duty to remain.
I believe in the cheerful view, in looking at the sunny side of things, in bearing with fortitude the evils of life, in struggling against adversity, in finding the fuel of laughter even in disaster, in having confidence in to-morrow, in finding the pearl of joy among the flints and shards, and in changing by the alchemy of patience even evil things to good. I believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, of courage and good nature.
Of the future I have no fear. My fate is the fate of the world—of all that live. My anxieties are about this life, this world. About the phantoms called gods and their impossible hells, I have no care, no fear.
The existence of God I neither affirm nor deny, I wait. The immortality of the soul I neither affirm nor deny. I hope—hope for all of the children of men. I have never denied the existence of another world, nor the immortality of the soul. For many years I have said that the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
What I deny is the immortality of pain, the eternity of torture.
After all, the instinct of self-preservation is strong. People do not kill themselves on the advice of friends or enemies. All wish to be happy, to enjoy life; all wish for food and roof and raiment, for friends, and as long as life gives joy, the idea of self-destruction never enters the human mind.
The oppressors, the tyrants, those who trample on the rights of others, the robbers of the poor, those who put wages below the living point, the ministers who make people insane by preaching the dogma of eternal pain; these are the men who drive the weak, the suffering and the helpless down to death.
It will not do to say that God has appointed a time for each to die. Of this there is, and there can be, no evidence. There is no evidence that any god takes any interest in the affairs of men—that any sides with the right or helps the weak, protects the innocent or rescues the oppressed. Even the clergy admit that their God, through all ages, has allowed his friends, his worshipers, to be imprisoned, tortured and murdered by his enemies. Such is the protection of God. Billions of prayers have been uttered; has one been answered? Who sends plague, pestilence and famine? Who bids the earthquake devour and the volcano to overwhelm?
Tenth.—Again, I say that it is wonderful to me that so many men, so many women endure and carry their burdens to the natural end; that so many, in spite of "age, ache and penury," guard with trembling hands the spark of life; that prisoners for life toil and suffer to the last; that the helpless wretches in poorhouses and asylums cling to life; that the exiles in Siberia, loaded with chains, scarred with the knout, live on; that the incurables, whose every breath is a pang, and for whom the future has only pain, should fear the merciful touch and clasp of death.
It is but a few steps at most from the cradle to the grave; a short journey. The suicide hastens, shortens the path, loses the afternoon, the twilight, the dusk of life's day; loses what he does not want, what he cannot bear. In the tempest of despair, in the blind fury of madness, or in the calm of thought and choice, the beleaguered soul finds the serenity of death.
Let us leave the dead where nature leaves them. We know nothing of any realm that lies beyond the horizon of the known, beyond the end of life. Let us be honest with ourselves and others. Let us pity the suffering, the despairing, the men and women hunted and pursued by grief and shame, by misery and want, by chance and fate until their only friend is death.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
SUICIDE A SIN.
* New York Journal, 1805. An Interview.
Question. Do you think that what you have written about suicide has caused people to take their lives?
Answer. No, I do not. People do not kill themselves because of the ideas of others. They are the victims of misfortune.
Question. What do you consider the chief cause of suicide?
Answer. There are many causes. Some individuals are crossed in love, others are bankrupt in estate or reputation, still others are diseased in body and frequently in mind. There are a thousand and one causes that lead up to the final act.
Question. Do you consider that nationality plays a part in these tragedies?
Answer. No, it is a question of individuals. There are those whose sorrows are greater than they can bear. These sufferers seek the peace of death.
Question. Do you, then, advise suicide?
Answer. No, I have never done so, but I have said, and still say, that there are circumstances under which it is justifiable for a person to take his life.
Question. What do you think of the law which prohibits self-destruction?
Answer. That it is absurd and ridiculous. The other day a man was tried before Judge Goff for having tried to kill himself. I think he pleaded guilty, and the Judge, after speaking of the terrible crime of the poor wretch, sentenced him to the penitentiary for two years. This was an outrage; infamous in every way, and a disgrace to our civilization.
Question. Do you believe that such a law will prevent the frequency of suicides?
Answer. By no means. After this, persons in New York who have made up their minds to commit suicide will see to it that they succeed.
Question. Have your opinions been in any way modified since your first announcement of them?
Answer. No, I feel now as I have felt for many years. No one can answer my articles on suicide, because no one can satisfactorily refute them. Every man of sense knows that a person being devoured by a cancer has the right to take morphine, and pass from agony to dreamless sleep. So, too, there are circumstances under which a man has the right to end his pain of mind.
Question. Have you seen in the papers that many who have killed themselves have had on their persons some article of yours on suicide?
Answer. Yes, I have read such accounts, but I repeat that I do not think these persons were led to kill themselves by reading the articles. Many people who have killed themselves were found to have Bibles or tracts in their pockets.
Question. How do you account for the presence of the latter?
Answer. The reason of this is that the theologians know nothing. The pious imagine that their God has placed us here for some wise and inscrutable purpose, and that he will call for us when he wants us. All this is idiotic. When a man is of no use to himself or to others, when his days and nights are filled with pain and sorrow, why should he remain to endure them longer?
SUICIDE A SIN.
* New York Herald, 1897. An Interview.
COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL was seen at his house and asked if he had read the Rev. Merle St. Croix Wright's sermon.
Answer. Yes. I have read the sermon, and also an interview had with the reverend gentleman.
Long ago I gave my views about suicide, and I entertain the same views still. Mr. Wright's sermon has stirred up quite a commotion among the orthodox ministers. This commotion may always be expected when anything sensible comes from a pulpit. Mr. Wright has mixed a little common sense with his theology, and, of course this has displeased the truly orthodox.
Sense is the bitterest foe that theology has. No system of supernatural religion can outlive a good dose of real good sense. The orthodox ministers take the ground that an infinite Being created man, put him on the earth and determined his days. They say that God desires every person to live until he, God, calls for his soul. They insist that we are all on guard and must remain so until relieved by a higher power—the superior officer.
The trouble with this doctrine is that it proves too much. It proves that God kills every person who dies as we say, "according to nature." It proves that we ought to say, "according to God." It proves that God sends the earthquake, the cyclone, the pestilence, for the purpose of killing people. It proves that all diseases and all accidents are his messengers, and that all who do not kill themselves, die by the act, and in accordance with the will of God. It also shows that when a man is murdered, it is in harmony with, and a part of the divine plan. When God created the man who was murdered, he knew that he would be murdered, and when he made the man who committed the murder, he knew exactly what he would do. So that the murder was the act of God.
Can it be said that God intended that thousands should die of famine and that he, to accomplish his purpose, withheld the rain? Can we say that he intended that thousands of innocent men should die in dungeons and on scaffolds?
Is it possible that a man, "slowly being devoured by a cancer," whose days and nights are filled with torture, who is useless to himself and a burden to others, is carrying out the will of God? Does God enjoy his agony? Is God thrilled by the music of his moans—the melody of his shrieks?
This frightful doctrine makes God an infinite monster, and every human being a slave; a victim. This doctrine is not only infamous but it is idiotic. It makes God the only criminal in the universe.
Now, if we are governed by reason, if we use our senses and our minds, and have courage enough to be honest; if we know a little of the world's history, then we know—if we know anything—that man has taken his chances, precisely the same as other animals. He has been destroyed by heat and cold, by flood and fire, by storm and famine, by countless diseases, by numberless accidents. By his intelligence, his cunning, his strength, his foresight, he has managed to escape utter destruction. He has defended himself. He has received no supernatural aid. Neither has he been attacked by any supernatural power. Nothing has ever happened in nature as the result of a purpose to benefit or injure the human race.
Consequently the question of the right or wrong of suicide is not in any way affected by a supposed obligation to the Infinite.
All theological considerations must be thrown aside because we see and know that the laws of life are the same for all living things—that when the conditions are favorable, the living multiply and life lengthens, and when the conditions are unfavorable, the living decrease and life shortens. We have no evidence of any interference of any power superior to nature. Taking into consideration the fact that all the duties and obligations of man must be to his fellows, to sentient beings, here in this world, and that he owes no duty and is under no obligation to any phantoms of the air, then it is easy to determine whether a man under certain circumstances has the right to end his life.
If he can be of no use to others—if he is of no use to himself—if he is a burden to others—a curse to himself—why should he remain? By ending his life he ends his sufferings and adds to the well-being of others. He lessens misery and increases happiness. Under such circumstances undoubtedly a man has the right to stop the pulse of pain and woo the sleep that has no dream.
I do not think that the discussion of this question is of much importance, but I am glad that a clergyman has taken a natural and a sensible position, and that he has reasoned not like a minister, but like a man.
When wisdom comes from the pulpit I am delighted and surprised. I feel then that there is a little light in the East, possibly the dawn of a better day.
I congratulate the Rev. Mr. Wright, and thank him for his brave and philosophic words.
There is still another thing. Certainly a man has the right to avoid death, to save himself from accident and disease. If he has this right, then the theologians must admit that God, in making his decrees, took into consideration the result of such actions. Now, if God knew that while most men would avoid death, some would seek it, and if his decrees were so made that they would harmonize with the acts of those who would avoid death, can we say that he did not, in making his decrees, take into consideration the acts of those who would seek death? Let us remember that all actions, good, bad and indifferent, are the necessary children of conditions—that there is no chance in the natural world in which we live.
So, we must keep in mind that all real opinions are honest, and that all have the same right to express their thoughts. Let us be charitable.
When some suffering wretch, wild with pain, crazed with regret, frenzied with fear, with desperate hand unties the knot of life, let us have pity—Let us be generous.
SUICIDE AND SANITY.
* New York Press, 1897. An Interview.
Question. Is a suicide necessarily insane? was the first question, to which Colonel Ingersoll replied:
Answer. No. At the same time I believe that a great majority of suicides are insane. There are circumstances under which suicide is natural, sensible and right. When a man is of no use to himself, when he can be of no use to others, when his life is filled with agony, when the future has no promise of relief, then I think he has the right to cast the burden of life away and seek the repose of death.
Question. Is a suicide necessarily a coward?
Answer. I cannot conceive of cowardice in connection with suicide. Of nearly all things death is the most feared. And the man who voluntarily enters the realm of death cannot properly be called a coward. Many men who kill themselves forget the duties they owe to others—forget their wives and children. Such men are heartless, wicked, brutal; but they are not cowards.
Question. When is the suicide of the sane justifiable?
Answer. To escape death by torture; to avoid being devoured by a cancer; to prevent being a burden on those you love; when you can be of no use to others or to yourself; when life is unbearable; when in all the horizon of the future there is no star of hope.
Question. Do you believe that any suicides have been caused or encouraged by your declaration three years ago that suicide sometimes was justifiable?
Answer. Many preachers talk as though I had inaugurated, invented, suicide, as though no one who had not read my ideas on suicide had ever taken his own life. Talk as long as language lasts, you cannot induce a man to kill himself. The man who takes his own life does not go to others to find reasons or excuses.
Question. On the whole is the world made better or worse by suicides?
Answer. Better by some and poorer by others.
Question. Why is it that Germany, said to be the most educated of civilized nations, leads the world in suicides?
Answer. I do not know that Germany is the most educated; neither do I know that suicide is more frequent there than in all other countries. I know that the struggle for life is severe in Germany, that the laws are unjust, that the government is oppressive, that the people are sentimental, that they brood over their troubles and easily become hopeless.
Question. If suicide is sometimes justifiable, is not killing of born idiots and infants hopelessly handicapped at birth equally so?
Answer. There is no relation between the questions—between suicides and killing idiots. Suicide may, under certain circumstances, be right and killing idiots may be wrong; killing idiots may be right and suicide may be wrong. When we look about us, when we read interviews with preachers about Jonah, we know that all the idiots have not been killed.
Question. Should suicide be forbidden by law?
Answer. No. A law that provides for the punishment of those who attempt to commit suicide is idiotic. Those who are willing to meet death are not afraid of law. The only effect of such a law would be to make the person who had concluded to kill himself a little more careful to succeed.
Question. What is your belief about virtue, morality and religion?
Answer. I believe that all actions that tend to the well-being of sentient beings are virtuous and moral. I believe that real religion consists in doing good. I do not believe in phantoms. I believe in the uniformity of nature; that matter will forever attract matter in proportion to mass and distance; that, under the same circumstances, falling bodies will attain the same speed, increasing in exact proportion to distance; that light will always, under the same circumstances, be reflected at the same angle; that it will always travel with the same velocity; that air will forever be lighter than water, and gold heavier than iron; that all substances will be true to their natures; that a certain degree of heat will always expand the metals and change water into steam; that a certain degree of cold will cause the metals to shrink and change water into ice; that all atoms will forever be in motion; that like causes will forever produce like effects, that force will be overcome only by force; that no atom of matter will ever be created or destroyed; that the energy in the universe will forever remain the same, nothing lost, nothing gained; that all that has been possible has happened, and that all that will be possible will happen; that the seeds and causes of all thoughts, dreams, fancies and actions, of all virtues and all vices, of all successes and all failures, are in nature; that there is in the universe no power superior to nature; that man is under no obligation to the imaginary gods; that all his obligations and duties are to be discharged and done in this world; that right and wrong do not depend on the will of an infinite Being, but on the consequences of actions, and that these consequences necessarily flow from the nature of things. I believe that the universe is natural.
*A reply to General Rush Hawkins' article, "Brutality and
Avarice Triumphant," published in the North American Review,
June, 1891.
