In the first, the earth emerges from the waters and is therefore saturated with moisture. (Gen. 1 : 9, 10.) In the second, the whole face of the ground requires to be moistened. (Gen. 2 : 6.)

In the first, the birds and beasts are created before man. (Gen. 1 : 20, 24, 26.) In the second, man is created before the birds and beasts. (Gen. 2 : 7, 9.)

In the first, all the “fowls that fly” are made out of the waters. (Gen. 1 : 20.) In the second, the “fowls of the air” are made out of the ground. (Gen. 2 : 19.) [30]

In the first, man is made lord of the whole earth. (Gen. 1 : 28.) In the second, he is merely placed in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (Gen. 2 : 8, 15.)

In the first, man and woman are created together. (Gen. 1 : 28.) In the second, the beasts and birds are created between the man and woman. (Gen. 2 : 7, 8, 15, 22.)—Bishop Colenso.

“I have looked further into space than ever human being did before me. I have observed stars, of which the light, it can be proved, must take two millions of years to reach this earth. Nay more, if those distant bodies had ceased to exist two million of years ago, we should still see them, as the light would travel after the body was gone. * * *

“The light from the nearest star requires some three years to reach the earth. From a star one thousand three hundred and forty-four times farther it would require about four thousand years, and for such a cluster as we have imagined, no less than six thousand years are needed.” (Sir Wm. Herschell, “Life and Works of Sir Wm. Herschell” by Edward S. Holden.)

Sir Wm. Thomson, in Encyclopedia Britannica, article, Geology, showed from data available at the time, “that the superficial consolidation of the globe (this earth) could not have occurred less than twenty millions of years ago.”

Such eminent scientists as Sir Wm. Thomson, Helmholtz, Newcomb, Croll, Bishop, Reade, Lyell, Darwin, and others think it would have taken many millions of years for the original nebulæ to condense to the present dimensions of the sun. [31]

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable that all men must die; that lead cannot of itself remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or, in other words, a miracle, to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man seemingly in good health should die suddenly; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed or the miracle rendered credible but by an opposite proof which is superior. (2.)

“The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), ‘that no testimony is sufficient [51]to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains after deducting the inferior.’ When any one tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other, and according to the superiority which I discover I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

“In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed that the testimony upon which a miracle is founded may possibly amount to an entire proof, and that the falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy; but it is easy to show that we have been a great deal too liberal in our concession, and that there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence.

“For, first, there is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and, at the same time, attesting facts performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable; all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men.

“Secondly. We may observe in human nature a principle which, if strictly examined, will be found to diminish [52]extremely the assurance which we might, from human testimony, have in any kind of prodigy. The maxim by which we commonly conduct ourselves in our reasonings is, that the objects of which we have no experience resemble those of which we have; that what we have found to be most usual is always most profitable, and that where there is an opposition of argument we ought to give the preference to such as are founded on the greatest number of past observations; but though, in proceeding by this rule, we readily reject any fact which is unusual and incredible in an ordinary degree, yet in advancing further the mind observes not always the same rule, but when anything is affirmed utterly absurd and miraculous it rather the more readily admits of such a fact, upon account of that very circumstance which ought to destroy all its authority. The passion of surprise and wonder arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency toward the belief of those events from which it is derived. And this goes so far, that even those who can not enjoy this pleasure immediately, nor can believe those miraculous events of which they are informed, yet love to partake of the satisfaction at second-hand or by rebound, and take pride and delight in exciting the admiration of others.

“With what greediness are the miraculous accounts of travelers received, their descriptions of sea and land monsters, their relations of wonderful adventures, strange men and uncouth manners! But if the spirit of religion joins itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense, and human testimony, in these circumstances, loses all pretensions to authority. A religionist may be an enthusiast, and imagine he sees what has no reality; he may know his narrative to be false, and yet persevere in it with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause; or even where this delusion has not place, vanity, excited by so strong a temptation, operates on him more powerfully than on the rest of mankind in any other circumstances, and self-interest with equal force. His [53]auditors may not have, and commonly have not, sufficient judgment to canvass his evidence; what judgment they have, they renounce by principle, in these sublime and mysterious subjects; or if they were ever so willing to employ it, passion and a heated imagination disturb the regularity of its operations. Their credulity increases his impudence, and his impudence overpowers their credulity.

“Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but, addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher, can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

“The many instances of forged miracles and prophecies, and supernatural events, which in all ages have either been detected by contrary evidence or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and the marvelous, and ought reasonably to beget a suspicion against all relations of this kind. This is our natural way of thinking, even with regard to the most common and most credible events. For instance, there is no kind of report which rises so easily and spreads so quickly, especially in country places and provincial towns, as those concerning marriages: insomuch that two young persons of equal condition never see each other twice but the whole neighborhood immediately join them together. The pleasure of telling a piece of news so interesting, of propagating it, and of being the first reporters of it, spreads the intelligence. And this is so well known that no man of sense gives attention to these reports till he finds them confirmed by some greater evidence. Do not the same passions, and others still stronger, incline the generality of mankind to believe and report, with the greatest vehemence and assurance, all religious miracles? [54]

“Thirdly. It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors, who transmitted them with that inviolable sanction and authority which always attend received opinions. When we peruse the first histories of all nations, we are apt to imagine ourselves transported into some new world, where the whole frame of nature is disjointed, and every element performs its operations in a different manner from what it does at present. Battles, revolutions, pestilence, famine, and death, are never the effect of those natural causes which we experience. Prodigies, omens, oracles, judgments, quite obscure the few natural events that are intermingled with them. But as the former grow thinner every page, in proportion as we advance nearer the enlightened ages, we soon learn that there is nothing mysterious or supernatural in the case, but that all proceeds from the usual propensity of mankind toward the marvelous; and that though this inclination may at intervals receive a check from sense and learning, it can never be thoroughly extirpated from human nature.

“It is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say upon the perusal of those wonderful historians, that such prodigious events never happen in our days. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in all ages. You must surely have seen instances enough of that frailty. You have yourself heard many such marvelous relations started, which, being treated with scorn by all the wise and judicious, have at least been abandoned even by the vulgar. Be assured that those renowned lies, which have spread and flourished to such a monstrous height, arose from like beginnings; but being sown in a more proper soil, shot up at last into prodigies almost equal to those which they relate.

“It was a wise policy in that false prophet Alexander, who, though now forgotten, was once so famous, to lay the [55]first scene of his impostures in Paphlagonia, where, as Lucian tells us, the people were extremely ignorant and stupid, and ready to swallow even the grossest delusion. People at a distance who are weak enough to think the matter at all worth inquiry have no opportunity of receiving better information. The stories come magnified to them by a hundred circumstances. Fools are industrious in propagating the imposture; while the wise and learned are contented, in general, to deride its absurdity, without informing themselves of the particular facts by which it may be distinctly refuted. And thus the imposture above mentioned was enabled to proceed, from his ignorant Paphlagonians, to the enlisting of votaries even among the Grecian philosophers and men of the most eminent rank and distinction in Rome; nay, could engage the attention of that sage emperor Marcus Aurelius, so far as to make him trust the success of a military expedition to his delusive prophecies.

“The advantages are so great of starting an imposture among an ignorant people that, even though the delusion should be too gross to impose on the generality of them, which, though seldom, is sometimes the case, it has a much better chance for succeeding in remote countries than if the first scene had been laid in a city renowned for arts and knowledge. The most ignorant and barbarous of these barbarians carry the report abroad. None of their countrymen have a large correspondence of sufficient credit and authority to contradict and beat down the delusion. Men’s inclination to the marvelous has full opportunity to display itself. And thus a story, which is universally exploded in the place where it was first started, will pass for certain at a thousand miles distant. But had Alexander fixed his residence at Athens, the philosophers of that renowned mart of learning would have spread, throughout the whole Roman empire, their sense of the matter; which, being supported by so great an authority, and displayed by all the force of reason and eloquence, would have entirely opened the eyes of [56]mankind. It is true Lucian, passing by chance through Paphlagonia, had an opportunity of performing this good office. But though much to be wished, it does not always happen that every Alexander meets with a Lucian ready to expose and detect his impostures.

“I may add as a fourth reason which diminishes the authority of prodigies, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have not been expressly detected, that is, not opposed by any infinite number of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. To make this the better understood, let us consider that in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary; and it is impossible that the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China, should all of them be established on any solid foundation. Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of those religions (and all of them abound in miracles), as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which it is attributed, so has it the same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles on which that system was established; so that all the prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary facts; and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other. According to this method of reasoning, when we believe any miracle of Mahomet or his successors, we have for our warrant the testimony of a few barbarous Arabians: and on the other hand, we are to regard the authority of Titus, Livius, Plutarch, Tacitus, and, in short, of all the authors and witnesses—Grecian, Chinese, and Roman Catholic, who have related any miracle in their particular religion; I say we are to regard their testimony in the same light as if they had mentioned that Mahometan miracle, and had in express terms contradicted it, with the same certainty as they have for the miracle they relate. This argument may appear over subtile and refined; but is not in reality different from [57]the reasoning of a judge who supposes that the credit of two witnesses, maintaining a crime against any one is destroyed by the testimony of two others who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues distant at the same instant when the crime is said to have been committed.

“One of the best-attested miracles in all profane history is that which Tacitus reports of Vespasian, who cured a blind man in Alexandria by means of his spittle, and a lame man by the mere touch of his foot, in obedience to a vision of the god Serapis, who had enjoined them to have recourse to the emperor for these miraculous cures. The story may be seen in the works of that historian (Hist. lib. v. cap. 8. Suetonius gives nearly the same account in Vitia Vesp.), where every circumstance seems to add weight to the testimony, and might be displayed at large with all the force of argument and eloquence, if any one were now concerned to enforce the evidence of that exploded and idolatrous superstition: The gravity, solidity, age, and probity of so great an emperor, who, through the whole course of his life conversed in a familiar manner with his friends and courtiers, and never affected those extraordinary airs of divinity assumed by Alexander and Demetrius. The historian, a contemporary writer, noted for candor and veracity, and, withal, the greatest and most penetrating genius perhaps of all antiquity, and so free from any tendency to credulity that he even lies under the contrary imputation of Atheism and profaneness. The persons from whose authority he related the miracle, of established character for judgment and veracity, as we may well presume; eye witnesses of the fact, and confirming their testimony after the Flavian family was despoiled of the empire, and could no longer give any reward as the price of a lie. Utrumque, qui interfuere, nunc quoque memorant, postquam nullum, mendacio pretium. To which if we add the public nature of the facts as related, it will appear that no evidence can well be supposed stronger for so gross and palpable a falsehood. [58]

“There is also a memorable story related by Cardinal de Retz, which may well deserve our consideration. When that intriguing politician fled into Spain to avoid the persecution of his enemies, he passed through Saragossa, the capital of Arragon, where he was shown, in the cathedral, a man who had served seven years as a doorkeeper, and was well known to everybody in town that had ever paid his devotions at that church. He had been seen, for so long a time, wanting a leg; but recovered that limb by the rubbing of holy oil upon the stump; and the cardinal assures us that he saw him with two legs. This miracle was vouched by all the canons of the church; and the whole company in town were appealed to for a confirmation of the fact; whom the cardinal found by their zealous devotion, to be thorough believers of the miracle. Here the relater was also contemporary to the supposed prodigy, of an incredulous and libertine character, as well as of great genius, the miracle of so singular a nature as could scarcely admit of a counterfeit, and the witnesses very numerous, and all of them, in a manner spectators, of the fact to which they gave their testimony. And what adds mightily to the force of the evidence, and may double our surprise on this occasion, is that the cardinal himself, who relates the story, seems not to give any credit to it, and consequently can not be suspected of any concurrence in the holy fraud. He considered, justly, that it was not requisite, in order to reject a fact of this nature, to be able accurately to disprove the testimony, and to trace its falsehood through all the circumstances of knavery and credulity which produced it. He knew that as this was commonly altogether impossible at any small distance of time and place, so was it extremely difficult, even where one was immediately present, by reason of the bigotry, ignorance, cunning, and roguery of a great part of mankind. He therefore concluded, like a just reasoner, that such an evidence carried falsehood upon the very face of it, and that a miracle supported by any human testimony was more properly a subject of derision than of argument. [59]

“There surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person than those which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the tomb of Abbe Paris, the famous Jansenist, with whose sanctity the people were so long deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind, were everywhere talked of as the usual effects of that holy sepulcher. But, what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theater that is now in the world. Nor is this all: a relation of them was published and dispersed everywhere; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, supported by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions in whose favor the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able distinctly to refute or detect them. (3.) Where shall we find such a number of circumstances agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events which they relate? And this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation.

“Is the consequence just, because some human testimony has the utmost force and authority in some cases—when it relates the battle of Phillipi or Pharsalia, for instance—that therefore all kinds of testimony must, in all cases, have equal force and authority? Suppose that the Cæsarean and Pompeian factions had, each of them, claimed the victory in these battles, and that the historians of each party had uniformly ascribed the advantage to their own sides; how could mankind, at this distance, have been able to determine between them? The contrariety is equally strong between the miracles related by Herodotus or Plutarch, and those delivered by Mariana, Bede, or any monkish historian. [60]

“The wise lend a very academic faith to every report which favors the passion of the reporter, whether it magnifies his country, his family, or himself, or in any other way strikes in with his natural inclinations and propensities. But what greater temptation than to appear a missionary, a prophet, an embassador from heaven. Who would not encounter many dangers and difficulties in order to obtain so sublime a character. Or if, by the help of vanity and a heated imagination, a man has first made a convert of himself and entered seriously into the delusion, who ever scruples to make use of pious frauds in support of so holy and meritorious a cause.

“The smallest spark may here kindle into the greatest flame: because the materials are always prepared for it. The avidum genus auricularum (Lucretius)—the gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.