THERE are many people, in all countries, who seem to enjoy individual and national decay. They love to prophesy the triumph of evil. They mistake the afternoon of their own lives for the evening of the world. To them everything has changed. Men are no longer honest or brave, and women have ceased to be beautiful. They are dyspeptic, and it gives them the greatest pleasure to say that the art of cooking has been lost.
For many generations many of these people occupied the pulpits. They lifted the hand of warning whenever the human race took a step in advance. As wealth increased, they declared that honesty and goodness and self-denial and charity were vanishing from the earth. They doubted the morality of well-dressed people—considered it impossible that the prosperous should be pious. Like owls sitting on the limbs of a dead tree, they hooted the obsequies of spring, believing it would come no more.
There are some patriots who think it their duty to malign and slander the land of their birth. They feel that they have a kind of Cassandra mission, and they really seem to enjoy their work. They honestly believe that every kind of crime is on the increase, that the courts are all corrupt, that the legislators are bribed, that the witnesses are suborned, that all holders of office are dishonest; and they feel like a modern Marius sitting amid the ruins of all the virtues.
It is useless to endeavor to persuade these people that they are wrong. They do not want arguments, because they will not heed them. They need medicine. Their case is not for a philosopher, but for a physician.
General Hawkins is probably right when he says that some fraudulent shoes, some useless muskets, and some worn-out vessels were sold to the Government during the war; but we must remember that there were millions and millions of as good shoes as art and honesty could make, millions of the best muskets ever constructed, and hundreds of the most magnificent ships ever built, sold to the Government during the same period. We must not mistake an eddy for the main stream. We must also remember another thing: there were millions of good, brave, and patriotic men to wear the shoes, to use the muskets, and to man the ships.
So it is probably true that Congress was extravagant in land subsidies voted to railroads; but that this legislation was secured by bribery is preposterous. It was all done in the light of noon. There is not the slightest evidence tending to show that the general policy of hastening the construction of railways through the Territories of the United States was corruptly adopted—not the slightest. At the same time, it may be that some members of Congress were induced by personal considerations to vote for such subsidies. As a matter of fact, the policy was wise, and through the granting of the subsidies thousands of miles of railways were built, and these railways have given to civilization vast territories which otherwise would have remained substantially useless to the world. Where at that time was a wilderness, now are some of the most thriving cities in the United States—a great, an industrious, and a happy population. The results have justified the action of Congress.
It is also true that some railroads have been "wrecked" in the United States, but most of these wrecks have been the result of competition. It is the same with corporations as with individuals—the powerful combine against the weak. In the world of commerce and business is the great law of the survival of the strongest. Railroads are not eleemosynary institutions. They have but little regard for the rights of one another. Some fortunes have been made by the criminal "wrecking" of roads, but even in the business of corporations honesty is the best policy, and the companies that have acted in accordance with the highest standard, other things being equal, have reaped the richest harvest.
Many railways were built in advance of a demand; they had to develop the country through which they passed. While they waited for immigration, interest accumulated; as a result foreclosure took place; then reorganization. By that time the country had been populated; towns were springing up along the line; increased business was the result. On the new bonds and the new stock the company paid interest and dividends. Then the ones who first invested and lost their money felt that they had been defrauded.
So it is easy to say that certain men are guilty of crimes—easy to indict the entire nation, and at the same time impossible to substantiate one of the charges. Everyone who knows the history of the Star-Route trials knows that nothing was established against the defendants, knows that every effort was made by the Government to convict them, and also knows that an unprejudiced jury of twelve men, never suspected of being improperly influenced, after having heard the entire case, pronounced the defendants not guilty. After this, of course, any one can say, who knows nothing of the evidence and who cares nothing for the facts, that the defendants were all guilty.
It may also be true that some settlers in the far West have taken timber from the public lands, and it may be that it was a necessity. Our laws and regulations were such that where a settler was entitled to take up a certain amount of land he had to take it all in one place; he could not take a certain number of acres on the plains and a certain number of acres in the timber. The consequence was that when he settled upon the land—the land that he could cultivate—he took the timber that he needed from the Government land, and this has been called stealing. So I suppose it may be said that the cattle stole the Government's grass and possibly drank the Government's water.
It will also be admitted with pleasure that stock has been "watered" in this country. And what is the crime or practice known as watering stock?
For instance, you have a railroad one hundred miles long, worth, we will say, $3,000,000—able to pay interest on that sum at the rate of six per cent. Now, we all know that the amount of stock issued has nothing to do with the value of the thing represented by the stock. If there was one share of stock representing this railroad, it would be worth three million dollars, whether it said on its face it was one dollar or one hundred dollars. If there were three million shares of stock issued on this property, they would be worth one dollar apiece, and, no matter whether it said on this stock that each share was a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars, the share would be worth one dollar—no more, no less. If any one wishes to find the value of stock, he should find the value of the thing represented by the stock. It is perfectly clear that, if a pie is worth one dollar, and you cut it into four pieces, each piece is worth twenty-five cents; and if you cut it in a thousand pieces, you do not increase the value of the pie.
If, then, you wish to find the value of a share of stock, find its relation to the thing represented by all the stock.
It can also be safely admitted that trusts have been formed. The reason is perfectly clear. Corporations are like individuals—they combine. Unfortunate corporations become socialistic, anarchistic, and cry out against the abuses of trusts. It is natural for corporations to defend themselves—natural for them to stop ruinous competition by a profitable pool; and when strong corporations combine, little corporations suffer. It is with corporations as with fishes—the large eat the little; and it may be that this will prove a public benefit in the end. When the large corporations have taken possession of the little ones, it may be that the Government will take possession of them—the Government being the largest corporation of them all.
It is to be regretted that all houses are not fireproof; but certainly no one imagines that the people of this country build houses for the purpose of having them burned, or that they erect hotels having in view the broiling of guests. Men act as they must; that is to say, according to wants and necessities. In a new country the buildings are cheaper than in an old one, money is scarcer, interest higher, and consequently people build cheaply and take the risks of fire. They do not do this on account of the Constitution of the United States, or the action of political parties, or the general idea that man is entitled to be free. In the hotels of Europe it may be that there is not as great danger of fire as of famine.
The destruction of game and of the singing birds is to be greatly regretted, not only in this country, but in all others. The people of America have been too busy felling forests, ploughing fields, and building houses, to cultivate, to the highest degree, the aesthetic side of their natures. Nature has been somewhat ruthless with us. The storms of winter breasted by the Western pioneer, the whirlwinds of summer, have tended, it may be, to harden somewhat the sensibilities; in consequence of which they have allowed their horses and cattle to bear the rigors of the same climate.
It is also true that the seal-fisheries are being destroyed, in the interest of the present, by those who care nothing for the future. All these things are to be deprecated, are to be spoken against; but we must not hint, provided we are lovers of the Republic, that such things are caused by free institutions.
General Hawkins asserts that "Christianity has neither preached nor practiced humanity towards animals," while at the same time "Sunday school children by hundreds of thousands are taught what a terrible thing it is to break the Sabbath;" that "museum trustees tremble with pious horror at the suggestion of opening the doors leading to the collections on that day," and that no protests have come "from lawmakers or the Christian clergy." Few people will suspect me of going out of my way to take care of Christianity or of the clergy. At the same time, I can afford to state the truth. While there is not much in the Bible with regard to practicing humanity toward animals, there is at least this: "The merciful man is merciful to his beast." Of course, I am not alluding now to the example set by Jehovah when he destroyed the cattle of the Egyptians with hailstones and diseases on account of the sins of their owners.
In regard to the treatment of animals Christians have been much like other people.
So, hundreds of lawmakers have not only protested against cruelty to animals, but enough have protested against it to secure the enactment of laws making cruelty toward animals a crime. Henry Bergh, who did as much good as any man who has lived in the nineteenth century, was seconded in his efforts by many of the Christian clergy not only, but by hundreds and thousands of professing Christians—probably millions. Let us be honest.
It is true that the clergy are apt to lose the distinction between offences and virtues, to regard the little as the important—that is to say, to invert the pyramid.
It is true that the Indians have been badly treated. It is true that the fringe of civilization has been composed of many low and cruel men. It is true that the red man has been demoralized by the vices of the white. It is a frightful fact that, when a superior race meets an inferior, the inferior imitates only the vices of the superior, and the superior those of the inferior. They exchange faults and failings. This is one of the most terrible facts in the history of the human race.
Nothing can be said to justify our treatment of the Indians. There is, however, this shadow of an excuse: In the old times, when we lived along the Atlantic, it hardly occurred to our ancestors that they could ever go beyond the Ohio; so the first treaty with the Indians drove them back but a few miles. In a little while, through immigration, the white race passed the line, and another treaty was made, forcing the Indians still further west; yet the tide of immigration kept on, and in a little while again the line was passed, the treaty violated. Another treaty was made, pushing the Indians still farther toward the Pacific, across the Illinois, across the Mississippi, across the Missouri, violating at every step some treaty made; and each treaty born of the incapacity of the white men who made it to foretell the growth of the Republic.
But the author of "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant" made a great mistake when he selected the last thirty years of our national life as the period within which the Americans have made a change of the national motto appropriate, and asserted that now there should be in place of the old motto the words, "Plundering Made Easy."
Most men believe in a sensible and manly patriotism. No one should be blind to the defects in the laws and institutions of his country. He should call attention to abuses, not for the purpose of bringing his country into disrepute, but that the abuses may cease and the defects be corrected. He should do what he can to make his country great, prosperous, just, and free. But it is hardly fair to exaggerate the faults of your country for the purpose of calling attention to your own virtues, or to earn the praise of a nation that hates your own. This is what might be called wallowing in the gutter of reform.
The thirty years chosen as the time in which we as a nation have passed from virtue to the lowest depths of brutality and avarice are, in fact, the most glorious years in the life of this or of any other nation.
In 1861 slavery was, in a legal sense at least, a national institution. It was firmly imbedded in the Federal Constitution. The Fugitive Slave Law was in full force and effect. In all the Southern and in nearly all of the Northern States it was a crime to give food, shelter, or raiment to a man or woman seeking liberty by flight. Humanity was illegal, hospitality a misdemeanor, and charity a crime. Men and women were sold like beasts. Mothers were robbed of their babes while they stood under our flag. All the sacred relations of life were trampled beneath the bloody feet of brutality and avarice. Besides, so firmly was slavery fixed in law and creed, in statute and Scripture, that the tongues of honest men were imprisoned. Those who spoke for the slave were mobbed by Northern lovers of the "Union."
Now, it seems to me that those were the days when the motto could properly have been, "Plundering Made Easy." Those were the days of brutality, and the brutality was practiced to the end that we might make money out of the unpaid labor of others.
It is not necessary to go into details as to the cause of the then condition; it is enough to say that the whole nation, North and South, was responsible. There were many years of compromise, and thousands of statesmen, so-called, through conventions and platforms, did what they could to preserve slavery and keep the Union. These efforts corrupted politics, demoralized our statesmen, polluted our courts, and poisoned our literature. The Websters, Bentons, and Clays mistook temporary expedients for principles, and really thought that the progress of the world could be stopped by the resolutions of a packed political convention. Yet these men, mistaken as they really were, worked and wrought unconsciously in the cause of human freedom. They believed that the preservation of the Union was the one important thing, and that it could not be preserved unless slavery was protected—unless the North would be faithful to the bargain as written in the Constitution. For the purpose of keeping the nation true to the Union and false to itself, these men exerted every faculty and all their strength. They exhausted their genius in showing that slavery was not, after all, very bad, and that disunion was the most terrible calamity that could by any possibility befall the nation, and that the Union, even at the price of slavery, was the greatest possible blessing. They did not suspect that slavery would finally strike the blow for disunion. But when the time came and the South unsheathed the sword, the teachings of these men as to the infinite value of the Union gave to our flag millions of brave defenders.
Now, let us see what has been accomplished during the thirty years of "Brutality and Avarice."
The Republic has been rebuilt and reunited, and we shall remain one people for many centuries to come. The Mississippi is nature's protest against disunion. The Constitution of the United States is now the charter of human freedom, and all laws inconsistent with the idea that all men are entitled to liberty have been repealed. The black man knows that the Constitution is his shield, that the laws protect him, that our flag is his, and the black mother feels that her babe belongs to her. Where the slave-pen used to be you will find the schoolhouse. The dealer in human flesh is now a teacher; instead of lacerating the back of a child, he develops and illumines the mind of a pupil.
There is now freedom of speech. Men are allowed to utter their thoughts. Lips are no longer sealed by mobs. Never before in the history of our world has so much been done for education.
The amount of business done in a country on credit is the measure of confidence, and confidence is based upon honesty. So it may truthfully be said that, where a vast deal of business is done on credit, an exceedingly large per cent. of the people are regarded as honest. In our country a very large per cent. of contracts are faithfully fulfilled. Probably there is no nation in the world where so much business is done on credit as in the United States. The fact that the credit of the Republic is second to that of no other nation on the globe would seem to be at least an indication of a somewhat general diffusion of honesty.
The author of "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant" seems to be of the opinion that our country was demoralized by the war. They who fight for the right are not degraded—they are ennobled. When men face death and march to the mouths of the guns for a principle, they grow great; and if they come out of the conflict, they come with added moral grandeur; they become better men, better citizens, and they love more intensely than ever the great cause for the success of which they put their lives in pawn.
The period of the Revolution produced great men. After the great victory the sons of the heroes degenerated, and some of the greatest principles involved in the Revolution were almost forgotten.
During the Civil war the North grew great and the South was educated. Never before in the history of mankind was there such a period of moral exaltation. The names that shed the brightest, the whitest light on the pages of our history became famous then. Against the few who were actuated by base and unworthy motives let us set the great army that fought for the Republic, the millions who bared their breasts to the storm, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands who did their duty honestly, nobly, and went back to their wives and children with no thought except to preserve the liberties of themselves and their fellow-men.