“How many stories of this nature have, in all ages, been detected and exploded in their infancy. How many more have been celebrated for a time and have afterward sunk into neglect and oblivion. Where such reports, therefore, fly about, the solution of the phenomenon is obvious; and we judge in conformity to regular experience and observation when we account for it by the known and natural principles of credulity and delusion. And shall we, rather than have recourse to so natural a solution, allow of a miraculous violation of the most established laws of nature?

“I need not mention the difficulty of detecting a falsehood in any private or even public history at the place where it is said to happen; much more when the scene is removed to ever so small a distance. Even a court of judicature, with all the authority, accuracy, and judgment which they can employ, find themselves often at a loss to distinguish between truth and falsehood in the most recent actions. But the matter never comes to any issue if trusted to the common method of altercation and debate and flying [61]rumors, especially when men’s passions have taken part on either side.

“In the infancy of new religions the wise and learned commonly esteem the matter too inconsiderable to deserve their attention or regard. And when afterward they would willingly detect the cheat, in order to undeceive the deluded multitude, the season is now past, and the records and witnesses which might clear up the matter have perished beyond recovery.

“No means of detection remain but those which must be drawn from the very testimony itself of the reporters; and these, though always sufficient with the judicious and knowing, are commonly too fine to fall under the comprehension of the vulgar.

“Upon the whole, then, it appears that no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof; and that even supposing it amounted to a proof, it would be opposed by another proof, derived from the very nature of the fact which it would endeavor to establish. It is experience only which gives authority to human testimony; and it is the same experience which assures us of the laws of nature. When, therefore, these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have nothing to do but subtract the one from the other, and embrace an opinion, either on one side or the other, with that assurance which arises from the remainder. But according to the principle here explained, this subtraction, with regard to all popular religions, amounts to an entire annihilation; and therefore we may establish it as a maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion.

“I beg the limitations here made may be remarked when I say that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own that, otherwise, there may possibly be miracles or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony; though perhaps it will be impossible [62]to find any such in all the records of history. Thus, suppose all authors, in all languages, agree that from the first of January, 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days; suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people; that all travelers who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction—it is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon which seems to have a tendency toward that catastrophe comes within the reach of human testimony, if that testimony be very extensive and uniform.

“But suppose that all the historians who England treat of should agree that on the first day of January, 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; that both before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole court, as is usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was acknowledged and proclaimed by the parliament; and that after being interred a month she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed England for three years—I must confess that I should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. I should not doubt of her pretended death, and of those other public circumstances that followed it; I should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it neither was nor possibly could be real. You would in vain object to me the difficulty, and almost impossibility, of deceiving the world in an affair of such consequence. The wisdom and solid judgment of that renowned queen, with the little or no advantage she could reap from so poor an artifice—all this might astonish me; but I would still reply that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe [63]the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature.

“But should this miracle be ascribed to any new system of religion, men in all ages have been so much imposed on by ridiculous stories of that kind that this very circumstance would be a full proof of a cheat, and sufficient with all men of sense not only to make them reject the fact, but even reject it without further examination. Though the being to whom the miracle is ascribed be in this case Almighty, it does not upon that account become a whit more probable, since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a being otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions in the usual course of nature. This still reduces us to past observation, and obliges us to compare the instances of the violation of truth in the testimony of men with those of the violation of the laws of nature by miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. As the violations of truth are more common in the testimony concerning religious miracles than in that concerning any other matter of fact, this must diminish very much the authority of the former testimony, and make us form a general resolution never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretense it may be covered.

“Lord Bacon seems to have embraced the same principles of reasoning. ‘We ought,’ says he, ‘to make a collection or particular history of all monsters and prodigious births or productions, and, in a word, of everything new, rare, and extraordinary in nature. But this must be done with the most severe scrutiny, lest we depart from truth. Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: and, no less so, every thing that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.’ (Nov. Org. lib. 2, aph. 9.) [64]

“I am the better pleased with the method of reasoning here delivered, as I think it may serve to confound those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the Christian religion who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason. Our most holy religion is founded on faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is by no means fitted to endure. To make this more evident, let us examine those miracles related in scripture; and, not to lose ourselves in too wide a field, let us confine ourselves to such as we find in the Pentateuch, which we shall examine according to the principles of these pretended Christians, not as the word or testimony of God himself, but as the production of a mere human writer and historian. Here, then, we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts which every nation gives of its origin. Upon reading this book, we find it full of prodigies and miracles. It gives an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely different from the present: of our fall from that state; of the age of man extended to near a thousand years; of the destruction of the world by a deluge; of the arbitrary choice of one people as the favorites of heaven, and that people the countrymen of the author; of their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing imaginable: I desire anyone to lay his hand upon his heart, and, after a serious consideration, declare whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however, necessary to make it be received according to the measures of probability above established.

“What we have said of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and, indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as such only can be admitted as proofs of [65]any revelation. If it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it would be absurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from heaven; so that upon the whole we may conclude that the Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity; and whoever is moved by faith to assent to it is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.”

“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 on the mist of miracle and the darkness of superstition.” (Ingersoll’s Reply to Black.)

“Believers in miracles should not try 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 [66]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 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.” (Ingersoll’s “Mistakes of Moses,” p. 146.)

“So when we are told that wine was made out of water, and bread and fish out of nothing in large quantities, we know that we are listening to statements that simply go out of the field of credible testimony into the realm of supreme credulity. Such assertions require you to believe not only what you have not seen, but what all reason and experience tell you, you never can see. They ask you not only to believe in a past event, but in a past event outside of all reason, unsupported by nature, opposed to all natural laws, beneath the realm of reason, out of the light of experience, under the shadow of superstition. The great electric light of the intellect is turned off at the church door.” (Helen H. Gardener. “Men, Women, and Gods.”)

A snake talks, reasons, and has more knowledge than Adam and Eve. See third chapter of Genesis.

God talks to the snake in the same chapter. On another occasion God spoke to a fish. “And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon dry land.” (Jonah 2 : 10.)

Balaam’s ass seems to have been able to talk, and to see angels. “And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?” (Numbers 22 : 28.) [67]

“And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side (thirty-three and one-fifth miles), and as it were a day’s journey (thirty-three and one-fifth miles) on the other side, round about the camp and as it were two cubits (three feet and four inches) high upon the face of the earth. And while the flesh was yet between 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.” (Numbers 11 : 31, 33.) And the people quailed before the Lord; that is they quailed outwardly, but not inwardly.

“Yea forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.” (Neh. 9 : 21.)

The Boston Transcript knows of an erudite clergyman who spoke of the unfortunate woman of Sodom as “Lot’s lady who was transformed into a monolith of chloride of sodium.”

“And the Lord did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died, but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.” (Ex. 9 : 6.)

This is the first time they were killed, so far as we know of. The immediate cause of their taking off is ascribed to “Murrain.” In the twenty-fifth verse of the same chapter it is fully implied that they were killed again: “And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.” Now it is fair to infer that a hail which “brake every tree of the [68]field” was destructive enough to kill animals. This makes the second time they were killed.

In the twelfth chapter of Exodus and twenty-ninth verse we read that some of the same cattle were killed again, making three times that they died: “And it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the first born of the land of Egypt, from the first born of Pharaoh that sat upon the throne unto the first born of the captive in the dungeon; and the first born of cattle.” After these repeated deaths of the cattle, we find Pharaoh and his horsemen in full pursuit of the fleeing Hebrews, and Pharaoh and his horsemen and horses, were drowned in the sea. Of course it is difficult for one who is carnally minded, to understand how cattle can be killed so many times. Possibly the “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Dumb Animals” might have done good service had it been in full working order in those days.

“And when they arose, behold they were all dead corpses.” (Isaiah 37 : 36.)

“And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man unto the sepulcher of Elisha: and when the man (the corpse) was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.” (2 Kings 13 : 21.)

It would have been a great consolation to us, if the writer had only added a few lines more, and told us what Elisha did after he stood up on his feet. Of course if he stood up, he could not stand on any one else’s feet than his own, but did he climb out of the sepulcher and go on his way rejoicing? Execrable historian to leave us in the dark when we so greatly need light! We fear the writer of Matthew had this story in his mind, when speaking of the earthquake at the crucifixion of Christ. He says, “And the graven were opened; and many bodies of the saints which [69]slept, arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”—“Came out of the graves after his resurrection”; but they arose at the time of the earthquake, and the resurrection did not take place until the third day afterward. What were they doing all this time? Standing up in their graves, dressed in their funeral wardrobe? If they appeared unto many there is no mention of the fact made by either Jew or Gentile.

“The infancy of the canon was cradled in an uncritical age and rocked with traditional ease. Conscientious care was not directed from the first to the well authenticated testimony of eye-witnesses. Of the three fathers who contributed most to its early growth, Irenæus was credulous and blundering; Tertullian passionate and one-sided; and Clement, of Alexandria, imbued with the treasures of Greek wisdom, was mainly occupied with ecclesiastical ethics.

“Irenæus agrees that the gospels should be four in number, neither more nor less, because there are four universal winds and four quarters of the world. The Word or Architect of all things gave the gospel in a four-fold shape. According to this father the apostles were fully informed concerning all things, and had a perfect knowledge after their Lord’s ascension. [122]

“He says, ‘Matthew wrote his gospels while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome, and founding the church.’ Such assertions show both ignorance and exaggeration.

“Tertullian affirms that the tradition of the apostolic churches guarantees the four gospels, and refers his readers to the churches of Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, etc., for the authentic epistles of Paul. What is this but the rhetoric of an enthusiast?

“Clement contradicts himself in making Peter authorize Mark’s gospel to be read in the churches, while in another place he says the apostles ‘neither forbade nor encouraged it.’

“The three fathers of whom we are speaking had neither the ability nor inclination to examine the genesis of documents surrounded with an apostolic halo. No analysis of their authenticity and genuineness was seriously attempted. In its absence, custom, accident, taste, practical needs, directed the tendency of tradition. All the rhetoric employed to throw the value of their testimony as far back as possible, even up to or very near to the apostle John, is of the vaguest sort. Appeals to the continuity of tradition and of church doctrine, to the exceptional veneration of these fathers for the gospels, to their opinions being formed earlier than the composition of the works in which they are expressed, possess no force.

“The ends which the fathers in question had in view, their polemic motives, their uncritical, inconsistent assertions, their want of sure data, detract from their testimony. Their decisions were much more the result of pious feeling, biased by the theological speculations of the times, than the conclusions of a sound judgment. The very arguments they use to establish certain conclusions show weakness of perception. What are the manifestations of spiritual feeling compared with the result of logical reasoning?” (Davidson on the Canon.)

Thus we have the testimony of one of the ablest and clearest minds that has ever written upon the canon which [123]the fathers most depended upon to establish the authenticity of the small books forming it, were “ignorant,” “credulous,” “blundering,” “passionate,” “one-sided,” “uncritical,” “inconsistent,” “possessed undue enthusiasm with contradictions;” “not possessing ability or inclination to examine;” “attempting no analysis of genuineness;” “an unreasonable apostolic reverence.” “Custom, accident, taste, and the tendency of tradition taking the place of careful examination;” “a disposition to misrepresent;” “exceptional veneration of the fathers for the gospels older than the composition;” “want of data;” “their decisions the result of pious feeling based upon [incorrect] theological speculations;” “unsound judgment;” “weakness of perception;” “lack of logical reasoning.” These are the characteristics of the fathers depended upon to establish the authenticity of a gospel story which has no solid foundation to rest upon and which is clearly of an apocryphal character. (“Answers to Christian Questions” pp. 69–70, by D. M. Bennett.)

“One hundred and seventy years from the coming of Christ elapsed before the collection assumed a form that carried with it the idea of holy and inspired.” (Davidson on the Canon, p. 106.)

“It is clear that the earliest church fathers did not use the books of the New Testament as sacred documents clothed with divine authority, but followed for the most part, at least till the middle of the second century, apostolic tradition orally transmitted.” (Ibid, p. 107.)

“Their decisions (the fathers) were much more the result of pious feeling biased by the theological speculations of the times, than the conclusions of a sound judgment. The very arguments they use to establish certain conclusions show weakness of perception.” (Ibid p. 124.)

“The men who first canonized them (the gospels) had no certain knowledge of their authors.” (Ibid p. 127.)

“That Luke did not write the gospel of Luke.” (Ibid 2, p. 25.) [124]

“The canon was not the work of the Christian Church so much as of the men who were striving to form the church.” (Ibid p. 129.)

“Professor Davidson says that the Gospel of Matthew, as we have it now could not have been written by Matthew. Intro. New Test. 1, p. 484. He says that the present Gospel of Mark was not written by Mark and that its author is unknown.” (Ibid 2, p. 83, 84.)

Of John’s Gospel he says:

“Its existence before 140 A. D. is incapable either of decision or probable showing. The Johannine authorship has receded before the tide of modern criticism, and though this tide is arbitrary at times, it is here irresistible.

“No certain traces of the existence of the fourth gospel can be found till after Justin Martyr, that is till after the middle of the second century.” (Ibid 2, p. 520.)

“Suppose Papias is referring to our present gospel of Mark, what testimony have we to the authenticity of Jesus’ words as contained in it? Just this: Eusebius says that Papias said that John the presbyter said that Mark said that Peter said that Jesus said thus and so.” (Keeler’s “Short History of the Bible,” p. 19.)

That the charge of ignorance justly attaches to many of the fathers of the church, and that of dishonesty as well, there is abundant evidence, but a small portion of this can be given here. Mosheim, in part 2 chapter 3 of his “Ecclesiastical History,” says:

“The interest of virtue and true religion suffered yet more grievously by the monstrous errors that were universally adopted in this century, and became a source of innumerable calamities and mischiefs of succeeding ages. The first of these maxims was that it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie when by that means the interest of the church might be promoted; and the second, equally horrible, [125]though in another point of view, was “that errors in religion, when maintained and adhered to after proper admonition were punishable with civil penalties and corporal tortures.” The former of these erroneous maxims was now of long standing. It had been adopted for long ages past, and had produced an incredible number of ridiculous fables, fictitious prodigies, and pious frauds to the remarkable detriment to that glorious cause in which they were employed. And it must be frankly confessed that the greatest men and the most eminent saints of this century [the fourth] were more or less tainted with the infection of this corrupt principle, as will appear evident to such as look with an attentive eye to their writings and actions. We would willingly except from this charge Ambrose, and Hiliary Augustine, Gregory Nazianzen, and Jerome; but truth, which is more respectable than these venerable fathers, obliges us to involve them in the general accusation.”

At another time he says, as translated by Vidal:

“At the time when he [Hermas] wrote, it was an established maxim with many Christians to avail themselves of fraud and deception, if it was likely they would conduce toward the attainment of any considerable good.”

He again says:

“It was considered that they who made it their business to deceive, with a view of promoting the cause of truth, were deserving rather of commendation than censure.”

The French Protestant writer, Casaubon, talks in a similar way, thus:

“It mightily affects me to see how many there were in the earliest times of the church who considered it a capital exploit to lend to heavenly truth the help of their own inventions in order that the new doctrine might be received by the wise among the Gentiles. These officious lies, they said, were devised for a good end.”

Le Clerc, corroborating these opinions, says:

“Dissemblers of truth are nowhere to be met with in such abundance as among the writers of church history.” [126]

M. Daille, another learned and impartial French writer, in his celebrated work, the “Use of the Fathers,” says:

“We find them saying things which they did not themselves believe. They are mutually witnesses against each other, that they are not to be believed absolutely on their bare word.”

In book 1, chapter 6, he states upon the authority of St. Jerome, that:

“Origin, Methodius, Eusebius, Apollonaris, have written largely against Celsus and Porphyry. Do but observe their manner of arguing, and what slippery problems they used. They alleged against the Gentiles, not what they believed, but what they thought necessary.”

Jerome himself adds:

“I forbear mentioning the Latin writers, as Tertullian, Cyprian, Minutius, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hiliary, lest I should rather seem to accuse others than defend myself.”

Daille adds of the fathers:

“They made no scruple to forge whole books.”

An able writer in the Eclectic Review of 1814, page 179, speaks of the fathers in this way:

“When we consider the number of gospels, acts, epistles, revelations, traditions, and constitutions which were put in circulation during the first three centuries, and which are unquestionably spurious, we find sufficient reason for examining with care and receiving with extreme caution productions attributed to eminent men in the primitive church. Some of the early Christians do not seem to have possessed in some points a nice sense of moral obligation. The writing of books under false names, and the circulating of fables, were not accounted violations of duty; or, if the impropriety of such conduct was felt, the end proposed—the promotion of the Christian cause—was thought to justify the means employed for the accomplishment. (From D. M. Bennett’s “Answers to Christian Questions,” p. 78–80.) [127]

The following very pertinent argument is made use of by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould in his “Lost and Hostile Gospels”: “It is somewhat remarkable that no contemporary, or even early account of the life of our Lord exists, except from the pen of Christian writers. That we have none by Greek or Roman writers is not, perhaps, to be wondered at; but it is singular that neither Philo, Josephus, nor Justus of Tiberius, should ever have alluded to Christ or to primitive Christianity. Philo was born at Alexandria about twenty years before Christ. In the year A. D. 40 he was sent by the Alexandrian Jews on a mission to Caligula, to entreat the emperor not to put in force his order that his statue should be erected in the temple of Jerusalem and in all the synagogues of the Jews. Philo was a Pharisee. He traveled in Palestine, and speaks of the Essenes he saw there; but he says not a word about Jesus Christ or his followers. It is possible that he may have heard of the new sect, but he probably concluded it was but insignificant, and consisted merely of the disciples, poor and ignorant, of a Galilean rabbi, whose doctrines he, perhaps did not stay to inquire into, and supposed they did not differ fundamentally from the traditional teaching of the rabbis of his day.”

“At this time lived Jesus, a wise man [if indeed he ought to be called a man]; for he performed wonderful works [he was a teacher of men who received the truth with gladness]; and he drew to him many Jews and also many Greeks. [This was the Christ.] But when Pilate, at the instigation of our chiefs, had condemned him to crucifixion, they who at first loved him did not cease; [for he appeared to them on the third day again; for the divine prophets had foretold this, together with many other wonderful things concerning him], and even to this time the community of Christians called after him, continues to exist.”

That this passage is spurious has been almost universally acknowledged. One may be accused perhaps of killing [128]dead birds, if one again examines and discredits the passage; but as the silence of Josephus on the subject which we are treating is a point on which it will be necessary to insist, we cannot omit as brief a discussion as possible of the celebrated passage.

The passage is first quoted by Eusebius (fl. A. D. 315) in two places (Hist. Eccl. lib. 1. c. 11; Demonst. Evang. lib. 3.), but it was unknown to Justin Martyr (fl. A. D. 140), Clement of Alexandria (fl. A. D. 192), Tertullian (fl. A. D. 193), and Origen (fl. A. D. 230). Such a testimony would certainly have been produced by Justin in his apology, or in his controversy with Trypho the Jew, had it existed in the copies of Josephus at his time. The silence of Origen is still more significant. Celsus in his book against Christianity introduces a Jew. Origen attacks the arguments of Celsus and his Jew. He could not have failed to quote the words of Josephus, whose writings he knew, had the passage existed in the genuine text. He indeed distinctly affirms that Josephus did not believe in Christ. (Contra. Celsus 1.)

Again the paragraph interrupts the chain of ideas in the original text. Before this passage comes an account of how Pilate, seeing there was a want of pure drinking water in Jerusalem, conducted a stream into the city from a spring two hundred stadia distant, and ordered that the cost should be defrayed out of the treasury of the Temple. This occasioned a riot. Pilate disguised Roman soldiers as Jews, with swords under their cloaks, and sent them among the rabble, with orders to arrest the ringleaders. This was done. The Jews finding themselves set upon by other Jews, fell into confusion; one Jew attacked another, and the whole company of rioters melted away. “And in this manner,” says Josephus, “was this insurrection suppressed.” Then follows the paragraph about Jesus, beginning, “At this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man,” etc., and the passage is immediately followed by, “About this time another misfortune threw the Jews into disturbance; and in Rome an event happened in the [129]temple of Isis which produced great scandal.” And then he tells an indelicate story of religious deception which need not be repeated here. The misfortune which befell the Jews was, as he afterward relates, that Tiberius drove them out of Rome. The reason of this was, he says, that a noble Roman lady who had become a proselyte, had sent gold and purple to the temple at Jerusalem. But this reason is not sufficient. It is clear from what precedes—a story of sacerdotal fraud—that there was some connection between the incidents in the mind of Josephus. Probably the Jews had been guilty of religious deceptions in Rome, and had made a business of performing cures and expelling demons, with talismans, and incantations, and for this had obtained rich payment.

From the connection that exists between the passage about the “other misfortune which befell the Jews,” and the former one about the riot suppressed by Pilate, it appears evident that the whole of the paragraph concerning our Lord is an interpolation. That Josephus could not have written the passage as it stands, is clear enough, for only a Christian would speak of Jesus in the terms employed. Josephus was a Pharisee and a Jewish priest; he shows in all his writings that he believes in Judaism.

It has been suggested that Josephus may have written about Christ as in the passage quoted, but that the portions within brackets are the interpolations of a Christian copyist. But when these portions within brackets are removed, the passage loses all its interest and is a dry statement utterly unlike the sort of notice Josephus would have been likely to insert. He gives color to his narratives; his incidents are always sketched with vigor; this account would be meagre besides those of the riot of the Jews and the rascality of the priests of Isis. Josephus asserts, moreover, that in his time there were four sects among the Jews—the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the sect of Judas of Gamala. He gives tolerably copious particulars about these sects, and their teachings, but of the Christian [130]sect he says not a word. Had he wished to write about it, he would have given full details, likely to interest his readers, and not have dismissed the subject in a couple of lines.

It was perhaps felt by the early Christians that the silence of Josephus, so famous a historian and a Jew, on the life, miracles, and death of the founder of Christianity was extremely inconvenient; the fact could not fail to be noticed by their adversaries. Some Christian transcriber may have argued, either Josephus knew nothing of the miracles performed by Christ—in which case he is a weighty testimony against them—or he must have heard of Jesus, but not having deemed his acts, as they were related to him, of sufficient importance to find a place in history. Arguing thus, the copyist took the opportunity of rectifying the omission, written from the stand point of a Pharisee, and therefore designated the Lord as merely a wise man. (D. M. Bennett in “Jesus Christ.”)

That this paragraph, concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, is not Josephus’s but an interpolation, is argued from these several following considerations:

1. It is not quoted or referred to by any Christian writer before Eusebius, who flourished at the beginning of the fourth century, and afterward.

2. This paragraph was wanting in the copies of Josephus which were seen by Photius, in the ninth century.

3. It interrupts the course of the narration.

4. It is unsuitable to the general character of Josephus, who is allowed not to have been a Christian.

5. If Josephus were the author of this paragraph, it would be reasonable to expect in him frequent mention of Christ’s miracles; whereas he is everywhere else silent about them.

6. The word Christ or Messiah appears not in any place in all the works of Josephus, excepting two; namely, the paragraph which we have been considering, which is now in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities; and another in the twentieth book of the name Antiquities where is mention [131]made of James, the brother Jesus who is called ‘Christ.’ (Works of N. Lardner, vol. 7, pp. 14, 15.)

In referring to his work of writing a history of the church up to his own times, he says:

“We are attempting a kind of trackless and unbeaten path.”

Again he says of Philo Judæus that he was a very “learned man.” Among many other things which contradict this estimate, is the fact that Philo takes more than one hundred pages in showing how that dreams are sent from God.

Again, Eusebius does not say that the last works of Hegesippus, Papias and Dionysius of Corinth, contain anything concerning the canonical gospels; therefore, they contained none.

We give the opinion of a few well-known writers upon this “father of church history”:

In Draper’s Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 197, Bunsen and Niebuhr are quoted—the one (Bunsen) as saying that he purposely “perverted chronology for the sake of making synchronisms,” and the other (Niebuhr) declaring “he is a very dishonest writer.”

“Eusebius had a peculiar faculty of diverging from the truth.” (“History of Christian Religion,” p. 7.)

“The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius, himself, indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace of religion.” (Gibbon’s “Rome,” vol. 1, p. 493.)

“In one of the most learned and elaborate works that antiquity has left us, the thirty-second chapter of the twelfth book of his evangelical preparation, bears for its title this scandalous proposition: ‘How it may be lawful [132]and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine and for the benefit of those who want to be deceived.’” (Gibbon’s “Vindication,” p. 76.)

“But Eusebius, the father of church history, capped the climax by fabricating the celebrated passage about “Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him such.” (“Anti-Christ,” p. 28.)

“He (Eusebius) has frankly told us that his principle in writing history was to conceal the facts that were injurious to the reputation of the church.” (Lecky’s “European Morals,” vol. 1, p. 492.)

“Eusebius, who would never lie or falsify except to promote the glory of God.” (Taylor’s Diegesis, p. 345.)

Eusebius pronounces a panegyric upon Constantine. The following is the list of Constantine’s murders as given by Robert Taylor:

And the church still continues to regard these two persons as holy men of God, raised up for a wise purpose—the one an open, wholesale murderer, and the other a cowardly, cunning and corrupt priest. The vast injury they have done the human race can never be computed. They poisoned the fountains of civilization, and all Christendom has been drinking its poisoned waters ever since. If there are anywhere in history two men who have done their fellow men more positive harm and wrong, I do not know them. Their names should be held up to eternal scorn.

Baronius, a sincere advocate of the Christian faith, calls Eusebius: “the great falsifier of ecclesiastical history, a wily sychophant, a consummate hypocrite, a time serving persecutor, who had nothing in his known life or writings [133]to support the belief that he himself believed in the Christian system.”

Eusebius is the source from whom all have drawn their material. Of him Dean Milman in a note to Gibbon’s Rome says: “It is deeply to be regretted that the history of this period rests so much on the loose, and, it must be admitted, by no means scrupulous authority of Eusebius.” (Page 85.)

“Not long after Christ’s ascension into heaven, several histories of his life and doctrines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance.” (Mosheim’s “Ecclesiastical History.”)

“Christian churches had scarcely been gathered and organized when here and there men rose up who, not being contented with the simplicity and purity of that religion which the apostles taught, attempted innovations, and fashioned religion according to their own liking.” (Mosheim’s “Ecclesiastical History,” vol. 1, c. 5.)

“To avoid being imposed upon, we ought to treat tradition as we do a notorious and known liar, to whom we give no credit, unless what he says is confirmed to us by some person of undoubted veracity.” (Extract from Bower’s “Lives of the Popes.”)

“This opinion has always been in the world, that to settle a certain and assured estimation upon that which is good and true, it is necessary to remove out of the way whatever may be an hindrance to it. Neither ought we to wonder that even those of the honest, innocent, primitive times made use of these deceits, seeing for a good end they made no scruple to forge whole books.” (Daille on the Use of the Fathers, b. 1, c. 3.)

“What would be the characteristics of a revelation? 1st. A revelation would be free from inherent contradictions. [134]Does the New Testament revelation stand this test? 2d. A revelation would not contradict natural laws, for nature is the only undisputed revelation to man. 3d. A revelation would be so authenticated that it would be more reasonable to admit than to deny its claims. The history of thousands of years proves that, so far, no revelation has been made that compels the mind’s assent, as thousands of thinking men reject the so-called revelation of the New Testament. The New Testament does not claim infallibility for itself; and proving that a book is infallible does not prove that it was inspired, else we might claim inspiration for the problems of Euclid.” (Anon.)

“When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of commandments from the hands of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it, than his telling them so; and I have no authority for it than some historian telling me so. The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator, could produce himself without having recourse to supernatural intervention.” (Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason.”)

“Revelation is a communication of something which the person, to whom that thing is revealed, did not know before. For if I have done a thing, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me I have done it, or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it, or to write it.” (Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason.”)