Of course there were some men who did not do their duty—some men false to themselves and to their country. No one expects to find sixty-five millions of saints in America. A few years ago a lady complained to the president of a Western railroad that a brakeman had spoken to her with great rudeness. The president expressed his regret at the incident, and said among other things: "Madam, you have no idea how difficult it is for us to get gentlemen to fill all those places."
It is hardly to be expected that the American people should excel all others in the arts, in poetry, and in fiction. We have been very busy taking possession of the Republic. It is hard to overestimate the courage, the industry, the self-denial it has required to fell the forests, to subdue the fields, to construct the roads, and to build the countless homes. What has been done is a certificate of the honesty and industry of our people.
It is not true that "one of the unwritten mottoes of our business morals seem to say in the plainest phraseology possible: 'Successful wrong is right.'" Men in this country are not esteemed simply because they are rich; inquiries are made as to how they made their money, as to how they use it. The American people do not fall upon their knees before the golden calf; the worst that can be said is that they think too much of the gold of the calf—and this distinction is seen by the calves themselves.
Nowhere in the world is honesty in business esteemed more highly than here. There are millions of business men—merchants, bankers, and men engaged in all trades and professions—to whom reputation is as dear as life.
There is one thing in the article "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant" that seems even more objectionable than the rest, and that is the statement, or, rather, the insinuation, that all the crimes and the shortcomings of the American people can be accounted for by the fact that our Government is a Republic. We are told that not long ago a French official complained to a friend that he was compelled to employ twenty clerks to do the work done by four under the empire, and on being asked the reason answered: "It is the Republic." He was told that, as he was the head of the bureau, he could prevent the abuse, to which he replied: "I know I have the power; but I have been in this position for more than thirty years, and am now too old to learn another occupation, and I must make places for the friends of the deputies." And then it is added by General Hawkins: "And so it is here."
It seems to me that it cannot be fairly urged that we have abused the Indians because we contend that all men have equal rights before the law, or because we insist that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The probability is that a careful reading of the history of the world will show that nations under the control of kings and emperors have been guilty of some cruelty. To account for the bad we do by the good we believe, is hardly logical. Our virtues should not be made responsible for our vices.
Is it possible that free institutions tend to the demoralization of men? Is a man dishonest because he is a man and maintains the rights of men? In order to be a moral nation must we be controlled by king or emperor? Is human liberty a mistake? Is it possible that a citizen of the great Republic attacks the liberty of his fellow-citizens? Is he willing to abdicate? Is he willing to admit that his rights are not equal to the rights of others? Is he, for the sake of what he calls morality, willing to become a serf, a servant or a slave?
Is it possible that "high character is impracticable" in this Republic? Is this the experience of the author of "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant"? Is it true that "intellectual achievement pays no dividends"? Is it not a fact that America is to-day the best market in the world for books, for music, and for art?
There is in our country no real foundation for these wide and sweeping slanders. This, in my judgment, is the best Government, the best country, in the world. The citizens of this Republic are, on the average, better clothed and fed and educated than any other people. They are fuller of life, more progressive, quicker to take advantage of the forces of nature, than any other of the children of men. Here the burdens of government are lightest, the responsibilities of the individual greatest, and here, in my judgment, are to be worked out the most important problems of social science.
Here in America is a finer sense of what is due from man to man than you will find in other lands. We do not cringe to those whom chance has crowned; we stand erect.
Our sympathies are strong and quick. Generosity is almost a national failing. The hand of honest want is rarely left unfilled. Great calamities open the hearts and hands of all.
Here you will find democracy in the family—republicanism by the fireside. Say what you will, the family is apt to be patterned after the government. If a king is at the head of the nation, the husband imagines himself the monarch of the home. In this country we have carried into the family the idea on which the Government is based. Here husbands and wives are beginning to be equals.
The highest test of civilization is the treatment of women and children. By this standard America stands first among nations.
There is a magnitude, a scope, a grandeur, about this country—an amplitude—that satisfies the heart and the imagination. We have our faults, we have our virtues, but our country is the best.
No American should ever write a line that can be sneeringly quoted by an enemy of the great Republic.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
* The Cincinnati Gazette, 1878. An Interview.
Question. Colonel, have you noticed the criticisms made on your lectures by the Cincinnati Gazette and the Catholic Telegraph?
Answer. I have read portions of the articles.
Question. What do you think of them?
Answer. Well, they are hardly of importance enough to form a distinct subject of thought.
Question. Well, what do you think of the attempted argument of the Gazette against your lecture on Moses?
Answer. The writer endeavors to show that considering the ignorance prevalent four thousand years ago, God did as well as one could reasonably expect; that God at that time did not have the advantage of telescope, microscope, and spectrum, and that for this reason a few mistakes need not excite our special wonder. He also shows that, although God was in favor of slavery he introduced some reforms; but whether the reforms were intended to perpetuate slavery or to help the slave is not stated. The article has nothing to do with my position. I am perfectly willing to admit that there is a land called Egypt; that the Jews were once slaves; that they got away and started a little country of their own. All this may be true without proving that they were miraculously fed in the wilderness, or that water ran up hill, or that God went into partnership with hornets or snakes. There may have been a man by the name of Moses without proving that sticks were turned into snakes.
A while ago a missionary addressed a Sunday school. In the course of his remarks he said that he had been to Mount Ararat, and had brought a stone from the mountain. He requested the children to pass in line before him so that they could all get a look at this wonderful stone. After they had all seen it he said: "You will as you grow up meet people who will deny that there ever was a flood, or that God saved Noah and the animals in the ark, and then you can tell them that you know better, because you saw a stone from the very mountain where the ark rested."
That is precisely the kind of argument used in the Gazette. The article was written by some one who does not quite believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures himself, and were it not for the fear of hell, would probably say so.
I admit that there was such a man as Mohammed, such a city as Mecca, such a general as Omar, but I do not admit that God made known his will to Mohammed in any substantial manner. Of course the Gazette would answer all this by saying that Mohammed did exist, and that therefore God must have talked with him. I admit that there was such a general as Washington, but I do not admit that God kept him from being shot. I admit that there is a portrait of the Virgin Mary in Rome, but I do not admit that it shed tears. I admit that there was such a man as Moses, but I do not admit that God hunted for him in a tavern to kill him. I admit that there was such a priest as St. Denis, but I do not admit that he carried his head in his hand, after it was cut off, and swam the river, and put his head on again and eventually recovered. I admit that the article appeared in the Gazette, but I do not admit that it amounted to anything whatever.
Question. Did you notice what the Catholic Telegraph said about your lecture being ungrammatical?
Answer. Yes; I saw an extract from it. In the Catholic Telegraph occurs the following: "The lecture was a failure as brilliant as Ingersoll's flashes of ungrammatical rhetoric." After making this statement with the hereditary arrogance of a priest, after finding fault with my "ungrammatical rhetoric" he then writes the following sentence: "It could not boast neither of novelty in argument or of attractive language." After this, nothing should be noticed that this gentleman says on the subject of grammar.
In this connection it may be proper for me to say that nothing is more remarkable than the fact that Christianity destroys manners. With one exception, no priest has ever written about me, so far as I know, except in an arrogant and insolent manner. They seem utterly devoid of the usual amenities of life. Every one who differs with them is vile, ignorant and malicious. But, after all, what can you expect of a gentleman who worships a God who will damn dimpled babes to an eternity of fire, simply because they were not baptized.
Question. This Catholic writer says that the oldest page of history and the newest page of science are nothing more than commentaries on the Mosaic Record. He says the Cosmogony of Moses has been believed in, and has been received as the highest truth by the very brightest names in science. What do you think of that statement?
Answer. I think it is without the least foundation in fact, and is substantially like the gentleman's theology, depending simply upon persistent assertion.
I see he quotes Cuvier as great authority. Cuvier denied that the fossil animals were in any way related to the animals now living, and believed that God had frequently destroyed all life upon the earth and then produced other forms. Agassiz was the last scientist of any standing who ventured to throw a crumb of comfort to this idea.
Question. Do you mean to say that all the great living scientists regard the Cosmogony of Moses as a myth?
Answer. I do. I say this: All men of science and men of sense look upon the Mosaic account as a simple myth. Humboldt, who stands in the same relation to science that Shakespeare did to the drama, held this opinion. The same is held by the best minds in Germany, by Huxley, Tyndall and Herbert Spencer in England, by John W. Draper and others in the United States. Whoever agrees with Moses is some poor frightened orthodox gentleman afraid of losing his soul or his salary, and as a rule, both are exceedingly small.
Question. Some people say that you slander the Bible in saying that God went into partnership with hornets, and declare that there is no such passage in the Bible.
Answer. Well, let them read the twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, "And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite and the Hittite from before thee."
Question. Do you find in lecturing through the country that your ideas are generally received with favor?
Answer. Astonishingly so. There are ten times as many freethinkers as there were five years ago. In five years more we will be in the majority.
Question. Is it true that the churches, as a general thing, make strong efforts, as I have seen it stated, to prevent people from going to hear you?
Answer. Yes; in many places ministers have advised their congregations to keep away, telling them I was an exceedingly dangerous man. The result has generally been a full house, and I have hardly ever failed to publicly return my thanks to the clergy for acting as my advance agents.
Question. Do you ever meet Christian people who try to convert you?
Answer. Not often. But I do receive a great many anonymous letters, threatening me with the wrath of God, and calling my attention to the uncertainty of life and the certainty of damnation. These letters are nearly all written in the ordinary Christian spirit; that is to say, full of hatred and impertinence.
Question. Don't you think it remarkable that the Telegraph, a Catholic paper, should quote with extravagant praise, an article from such an orthodox sheet as the Gazette?
Answer. I do not. All the churches must make common cause. All superstitions lead to Rome; all facts lead to science. In a few years all the churches will be united. This will unite all forms of liberalism. When that is done the days of superstition, of arrogance, of theology, will be numbered. It is very laughable to see a Catholic quoting scientific men in favor of Moses, when the same men would have taken great pleasure in swearing that the Catholic Church was the worst possible organization. That church should forever hold its peace. Wherever it has had authority it has destroyed human liberty. It reduced Italy to a hand organ, Spain to a guitar, Ireland to exile, Portugal to contempt. Catholicism is the upas tree in whose shade the intellect of man has withered. The recollection of the massacre of St. Bartholomew should make a priest silent, and the recollection of the same massacre should make a Protestant careful.
I can afford to be maligned by a priest, when the same party denounces Garibaldi, the hero of Italy, as a "pet tiger" to Victor Emmanuel. I could not afford to be praised by such a man. I thank him for his abuse.
Question. What do you think of the point that no one is able to judge of these things unless he is a Hebrew scholar?
Answer. I do not think it is necessary to understand Hebrew to decide as to the probability of springs gushing out of dead bones, or of the dead getting out of their graves, or of the probability of ravens keeping a hotel for wandering prophets. I hardly think it is necessary even to be a Greek scholar to make up my mind as to whether devils actually left a person and took refuge in the bodies of swine. Besides, if the Bible is not properly translated, the circulation ought to stop until the corrections are made. I am not accountable if God made a revelation to me in a language that he knew I never would understand. If he wishes to convey any information to my mind, he certainly should do it in English before he eternally damns me for paying no attention to it.
Question. Are not many of the contradictions in the Bible owing to mistranslations?
Answer. No. Nearly all of the mistranslations have been made to help out the text. It would be much worse, much more contradictory had it been correctly translated. Nearly all of the mistakes, as Mr. Weller would say, have been made for the purposes of harmony.
Question. How many errors do you suppose there are?
Answer. Well, I do not know. It has been reported that the American Bible Society appointed a committee to hunt for errors, and the said committee returned about twenty-four to twenty-five thousand. And thereupon the leading men said, to correct so many errors will destroy the confidence of the common people in the sacredness of the Scriptures. Thereupon it was decided not to correct any. I saw it stated the other day that a very prominent divine charged upon the Bible Society that they knew they were publishing a book full of errors.
Question. What is your opinion of the Bible anyhow?
Answer. My first objection is, it is not true.
Second.—It is not inspired.
Third.—It upholds human slavery.
Fourth.—It sanctions concubinage.
Fifth.—It commands the most infamously cruel acts of war, such as the utter destruction of old men and little children.
Sixth.—After killing fathers, mothers and brothers, it commands the generals to divide the girls among the soldiers and priests. Beyond this, infamy has never gone. If any God made this order I am opposed to him.
Seventh.—It upholds human sacrifice, or, at least, seems to, from the following:
"Notwithstanding no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord."
"None devoted, which shall be devoted, of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death." (Twenty-seventh Chapter of Leviticus, 28th and 29th verses.)
Eighth.—Its laws are absurd, and the punishments cruel and unjust. Think of killing a man for making hair oil! Think of killing a man for picking up sticks on Sunday!
Ninth.—It upholds polygamy.
Tenth.—It knows nothing of astronomy, nothing of geology, nothing of any science whatever.
Eleventh.—It is opposed to religious liberty, and teaches a man to kill his own wife if she differs with him on religion; that is to say, if he is orthodox. There is no book in the world in which can be found so much that is thoroughly despicable and infamous. Of course there are some good passages, some good sentiments. But they are, at least in the Old Testament, few and far between.
Twelfth.—It treats woman like a beast, and man like a slave. It fills heaven with tyranny, and earth with hypocrisy and grief.
Question. Do you think any book inspired?