“If it was worth God’s while to make a revelation to man at all, it was certainly worth his while to see to it 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 [135]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 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 the instruments of torture, and that his followers would appeal [136]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 poisoned 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 faggots. 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 woman’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?

“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 [137]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 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 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.

“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 the 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. [138]

“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.

“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.” (Ingersoll’s Reply to Black.) [139]

“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.

“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.” (Ingersoll’s “Mistakes of Moses,” p. 59.)

“It may be argued that millions have not the capacity to understand a revelation, although expressed in 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?” (Ingersoll’s “Mistakes of Moses,” p. 90.)

“Millions have declared this book to be infinitely holy, 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.

“Had we been born in Turkey, most of us would have been Mohammedans and believed in the inspiration of the [140]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 mule to travel the distance. If some man had denied this story we should have denounced him as a dangerous person, one who was endeavoring to undermine the foundations of society, and to destroy all distinctions between virtue and vice. We should have said to him ‘What do you propose to give us in place of this angel? We cannot afford to give up an angel of that size for nothing.’ We would have insisted that the wisest and best men believed the Koran.” (Ingersoll’s “Mistakes of Moses,” p. 36.)

“The Pentateuch is affirmed to have been written by Moses under the influence of divine inspiration. Considered thus a record vouchsafed and dictated by the Almighty, it commands not only scientific but universal consent.

“But here in the first place it may be demanded, who or what is it that has put forth this great claim in its behalf?

“Not the work itself. It nowhere claims the authorship of one man, or makes the impious declaration that it is the writing of Almighty God.” (Draper’s “Conflict Between Religion and Science.”)

1. The Bible is full of errors:

“In 1847, the American Bible Society appointed a committee of its members to prepare a standard edition of King James’s version, free from typographical errors. They prepared such an edition, correcting, as they stated, twenty-four thousand errors; but alarmed at the attacks made upon it, it was withdrawn; and the American Bible Society continues to this day to circulate for the word of God a book having in it twenty-four thousand acknowledged errors.” (“Common Sense Thoughts on the Bible,” Wm. Denton.) [141]

2. The Bible sanctions cruelties. The wars of extermination waged by the Jews upon surrounding nations afford ample proof.

3. The Bible indorses immorality. It indorses war, slavery, polygamy, intemperance, and superstition.

4. The writers of the gospels do not claim to be inspired.

5. We do not know when, where, or by whom, either the gospels or the books supposed to be written by Moses, were composed.

6. Paul says: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God; but there is (1.) no definite meaning attached to the word inspiration. (2.) He does not refer to the gospels for they had no existence when he wrote.

7. Inspiration is not a success. There are a thousand different sects quarreling about the meaning of the “inspired scriptures.”

8. Inspiration should be pure. The Bible abounds in obscenity.

9. The Bible undergoes revisions, improvements, etc. An infallible book cannot be improved.

10. The Bible has no plan or system, and hence has no definite object. Millions upon millions of Christians have differed regarding its teachings.

11. The Bible is a fetich. Millions of people have a slavish regard for the Holy Bible who have little or no respect for Humanity, Truth, or Justice.

“Now this God either did or he did not believe in and command murder and rapine in the days when he used to sit around evenings and chat with Abraham and Moses and the rest of them. His especial plans and desires were ‘revealed’ or they were not. The ideas of justice and right were higher in those days than they are now, or else we are wiser and better than God, or else the Bible is not his revealed will. You can take your choice. My choice is to keep my respect for divine justice and honor, and let the Bible bear the burden of its own mistakes. [142]

“If religion is a revelation, then it is not a growth, and it would have been most perfect in design and plan when it was nearest its birth. Now accepting the Bible theory of Jehovah, we find that when the communications of God were immediate and personal there could have been no mistake as to his will. To deal with it as a growth or evolution toward better things is to abandon the whole tenet of a revealed law of God. But to deal with it as a revelation is to make God a being too repulsive and brutal to contemplate for one moment with respect.

“He either did or did not tell those men those things. Which will you accept?” (Helen Gardener’s “Men, Women, and Gods.”)

“Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is a revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

“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 upon 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.

“When I am told that the Koran was written in heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand [143]authority as the former.1 I did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it.

“When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; but we have not even this—for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so—it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence.

“It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time, to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or Mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.

“It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian church, sprung out of the tail of heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed [144]was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand; the statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus, the deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints; the mythologists had gods for everything; the Christian mythologists had saints for everything; the church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

“Nothing that is here said can apply even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before; by the Quakers since; and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.

“Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or anything else; not a line of what is called the New Testament is of his own writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His historians, having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.

“The first part, that of the miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity; and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this advantage, that though they might not be credited, they could not be detected.” (Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason.”) [145]

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.—Ingersoll, Ingersoll-Field Discussion.

Some urge that the soul is life. What is life? Is it not the word by which we express the aggregate normal functional activity of vegetable and animal organisms, necessarily differing in degree, if not in kind, with each different organization? To talk of immortal life, and yet to admit the decay and destruction of [230]the organization, is much the same as to talk of a square circle. You link together two words which contradict each other. The solution of the soul problem is not so difficult as many imagine. The greatest difficulty is, that we have been trained to use certain words as “God,” “matter,” “mind,” “spirit,” “soul,” “intelligence,” and we have been further trained to take these words as representatives of realities, which in fact, they do not represent. We have to unlearn much of our school lore. We have specially to carefully examine the meaning of each word we use. I am told that the mind and the body are separate from one another. Are the brightness and steel of the knife separate? Is not brightness the quality attaching to a certain modification of existence—steel? Is not intelligence a quality attaching to a certain modification of existence—man? The word brightness has no meaning, except as relating to some bright thing. The word intelligence, no meaning, except as relating to some intelligent thing. I take some water and drop it upon the steel, in due course the process of oxidation takes place, and the brightness is gone. I drop into a man’s brain a bullet; the process of the destruction of life takes place, and his intelligence is gone. By changing the state of the steel we destroy its brightness, and by disorganizing the man destroy his intelligence. Is mind an entity or result? an existence or a condition? Surely it is but the result of organic activity, a phenomenon of animal life. (“Has Man a Soul?” Charles Bradlaugh.)

The idea of immortality, like the great sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating its countless waves of hope and joy against the shores of time, and was not born of an book, nor of any religion, nor of any creed; it was born of human affection, and will continue to ebb and flow beneath the clouds and mists of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow of hope shining upon the tears of grief. We love, therefore we wish to live, and the foundation of the idea of immortality is human affection and human love, and I have a thousand times more confidence in the affections of the human heart, in the deep and splendid feelings of the human soul than I have in any book that ever was or ever can be written by mortal man.—Ingersoll.

Religious people see Providence in everything. Strange it is, too, that the most marked displays of Providence are seen in shipwrecks, railroad collisions, or in all devastating fires, floods, and plagues. In such appalling calamities as lead most sensible men to say with Æneas, “If there be gods, they certainly take no interest in the affairs of men,” the Christian sees proof of a good guardian, a saving God, where nothing but destruction and ruin mark his pathway. There is a strange fatuity manifested by believers in this doctrine. Not long since a young man died very suddenly in Boston. There was a post-mortem examination by regular [248]physicians, and a coroner’s jury, who mutually deliberated over the body as to the cause of its death. The doctors found the young man’s stomach somewhat irritated. On close inspection the contents of the stomach were found to be a mixture of bread and butter, mince pie and coffee, ham and eggs, buckwheat cakes, oyster stew, plum pudding, pound cake, corned beef, ice cream, more mince pie, and baked beans.

The jury gave the case most grave and deliberate consideration, and in accordance therewith returned the verdict: “Came to his death by a mysterious dispensation of the afflictive hand of Providence.” Just so! Anything, however evil, unjust or foolish may be attributed to Providence; yet he remains both wise and good.

Why, if this world is created and controlled by infinite wisdom and benevolence, are not all things beautiful? One of man’s noblest endeavors is to beautify. But we see many flowers and plants which are not beautiful.

Many parts of the earth are inhospitable and forbidding. What beauties on the other hand lie buried at the bottom of the ocean, its flora, shells, and corals! But no human eye ever sees them. Wherein is the evidence of design? Where is the evidence of design in the horrid monsters which once filled the oceans? Where is the design in creating such monstrosities as we see among animals?

Did the designer intend that parasites should infest the human body? The creator made the parasites (lice) and their proper dwelling-place seems to be the human body. The human body gives them their proper food. They are so constituted as to reproduce themselves rapidly and thus persist in feeding upon man.

The question is immediately raised: “Were the lice made for man, or man for the lice?” When did it ever occur to a sane mind that bed-bugs and mosquitoes and fleas were created with a benevolent design?

These facts are irreconcileable with the notion of a supreme and beneficent Providence. [249]

Where is the evidence of benevolent design in earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, drouth, famine, and ten thousand ills which flesh is heir to? Where is the moral purpose? Where is the benevolence in peopling the earth with millions of human beings who live lives of poverty and misery?

But it is argued that we cannot see it all now, but by and by it will be made plain to us, that is, when we get into the other world. This is begging the question. The Christian says creation shows a creator, who first created the universe and now presides over it. But when we bring the facts of this world, its abounding evils and human miseries, to show the absence of any benevolent superintendence, he promises to make good his argument in the next world. This is asking a fellow to wait too long. Again, it is argued by the Christian that God ordained pain to work out good; but how comes it that this ordination of working good out of evil does not take place? Sometimes one man is made better by it, and another is brutalized by it. How does this come to pass if pain was ordained to work good? Has the plan of the designer failed? “The evils of this world are ordained for the purpose of developing our souls; only by pain and suffering can we be prepared for heaven.” Little children who die, according to this dogma, can never be developed.

But sparrows do fall to the ground nevertheless. And if some do not fall to the ground that wicked bird the sparrow-hawk, devours them sometimes before they have an opportunity to fall. It is the same wise and kind Providence who makes the sparrow and the sparrow-hawk, but perhaps the poor sparrow does not recognize the wisdom and mercy of having a destroyer. But our good Christian friends will have it that all things come to pass by the direct control of an all-wise and all-good Providence. The Chicago fire, the Boston fire, and others are all dispensations of Providence, if we may believe the ministers, and they are [250]the only ones who pretend to have positive information of the facts. The bursting of a mill-dam, or a tidal-wave, or anything and everything else that carries the besom of destruction to thousands is to them a well-known intervention of the hand of a wise and merciful Providence. It is the same, with good fortune; if we as a people have great prosperity, large harvests and abundance of trade, it is because of this “All-wise Providence.” He brings the evil and the good, miseries and joys, sins and salvation.

How do we know there is a kind Providence watching over this world? “Oh!” says our Christian friend, “we see this manifested in the kindly adaptations of nature to man’s conditions, everything seems to have been made for man’s comfort.” But, this general adaptation of man to nature and of nature to man, proves nothing of a conscious intelligence ruling over the universe. The maggot in the cheese might look around him and say, if he could talk: “All this cheese was made for me, because it’s perfectly adapted to my wants and conditions.” Man and maggot are adapted to their surroundings, because their surroundings have made them what they are.

After attempting to prove the existence of a special Providence, and failing, the Christian then craw-fishes into absurd talk of a mysterious Providence, a dark dispensation of Providence, an inscrutable Providence, an inexplicable Providence. And when driven from this refuge, he at last exclaims: “Well, if it all seems dark and hidden from our understanding here, it will all be made clear when we pass over to the other side.” Yes, but you admit by this statement that you know now positively nothing of a conscious intelligence ruling the universe, why not say so?

The fundamental idea of a special Providence, is that he prevents accidents; but in spite of special Providence, accidents do occur. And even these mishaps, which show that no such thing as Providence exists, are claimed by the superstitious as proof of a mysterious Providence. [251]

Assuming then, the existence of a First Cause, let us inquire for a moment into its nature. The First Cause must be infinite. For if we regard it as finite, we regard it as bounded or limited, and are thus compelled to think of a region beyond its limits, which region is uncaused. And if we admit this, we virtually abandon the doctrine of causation altogether. We, therefore, have no alternative but to regard the First Cause an infinite.

We are no less irresistibly compelled to regard the First Cause as independent. For if it be dependent, that on which it depends must be the First Cause. The First Cause can therefore have no necessary relation to any other form of [253]being; since if the presence of any other form of existence is necessary to its completeness, it is partially dependent upon such other form of existence, and cannot be the First Cause. Thus the First Cause, besides being infinite, must be complete in itself, existing independently of all relations,—that is, it must be absolute.

To such conclusions, following the most refined metaphysical philosophy of the day, are we easily led. By the very limitations of our faculties, we are compelled to think of a First Cause of all phenomena; and we are compelled to think of it as both infinite and absolute.

Nevertheless, it will not be difficult to show that such a conclusion is utterly illusive; and that in joining together, the three conceptions of Cause, of Infinite, and of Absolute, we have woven for ourselves a net-work of contradictions, more formidable, more disheartening than any that we have yet been required to contemplate. For, in the first place, that which is a cause cannot at the same time be absolute. For the definition of the Absolute is that which exists out of all relations; whereas a cause not only sustains some definite relation to its effect, but it exists as a cause only by virtue of such relation. Suppress the effect, and the cause has ceased to be a cause. The phrase “absolute cause,” therefore, which is equivalent to “non-relative cause,” is like the phrase “circular triangle.” The two words stand for conceptions which cannot be made to unite. “We attempt,” says Mr. Mansel, “to escape from this apparent contradiction by introducing the idea of succession in time. The Absolute exists first by itself, and afterwards becomes a cause. But here, we are checkmated by the third conception, that of the Infinite. How can the Infinite become that which it was not from the first? If causation is a possible mode of existence, that which exists without causing is not infinite; that which becomes a cause has passed beyond its former limits.