Answer. No. I do not think any book is inspired. But, if it had been the intention of this God to give to man an inspired book, he should have waited until Shakespeare's time, and used Shakespeare as the instrument. Then there never would have been any doubt as to the inspiration of the book. There is more beauty, more goodness, more intelligence in Shakespeare than in all the sacred books of this world.
Question. What do you think as a freethinker of the Sunday question in Cincinnati?
Answer. I think that it is a good thing to have a day of recreation, a day of rest, a day of joy, not a day of dyspepsia and theology. I am in favor of operas and theaters, music and happiness on Sunday. I am opposed to all excesses on any day. If the clergy will take half the pains to make the people intelligent that they do to make them superstitious, the world will soon have advanced so far that it can enjoy itself without excess. The ministers want Sunday for themselves. They want everybody to come to church because they can go no where else. It is like the story of a man coming home at three o'clock in the morning, who, upon being asked by his wife how he could come at such a time of night, replied, "The fact is, every other place is shut up." The orthodox clergy know that their churches will remain empty if any other place remains open. Do not forget to say that I mean orthodox churches, orthodox clergy, because I have great respect for Unitarians and Universalists.
* Brooklyn Eagle, 1881.
Question. I understand, Colonel Ingersoll, that you have been indicted in the State of Delaware for the crime of blasphemy?
Answer. Well, not exactly indicted. The Judge, who, I believe, is the Chief Justice of the State, dedicated the new court-house at Wilmington to the service of the Lord, by a charge to the grand jury, in which he almost commanded them to bring in a bill of indictment against me, for what he was pleased to call the crime of blasphemy. Now, as a matter of fact, there can be no crime committed by man against God, provided always that a correct definition of the Deity has been given by the orthodox churches. They say that he is infinite. If so, he is conditionless. I can injure a man by changing his conditions. Take from a man water, and he perishes of thirst; take from him air, and he suffocates; he may die from too much, or too little heat. That is because he is a conditioned being. But if God is conditionless, he cannot in any way be affected by what anybody else may do; and, consequently, a sin against God is as impossible as a sin against the principle of the lever or inclined plane. This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves. Blasphemy is a kind of breastwork behind which hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. Injustice is the only blasphemy that can be committed, and justice is the only true worship. Man can sin against man, but not against God. But even if man could sin against God, it has always struck me that an infinite being would be entirely able to take care of himself without the assistance of a Chief Justice. Men have always been violating the rights of men, under the plea of defending the rights of God, and nothing, for ages, was so perfectly delightful to the average Christian as to gratify his revenge, and get God in his debt at the same time. Chief Justice Comegys has taken this occasion to lay up for himself what he calls treasures in heaven, and on the last great day he will probably rely on a certified copy of this charge. The fact that he thinks the Lord needs help satisfies me that in that particular neighborhood I am a little ahead.
The fact is, I never delivered but one lecture in Delaware. That lecture, however, had been preceded by a Republican stump speech; and, to tell you the truth, I imagine that the stump speech is what a Yankee would call the heft of the offence. It is really hard for me to tell whether I have blasphemed the Deity or the Democracy. Of course I have no personal feeling whatever against the Judge. In fact he has done me a favor. He has called the attention of the civilized world to certain barbarian laws that disfigure and disgrace the statute books of most of the States. These laws were passed when our honest ancestors were burning witches, trading Quaker children to the Barbadoes for rum and molasses, branding people upon the forehead, boring their tongues with hot irons, putting one another in the pillory, and, generally, in the name of God, making their neighbors as uncomfortable as possible. We have outgrown these laws without repealing them. They are, as a matter of fact, in most communities actually dead; but in some of the States, like Delaware, I suppose they could be enforced, though there might be trouble in selecting twelve men, even in Delaware, without getting one man broad enough, sensible enough, and honest enough, to do justice. I hardly think it would be possible in any State to select a jury in the ordinary way that would convict any person charged with what is commonly known as blasphemy.
All the so-called Christian churches have accused each other of being blasphemers, in turn. The Catholics denounced the Presbyterians as blasphemers, the Presbyterians denounced the Baptists; the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the Catholics all united in denouncing the Quakers, and they all together denounced the Unitarians—called them blasphemers because they did not acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ—the Unitarians only insisting that three infinite beings were not necessary, that one infinite being could do all the business, and that the other two were absolutely useless. This was called blasphemy.
Then all the churches united to call the Universalists blasphemers. I can remember when a Uni-versalist was regarded with a thousand times more horror than an infidel is to-day. There is this strange thing about the history of theology—nobody has ever been charged with blasphemy who thought God bad. For instance, it never would have excited any theological hatred if a man had insisted that God would finally damn everybody. Nearly all heresy has consisted in making God better than the majority in the churches thought him to be. The orthodox Christian never will forgive the Univer-salist for saying that God is too good to damn anybody eternally. Now, all these sects have charged each other with blasphemy, without anyone of them knowing really what blasphemy is. I suppose they have occasionally been honest, because they have mostly been ignorant. It is said that Torquemada used to shed tears over the agonies of his victims and that he recommended slow burning, not because he wished to inflict pain, but because he really desired to give the gentleman or lady he was burning a chance to repent of his or her sins, and make his or her peace with God previous to becoming a cinder.
The root, foundation, germ and cause of nearly all religious persecution is the idea that some certain belief is necessary to salvation. If orthodox Christians are right in this idea, then persecution of all heretics and infidels is a duty. If I have the right to defend my body from attack, surely I should have a like right to defend my soul. Under our laws I could kill any man who was endeavoring, for example, to take the life of my child. How much more would I be justified in killing any wretch who was endeavoring to convince my child of the truth of a doctrine which, if believed, would result in the eternal damnation of that child's soul?
If the Christian religion, as it is commonly understood, is true, no infidel should be allowed to live; every heretic should be hunted from the wide world as you would hunt a wild beast. They should not be allowed to speak, they should not be allowed to poison the minds of women and children; in other words, they should not be allowed to empty heaven and fill hell. The reason I have liberty in this country is because the Christians of this country do not believe their doctrine. The passage from the Bible, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature," coupled with the assurance that, "Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned," is the foundation of most religious persecution. Every word in that passage has been fire and fagot, whip and sword, chain and dungeon. That one passage has probably caused more agony among men, women and children, than all the passages of all other books that were ever printed. Now, this passage was not in the book of Mark when originally written, but was put there many years after the gentleman who evolved the book of Mark from his inner consciousness, had passed away. It was put there by the church—that is to say, by hypocrisy and priestly craft, to bind the consciences of men and force them to come under ecclesiastical and spiritual power; and that passage has been received and believed, and been made binding by law in most countries ever since.
What would you think of a law compelling a man to admire Shakespeare, or calling it blasphemy to laugh at Hamlet? Why is not a statute necessary to uphold the reputation of Raphael or of Michael Angelo? Is it possible that God cannot write a book good enough and great enough and grand enough not to excite the laughter of his children? Is it possible that he is compelled to have his literary reputation supported by the State of Delaware?
There is another very strange thing about this business. Admitting that the Bible is the work of God, it is not any more his work than are the sun, the moon and the stars or the earth, and if for disbelieving this Bible we are to be damned forever, we ought to be equally damned for a mistake in geology or astronomy. The idea of allowing a man to go to heaven who swears that the earth is flat, and damning a fellow who thinks it is round, but who-has his honest doubts about Joshua, seems to me to be perfectly absurd. It seems to me that in this view of it, it is just as necessary to be right on the subject of the equator as on the doctrine of infant baptism.
Question. What was in your judgment the motive of Judge Comegys? Is he a personal enemy of yours? Have you ever met him? Have you any idea what reason he had for attacking you?
Answer. I do not know the gentleman, personally. Outside of the political reason I have intimated, I do not know why he attacked me. I once delivered a lecture entitled "What must we do to be Saved?" in the city of Wilmington, and in that lecture I proceeded to show, or at least tried to show, that Matthew, Mark and Luke knew nothing about Christianity, as it is understood in Delaware; and I also endeavored to show that all men have an equal right to think, and that a man is only under obligations to be honest with himself, and with all men, and that he is not accountable for the amount of mind that he has been endowed with—otherwise it might be Judge Comegys himself would be damned—but that he is only accountable for the use he makes of what little mind he has received. I held that the safest thing for every man was to be absolutely honest, and to express his honest thought. After the delivery of this lecture various ministers in Wilmington began replying, and after the preaching of twenty or thirty sermons, not one of which, considered as a reply, was a success, I presume it occurred to these ministers that the shortest and easiest way would be to have me indicted and imprisoned.
In this I entirely agree with them. It is the old and time-honored way. I believe it is, as it always has been, easier to kill two infidels than to answer one; and if Christianity expects to stem the tide that is now slowly rising over the intellectual world, it must be done by brute force, and by brute force alone. And it must be done pretty soon, or they will not have the brute force. It is doubtful if they have a majority of the civilized world on their side to-day. No heretic ever would have been burned if he could have been answered. No theologian ever called for the help of the law until his logic gave out.
I suppose Judge Comegys to be a Presbyterian. Where did he get his right to be a Presbyterian? Where did he get his right to decide which creed is the correct one? How did he dare to pit his little brain against the word of God? He may say that his father was a Presbyterian. But what was his grandfather? If he will only go back far enough he will, in all probability, find that his ancestors were Catholics, and if he will go back a little farther still, that they were barbarians; that at one time they were naked, and had snakes tattooed on their bodies. What right had they to change? Does he not perceive that had the savages passed the same kind of laws that now exist in Delaware, they could have prevented any change in belief? They would have had a whipping-post, too, and they would have said: "Any gentleman found without snakes tattooed upon his body shall be held guilty of blasphemy;" and all the ancestors of this Judge, and of these ministers, would have said, Amen!
What right had the first Presbyterian to be a Presbyterian? He must have been a blasphemer first. A small dose of pillory might have changed his religion. Does this Judge think that Delaware is incapable of any improvement in a religious point of view? Does he think that the Presbyterians of Delaware are not only the best now, but that they will forever be the best that God can make? Is there to be no advancement? Has there been no advancement? Are the pillory and the whipping-post to be used to prevent an excess of thought in the county of New Castle? Has the county ever been troubled that way? Has this Judge ever had symptoms of any such disease? Now, I want it understood that I like this Judge, and my principal reason for liking him is that he is the last of his race. He will be so inundated with the ridicule of mankind that no other Chief Justice in Delaware, or anywhere else, will ever follow his illustrious example. The next Judge will say: "So far as I am concerned, the Lord may attend to his own business, and deal with infidels as he may see proper." Thus great good has been accomplished by this Judge, which shows, as Burns puts it, "that a pot can be boiled, even if the devil tries to prevent it."
Question. How will this action of Delaware, in your opinion, affect the other States?
Answer. Probably a few other States needed an example exactly of this kind. New Jersey, in all probability, will say: "Delaware is perfectly ridiculous," and yet, had Delaware waited awhile, New Jersey might have done the same thing. Maryland will exclaim: "Did you ever see such a fool!" And yet I was threatened in that State. The average American citizen, taking into consideration the fact that we are blest, or cursed, with about one hundred thousand preachers, and that these preachers preach on the average one hundred thousand sermons a week—some of which are heard clear through—will unquestionably hold that a man who happens to differ with all these parsons, ought to have and shall have the privilege of expressing his mind; and that the one hundred thousand clergymen ought to be able to put down the one man who happens to disagree with them, without calling on the army or navy to do it, especially when it is taken into consideration that an infinite God is already on their side. Under these circumstances, the average American will say: "Let him talk, and let the hundred thousand preachers answer him to their hearts' content." So that in my judgment the result of the action of Delaware will be: First, to liberalize all other States, and second, finally to liberalize Delaware itself. In many of the States they have the same idiotic kind of laws as those found in Delaware—with the exception of those blessed institutions for the spread of the Gospel, known as the pillory and the whipping-post. There is a law in Maine by which a man can be put into the penitentiary for denying the providence of God, and the day of judgment. There are similar laws in most of the New England States. One can be imprisoned in Maryland for a like offence.
In North Carolina no man can hold office that has not a certain religious belief; and so in several other of the Southern States. In half the States of this Union, if my wife and children should be murdered before my eyes, I would not be allowed in a court of justice to tell who the murderer was. You see that, for hundreds of years, Christianity has endeavored to put the brand of infamy on every intellectual brow.
Question. I see that one objection to your lectures urged by Judge Comegys on the grand jury is, that they tend to a breach of the peace—to riot and bloodshed.
Answer. Yes; Judge Comegys seems to be afraid that people who love their enemies will mob their friends. He is afraid that those disciples who, when smitten on one cheek turn the other to be smitten also, will get up a riot. He seems to imagine that good Christians feel called upon to violate the commands of the Lord in defence of the Lord's reputation. If Christianity produces people who cannot hear their doctrines discussed without raising mobs, and shedding blood, the sooner it is stopped being preached the better.
There is not the slightest danger of any infidel attacking a Christian for His belief, and there never will be an infidel mob for such a purpose. Christians can teach and preach their views to their hearts' content. They can send all unbelievers to an eternal hell, if it gives them the least pleasure, and they may bang their Bibles as long as their fists last, but no infidel will be in danger of raising a riot to stop them, or put them down by brute force, or even by an appeal to the law, and I would advise Judge Comegys, if he wishes to compliment Christianity, to change his language and say that he feared a breach of the peace might be committed by the infidels—not by the Christians. He may possibly have thought that it was my intention to attack his State. But I can assure him, that if ever I start a warfare of that kind, I shall take some State of my size. There is no glory to be won in wringing the neck of a "Blue Hen!"
Question. I should judge, Colonel, that you are prejudiced against the State of Delaware?
Answer. Not by any means. Oh, no! I know a great many splendid people in Delaware, and since I have known more of their surroundings, my admiration for them has increased. They are, on the whole, a very good people in that State. I heard a story the other day: An old fellow in Delaware has been for the last twenty or thirty years gathering peaches there in their season—a kind of peach tramp. One day last fall, just as the season closed, he was leaning sadly against a tree, "Boys!" said he, "I'd like to come back to Delaware a hundred years from now." The boys asked, "What for?" The old fellow replied: "Just to see how damned little they'd get the baskets by that time." And it occurred to me that people who insist that twenty-two quarts make a bushel, should be as quiet as possible on the subject of blasphemy.
AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.
* Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.
Question. Have you read Chief Justice Comegys' compliments to you before the Delaware grand jury?
Answer. Yes, I have read his charge, in which he relies upon the law passed in 1740. After reading his charge it seemed to me as though he had died about the date of the law, had risen from the dead, and had gone right on where he had left off. I presume he is a good man, but compared with other men, is something like his State when compared with other States.
A great many people will probably regard the charge of Judge Comegys as unchristian, but I do not. I consider that the law of Delaware is in exact accord with the Bible, and that the pillory, the whip-ping-post, and the suppression of free speech are the natural fruit of the Old and New Testament.
Delaware is right. Christianity can not succeed, can not exist, without the protection of law. Take from orthodox Christianity the protection of law, and all church property would be taxed like other property. The Sabbath would be no longer a day devoted to superstition. Everyone could express his honest thought upon every possible subject. Everyone, notwithstanding his belief, could testify in a court of justice. In other words, honesty would be on an equality with hypocrisy. Science would stand on a level, so far as the law is concerned, with superstition. Whenever this happens the end of orthodox Christianity will be near.
By Christianity I do not mean charity, mercy, kindness, forgiveness. I mean no natural virtue, because all the natural virtues existed and had been practiced by hundreds and thousands of millions before Christ was born. There certainly were some good men even in the days of Christ in Jerusalem, before his death.
By Christianity I mean the ideas of redemption, atonement, a good man dying for a bad man, and the bad man getting a receipt in full. By Christianity I mean that system that insists that in the next world a few will be forever happy, while the many will be eternally miserable. Christianity, as I have explained it, must be protected, guarded, and sustained by law. It was founded by the sword that is to say, by physical force,—and must be preserved by like means.
In many of the States of the Union an infidel is not allowed to testify. In the State of Delaware, if Alexander von Humboldt were living, he could not be a witness, although he had more brains than the State of Delaware has ever produced, or is likely to produce as long as the laws of 1740 remain in force. Such men as Huxley, Tyndall and Haeckel could be fined and imprisoned in the State of Delaware, and, in fact, in many States of this Union.
Christianity, in order to defend itself, puts the brand of infamy on the brow of honesty. Christianity marks with a letter "C," standing for "convict" every brain that is great enough to discover the frauds. I have no doubt that Judge Comegys is a good and sincere Christian. I believe that he, in his charge, gives an exact reflection of the Jewish Jehovah. I believe that every word he said was in exact accord with the spirit of orthodox Christianity. Against this man personally I have nothing to say. I know nothing of his character except as I gather it from this charge, and after reading the charge I am forced simply to say, Judge Comegys is a Christian.
It seems, however, that the grand jury dared to take no action, notwithstanding they had been counseled to do so by the Judge. Although the Judge had quoted to them the words of George I. of blessed memory; although he had quoted to them the words of Lord Mansfield, who became a Judge simply because of his hatred of the English colonists, simply because he despised liberty in the new world; notwithstanding the fact that I could have been punished with insult, with imprisonment, and with stripes, and with every form of degradation; notwithstanding that only a few years ago I could have been branded upon the forehead, bored through the tongue, maimed and disfigured, still, such has been the advance even in the State of Delaware, owing, it may be, in great part to the one lecture delivered by me, that the grand jury absolutely refused to indict me.
The grand jury satisfied themselves and their consciences simply by making a report in which they declared that my lecture had "no parallel in the habits of respectable vagabondism" that I was "an arch-blasphemer and reviler of God and religion," and recommended that should I ever attempt to lecture again I should be taught that in Delaware blasphemy is a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment. I have no doubt that every member of the grand jury signing this report was entirely honest; that he acted in exact accord with what he understood to be the demand of the Christian religion. I must admit that for Christians, the report is exceedingly mild and gentle.
I have now in the house, letters that passed between certain bishops in the fifteenth century, in which they discussed the propriety of cutting out the tongues of heretics before they were burned. Some of the bishops were in favor of and some against it. One argument for cutting out their tongues which seemed to have settled the question was, that unless the tongues of heretics were cut out they might scandalize the gentlemen who were burning them, by blasphemous remarks during the fire. I would commend these letters to Judge Comegys and the members of the grand jury.
I want it distinctly understood that I have nothing against Judge Comegys or the grand jury. They act as 'most anybody would, raised in Delaware, in the shadow of the whipping-post and the pillory. We must remember that Delaware was a slave State; that the Bible became extremely dear to the people because it upheld that peculiar institution. We must remember that the Bible was the block on which mother and child stood for sale when they were separated by the Christians of Delaware. The Bible was regarded as the title-pages to slavery, and as the book of all books that gave the right to masters to whip mothers and to sell children.
There are many offences now for which the punishment is whipping and standing in the pillory; where persons are convicted of certain crimes and sent to the penitentiary, and upon being discharged from the penitentiary are furnished by the State with a dark jacket plainly marked on the back with a large Roman "C," the letter to be of a light color. This they are to wear for six months after being discharged, and if they are found at any time without the dark jacket and the illuminated "C" they are to be punished with twenty lashes upon the bare back. The object, I presume, of this law, is to drive from the State all the discharged convicts for the benefit of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland—that is to say, other Christian communities. A cruel people make cruel laws.
The objection I have to the whipping-post is that it is a punishment which cannot be inflicted by a gentleman. The person who administers the punishment must, of necessity, be fully as degraded as the person who receives it. I am opposed to any kind of punishment that cannot be administered by a gentleman. I am opposed to corporal punishment everywhere. It should be taken from the asylums and penitentiaries, and any man who would apply the lash to the naked back of another is beneath the contempt of honest people.
Question. Have you seen that Henry Bergh has introduced in the New York Legislature a bill providing for whipping as a punishment for wife-beating?
Answer. The objection I have mentioned is fatal to Mr. Bergh's bill. He will be able to get persons to beat wife-beaters, who, under the same circumstances, would be wife-beaters themselves. If they are not wife-beaters when they commence the business of beating others, they soon will be. I think that wife-beating in great cities could be stopped by putting all the wife-beaters at work at some government employment, the value of the work, however, to go to the wives and children. The trouble now is that most of the wife-beating is among the extremely poor, so that the wife by informing against her husband, takes the last crust out of her own mouth. If you substitute whipping or flogging for the prison here, you will in the first place prevent thousands of wives from informing, and in many cases, where the wife would inform, she would afterward be murdered by the flogged brute. This brute would naturally resort to the same means to reform his wife that the State had resorted to for the purpose of reforming him. Flogging would beget flogging. Mr. Bergh is a man of great kindness of heart. When he reads that a wife has been beaten, he says the husband deserves to be beaten himself. But if Mr. Bergh was to be the executioner, I imagine you could not prove by the back of the man that the punishment had been inflicted.
Another good remedy for wife-beating is the abolition of the Catholic Church. We should also do away with the idea that a marriage is a sacrament, and that there is any God who is rendered happy by seeing a husband and wife live together, although the husband gets most of his earthly enjoyment from whipping his wife. No woman should live with a man a moment after he has struck her. Just as the idea of liberty enlarges, confidence in the whip and fist, in the kick and blow, will diminish. Delaware occupies toward freethinkers precisely the same position that a wife-beater does toward the wife. Delaware knows that there are no reasons sufficient to uphold Christianity, consequently these reasons are supplemented with the pillory and the whipping-post. The whipping-post is considered one of God's arguments, and the pillory is a kind of moral suasion, the use of which fills heaven with a kind of holy and serene delight. I am opposed to the religion of brute force, but all these frightful things have grown principally out of a belief in eternal punishment and out of the further idea that a certain belief is necessary to avoid eternal pain.
If Christianity is right, Delaware is right. If God will damn every body forever simply for being intellectually honest, surely he ought to allow the good people of Delaware to imprison the same gentleman for two months. Of course there are thousands and thousands of good people in Delaware, people who have been in other States, people who have listened to Republican speeches, people who have read the works of scientists, who hold the laws of 1740 in utter abhorrence; people who pity Judge Comegys and who have a kind of sympathy for the grand jury.
You will see that at the last election Delaware lacked only six or seven hundred of being a civilized State, and probably in 1884 will stand redeemed and regenerated, with the laws of 1740 expunged from the statute book. Delaware has not had the best of opportunities. You must remember that it is next to New Jersey, which is quite an obstacle in the path of progress. It is just beyond Maryland, which is another obstacle. I heard the other day that God originally made oysters with legs, and afterward took them off, knowing that the people of Delaware would starve to death before they would run to catch anything. Judge Comegys is the last judge who will make such a charge in the United States. He has immortalized himself as the last mile-stone on that road. He is the last of his race. No more can be born. Outside of this he probably was a very clever man, and it may be, he does not believe a word he utters. The probability is that he has underestimated the intelligence of the people of Delaware. I am afraid to think that he is entirely honest, for fear that I may underestimate him intellectually, and overestimate him morally. Nothing could tempt me to do this man injustice, though I could hardly add to the injury he has done himself. He has called attention to laws that ought to be repealed, and to lectures that ought to be repeated. I feel in my heart that he has done me a great service, second only to that for which I am indebted to the grand jury. Had the Judge known me personally he probably would have said nothing. Should I have the misfortune to be arrested in his State and sentenced to two months of solitary confinement, the Judge having become acquainted with me during the trial, would probably insist on spending most of his time in my cell. At the end of the two months he would, I think, lay himself liable to the charge of blasphemy, providing he had honor enough to express his honest thought. After all, it is all a question of honesty. Every man is right. I cannot convince myself there is any God who will ever damn a man for having been honest. This gives me a certain hope for the Judge and the grand jury.
For two or three days I have been thinking what joy there must have been in heaven when Jehovah heard that Delaware was on his side, and remarked to the angels in the language of the late Adjt. Gen. Thomas: "The eyes of all Delaware are upon you."
* Col. Ingersoll filled McVickor's Theatre again yesterday
afternoon, when he answered the question "What Must We Do to
Be Saved?" But before doing so he replied to the recent
criticisms of city clergymen on his "Talmagian Theology"—
Chicago Tribune, Nov. 27, 1882.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
WHEREVER I lecture, as a rule, some ministers think it their duty to reply for the purpose of showing either that I am unfair, or that I am blasphemous, or that I laugh. And laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime. Ministers have always said you will have no respect for our ideas unless you are solemn. Solemnity is a condition precedent to believing anything without evidence. And if you can only get a man solemn enough, awed enough, he will believe anything.
In this city the Rev. Dr. Thomas has made a few remarks, and I may say by way of preface that I have always held him in the highest esteem. He struggles, according to his statement, with the problem of my sincerity, and he about half concludes that I am not sincere. There is a little of the minister left in Dr. Thomas. Ministers always account for a difference of opinion by attacking the motive. Now, to him, it makes no difference whether I am sincere or insincere; the question is, Can my argument be answered? Suppose you could prove that the maker of the multiplication table held mathematics in contempt; what of it? Ten times ten would be a hundred still.
My sincerity has nothing to do with the force of the argument—not the slightest. But this gentleman begins to suspect that I am doing what I do for the sake of applause. What a commentary on the Christian religion, that, after they have been preaching it for sixteen or eighteen hundred years, a man attacks it for the sake of popularity—a man attacks it for the purpose of winning applause! When I commenced to speak upon this subject there was no appreciable applause; most of my fellow-citizens differed with me; and I was denounced as though I had been a wild beast. But I have lived to see the majority of the men and women of intellect in the United States on my side; I have lived to see the church deny her creed; I have lived to see ministers apologize in public for what they preached; and a great and glorious work is going on until, in a little while, you will not find one of them, unless it is some old petrifaction of the red-stone period, who will admit that he ever believed in the Trinity, in the Atonement, or in the doctrine of Eternal Agony. The religion preached in the pulpits does not satisfy the intellect of America, and if Dr. Thomas wishes to know why people go to hear infidelity it is this: Because they are not satisfied with the orthodox Christianity of the day. That is the reason. They are beginning to hold it in contempt.
But this gentleman imagines that I am insincere because I attacked certain doctrines of the Bible. I attacked the doctrine of eternal pain. I hold it in infinite and utter abhorrence. And if there be a God in this universe who made a hell; if there be a God in this universe who denies to any human being the right of reformation, then that God is not good, that God is not just, and the future of man is infinitely dark. I despise that doctrine, and I have done what little I could to get that horror from the cradle, that horror from the hearts of mothers, that horror from the hearts of husbands and fathers, and sons, and brothers, and sisters. It is a doctrine that turns to ashes all the humanities of life and all the hopes of mankind. I despise it.