“But supposing all these obstacles overcome, so that we might frame a valid conception of a cause which is also [254]absolute and infinite: have we then explained the origin of the universe? Have we advanced one step toward explaining how the Absolute can be the source of the Relative, or how the Infinite can give rise to the Finite?” To continue with Mr. Mansel, “if the condition of causal activity is a higher state than that of quiescence, the Absolute ... has passed from a condition of comparative imperfection to one of comparative perfection; and therefore was not originally perfect. If the state of activity is an inferior state to that of quiesence, the Absolute in becoming a cause has lost its original perfection. There remains only the supposition that the two states are equal, and the act of creation one of complete indifference. But this supposition annihilates the unity of the Absolute.” (John Fiske, “Cosmic Philosophy.”) [255]

It is remarkable that every day of the week is by different nations devoted to the public celebration of religious services:—Sunday by the Christians, Monday by the Greeks, Tuesday by the Persians, Wednesday by the Assyrians, Thursday by the Egyptians, Friday by the Turks, Saturday by the Jews.

It is, however, true that observance of one day in seven as a day of rest, recreation, and pleasure obtains in many countries. How then did it come about if it was not revealed to man, that we keep in a special manner

The observance of a seventh part of the week is no more a revelation than the multiplication table is. It was natural for man to measure the spaces of time. The revolution of the earth, or from sun to sun was a day, and from new moon to new moon was a month of twenty-eight days. It was a most natural thing to have feasts at the full of the moon and at new moon; between these times were the “horned moon,” and this marked another division of time. It was easy to divide the full moon into four periods, each of seven days. Hence originated the observance of one day in seven. After the moon time had been divided into four parts each of seven days and the days specifically named, then the old phraseology of “new moon days” was dropped as it was no longer needed.

There are two different reasons given for observing the Sabbath:

Here are two distinct and contradictory accounts given of the origin of the Sabbath. According to the first, God instituted the Sabbath on the seventh day of time, immediately after his six days of creation. But if we are to believe the writer of Deuteronomy the Sabbath was set up as a memorial day of the Jews’ escape from Egyptian bondage; an occurrence that took place something like two thousand five hundred years after the year one, of creation. Both of these statements cannot be correct, as one excludes the other. And in view of the fact that man naturally learned to divide time into days, moons, and quarter moons we are strongly inclined to think that both of these ancient accounts are mythical.

The word holy has lost its original signification. The Hebrew word kadosh means “to set apart.” Parkhurst renders it, “to separate, to set apart from its common and ordinary to some higher use or purpose.” It is used in this sense in Genesis 4 : “And God divided [i.e. separated] the light from the darkness.”

The vessels of the sanctuary were to be “Holy unto the Lord;” that is, they were to be kept strictly separate from other vessels, for the sanctuary.

The saba or Sabbath was a day of rest, and the command to keep it holy did not mean that it should be observed with solemnity, or kept by offering sacrifices or in the performance of other religious ceremonies. Other days were working days, but the Sabbath was to be a day of rest.

“The word holy,” says a modern writer on the Sabbath, “has now become so associated in our minds with Puritanical ideas of self-mortification and with modern religious forms of worship, that we are naturally misled by it from the meaning of the original. Many pious persons suppose that the command to keep the Sabbath day holy was equivalent to an injunction to attend a parish church, hear two [259]or more sermons in the course of the Sunday and during the rest of the day to keep in-doors and read the Bible. The Jews, however, did not do this, for the Bible was not written, and sermons in its exposition (which would have wanted texts) could not well be preached. Nor does it appear from any passage in the books of Moses, that religious admonitions or discourses of any kind formed a part of the tabernacle service.”

The Jewish Sabbath was emphatically a day of rest. Work, therefore, was strictly prohibited; for “Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.” (Exodus 31 : 15.)

This law was not so literal as subsequent interpreters have made it. We have an account of only one person being put to death for this crime. It is recorded in Numbers, 15 : 32–36 that “while the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.”

This was the only case in all the Hebrew writings, of stoning a man for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. But this single instance has engendered an infinite amount of bitter persecution in the hearts of the over-righteous, who keep the Sabbath holy and try also to make their neighbors observe it in a like manner.

Sir Humphrey Davy relates in his “Salmonia,” page 1,345, that he “was walking on Arthur’s Seat with some of the most distinguished professors of Edinburgh attached to the geological opinions of the late Dr. Hutton, a discussion [260]took place upon the phenomena presented by the rocks under our feet, and to exemplify a principle, Professor Playfair broke some stones, in which I assisted the venerable and amiable philosopher.

“We had hardly examined the fragments, when a man from the crowd, who had been assisting at field-preaching, came up and warned us off, saying, ‘Ye think ye are only stane-breakers; but I ken ye are Sabbath breakers, and ye deserve to be staned with your ain stanes.’”

Accidents which take place on Sunday are looked upon by some people as “Judgments of God.”

If Sunday takes the place of the Sabbath, then the New Testament would clearly reveal the fact; but it does nothing of the kind. If the new religion was designed to take the place of the old, then we should expect to find Jesus plainly teaching that after his death Sunday should be observed in place of and as the Sabbath. But far from this, we find him [261]repudiating the Jewish Sabbath, and saying nothing at all about a new day of ceremonies and worship.

We give a number of instances where Jesus intentionally repudiates and violates the common usages respecting the Sabbath:

The Jewish law regarding the Sabbath was strict. It was not lawful to carry burdens on that day.

Jesus had repeated conflicts with the Jews on this question. He would not honor the Jewish Sabbath, and consequently the Jews made war upon him, threatening to take his life.

We read in Luke 13 : 11–14, that “there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.”

With the commandment before his eyes, saying: “Take heed to yourselves and bear no burdens on the Sabbath day as I commanded your fathers,” (Jeremiah 18 : 21), Jesus deliberately bade the cripple take up his bed and walk, on the Sabbath day.

It is remarkable that those people who love to sabbatize so much, and to make others do so too, do not see that while Jesus violated intentionally the Jewish Sabbath, that he never gave his disciples the slightest hint that they should observe Sunday in any manner whatever.

Paul, the founder of the Christian church, rejects the Sabbath.

Bear in mind, reader, that there is not so much as a dot in the New Testament in favor of substituting Saturday for the Jewish Sabbath, or for observing it as a Sabbath day. Jesus and Paul both repudiate it. The history of the church is against the use of Sunday as the Sabbath.

St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, in the year 345, says: “Turn thou not out of the way into Samaritanism or Judaism, for Jesus Christ hath redeemed thee; henceforth reject all observance of Sabbaths, and call not meats, which are really matters of indifference, common or unclean.”

St. Jerome, in the year 392, says: “On the Lord’s day they went to church, and returning from church they would apply themselves to their allotted works and make garments for themselves and others. The day is not a day of fasting, but a day of joy; the church has always considered it a day of joy, and none but heretics have thought otherwise.”

Sir William Danville, in his “Six Texts,” p. 241, says: “Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the sabbatical edict of Constantine in A. D. 321.

In the code of Justinian lib. 3, title 12, sec. 2 and 3, we find the first legal edict regulating the Sabbath:

By a multitude of religious teachers of the present day, this decree of Constantine is recognized as the foundation of all “Sabbath” or “Lord’s day” legislation; as the first recognition by the “body politic” of the usages or institutions of Christianity. But nothing can be more easily shown than that this decree was not made in the interest of Christianity; that it did not respect the Sabbath or Lord’s day; and that it was not issued by a Christian ruler.

The reader will notice that the decree was partial; that it related only to certain classes, leaving other classes to still pursue their usual avocations; and that it was respecting “the venerable day of the sun.” Now we appeal with confidence to every student and reader of the Bible, that in all the scriptures there is no such a day or institution known as “the venerable day of the sun.” And we affirm that, in this decree, Constantine not only did not mention any Christian institution, but he had no reference to any Christian institution.

On this point let such a reputable writer as Dr. Schaff testify:

The edict of the sun’s day was issued March 7; that for consulting the haruspex was issued the day following, March 8. This edict of March 8 concerned the inspection of the entrails of beasts as a means of foretelling future events. It was a heathen practice, and the decree was a heathen edict, made by a heathen ruler. This of itself is sufficient to show in what light we must regard his edict for honoring “the venerable day of the sun.” [265]

Dr. Schaff says that Constantine issued his sun’s day decree “in conformity to his worship of Apollo.” Who was Apollo, and what relation did his worship bear to reverencing “the day of the sun?” Webster says: “A deity among the Greeks and Romans, and worshiped under the name of Phœbus, the sun.”

Noted Men who have Rejected the Observance of Sunday as the Sabbath.

The history of the Sabbatarians proves them to be both ignorant and cruel. We have only to make a few quotations from standard authors to prove the charge.

Hume, speaking of the Puritans, remarks:

The same spirit is rampant now in our prohibition laws, Sunday laws, profane swearing laws, etc. Repressing vices does not extinguish them but causes them to become more deep-seated and wide-spread. Moral natures can be made more moral only by the use of moral means.

Presbyterianism in Scotland was the twin of English Puritanism; Presbyterianism prohibited all sorts of pleasure as being sinful and of the Devil. [268]

The following extracts are copied from Buckle’s History of Civilization in England, volume 2, page 304:

But every one should be protected in his individual liberty of choosing how he shall rest and enjoy himself. My neighbors certainly have no right to say how I shall conduct myself on Sunday, nor would they have if they were elected to the state or national legislature. My right to freedom of conscience is inalienable. It is true that I may be robbed of my liberty by those in power. The Sunday laws are the spoliation of the weak by the strong. A most remarkable trait of this nation is that it is constituted more than any other people that the sun ever shone upon of law makers and law breakers. It forebodes national decay. The people who indulge in this spirit are lacking in moral sentiment, and the current history of the politics and religion of this country furnish a lamentable proof of the fact.

There is no provision in the constitution requiring the citizens of the United States to observe Sunday in a religious [270]manner; but there are on the contrary, distinct and unqualified guarantees made to secure the religious liberty of every one. Sunday is a day of rest in the eyes of the Constitution but not a day of religious worship. Constitutionally it is every one’s privilege to spend Sunday as he chooses. He may, if he wishes, go to Sunday-school, class-meeting, preaching, prayer-meeting, and preaching again, and thus employ all his time on Sunday in religious exercises; or if he prefers, he need go only once to service and fall asleep as soon as it begins. Others who desire it may visit the parks, green fields, ride upon the cool waters or visit the libraries, museums, picture galleries, zoological gardens and such other places of amusement and instruction as they see fit. It is the right of every American citizen to decide in what way he should pursue his own happiness.

We read in Article 6 of the Constitution, that “no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” This foundation principle was supplemented by a provision in the first amendment, which says: “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

What could be clearer than this, that the framers of the Constitution intended to exclude all religious questions from the charter of liberty? The Constitution recognizes the beliefs of neither Jew nor Gentile—neither Christian nor Infidel.

The one special object of the framers of the Constitution was to establish a free government, and especially did they aim to secure to the people their individual rights, and no right was so greatly in demand by the people as the right of a free conscience; the right to exercise their own judgment upon questions of religion.

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The Declaration of Independence shows us that this question of liberty was that which the framers of the Constitution were seeking to establish: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

With these words of the Declaration of Independence before us and the provision in Article 6 of the Constitution, namely, thus, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any public trust under the United States,” and the further guarantee in the first amendment, that “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”—it is as clear as a sunbeam that all laws seeking to enforce a religious observance of Sunday are unconstitutional, and should not be executed; and where attempts are made to bind religious observance of the day upon Liberal people they should resist it as an intolerable despotism.

The different states of the Union have numerous Sunday laws, which in most cases are a dead letter. Take for instance Massachusetts. In its history seventy-five cases have been decided mostly in favor of a rigid enforcement of its Sunday laws. But both laws and decisions are powerless in controlling the people to observe Sunday as Sabbath.

The present laws of Massachusetts prohibit games, sports, concerts, plays, work, travel, idling, fishing, hunting, buying and selling, but no one feels bound to obey them. Occasionally some new society springs up calling itself “The Society of Law and Order,” and goes to work to set the world right. The first thing to be done is to enforce the Sunday laws, preventing barbers from shaving, milkmen from distributing milk, newsdealers from selling papers, flower girls from selling flowers, cigar stores from selling cigars, croquet players from enjoying on their own premises an hour’s exercise and amusement, steamboats from carrying excursions from the city, ball players from [272]practicing their games, the angler from taking a few trout, and many others from finding rest and recreation in other ways. But these good people who think that the world is out of joint and they are called to set it right, find it a greater task than they had bargained for, and so they soon tire, and the old world wags along as it did before the “Law and Order” society came into existence.

Sunday laws are a solemn farce, and a burning shame. They are a warfare upon the rights of man, in the interest of ancient traditions and modern despotism.

Puck, in its history of the United States, says: “The Puritans instituted many beautiful customs, and they had some very remarkable laws. They provided strict penalties against Sabbath breaking. On Sunday, they decreed that every able-bodied man, woman, and child in the country should go to church three times a day. They forbade reading anything except the Bible, forbade walking in the fields, and generally shut down on amusements. Then they called it the Lord’s day, and thus strove to make the Lord unpopular.”

The following is an extract from a letter written by Dr. Franklin to Jared Ingersoll of New Haven. The original is in the possession of the New Haven Colony Historical Society:

If you have any inalienable rights your freedom of conscience must be one of the most fundamental. That is, it is for you to say how you will deport yourself on matters of religion. It is nothing less than despotism for your neighbor to step up to you and say: “Brother Jones, I want to see you at church to-day, and if you are not there I will see to it that there is a law passed which will make you attend church.” This is what the Puritans actually did. They did it all for the glory of God, but our modern Puritans, the orthodox, seek to stop milk wagons from delivering milk on Sunday morning, flower girls from selling flowers on the streets of New York, all because of the welfare and purity of society. In several cities in Texas the sale of cigars on Sunday is a violation of the law.

But where do these members of the state and national legislatures get their power from? Do they have any except that which is delegated to them by the people? They do not get the power from the people to usurp their inalienable rights. But here is a legislature passing laws upon the religious observance of Sunday, who have never been instructed to secure the enactment of such laws. And even if ninety-nine out of a hundred should so instruct their representative, the law could not be binding upon the one hundredth person who did not so instruct his (mis)representative in congress. He can be made to obey by their brute force. And this is [275]what legislation amounts to generally. The people are not represented by the law makers, but their interests and rights are invaded one after another until the poor people are subjugated. Among the rights of man perhaps there is none which is more generally recognized abstractly, and more frequently violated practically, than his right to freedom of conscience, or, in other words, his religious liberty. How does this come about? One of the principal reasons for this anomaly is that most people think that we ought to obey without question the will of the majority. They seem to think that an enactment by congress settles the question, whatever it may be.

Here is the secret of the Sunday legislation. The church is a spiritual despotism always seeking to materialize. It is in the nature of power of all kinds to seek for more power. As a spiritual despotism the church is not a success. The nineteenth century has said to this mental and moral Lazarus, “Take up thy bed and walk.” But it has no place to walk to, and hence it refuses to obey the voice of humanity. It is slowly, however, undergoing the transformation of a dissolving view.

Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Now, at first sight, this seems a true and wise saying, but upon reflection we are forced to modify our estimate of it. In the first place there is no evidence that the Sabbath was ever made at all. It is the result of many things. The causes assigned for the institution of this day are conflicting. One reason assigned is because the Lord rested on the seventh day and was refreshed. It is a very empty noddle that can believe that statement. Such a childish view of creation would remind us of some one who had carried a heavy load up six flights of stairs, and then sat down puffing and blowing until he was rested and refreshed. Fancy an omnipotent being tired, hungry, and sleepy. A common sense view of the creation story leads us to reject it all as a myth. [276]

Another reason assigned for the origin of the Sabbath is that it was instituted in commemoration of God’s deliverance of the Hebrews out of Egypt. But this is a flat contradiction of the previous reason given for observing the Sabbath. This contradiction is enough to invalidate the evidence of both these testimonies; but that is not all—the first story about God Almighty being tired after a week’s hard work, and his resting and being refreshed on the seventh day, is so evidently a myth as to need no argument. It is on a par with all stories about the man in the moon, and the bit of legend recounting the escape of the Hebrews from Egypt is full of contradictions and impossibilities which renders the story absolutely useless as a piece of evidence.

No one knows when or where the observance of the seventh day as a day of rest and recreation began. It doubtless had small beginnings in different countries and different times, and has been subject to the law of evolution. The Sabbath was not a man-made product, but grew in character and importance as time rolled on. Therefore it is not true to say the Sabbath was made for man. All the making we see in history is what the priests have done in this direction. While it is not true that the priests originated the Sabbath, yet it is true so far as we can trace the existence of the priesthood that we find them continually making the day a day for themselves. Sunday is priests’ day. Everybody must go to church to listen to an ignorant man talk, scold, misrepresent, and abuse everyone who does not believe as he does. And this is called Divine Service. When the priest rests temporarily from his labors upon the sinner and the skeptic, he trains his guns upon some of those who profess as strongly as himself to be true blue Christians. Take the extremes; the Salvation Army saint and a fashionable member of the fashionable Episcopal church. The latter looks down upon the former and calls them “trash, rubbish,” and other classical names, while the soldier of the temporal army returns the compliment by styling his brethren [277]of the Episcopal persuasion as “the Devil’s dudes.” Behold! how these Christians love—to go for one another.

We have seen that there is no history for the institution of the Sabbath. We have learned also that to keep this day holy did not mean to attend preaching or prayer-meetings, or special religious services of any kind.

We have discovered that the Jewish Sabbath was not incorporated into the early Christian church. We have seen also that Jesus repudiated the Jewish Sabbath. That Paul, the founder of the church, also rejects the Sabbath; and that the early fathers did not observe it. That the great men of the middle ages repudiated it. It was left for the Puritans and Scotch Presbyterians to bewilder the undeveloped mind and poison the susceptible hearts of the people, by teaching the gloomy doctrines of Puritanism and Presbyterianism. Puritanism and Presbyterianism die hard. They still live. Their spirit is hostile to freedom. Talk to them of liberty and you will readily wake the remark, “Oh yes, we believe in liberty, but not in license.” Now what does license mean with such people? Why it means that you shall conform to their religious notions and practices.

Especially must you remember the Sabbath to keep it holy; that is, you are at liberty to do just as you please, if you please to do as pleases them.

Protestants all agree upon the right of free conscience, the right to believe as one chooses (which however he never can do, because he must believe according to evidence).

It is the great boast of Protestantism that the individual has a free will (another error), and that he must search the scriptures, and decide for himself. They say every man has an open Bible put before him, and he must make up his own mind on the “truth of God.” When he has made up his mind, and seeks to enter a church which is full of liberty, what do the officers of the church say to him? Do they tell him that his conscience is free and the Bible is an open book for him to read and interpret as he can? Oh, no! There is [278]no free conscience, or open Bible business when one is getting into a church. On such occasions the candidate is taken by the proper officers into an ante room, and placed upon a Procrustean bed usually called a creed, and if he is the proper length, all right, but if not he must either be stretched or sawed off to the proper dimensions. And these are the people who have such a holy horror of license.

A friend of mine went once to buy a pup. The price was five dollars; but as there were three pups in the basket my friend said he would give five dollars for one if he could have his choice. “Oh yes, you can have your choice,” said the owner, “if ye’ll choose this pup” [pointing to the most inferior one in the basket]. So it is with the church; you can have all the liberty in the world to believe, if you believe the doctrines of this or that sect. You can have your own choice, if you choose to obey the priesthood. You can have all the liberty to think as freely as you can on all subjects, if you will never mention your thoughts. Here is what M. Guizot, an eminent Christian writer has to say about the liberty granted by the church:

With some people almost every act, if it be not strictly religious, is a desecration of the Lord’s day. It is a solemn day, and for one to smile is a desecration of the holy day, while laughing is gross wickedness. To entertain one’s friends on Sunday or to enjoy music, is carnal and therefore a desecration of the Lord’s day. To love flowers is evidence of depravity; to admire the beauties of nature, as a golden sunset, or a summer’s sunrise, are palpable evidences of being a “man of sin.” To do anything but attend church, look solemn, mourn and pray, weep and read the Bible, is of the Devil. [279]

What a spectacle that man presents to the world who is struggling for perfection through religious beliefs and exercises. He never gets exactly there, but confidently and complacently thinks himself there or thereabouts. His next great work is to call upon others in life’s highway to follow in his footsteps. He gets some followers who join with him in thanking God that they are not as other men are. Their self-righteousness becomes intense, and they become filled with the spirit of the Lord and preach believe (as we do) or be damned. Then begins persecution and torture. It is always your “dead-in-earnest” man that gets up persecutions. He is trying to gain perfection, and the natural ripe fruit of religious perfection is bigotry, intolerance, and despotism. Beware, oh! reader, of him who is seeking perfection, for you are nothing better than a worm under his heel, and if he does not crush you, it is because he is better than his God. God will crush you in the next world for not agonizing for perfection in this.

I quote the following from “The Sabbath Question,” a very able pamphlet by my esteemed friend, Alfred E. Giles:

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It is not necessary to point in what way the printing press, art, commerce, and science, have promoted the progress of the race. It is so apparent to every intelligent reader that these have been the stepping stones over which we have passed from barbarism to civilization, that amplification is unnecessary.

The splendid results of science are everywhere so manifest that we hardly need refer to them. What transformations the world has undergone through the uses of the steam engine, the spinning jenny, telegraph, ocean cable, railroads, sewing machines, photography, spectrum analysis, and thousands of other useful inventions. We see advancement achieved in free government, free schools, free libraries, free trade, labor reform, prison reform, and reform in the treatment of lunatics, paupers and criminals, and reform seeking to adjust the wrongs perpetrated upon women.

Besides all these improvements there is every indication in the spirit of to-day that we are soon to witness greater improvements, if not radical changes in government; changes affecting capital and labor. [287]

Skepticism played a prominent part in the eighteenth century. Doubt instead of faith, possessed the minds of many of the most distinguished men of thought, such as Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, Rousseau, D’Holbach, Gibbon, and others. Some of the more prominent skeptics rejected Christianity on the common ground of incredibility of the scriptures. But as they had no form of belief or knowledge to substitute in place of the dogmas they rejected, it was not difficult for the clergy with specious explanations to cover up the doubts and disbeliefs which the skeptics raised. Something more was needed to break the spell of superstition and arouse the minds of men to thought and action. In the first part of the present century the philosophy of Evolution began to find place in the minds of most profound thinkers. Science has done what skepticism failed to accomplish; it has given knowledge instead of faith. It has cultivated intense intellectual habits in modern society and given mankind a sure test of truth, in its method of verification, by means of experiment, observation and deduction.

Science is inexorably hostile to supernaturalism—cannot recognize a particle of it. It knows nothing of a super-nature; with science all is nature, and nature is all. From pre-historic times the race has been under the control of ignorance and superstition, the parents of fear and cruelty; but now that science begins to dispel ignorance and superstition, we find courage, kindness, and other humanities taking their places. And we should say just here that Infidelity is no longer synonymous with mere disbelief; it means more than this. It stands for all that reason approves. Freethought is the first fruits of skepticism, and this means honest inquiry on all subjects, old and new. It means independence and manhood in private as well as public life—the right of everyone to think and express his thought regardless of creeds and customs, the right to live his own life in the enjoyment of the broadest possible liberty [288]compatible with the liberty of others. Freethinkers are the prophets of this age, proclaiming justice as the right of all, and predicting a day of wrath to those who trample upon the rights of a long-suffering people. In the light of science, priestcraft must fade away like snow under the increasing heat of the sun.

The church made no progress in science and art for a thousand years. The energies of the mind had no outlet except in a few channels which were not fruitful. The scholars of the middle ages exerted great mental force upon empty questions, as “quiddities,” “entities,” “occult virtues,” “efficient causes,” “realism and nominalism,” and the “essence of things.” Were any of these problems ever solved? What corresponding benefit has resulted from these long and zealous discussions? What general conclusions have been reached? What first principles have been established by them?

The speculative philosophy created violent agitation in the church; but from its very nature it offered no positive truth, no verifiable facts to take the place of theology. The metaphysical method was fruitless, because its supporters sought to explain every problem by the process of thought alone.

For centuries the church maintained metaphysical discussions about the nature of Christ, one party arguing that he was of the same substance (homoousion) as the Father, and an another as strongly argued that he was of like substance (homoiusion) as the Father. These controversies were attended with bloody conflicts. If one party were in possession of the revealed will of God, it was quite natural [289]that all other parties should listen to them. If they would not they incurred the wrath of God, and if God was angry his people ought to imitate him; if God was going to damn heretics in the next world, his saints, who are his agents here, ought to damn them in this.

It has professed to offer the world a revelation of the will of God. And what has this book, the Bible, revealed? What information does it give man of the nature of this earth, of geology, geography, or of the millions of stars [290]seen and unseen; of agriculture? Is it not true that he who invented the plow was a greater man than Moses? What does the Bible teach about government, agriculture, mining, inventions, discoveries, arts, printing, morals, liberty, and all other branches of useful learning? It contains no instructions upon the most important and useful subjects. And of itself, the Bible makes no claim to be an inspired revelation from God. The church, with all its assumptions and presumptions, is not the teacher of the world, as it has nothing but superstition to teach.

Christianity is conservative, and, like the bourbon, never gets a new idea or forgets an old one, and it is in its very nature, therefore, non-progressive. The advancement of humanity has been achieved not by and through Christianity, but in conflict with and triumph over it. Christianity itself has been subject to modification and progress from forces without, rather than virtues within itself. The savage doctrine “believe or be damned,” is no longer a popular pulpit theme. Eternal torment has ceased to torment or terrify the living, election and reprobation are no longer a commodity greatly in demand, and the divine right of kings is rapidly fading out of mind. Infant damnation is not mentioned—babes do not go to hell in these days—they all crowd into Abraham’s capacious bosom. The Devil is not so black as he used to be—it was reported lately that he is dead. Taking it all in all, there has been a great improvement in the doctrines of the church. It should never be forgotten, however, that it professes to save the world, while the truth is just the opposite, that is, the world saves the church. Common sense has taught the church the foolishness and wickedness of these absurd and cruel doctrines, and has saved it from immediate decay by forcing it to give them up. The church makes progress because it must, not because it seeks to do so. The sanity of man is saving him from the insanity of religion. The world moves and Christianity, though it hangs back, must nevertheless move with it. The [291]progressive element is in man, and when he is outside of the church he advances in knowledge and morality; but within its walls he is sure to be conservative and non-progressive. For why should he seek to make any progress? Has he not the revealed will of God—a complete guide to duty here and to destiny hereafter? Surely he needs no books to supersede the Bible or other virtues than those awakened by the grace of God.

We come now to look at the crimes perpetrated by the people of God, to show how the Bible and Christianity lie as insuperable obstructions in the pathway of progress.

It is a common belief in Protestant countries that Protestantism has been the cause of all modern enlightenment, “overlooking,” says Mr. Buckle, “the important fact that until enlightenment had begun, there was no Protestantism required. Enlightenment was the cause of Protestantism. Many causes had been at work to bring up the public mind to a higher intelligence and a braver love of independence.”

The reformation was therefore the result of previous enlightenment, a demand for larger liberty. It was the protest of reason against authority. Liberalism is the full protest against all forms of superstition and despotism. We have greatly over-estimated the work of the reformation. It did not greatly change the humanities of society, as the Protestants so fondly imagine. Protestants were found to be the persecutors when they had the power, just as the Romanists had been; circumstances, however, modified and restrained them from such atrocities as the latter had perpetrated.