And the gentleman also charges that I am wanting in reverence. I admit here to-day that I have no reverence for a falsehood. I do not care how old it is, and I do not care who told it, whether the men were inspired or not. I have no reverence for what I believe to be false, and in determining what is false I go by my reason. And whenever another man gives me an argument I examine it. If it is good I follow it. If it is bad I throw it away. I have no reverence for any book that upholds human slavery. I despise such a book. I have no reverence for any book that upholds or palliates the infamous institution of polygamy. I have no reverence for any book that tells a husband to kill his wife if she differs with him upon the subject of religion. I have no reverence for any book that defends wars of conquest and extermination. I have no reverence for a God that orders his legions to slay the old and helpless, and to whet the edge of the sword with the blood of mothers and babes. I have no reverence for such a book; neither have I any reverence for the author of that book. No matter whether he be God or man, I have no reverence. I have no reverence for the miracles of the Bible. I have no reverence for the story that God allowed bears to tear children in pieces. I have no reverence for the miraculous, but I have reverence for the truth, for justice, for charity, for humanity, for intellectual liberty, and for human progress.
I have the right to do my own thinking. I am going to do it. I have never met any minister that I thought had brain enough to think for himself and for me too. I do my own. I have no reverence for barbarism, no matter how ancient it may be, and no reverence for the savagery of the Old Testament; no reverence for the malice of the New. And let me tell you here to-night that the Old Testament is a thousand times better than the New. The Old Testament threatened no vengeance beyond the grave. God was satisfied when his enemy was? dead. It was reserved for the New Testament—it was reserved for universal benevolence—to rend the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the abyss of hell. The New Testament is just as much worse than the Old, as hell is worse than sleep. And yet it is the fashion to say that the Old Testament is bad and that the New Testament is good. I have no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it is, no matter how many have believed it, no matter how many have died on account of it, no matter how many live for it, I have no reverence for that book, and I am glad of it.
Dr. Thomas seems to think that I should approach these things with infinite care, that I should not attack slavery, or polygamy, or religious persecution, but that I should "mildly suggest"—mildly,—should not hurt anybody's feelings. When I go to church the ministers tell me I am going to hell. When I meet one I tell him, "There is no hell," and he says: "What do you want to hurt our feelings for?" He wishes me mildly to suggest that the sun and moon did not stop, that may be the bears only frightened the children, and that, after all, Lot's wife was only scared. Why, there was a minister in this city of Chicago who imagined that his congregation were progressive, and, in his pulpit, he said that he did not believe the story of Lot's wife—said that he did not think that any sensible man would believe that a woman was changed into salt; and they tried him, and the congregation thought he was entirely too fresh. And finally he went before that church and admitted that he was mistaken, and owned up to the chloride of sodium, and said: "I not only take the Bible cum grano salis, but with a whole barrelful."
My doctrine is, if you do not believe a thing, say so, say so; no need of going away around the bush and suggesting may be, perhaps, possibly, peradventure. That is the ministerial way, but I do not like it.
I am also charged with making an onslaught upon the good as well as the bad. I say here today that never in my life have I said one word against honesty, one word against liberty, one word against charity, one word against any institution that is good. I attack the bad, not the good, and I would like to have some minister point out in some lecture or speech that I have delivered, one word against the good, against the highest happiness of the human race.
I have said all I was able to say in favor of justice, in favor of liberty, in favor of home, in favor of wife and children, in favor of progress, and in favor of universal kindness; but not one word in favor of the bad, and I never expect to.
Dr. Thomas also attacks my statement that the brain thinks in spite of us.
Doesn't it? Can any man tell what he is going to think to-morrow? You see, you hear, you taste, you feel, you smell—these are the avenues by which Nature approaches the brain, the consequence of this is thought, and you cannot by any possibility help thinking.
Neither can you determine what you will think. These impressions are made independently of your will. "But," says this reverend doctor, "Whence comes this conception of space?" I can tell him. There is such a thing as matter. We conceive that matter occupies room—space—and, in our minds, space is simply the opposite of matter. And it comes naturally—not supernaturally.
Does the gentleman contend there had to be a revelation of God for us to conceive of a place where there is nothing? We know there is something. We can think of the opposite of something, and therefore we say space. "But," says this gentleman, "Where do we get the idea of good and bad?" I can tell him; no trouble about that. Every man has the capacity to enjoy and the capacity to suffer—every man. Whenever a man enjoys himself he calls that good; whenever he suffers he calls that bad. The animals that are useful to him he calls good; the poisonous, the hurtful, he calls bad. The vegetables that he can eat and use he calls good; those that are of no use except to choke the growth of the good ones, he calls bad. When the sun shines, when everything in nature is out that ministers to him, he says "this is good;" when the storm comes and blows down his hut, when the frost comes and lays down his crop, he says "this is bad." And all phenomena that affect men well he calls good; all that affect him ill he calls bad.
Now, then, the foundation of the idea of right and wrong is the effect in nature that we are capable of enjoying or capable of suffering. That is the foundation of conscience; and if man could not suffer, if man could not enjoy, we never would have dreamed of the word conscience; and the words right and wrong never could have passed human lips. There are no supernatural fields. We get our ideas from experience—some of them from our forefathers, many from experience. A man works—food does not come of itself. A man works to raise it, and, after he has worked in the sun and heat, do you think it is necessary that he should have a revelation from heaven before he thinks that he has a better right to it than the man who did not work? And yet, according to these gentlemen, we never would have known it was wrong to steal had not the Ten Commandments been given from Mount Sinai.
You go into a savage country where they never heard of the Bible, and let a man hunt all day for game, and finally get one little bird, and the hungry man that staid at home endeavor to take it from him, and you would see whether he would need a direct revelation from God in order to make up his mind who had the better right to that bird. Our ideas of right and wrong are born of our surroundings, and if a man will think for a moment he will see it. But they deny that the mind thinks in spite of us. I heard a story of a man who said, "No man can think of one thing a minute, he will think of something else." Well, there was a little Methodist preacher. He said he could think of a thing a minute—that he could say the Lord's Prayer and never think of another thing. "Well," said the man, "I'll tell you what I will do. There is the best road-horse in the country. I will give you that horse if you will just say the Lord's Prayer, and not think of another thing." And the little fellow shut up his eyes: "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done—I suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?"
I have always insisted, and I shall always insist, until I find some fact in Nature correcting the statement, that Nature sows the seeds of thought—that every brain is a kind of field where the seeds are sown, and that some are very poor, and some are very barren, and some are very rich. That is my opinion.
Again he asks: "If one is not responsible for his thought, why is any one blamed for thinking as he does?" It is not a question of blame, it is a question of who is right—a question of who is wrong. Admit that every one thinks exactly as he must, that does not show that his thought is right; that does not show that his thought is the highest thought. Admit that every piece of land in the world produces what it must; that does not prove that the land covered with barren rocks and a little moss is just as good as the land covered with wheat or corn; neither does it prove that the mind has to act as the wheat or the corn; neither does it prove that the land had any choice as to what it would produce. I hold men responsible not for their thoughts; I hold men responsible for their actions. And I have said a thousand times: Physical liberty is this—the right to do anything that does not interfere with another—in other words, to act right; and intellectual liberty is this—the right to think right, and the right to think wrong, provided you do your best to think right. I have always said it, and I expect to say it always.
The reverend gentleman is also afflicted with the gradual theory. I believe in that theory.
If you will leave out inspiration, if you will leave out the direct interference of an infinite God, the gradual theory is right. It is a theory of evolution.
I admit that astronomy has been born of astrology, that chemistry came from the black art; and I also contend that religion will be lost in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in the budding of the seed, the shining of the sun, the dropping of the rain; I believe in the spreading and the growing; and that is as true in every other department of the world as it is in vegetation. I believe it; but that does not account for the Bible doctrine. We are told we have a book absolutely inspired, and it will not do to say God gradually grows. If he is infinite now, he knows as much as he ever will. If he has been always infinite, he knew as much at the time he wrote the Bible as he knows to-day; and, consequently, whatever he said then must be as true now as it was then. You see they mix up now a little bit of philosophy with religion—a little bit of science with the shreds and patches of the supernatural.
Hear this: I said in my lecture the other day that all the clergymen in the world could not get one drop of rain out of the sky. I insist on it. All the prayers on earth cannot produce one drop of rain. I also said all the clergymen of the world could not save one human life. They tried it last year. They tried it in the United States. The Christian world upon its knees implored God to save one life, and the man died. The man died! Had the man recovered the whole church would have claimed that it was in answer to prayer. The man having died, what does the church say now? What is the answer to this? The Rev. Dr. Thomas says: "There is prayer and there is rain." Good. "Can he that is himself or any one else say there is no possible relation between one and the other?" I do. Let us put it another way. There is rain and there is infidelity; can any one say there is no possible relation between the two? How does Dr. Thomas know that he is not indebted to me for this year's crops? And yet this gentleman really throws out the idea that there is some possible relation between prayer and rain, between rain and health; and he tells us that he would have died twenty-five years ago had it not been for prayer. I doubt it. Prayer is not a medicine. Life depends upon certain facts—not upon prayer. All the prayer in the world cannot take the place of the circulation of the blood. All the prayer in the world is no substitute for digestion. All the prayer in the world cannot take the place of food; and whenever a man lives by prayer you will find that he eats considerable besides. It will not do. Again: This reverend Doctor says: "Shall we say that all the love of the unseen world"—how does he know there is any love in the unseen world? "and the love of God"—how does he know there is any love in God? "heed not the cries and tears of earth?"
I do not know; but let the gentleman read the history of religious persecution. Let him read the history of those who were put in dungeons, of those who lifted their chained hands to God and mingled prayer with the clank of fetters; men that were in the dungeons simply for loving this God, simply for worshiping this God. And what did God do? Nothing. The chains remained upon the limbs of his worshipers. They remained in the dungeons built by theology, by malice, and hatred; and what did God do? Nothing. Thousands of men were taken from their homes, fagots were piled around their bodies; they were consumed to ashes, and what did God do? Nothing. The sword of extermination was unsheathed, hundreds and thousands of men, women and children perished. Women lifted their hands to God and implored him to protect their children, their daughters; and what did God do?
Nothing. Whole races were enslaved, and the cruel lash was put upon the naked back of toil. What did God do? Nothing. Children were sold from the arms of mothers. All the sweet humanities of life were trodden beneath the brutal foot of creed; and what did God do? Nothing. Human beings, his children, were tracked through swamps by bloodhounds; and what did God do? Nothing. Wild storms sweep over the earth and the shipwrecked go down in the billows; and what does God do? Nothing. There come plague and pestilence and famine. What does God do? Thousands and thousands perish. Little children die upon the withered breasts of mothers; and what does God do? Nothing.
What evidence has Dr. Thomas that the cries and tears of man have ever touched the heart of God? Let us be honest. I appeal to the history of the world; I appeal to the tears, and blood, and agony, and imprisonment, and death of hundreds and millions of the bravest and best. Have they ever touched the heart of the Infinite? Has the hand of help ever been reached from heaven? I do not know; but I do not believe it.
Dr. Thomas tells me that is orthodox Christianity. What right has he to tell what is orthodox Christianity? He is a heretic. He had too much brain to remain in the Methodist pulpit. He had a doubt—and a doubt is born of an idea. And his doctrine has been declared by his own church to be unorthodox. They have passed on his case and they have found him unconstitutional. What right has he to state what is orthodox? And here is what he says: "Christianity"—orthodox Christianity I suppose he means—"teaches, concerning the future world, that rewards and punishments are carried over from time to eternity; that the principles of the government of God are the same there as here; that character, and not profession determines destiny; and that Humboldt, and Dickens, and all others who have gone and shall go to that world shall receive their just rewards; that souls will always be in the place in which for the time, be it now or a million years hence, they are fitted. That is what Christianity teaches."
If it does, never will I have another word to say against Christianity. It never has taught it. Christianity—orthodox Christianity—teaches that when you draw your last breath you have lost the last opportunity for reformation. Christianity teaches that this little world is the eternal line between time and eternity, and if you do not get religion in this life, you will be eternally damned in the next. That is Christianity. They say: "Now is the accepted time." If you put it off until you die, that is too late; and the doctrine of the Christian world is that there is no opportunity for reformation in another world. The doctrine of orthodox Christianity is that you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ here in this life, and it will not do to believe on him in the next world. You must believe on him here and that if you fail here, God in his infinite wisdom will never give you another chance. That is orthodox Christianity; and according to orthodox Christianity, the greatest, the best and the sublimest of the world are now in hell. And why is it that they say it is not orthodox Christianity? I have made them ashamed of their doctrine. When I called to their attention the fact that such men as Darwin, such men as Emerson, Dickens, Longfellow, Laplace, Shakespeare, and Humboldt, were in hell, it struck them all at once that the company in heaven would not be very interesting with such men left out.
And now they begin to say: "We think the Lord will give those men another chance." I have succeeded in my mission beyond my most sanguine expectations. I have made orthodox ministers deny their creeds; I have made them ashamed of their doctrine—and that is glory enough. They will let me in, a few years after I am dead. I admit that the doctrine that God will treat us as we treat others—I admit that is taught by Matthew, Mark, and Luke; but it is not taught by the Orthodox church. I want that understood. I admit also that Dr. Thomas is not orthodox, and that he was driven out of the church because he thought God too good to damn men forever without giving them the slightest chance. Why, the Catholic Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that question. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory—that is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial.
Dr. Thomas, all I ask of you is to tell all that you think. Tell your congregation whether you believe the Bible was written by divine inspiration. Have the courage and the grandeur to tell your people whether, in your judgment, God ever upheld slavery.
Do not shrink. Do not shirk. Tell your people whether God ever upheld polygamy. Do not shrink. Tell them whether God was ever in favor of religious persecution. Stand right to it. Then tell your people whether you honestly believe that a good man can suffer for a bad one and the bad one get the credit. Be honor bright. Tell what you really think and there will not be as much difference between you and myself as you imagine.