The doctrine of the atonement has been the dry rot in our civilization. It has led millions to believe that they could escape the consequences of violated laws of nature. Millions of people believe to-day that they can go through life in utter disregard of all that is right and good, and at the last moment when they come to shuffle off this mortal coil, all they will then need to do will be simply to call upon Jesus and receive his approbation and permission to enter the shining courts above. “Jesus died and paid it all,” relieves the votary from the demands of morality, and, “the [303]Devil tempted me and I sinned,” exonerates him from all guilt. This sort of teaching has filled our prisons with those who fully believe it—and they are behind the bars because they have lived according to their belief. The malignant and mendacious cry that Freethought leads the truthseeker always downward to a bad life is refuted by the fact that those who fill the prisons of our country are not Infidels, but believers in the divine revelation who have lived up to the advantages offered by the “gathering them in” doctrine of atonement.

The murderers who are hanged on Friday in the different states almost every week, nearly all Christians, are prepared to go to heaven and there join in the company and songs of innocent children and pure maids and matrons who, by their presence, make heaven worthy the name; but these fiends, if they should happen to be pardoned by the governor, there could not be found a reputable Christian who would want to take one of them home to live in his family of noble wife and lovely children, for a single day. And yet he is fit for heaven, fit for the company of angels and the purified of earth. The dying words of a good religious man were, “I am no Infidel,” and that man’s name is John D. Lee, of Utah, who, in cold blood, murdered innocent men, women, and children, and after eluding justice for twenty years or more was arrested, tried, found guilty and shot to death, with the words on his lips, “I am no Infidel.” But his confession was unnecessary, as Freethinkers do not die that way, and the reason they do not die in that manner is because they do not believe in the great bankrupt act—the atonement. They have no savior, and hence have to save themselves. They have no titles to mansions in the skies but have some claims on earth which they prefer to stay with as long as they can.

The doctrine of the atonement is very immoral and no one can begin to estimate the wickedness it has fostered in society, by leading people to believe they can pass through life committing all sorts of crimes and at last, when they [304]find themselves about to die, can call upon Jesus and find eternal life “by believing on his name.”

“This couplet has helped many a one to die easy.” Oh, yes, it has, but it has encouraged too many to live easy—to live entirely too easy—so easy that they did not need to gain intelligence, to practice morality and pay their honest debts.

A salvation so extemporaneously performed, I fear could not endure; it resembles too closely the winter revivals whose fruits have all disappeared before the summer’s harvest is over.

Where are those who have risen in him gloriously complete? Show us just one.

It is immoral because it seeks to accomplish certain ends without using the proper means, or it tries to do what reason teaches us cannot be done. When some years ago we had yellow fever at Memphis the praying people all over [305]this country united in supplicating the unknown to remove the plague; but notwithstanding their united petitions to a throne of grace and to “a prayer-answering God,” they utterly failed. The yellow fever remained until the angel of frost came and touched the air with its white wings of health.

Fred Douglass said he prayed for freedom twenty years, but received no answer until he prayed with his legs.

“Give us this day our daily bread,” is a childish superstition. What millions of poor women have starved to death with this prayer on their lips. Jesus made a prayer in the garden of Gethsemane which was not answered. Now if the son of God may pray and receive no answer, what can the common rank and file sinner expect?

When the native African sees an eclipse, he fancies some huge monster is attempting to devour the sun, or the moon, as the case may be. He resorts to his tom-tom, by which he hopes to frighten away the fearful monster. After the eclipse has passed away he turns to his skeptical brethren and says, “I told you so,” just as his more civilized brother who prays for rain, and after it comes, no matter whether it is a day or a month afterward, turns upon his incredulous friends, and asks them triumphantly, “Didn’t I tell you so?”

The tom-tom business in Africa and Christian prayers for rain, are on a dead level with each other.

Prayer is simply supplication to God. God is a mystery; a mystery so profound that nothing is known of him, save that he is a mystery. Even his existence cannot be demonstrated. His non-existence is equally undemonstrable, [306]because no man has a definite conception of him to use as a starting point for investigation. Some claim that he is a person, others that he is omnipresent. Both of these cannot be; for personality and omnipresence are incompatible. Prayer is based on the supposition of his personality. It implies necessarily a person in a certain place, and possessed of certain attributes. He must be omnipotent, omniscient, unchangeable, and all-good. Nothing less than this will come up to the conception of what a God should be. Christians tell us God possesses all these attributes. We accept their statement because it is impossible to prove the contrary. On this basis, then let us examine prayer.

God is said to be all goodness. Goodness is the performance of duty. Perfect goodness is the performance of all duty, and of nothing beyond. It is also the performance of all duty without reluctance or hesitation. Prayer is an insult to this quality of God’s character. It implies that his goodness is not perfect. Every blessing for which man can ask, it is the duty of God either to grant or to withhold. In either case, prayer implies the possibility of imperfection. To ask God to grant a blessing which it is his duty to grant, is to assume that he will not do his duty without being urged. Such an assumption is downright insolence. To ask for a blessing which it is God’s duty to withhold, is to assume that he can be persuaded to commit sin. This, too, can only be regarded as an insult. In both cases prayer is useless, because God is not likely to grant a blessing asked in the same breath an insult is given.

We are told that God is pleased with prayer, because it shows our faith in his goodness. It rather shows our lack of faith. To be continually asking for blessings, implies a doubt whether we shall get them if we do ask. He who never prays shows the most faith, for he takes it for granted that God is good, and if he is good, he will provide for his children unasked. The child has faith that his father will provide for him, but he never asks him to do so. Such conduct would prove him unworthy of his father’s care. [307]So with prayer; the praying man is the true skeptic, and the Infidel is the true believer.

Prayer makes God a changeable being. It implies that he will grant any favor we ask, whether he had previously designed to do so or not. If we were privy to his designs, and knew what blessings he intended to bestow, we could ask only for such as he had intended to give us. In the absence of this knowledge we pray blindly for blessings which it may be, he has determined to withhold. This necessarily implies that he may change his designs. If the object pleaded for is a good one, such a change would be perfectly proper in an earthly monarch. In God it would be fanciful in the extreme. It would place his will at the disposal of a million fallible human beings. It would overthrow the harmony of his government, and replace it by the most reckless chance. Our reception of a blessing would depend no longer on God’s goodness; it would depend on whether some other person of greater persuasive power, was or was not asking an opposite blessing at the same time. God would be in constant indecision, and we should be in constant doubt. Prayer, then, is based on the changeableness of an unchangeable being, and therefore valueless.

Prayer, in theory, is based on the supposition of God’s personality; prayer, in practice, assumes that God is omnipotent. It supposes that he can be in all places at all times. People are praying at all hours of the day and in all quarters of the globe. To hear them all God must be at such places at such times. To do this he must cease to be a personal being, he must cease to be God. He will then have no intelligence, no volition, for these depend on a personal organization. Prayer, therefore, logically annihilates the being to whom it is addressed.

Prayer implies doubt of the wisdom of God. To pray is to ask for a certain blessing. We assume that such a blessing is best for us, and inform God of the fact. After insulting his goodness by asking for a blessing, we insult his intelligence by specifying what that blessing shall be. Prayers [308]are rarely or never asked for general blessings alone. A person who asks for a blessing and leaves the choice of that blessing wholly to God, is liable to be considered a lunatic by all true believers. Yet to do otherwise is to deny God’s omniscience. It assumes that God does not know what our wants are. If God is a rational being, he can only treat such an assumption with contempt. Prayer has been tried for two thousand years and with no result. No prayer has ever been directly or indirectly answered by God. On the contrary, he apparently delighted in mocking those who call upon him. When the Ville du Havre went down, over two hundred ministers were praying for their lives, but in vain. Two girls who trusted not in prayers, but in swimming-belts, alone were saved. (“Logic of Prayer,” Charles Stevenson.)

Some years ago when the yellow fever raged at Memphis, Tennessee, the pious people of this country prayed most devoutly to have the plague swept away. These prayers were repeated, were offered up by the most faithful in the Christian ranks, but all in vain. They had read in their Bible that the prayers of the righteous availeth much. They had been taught to believe that “all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” (Mat. 21 : 22.) There is no one thing that Jesus taught more explicitly than this; the prayers of those who truly believe shall be answered. He said:

But we see that prayers are not answered. And besides, those prayers which it is claimed are answered carry no proof of the fact with them.

Did not millions of Christians pray for the restoration of President Garfield? How utterly delusive it is to palm off as truth the following promise upon credulous minds:

[309]

Jesus himself offered a prayer that was not answered. In the garden of Gethsemane he prayed:

“Ask and it shall be given thee” is an erroneous and immoral teaching. It is false. It is not true that people get what they pray for. We hear pious persons praying, “Give us this day our daily bread,” but none of them expect to get their bread in that way. What an irresistible smile would wrinkle the faces of the devout if a poor widow should pray: “Give us this day our daily coal,” and another of the praying circle should ask, “Give us this day our daily potatoes,” and another should beg, “Give us this day our daily beefsteak.”

While no one expects to get his daily supplies in answer to prayer, yet millions of pious souls are scandalized if you doubt the efficacy of prayer. They will admit that they have to work for their “daily bread,” “but after all God gives it to us just the same.” He gives it to the sinner who does not pray in the same manner, that is, if he labors he earns his own bread.

In vain the seamstress in her sickness and poverty, prays, “Give us this day our daily bread.” She dies with these her last words on her lips.

In vain the noble souls who have been thrown into prison for daring to tell and defend the truth, have fervently appealed to the judge of all the earth for freedom.

In vain the martyr looked to heaven for deliverance. [310]

It seems to some people selfish for one to attempt to live in the personal enjoyment of this world, but to lend all one’s energies toward gaining heaven is to them just right. Caring for one’s health and family is selfishness, but struggling to save one’s soul is the noblest work of life.

The truth is Christian doctrines are purely selfish. When man does certain duties, as they are called, because he wants to get to heaven, his conduct is intensely selfish. The gospel constantly invites the followers of Jesus to act, from the consideration that “great is your reward in heaven.” Very many Christians say that if it were not for the hope of future reward, they would not try to do right. In other words they confess that they do not act from moral motives. They are moved by the selfish motives of other worldliness. To act morally we must do right because it is right and for no other consideration. When we look beyond the act to see how much we are going to make out of it, then our conduct is not moral. He who is going through the performance of duties because he wants to get to heaven, has yet to learn the meaning of morality.

Revelation does not admit of two sides to religious questions. There is only one side, say the Moodys and Talmages, and that side is God’s side. We have no right to question Holy Writ. We must accept it. “Believe or be damned,” does not admit of the latitude of free thought, [313]or the right of reason to question the authority of the Bible.

“Reason is ‘carnal,’ says the Christian idolator, and you cannot rely upon it—only trust in Jesus and you are saved.”

The following historical facts prove beyond question that intolerance is the very soul of Christianity:

“When any step was taken to establish a system of permanent institutions, which might effectually protect liberty from the invasions of power in general, the church always ranged herself on the side of despotism.” (Guizot’s “History of Civilization in Europe,” p. 154.)

“Persecution for religious heterodoxy, in all its degrees, was in the sixteenth century, the principle as well as the practice of every church.” (Hallam’s “Middle Ages,” vol. 2, p. 48.)

When Queen Mary, the first queen of England, had burned Latimer, Ridley and others, and her ministers had chided her for it, she replied that she did not think God could be angry with her for burning the heretics a few hours in this world, for their heresy, since he was going to burn them eternally in the next world for the same thing.

Here you have the unadulterated article. It is nothing, if not intolerant, and in every age and country, with sword and hand, has commanded the trembling people to believe or be damned. And the Christian who does not do his utmost toward having heretics and infidels burned at the stake, is trying to be better than his God.

“The church has opposed every reform and until quite recently, almost every useful invention. In the England of Elizabeth it was declared from the pulpit that the introduction of forks would demoralize the people and provoke the divine wrath.” (“Martyrdom of Man,” p. 38.)

In the year 1444 Caxton published the first book ever printed in England. In 1474 the then bishop of London, in a convocation of his clergy, said, “If we do not destroy this dangerous invention it will one day destroy us.” That bishop was a prophet.

Hume says: “It was remarkable that no physician in Europe, who had reached the age of forty years, ever to the end of his life adopted Harvey’s doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and that his practice in London diminished extremely, from the reproach drawn on him by that great and signal discovery. So slow is the progress in every science even when not opposed by factitious and superstitious prejudices.” (Hume’s “History of England.”)

When Buffon had published Natural History, in which was included his “Theory of the Earth,” he was officially informed by the faculty of theology in Paris that several of his propositions were “reprehensible and contrary to the creed of the church.”

And when Columbus asserted the rotundity of the earth, he was ridiculed by the clergy, who maintained that “everything would roll off on the other side and be consumed in the fires of hell, if the world should turn over.”

Benjamin Franklin’s experiments with the lightning, were condemned, as he was only invoking upon himself the wrath of an angry God. [320]

Professor Morse was freely ridiculed by the clergy for his attempt to construct a telegraph.

Roger Bacon, who invented spectacles and improved the telescope, was accused of having “sold himself to the devil.”

It is scarcely necessary to recall the persecutions of Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo on account of their discoveries in astronomy.

At Eaton, in Shelly’s time, “Chemistry was a forbidden thing.”

We read in the life of Locke that “there was a meeting of the heads of the houses of Oxford, where it was proposed to censure and discourage the reading of this essay (On the Human Understanding) and after various debates, it was concluded that without any public censure each head of a house should endeavor to prevent its being read in his own college.” (Spencer’s “Social Statics,” p. 375.)

“With respect to the last, the grandest of all human undertakings (that is the circumnavigation of the earth) it is to be remembered that Catholicism had irrevocably committed itself to the dogma of a flat earth, with the sky as a floor of heaven, and hell in the under world.” (Draper’s “Conflict,” p. 294.)

The clergy for years have ridiculed Darwinism, and scouted the philosophy of evolution, even after the best minds of Europe had accepted it. But after all their ridicule of Darwinism, when Darwin had passed away the great heart of England did not fail to show the esteem in which the people at large held him, but lovingly laid his remains to rest in Westminster abbey with the dust of her noblest dead.