The next gentleman, I believe, is the Rev. Dr. Lorimer. He comes to the rescue, and I have an idea of his mental capacity from the fact that he is a Baptist. He believes that the infinite God has a choice as to the manner in which a man or babe shall be dampened. This gentleman regards modern infidelity as "pitifully shallow" as to its intellectual conceptions and as to its philosophical views of the universe and of the problems regarding man's place in it and of his destiny. "Pitifully shallow!"
What is the modern conception of the universe? The modern conception is that the universe always has been and forever will be. The modern conception of the universe is that it embraces within its infinite arms all matter, all spirit, all forms of force, all that is, all that has been, all that can be. That is the modern conception of this universe. And this is called "pitiful."
What is the Christian conception? It is that all the matter in the universe is dead, inert, and that back of it is a Jewish Jehovah who made it, and who is now engaged in managing the affairs of this world. And they even go so far as to say that that Being made experiments in which he signally failed. That Being made man and woman and put them in a garden and allowed them to become totally depraved. That Being of infinite wisdom made hundreds and millions of people when he knew he would have to drown them. That Being peopled a planet like this with men, women and children, knowing that he would have to consign most of them to eternal fire. That is a pitiful conception of the universe. That is an infamous conception of the universe. Give me rather the conception of Spinoza, the conception of Humboldt, of Darwin, of Huxley, of Tyndall and of every other man who has thought. I love to think of the whole universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think that everything is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. I love to think that when a bud bursts into blossom it feels a thrill. I love to have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity.
Another thing to which this gentleman objects is that I propose to banish such awful thoughts as the mystery of our origin and our relations to the present and to the possible future from human thought.
I have never said so. Never. I have said, One world at a time. Why? Do not make yourself miserable about another. Why? Because I do not know anything about it, and it may be good. So do not worry. That is all. Y or do not know where you are going to land. It may be the happy port of heaven. Wait until you get there. It will be time enough to make trouble then. This is what I have said. I have said that the golden bridge of life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. I do not know. I admit it. Life is a shadowy strange and winding road on which we travel for a few short steps, just a little way from the cradle with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet wayside inn where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is "Good-Night!" Whether there is a good morning I do not know, but I am willing to wait.
Let us think these high and splendid thoughts. Let us build palaces for the future, but do not let us spend time making dungeons for men who happen to differ from us. I am willing to take the conceptions of Humboldt and Darwin, of Haeckel and Spinoza, and I am willing to compare their splendid conceptions with the doctrine embraced in the Baptist creed. This gentleman has his ideas upon a variety of questions, and he tells me that, "No one has a right to say that Dickens, Longfellow, and Darwin are castaways!" Why not? They were not Christians. They did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They did not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. And, if orthodox religion be true, they are castaways. But he says: "No one has the right to say that orthodoxy condemns to perdition any man who has struggled toward the right, and who has tried to bless the earth he is raised on." That is what I say, but that is not what orthodoxy says. Orthodoxy says that the best man in the world, if he fails to believe in the existence of God, or in the divinity of Christ, will be eternally lost. Does it not say it? Is there an orthodox minister in this town now who will stand up and say that an honest atheist can be saved? He will not. Let any preacher say it, and he will be tried for heresy.
I will tell you what orthodoxy is. A man goes to the day of judgment, and they cross-examine him, and they say to him:
"Did you believe the Bible?"
"No."
"Did you belong to the church?"
"No."
"Did you take care of your wife and children?"
"Yes?"
"Pay your debts?"
"Yes."
"Love your country?"
"Yes."
"Love the whole world?"
"Yes."
"Never made anybody unhappy?"
"Not that I know of. If there is any man or woman that I ever wronged let them stand up and say so. That is the kind of man I am; but," said he, "I did not believe the Bible. I did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and, to tell you the truth, I did not believe in the existence of God. I now find I was mistaken; but that was my doctrine." Now, I want to know what, according to the orthodox church, is done with that man?
He is sent to hell.
That is their doctrine.
Then the next fellow comes. He says:
"Where did you come from?"
And he looks off kind of stiffly, with his head on one side and he says:
"I came from the gallows. I was just hung."
"What were you hung for?"
"Murdering my wife. She wasn't a Christian either, she got left. The day I was hung I was washed in the blood of the Lamb."
That is Christianity. And they say to him: "Come in! Let the band play!"
That is orthodox Christianity. Every man that is hanged—there is a minister there, and the minister tells him he is all right. All he has to do is just to believe on the Lord.
Another objection this gentleman has, and that is that I am scurrilous. Scurrilous! And the gentleman, in order to show that he is not scurrilous, calls infidels, "donkeys, serpents, buzzards." That is simply to show that he is not scurrilous.
Dr. Lorimer is also of the opinion that the mind thinks independently of the will; and I propose to prove by him that it does. He is the last man in the world to controvert that doctrine—the last man. In spite of himself his mind absorbed the sermon of another man, and he repeated it as his own. I am satisfied he is an honest man; consequently his mind acted independently of his will, and he furnishes the strongest evidence in favor of my position that it is possible to conceive. I am infinitely obliged to him for the testimony he has unconsciously offered.
He also takes the ground that infidelity debases a man and renders him unfit for the discharge of the highest duties pertaining to life, and that we show the greatest shallowness when we endeavor to overthrow Calvinism. What is Calvinism? It is the doctrine that an infinite God made millions of people, knowing that they would be damned. I have answered that a thousand times. I answer it again. No God has a right to make a mistake, and then damn the mistake. No God has a right to make a failure, and a man who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success. No God has a right to make an investment that will not finally pay a dividend.
The world is getting better, and the ministers, all your life and all mine, have been crying out from the pulpit that we are all going wrong, that immorality was stalking through the land, that crime was about to engulf the world, and yet, in spite of all their prophecies, the world has steadily grown better, and there is more justice, more charity, more kindness, more goodness, and more liberty in the world to-day than ever before. And there is more infidelity in the world to-day than ever before.
* The attention of the Morning Advertiser readers was, in the
issue of February 27th, called to two sets of facts
transpiring contemporaneously in this city. One was the
starving condition of four hundred cloakmakers who had
struck because they could not live on reduced wages.
Arbitration had failed; two hundred of the number, seeing
starvation staring them in the face, were forced to give up
the fight, and the remaining number continued to do battle
for higher wages
While these cloakmakers were in the extremity of
destitution, millionaires were engaged in subscribing to a
fund "for the extension of the church." The extension
committee, received at the home of Jay Gould, had met with
such signal success as to cause comment throughout the city.
The host subscribed ten thousand dollars, his daughter
twenty-five hundred and the assembled guests sums ranging
between five hundred and one thousand. The Morning
Advertiser made inquiry as to whether any of the money
contributed for the extension of the church would find its
way into the pockets of the hungry cloakmakers.
Dr. John Hall said he did not have time to discuss the
matter of aiding the needy poor, as there were so many other
things that demanded his immediate attention.
Mr. Warner Van Norden, Treasurer of the Church Extension
Committee, was seen at his office in the North American
Bank, of which institution he is President.
He took the view that the cloakmakers had brought their
trouble upon themselves, and it was not the duty of the
charitable to extend to them direct aid.
Generally speaking, he was not in favor of helping the poor
and needy of the city, save in the way employed by the
church.
"The experience of centuries, said he, "teaches us that the
giving of alms to the poor only encourage them in their
idleness and their crimes. The duty of the church is to save
men's a souls, and to minister to their bodies incidentally.
"It is best to teach people to rely upon their own
resources. If the poor felt that they could get material
help, they would want it always. In these days if a man or
woman can't get along it's their own fault. There is my
typewriter. She was brought up in a tenement house. Now she
gets two dollars a day, and dresses better than did the
lords and ladies of other times. You'll find that where
people are poor, it's their own fault.
"After all, happiness does not lie in the enjoyment of
material things—it is the soul that makes life worth
living. You should come to our Working Girls' Club and see
this fact illustrated. There you will see girls who have
been working all day, singing hymns and following the leader
in prayer."
Don't you think there are many worthy poor in this city who
need material help?" was asked.
"No, sir; I do not," said Mr. Van Norden. "If a man or woman
wants money, they should work for It."
"But is employment always to be had?"
"I think it is by Americans. You'll find that most of the
people out of work are those who are not adapted to the
conditions of this country.
Colonel Robert Ingersoll was asked what he thought of such philosophy.—New York Morning Advertiser, March 10,1892.
Question. Have you read the article in the Morning Advertiser entitled "Workers Starving"?
Answer. I have read it, and was greatly surprised at the answers made to the reporter of the Advertiser.
Question. What do you think of the remarks of the Rev. John Hall and by Mr. Warner Van Norden, Treasurer of the "Church Extension Committee"?
Answer. My opinion is that Dr. Hall must have answered under some irritation, or that the reporter did not happen to take down all he said. It hardly seems probable that Dr. Hall should have said that he had no time to discuss the matter of aiding the needy poor, giving as a reason that there were so many other things that demanded his immediate attention. The church is always insisting that it is, above all things, a charitable institution; that it collects and distributes many millions every year for the relief of the needy, and it is always quoting: "Sell that thou hast and give to the poor." It is hard to imagine anything of more importance than to relieve the needy, or to succor the oppressed. Of course, I know that the church itself produces nothing, and that it lives on contributions; but its claim is that it receives from those who are able to give, and gives to those who are in urgent need.
I have sometimes thought, that the most uncharitable thing in the world is an organized charity. It seems to have the peculiarities of a corporation, and becomes as soulless as its kindred. To use a very old phrase, it generally acts like "a beggar on horseback."
Probably Dr. Hall, in fact, does a great deal for the poor, and I imagine that he must have been irritated or annoyed when he made the answer attributed to him in the Advertiser. The good Samaritan may have been in a hurry, but he said nothing about it. The Levites that passed by on the other side seemed to have had other business. Understand me, I am saying nothing against Dr. Hall, but it does seem to me that there are few other matters more important than assisting our needy fellow-men.
Question. What do you think of Mr. Warner Van Norden's sentiments as expressed to the reporter?
Answer. In the first place, I think he is entirely mistaken. I do not think the cloakmakers brought their trouble upon themselves. The wages they receive were and are insufficient to support reasonable human beings. They work for almost nothing, and it is hard for me to understand why they live at all, when life is so expensive and death so cheap. All they can possibly do is to earn enough one day to buy food to enable them to work the next. Life with them is a perpetual struggle. They live on the edge of death. Under their feet they must feel the side of the grave crumbling, and thus they go through, day by day, month by month, year by year. They are, I presume, sustained by a hope that is never realized.
Mr. Van Norden says that he is not in favor of helping the poor and needy of the city, save in the way employed by the church, and that the experience of centuries teaches us that the giving of alms to the poor only encourages them in their idleness and their crimes.
Is Mr. Van Norden ready to take the ground that when Christ said: "Sell that thou hast and give to the poor," he intended to encourage idleness and crime?
Is it possible that when it was said, "It is better to give than to receive," the real meaning was, It is better to encourage idleness and crime than to receive assistance?
For instance, a man falls into the water. Why should one standing on the shore attempt to rescue him? Could he not properly say: "If all who fall into the water are rescued, it will only encourage people to fall into the water; it will make sailors careless, and persons who stand on wharves, will care very little whether they fall in or not. Therefore, in order to make people careful who have not fallen into the water, let those in the water drown." In other words, why should anybody be assisted, if assistance encourages carelessness, or idleness, or negligence?
According to Mr. Van Norden, charity is out of place in this world, kindness is a mistake, and hospitality springs from a lack of philosophy. In other words, all should take the consequences of their acts, not only, but the consequences of the acts of others.
If I knew this doctrine to be true, I should still insist that men should be charitable on their own account. A man without pity, no matter how intelligent he may be, is at best only an intellectual beast, and if by withholding all assistance we could finally people the world with those who are actually self-supporting, we would have a population without sympathy, without charity—that is to say, without goodness. In my judgment, it would be far better that none should exist.
Mr. Van Norden takes the ground that the duty of the church is to save men's souls, and to minister to their bodies incidentally. I think that conditions have a vast deal to do with morality and goodness. If you wish to change the conduct of your fellow-men, the first thing to do is to change their conditions, their surroundings; in other words, to help them to help themselves—help them to get away from bad influences, away from the darkness of ignorance, away from the temptations of poverty and want, not only into the light intellectually, but into the climate of prosperity. It is useless to give a hungry man a religious tract, and it is almost useless to preach morality to those who are so situated that the necessity of the present, the hunger of the moment, overrides every other consideration. There is a vast deal of sophistry in hunger, and a good deal of persuasion in necessity.
Prosperity is apt to make men selfish. They imagine that because they have succeeded, others and all others, might or may succeed. If any man will go over his own life honestly, he will find that he has not always succeeded because he was good, or that he has always failed because he was bad. He will find that many things happened with which he had nothing to do, for his benefit, and that, after all is said and done, he cannot account for all of his successes by his absolute goodness. So, if a man will think of all the bad things he has done—of all the bad things he wanted to do—of all the bad things he would have done had he had the chance, and had he known that detection was impossible, he will find but little foundation for egotism.
Question. What do you say to this language of Mr. Van Norden. "It is best to teach people to rely upon their own resources. If the poor felt that they could get material help they would want it always, and in this day, if a man and woman cannot get along, it is their own fault"?
Answer. All I can say is that I do not agree with him. Often there are many more men in a certain trade than there is work for such men. Often great factories shut down, leaving many thousands out of employment. You may say that it was the fault of these men that they learned that trade; that they might have known it would be overcrowded; so you may say it was the fault of the capitalist to start a factory in that particular line, because he should have known that it was to be overdone.
As no man can look very far into the future, the truth is it was nobody's fault, and without fault thousands and thousands are thrown out of employment. Competition is so sharp, wages are so small, that to be out of employment for a few weeks means want. You cannot say that this is the fault of the man who wants bread. He certainly did not wish to go hungry; neither did he deliberately plan a failure. He did the best he could. There are plenty of bankers who fail in business, not because they wish to fail; so there are plenty of professional men who cannot make a living, yet it may not be their fault; and there are others who get rich, and it may not be by reason of their virtues.
Without doubt, there are many people in the city of New York who cannot make a living. Competition is too sharp; life is too complex; consequently the percentage of failures is large. In savage life there are few failures, but in civilized life there are many. There are many thousands out of work and out of food in Berlin to-day. It can hardly be said to be their fault. So there are many thousands in London, and every other great city of the world. You cannot account for all this want by saying that the people who want are entirely to blame.
A man gets rich, and he is often egotistic enough to think that his wealth was the result of his own unaided efforts; and he is sometimes heartless enough to say that others should get rich by following his example.
Mr. Van Norden states that he has a typewriter who gets two dollars a day, and that she dresses better than the lords and ladies did of olden times. He must refer to the times of the Garden of Eden. Out of two dollars a day one must live, and there is very little left for gorgeous robes. I hardly think a lady is to be envied because she receives two dollars a day, and the probability is that the manner in which she dresses on that sum—having first deducted the expenses of living—is not calculated to excite envy.
The philosophy of Mr. Van Norden seems to be concentrated into this line: "Where people are poor it is their own fault." Of course this is the death of all charity.
We are then informed by this gentleman that "happiness does not lie in the enjoyment of material things—that it is the soul that makes life worth living."
Is it the soul without pity that makes life worth living? Is it the soul in which the blossom of charity has never shed its perfume that makes life so desirable? Is it the soul, having all material things, wrapped in the robes of prosperity, and that says to all the poor: It is your own fault; die of hunger if you must—that makes life worth living?
It may be asked whether it is worth while for such a soul to live.
If this is the philosophy of Mr. Van Norden, I do not wish to visit his working girls' club, or to "hear girls who have been working all day singing hymns and following the leader in prayer." Why should a soul without pity pray? Why should any one ask God to be merciful to the poor if he is not merciful himself? For my own part, I would rather see poor people eat than to hear them pray. I would rather see them clothed comfortably than to see them shivering, and at the same time hear them sing hymns.
It does not seem possible that any man can say that there are no worthy poor in this city who need material help. Neither does it seem possible that any man can say to one who is starving that if he wants money he must work for it. There are hundreds and thousands in this city willing to work who can find no employment. There are good and pure women standing between their children and starvation, living in rooms worse than cells in penitentiaries—giving their own lives to their children—hundreds and hundreds of martyrs bearing the cross of every suffering, worthy of the reverence and love of mankind. So there are men wandering about these streets in search of work, willing to do anything to feed the ones they love.
Mr. Van Norden has not done himself justice. I do not believe that he expresses his real sentiments. But, after all, why should we expect charity in a church that believes in the dogma of eternal pain? Why cannot the rich be happy here in their palaces, while the poor suffer and starve in huts, when these same rich expect to enjoy heaven forever, with all the unbelievers in hell? Why should the agony of time interfere with their happiness, when the agonies of eternity will not and cannot affect their joy? But I have nothing against Dr. John Hall or Mr. Van Norden—only against their ideas.
* Boston, 1898.
Question. Last Sunday the Rev. Dr. Plumb paid some attention to the lecture which you delivered here on the 23rd of October. Have you read a report of it, and what have you to say?
Answer. Dr. Plumb attacks not only myself, but the Rev. Mr. Mills. I do not know the position that Mr. Mills takes, but from what Dr. Plumb says, I suppose that he has mingled a little philosophy with his religion and some science with his superstition. Dr. Plumb appears to have successfully avoided both. His manners do not appear to me to be of the best. Why should he call an opponent coarse and blasphemous, simply because he does not happen to believe as he does? Is it blasphemous to say that this "poor" world never was visited by a Redeemer from Heaven, a majestic being—unique—peculiar—who "trod the sea and hushed the storm and raised the dead"? Why does Dr. Plumb call this world a "poor" world? According to his creed, it was created by infinite wisdom, infinite goodness and infinite power. How dare he call the work of such a being "poor"?
Is it not blasphemous for a Boston minister to denounce the work of the Infinite and say to God that he made a "poor" world? If I believed this world had been made by an infinitely wise and good Being, I should certainly insist that this is not a poor world, but, on the contrary, a perfect world. I would insist that everything that happens is for the best. Whether it looks wise or foolish to us, I would insist that the fault we thought we saw, lies in us and not in the infinitely wise and benevolent Creator.
Dr. Plumb may love God, but he certainly regards him as a poor mechanic and a failure as a manufacturer. There Dr. Plumb, like all religious preachers, takes several things for granted; things that have not been established by evidence, and things which in their nature cannot be established.
He tells us that this poor world was visited by a mighty Redeemer from Heaven. How does he know? Does he know where heaven is? Does he know that any such place exists? Is he perfectly sure that an infinite God would be foolish enough to make people who needed a redeemer?
He also says that this Being "trod the sea, hushed the storm and raised the dead." Is there any evidence that this Being trod the sea? Any more evidence than that Venus rose from the foam of the ocean? Any evidence that he hushed the storm any more than there is that the storm comes from the cave of �?olus? Is there any evidence that he raised the dead? How would it be possible to prove that the dead were raised? How could we prove such a thing if it happened now? Who would believe the evidence? As a matter of fact, the witnesses themselves would not believe and could not believe until raising of the dead became so general as to be regarded as natural.
Dr. Plumb knows, if he knows anything, that gospel gossip is the only evidence he has, or anybody has, that Christ trod the sea, hushed the storm and raised the dead. He also knows, if he knows anything, that these stories were not written until Christ himself had been dead for at least four generations. He knows also that these accounts were written at a time when the belief in miracles was almost universal, and when everything that actually happened was regarded of no particular importance, and only the things that did not happen were carefully written out with all the details.
So Dr. Plumb says that this man who hushed the storm "spake as never man spake." Did the Doctor ever read Zeno? Zeno, who denounced human slavery many years before Christ was born? Did he ever read Epicurus, one of the greatest of the Greeks? Has he read anything from Buddha? Has he read the dialogues between Arjuna and Krishna? If he has, he knows that every great and splendid utterance of Christ was uttered centuries before he lived. Did he ever read Lao-tsze? If he did—and this man lived many centuries before the coming of our Lord—he knows that Lao-tsze said "we should render benefits for injuries. We should love our enemies, and we should not resist evil." So it will hardly do now to say that Christ spake as never man spake, because he repeated the very things that other men had said.
So he says that I am endeavoring to carry people back to a dimly groping Socrates or a vague Confucius. Did Dr. Plumb ever read Confucius? Only a little while ago a book was published by Mr. For-long showing the origin of the principal religion and the creeds that have been taught. In this book you will find the cream of Buddha, of Christ, of Zoroaster, and you will also find a few pages devoted to the philosophy of Confucius; and after you have read the others, then read what Confucius says, and you will find that his philosophy rises like a monolith touching the clouds, while the creeds and sayings of the others appear like heaps of stone or piles of rubbish. The reason of this is that Confucius was not simply a sentimentalist. He was not controlled entirely by feeling, but he had intelligence—a great brain in which burned the torch of reason. Read Confucius, and you will think that he must have known the sciences of to-day; that is to say, the conclusions that have been reached by modern thinkers. It could have been easily said of Confucius in his day that he spake as never man had spoken, and it may be that after you read him you will change your mind just a little as to the wisdom and the intelligence contained in many of the sayings of our Lord.
Dr. Plumb charges that Mr. Mills is trying to reconstruct theology. Whether he is right in this charge I do not know, but I do know that I am not trying to reconstruct theology. I am endeavoring to destroy it. I have no more confidence in theology than I have in astrology or in the black art. Theology is a science that exists wholly independent of facts, and that reaches conclusions without the assistance of evidence. It also scorns experience and does what little it can to do away with thought.
I make a very great distinction between theology and real religion. I can conceive of no religion except usefulness. Now, here we are, men and women in this world, and we have certain faculties, certain senses. There are things that we can ascertain, and by developing our brain we can avoid mistakes, keep a few thorns out of our feet, a few thistles out of our hands, a few diseases from our flesh. In my judgment, we should use all our senses, gathering information from every possible quarter, and this information should be only used for the purpose of ascertaining the facts, for finding out the conditions of well-being, to the end that we may add to the happiness of ourselves and fellows.
In other words, I believe in intellectual veracity and also in mental hospitality. To me reason is the final arbiter, and when I say reason, I mean my reason. It may be a very poor light, the flame small and flickering, but, after all, it is the only light I have, and never with my consent shall any preacher blow it out.
Now, Dr. Plumb thinks that I am trying to despoil my fellow-men of their greatest inheritance; that is to say, divine Christ. Why do you call Christ good? Is it because he was merciful? Then why do you put him above mercy? Why do you call Christ good? Is it because he was just? Why do you put him before justice? Suppose it should turn out that no such person as Christ ever lived. What harm would that do justice or mercy? Wouldn't the tear of pity be as pure as now, and wouldn't justice, holding aloft her scales, from which she blows even the dust of prejudice, be as noble, as admirable as now? Is it not better to love, justice and mercy than to love a name, and when you put a name above justice, above mercy, are you sure that you are benefiting your fellow-men?
If Dr. Plumb wanted to answer me, why did he not take my argument instead of my motive? Why did he not point out my weakness instead of telling the consequences that would follow from my action? We have nothing to do with the consequences. I said that to believe without evidence, or in spite of evidence, was superstition. If that definition is correct, Dr. Plumb is a superstitious man, because he believes at least without evidence. What evidence has he that Christ was God? In the nature of things, how could he have evidence? The only evidence he pretends to have is the dream of Joseph, and he does not know that Joseph ever dreamed the dream, because Joseph did not write an account of his dream, so that Dr. Plumb has only hearsay for the dream, and the dream is the foundation of his creed.
Now, when I say that that is superstition, Dr. Plumb charges me with being a burglar—a coarse, blasphemous burglar—who wishes to rob somebody of some great blessing. Dr. Plumb would not hesitate to tell a Mohammedan that Mohammed was an impostor. He would tell a Mormon in Utah that Joseph Smith was a vulgar liar and that Brigham Young was no better. In other words, if in Turkey, he would be a coarse and blasphemous burglar, and he would follow the same profession in Utah. So probably he would tell the Chinese that Confucius was an ignorant wretch and that their religion was idiotic, and the Chinese priest would denounce Dr. Plumb as a very coarse and blasphemous burglar, and Dr. Plumb would be perfectly astonished that a priest could be so low, so impudent and malicious.
Of course my wonder is not excited. I have become used to it.
If Dr. Plumb would think, if he would exercise his imagination a little and put himself in the place of others, he would think, in all probability, better things of his opponents. I do not know Dr. Plumb, and yet I have no doubt that he is a good and sincere man; a little superstitious, superficial, and possibly, mingled with his many virtues, there may be a little righteous malice.
The Rev. Mr. Mills used to believe as Dr. Plumb does now, and I suppose he has changed for reasons that were sufficient for him. So I believe him to be an honest, conscientious man, and so far as I am concerned, I have no objection to Mr. Mills doing what little he can to get all the churches to act together. He may never succeed, but I am not responsible for that.
So I have no objection to Dr. Plumb preaching what he believes to be the gospel. I admit that he is honest when he says that an infinitely good God made a poor world; that he made man and woman and put them in the Garden of Eden, and that this same God before that time had manufactured a devil, and that when he manufactured this devil, he knew that he would corrupt the man and woman that he had determined to make; that he could have defeated the devil, but that for a wise purpose, he allowed his Satanic Majesty to succeed; that at the time he allowed him to succeed, he knew that in consequence of his success that he (God) in about fifteen or sixteen hundred years would be compelled to drown the whole world with the exception of eight people. These eight people he kept for seed. At the time he kept them for seed, he knew that they were totally depraved, that they were saturated with the sin of Adam and Eve, and that their children would be their natural heirs. He also knew at the time he allowed the devil to succeed, that he (God), some four thousand years afterward, would be compelled to be born in Palestine as a babe, to learn the carpenter's trade, and to go about the country for three years preaching to the people and discussing with the rabbis of his chosen people, and he also knew that these chosen people—these people who had been governed and educated by him, to whom he had sent a multitude of prophets, would at that time be so savage that they would crucify him, although he would be at that time the only sinless being who had ever stood upon the earth. This he knew would be the effect of his government, of his education of his chosen people. He also knew at the time he allowed the devil to succeed, that in consequence of that success a vast majority of the human race would become eternal convicts in the prison of hell.
All this he knew, and yet Dr. Plumb insists that he was and is infinitely wise, infinitely powerful and infinitely good. What would this God have done if he had lacked wisdom, or power, or goodness?
Of all the religions that man has produced, of all the creeds of savagery, there is none more perfectly absurd than Christianity.
* New York Journal, 1898. An Interview.
Question. Have you followed the controversy, or rather, the interest manifested in the letters to the Journal which have followed your lecture of Sunday, and what do you think of them?
Answer. I have read the letters and reports that have been published in the Jou