It is in the very nature of Christianity to persecute. It cannot live on terms of equality with anything on earth. It must rule. It must be supreme, and all institutions and all individuals must obey its mandates. It has in all of its vocabulary no such word as liberty. Every knee must bow to it, every tongue confess its authority, and every pocket—pay it tithes. And so gigantic has been its power that [321]obedience in every age has been almost universal. Millions have professed to obey the despot who have had no idea of what they were professing, and hence had not so much even an a dream of liberty. Poor man has been trampled in the dust, and sometimes used as food for cannon, to satisfy the ambition of pope or king, and when not serviceable in that way, he was forced to worship God and serve the priests.

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.” (Rom. 13 : 1.) That is, the higher powers are the priests. The commandments of these higher powers are expressed in such words as “submit,” “obey,” “serve,” “pay tithes,” “believe,”—and to heed them is to lose the higher opportunities of manhood.

William Cobbett on the English Church.—A Letter to Lord Tenderten, Lord Chief Justice of England, April 6, 1829.

“My Lord: I have read the report of your lordship’s speech made on the 4th inst. on the second reading of the Catholic bill; and there is one passage of it on which I think it my duty thus publicly to remark. The passage to which I allude relates to the character of the law established church, and also to the probable fate that will, in consequence of this bill, attend her in Ireland.

“First, then, my lord, let us take your proposition ‘that there in no church so tolerant as this.’ I am sure your lordship has never read her history; I am sure you have not. If you had you never would have uttered these words. Not being content to deal in general terms, I will not say she has been, and was from the outset, the most intolerant church that the world ever saw; that she started at first armed with halters, ripping-knives, axes, and racks; that her footsteps were marked with blood, while her back bent under the plunder of her innumerable innocent victims; and that for refinement in cruelty and extent of rapacity she never had an equal, whether corporate or sole. I will not [322]thus speak of her in general terms, but I will lay before your lordship some historical facts, to make good that contradiction which I have given to your words. I assert that this law-church is the most intolerant church I ever read or heard of; and this assertion I now proceed to make good.

“This church began to exist in 1547, and in the reign of Edward VI. Until now the religion of the country had been for several years, under the tyrant Henry VIII., a sort of mongrel; but now it became wholly Protestant by law. The Articles of Religion and the Common Prayer-book were now drawn up, and were established by acts of Parliament. The Catholic altars were pulled down in all the churches; the priests, on pain of ouster and fine, were compelled to teach the new religion, that is to say, to be apostates; and the people who had been born and bred Catholics were not only punished if they heard mass, but were also punished if they did not go to hear the new parsons; that is to say, if they refused to become apostates. The people, smarting under this tyranny, rose in insurrection in several parts, and, indeed, all over the country. They complained that they had been robbed of their religion, and of the relief to the poor which the old church gave; and they demanded that the mass and the monasteries should be restored, and that the priests should not be allowed to marry. And how were they answered? The bullet and bayonet at the hands of German troops slaughtered a part, caused another part to be imprisoned and flogged, and the remainder to submit, outwardly, at least, to the law-church. And now mark this tolerant and merciful church. Many of the old monastics and priests, who had been expelled from their convents and livings, were compelled to beg their bread about the country, and thus found subsistence among the pious Catholics. This was an eye-sore to the law-church, who deemed the very existence of these men, who refused to apostatize, a libel on her. Therefore, in company, actually in company with the law that founded the new church came forth a law to punish beggars, by burning them in the face with a red-hot iron [323]and by making them slaves for two years, with power in their masters to make them wear an iron collar. Your lordship must have read this act of Parliament, passed in the first year of the first Protestant reign, and coming forth in company with the Common Prayer-book. This was tolerant work, to be sure; and fine proof we have here of this church being ‘favorable to civil and religious liberty.’ Not content with stripping these faithful Catholic priests of their livings; not content with turning them out upon the wide world; this tolerant church must cause them to perish with hunger or be branded slaves.

“Such was the tolerant spirit of this church when she was young. As to her burnings under Cranmer (who made the prayer book), they are hardly worthy of particular notice, when we have before us the sweeping cruelties of this first Protestant reign, during which, short as it was, the people of England suffered so much that the suffering actually thinned their numbers; it was a people partly destroyed, and that, too, in the space of about six years; and this is acknowledged even in acts of Parliament of that day. But this law-church was established in reality during the reign of Elizabeth, which lasted forty-five years; that is, from 1558 to 1603; and though this church has always kept up its character, even to the present day, its deeds during this long reign are the most remarkable.

“Elizabeth established what she called ‘a court of high commission’ consisting chiefly of bishops of your lordship’s ‘most tolerant church,’ in order to punish all who did not conform to her religious creed, she being ‘the head of the church.’ This commission was empowered to have control over the ‘opinions’ of all men, and to punish all men according to their ‘discretion, short of death.’ They had power to extort evidence by prison or the rack. They had power to compel a man (on oath) to ‘reveal his thoughts,’ and to ‘accuse his friend, brother, parent, wife, or child;’ and this, too, on ‘pain of death.’ These monsters, in order to ‘discover priests,’ and to crush the old religion, ‘fined, [324]imprisoned, racked,’ and did such things as would have made Nero shudder to think of. They sent hundreds to the rack in order to get from them confessions, ‘on which confession many of them were put to death.’

“I have not room to make even an enumeration of the deeds of religious persecution during this long and ‘tolerant’ reign; but I will state a few of them:

1. It was death to make a new Catholic priest within the kingdom.

2. It was death for a Catholic priest to come into the kingdom from abroad.

3. It was death to harbor a Catholic priest coming from abroad.

4. It was death to confess to such a priest.

5. It was death for any priest to say mass.

6. It was death for any one to hear mass.

7. It was death to deny, or not to swear, if called on, that this woman was the head of the church of Christ.

8. It was an offense (punishable by heavy fine) not to go to the Protestant church. This fine was £20 a lunar month, or £250 a year, and of our present money £3,250 a year. Thousands upon thousands refused to go to the law-church; and thus the head of the church sacked thousands upon thousands of estates! The poor conscientious Catholics who refused to go to the ‘most tolerant church,’ and who had no money to pay fines, were crammed into the jails until the counties petitioned to be relieved from keeping them. They were then discharged, being first publicly whipped, and having their ears bored with a red-hot iron. But this very great ‘toleration’ not answering the purpose, an act was passed to banish for life all these non-goers to church, if they were not worth twenty pounds, and, in case of return they were to be punished with death.

“I am, my lord, not making loose assertions here; I am all along stating from acts of Parliament, and the above form a small sample of the whole; and this your lordship must know well. I am not declaiming, but relating undeniable [325]facts; with facts of the same character, with a bare list, made in the above manner, I could fill a considerable volume. The names of the persons put to death merely for being Catholics, during this long and dreary reign, would, especially if we were to include Ireland, form a list ten times as long as that of our army and navy, both taken together. The usual mode of inflicting death was to hang the victim for a short time, just to benumb his or her faculties, then cut down and instantly rip open the belly, and tear out the heart, and hold it up, fling the bowels into the fire, then chop off the head, and cut the body into quarters, then boil the head and quarters, and then hang them up at the gates of cities, or other conspicuous places. This was done, including Ireland, to many hundreds of persons, merely for adhering to the church in which they had been born and bred. There were one hundred and eighty-seven ripped up and boiled in England in the years from 1577 to 1603; that is to say, in the last twenty-six years of Elizabeth’s reign; and these might all have been spared if they would have agreed to go to church and hear the Common Prayer! All, or nearly all of them were racked before they were put to death; and the cruelties in prison, and the manner of execution, were the most horrible that can be conceived. They were flung into dungeons, kept in their filth, and fed on bullock’s liver, boiled and unwashed tripe, and such things as dogs are fed on. Edwards Genings, a priest, detected in saying mass in Holborn, was after sentence of death offered his pardon if he would go to church; but having refused to do this, and having at the place of execution boldly said that he would die a thousand deaths rather than acknowledge the Queen to be the spiritual head of the church, Topliffe, the attorney-general, ordered the rope to be cut the moment the victim was turned off, ‘so that’ (says this historian) ‘the priest being little or nothing stunned, stood on his feet casting his eyes toward heaven, till the hangman tripped up his heels, and flung him on the block, where he was ripped up and quartered.’ He was so much alive even [326]after the boweling that he cried with a loud voice, ‘Oh! it smarts!’ And then he exclaimed, ‘Sancte Gregorie, ora pro me,’ while the hangman having sworn a most wicked oath cried, ‘Zounds! his heart is in my hand, and yet Gregory is in his mouth!’”—Wm. Cobbett.

“For centuries the Irish were killed like game. We know not a few good Englishmen who would be convulsed with the story of the murder of Smith or Jones, but whom the killing of an O’Tool or O’Dacherty, or any ‘O’’ or ‘Mac’ would not move in the least. That be it remembered in 1825. The collection of tithes alone cost a million lives. Henry VIII. aggravated all the outrages ever committed, and was determined the faith of the Irish should undergo a radical Protestant conversion. Raleigh butchered Limerick garrison in cold blood after Lord Grey had selected seven hundred to be hanged. James I. confiscated one-tenth of all the land in Ireland and destroyed thousands of lives for religion’s sake. Protestant rectors kept private prisons for confining all who dissented from their faith. Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, wrote that the favorite object of the English Parliament was the total extermination of all the Catholics in Ireland.

“Cromwell began by massacreing for three days the garrison of Drogheda after quarter had been promised. Whole towns were put up and sold. The Catholics were banished from three-fourths of Ireland and confined to Connaught, and after a certain day every one found outside were shot or hung. Fleetwood, the reverend, said the Lord will appear in this work. On every wolf’s scalp and priest’s head a premium of £5 was offered! Young girls and boys were gathered up by the thousands and carried to the West Indies. So by 1652 was once populous Ireland so devastated that an occupied house was a curiosity and commented on. Says one writer, S. W. Petry, ‘There perished in 1641 over six hundred thousand lives whose blood somebody must atone to God for.’” (Newspaper article.) [327]

“The sword of the church was unsheathed and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted on 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.... 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 [328]conscience of a serpent; such is the history of the church of God.” (Ingersoll’s “Heretics and Heresies.”)

Capital Laws of Connecticut, Established by the General Court, December 1, 1642.

1. If any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other God but the Lord God, he shall be put to death. (Deut. 13 : 6; 17 : 2, 3, and Ex. 22 : 20.)

2. If any man or woman be a witch (that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit) they shall be put to death. (Ex. 20 : 18; Lev. 20 : 27; Deut. 18 : 10, 11.)

3. If any person shall blaspheme the name of God, the Father, Son or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous, or high-handed blasphemy, or shall curse God in the like manner, he shall be put to death. (Lev. 24 : 15, 16.)

4. If any person shall commit any wilful murder, which is manslaughter committed upon malice, hatred, or cruelty, not in a man’s necessary and just defense nor by mere casualty against his will, he shall be put to death. (Ex. 21 : 12, 13, 14; Numb. 35 : 30, 31.)

5. If any person shall slay another through guile, either by poisoning, or other such devilish practice, he shall be put to death. (Ex. 21 : 14.)

6. If any man or woman shall lie with a beast or brute creature, by carnal copulation, they shall surely be put to death, and the beast shall be slain and buried. (Lev. 20 : 15, 16.)

7. If any man lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed abomination, they both shall surely be put to death. (Lev. 20 : 13.)

8. If any person committeth adultery with a married or espoused wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (Lev. 20 : 10; 18 : 20; Deut. 22 : 23, 24.)

9. If any man shall forcibly and without consent ravish a maid or woman, that is lawfully married or contracted, he shall be put to death. (Deut. 22 : 25.) [329]

10. If any man shall steal a man or mankind, he shall be put to death. (Ex. 21 : 16.)

11. If any man rise up by false witnesses, wittingly and of purpose to take away any man’s life he shall be put to death. (Deut. 19 : 16, 18, 19.)

12. If any man shall conspire or attempt any invasion, insurrection, or rebellion against the commonwealth, he shall be put to death.

“All these are copied from the capital laws of Massachusetts, established (with her Body of Liberties) December, 1641,—except the ninth (against rape of a married or betrothed woman), which was enacted by Massachusetts in June, 1642. One of the Massachusetts laws punished manslaughter with death, was not adopted by Connecticut, and only the first clause of the Massachusetts law against conspiracy, rebellion, etc. was taken.” (“Blue Laws, True and False,” by Trumbull.)

“December 1642, two additional capital laws were added to the statute of Connecticut.” (Ibid. p. 59.)

13. If any child or children about 16 years old and of sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he, or they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been unchristianly negligent in the education of such children or so provoke them by extreme and cruel correction that they have been forced thereunto, to preserve themselves from death or maiming. (Ex. 21 : 17, 15; Lev. 20 : 9.)

14. If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son of sufficient years and understanding, namely, 16 years of age, which will not obey the voice of his father or mother, and that when they have chastened him, will not hearken to them, then may his father and mother, being his natural parents, lay hold on him, and bring him to the magistrates assembled in court and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and rebellious and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son shall be put to death. (Deut. 21 : 20, 21.) [330]

“Persuade men that when ascribing to the Deity justice and mercy, they are speaking of qualities generally distinct from those which exist among mankind—qualities which we are altogether unable to conceive, and which may be compatible with acts which men would term grossly unjust and unmerciful; tell them that guilt may be entirely unconnected with a personal act that millions of infants may be called into existence for a moment to be precipitated into a place of torment, that vast nations may live and die, and then be rased again to endure never-ending punishment, because they did not believe in a religion of which they never heard, or because a crime was committed thousands of years before they were in existence; convince them that all this is part of a transcendentally perfect and righteous scheme, and there is no imaginable abyss to which such a doctrine would not lead.” (Lecky’s “Rationalism in Europe,” vol. 1, p. 384.)

Lecky proceeds to show that men who believe in salvation by the church will always persecute dissenters, and all history attests the truth of his remarks. Catholics persecuted Protestants; Protestants persecuted Puritans; and Puritans, in there turn, persecuted other dissenters. Nor did the work stop here; though limited in their power, yet these dissenters even to-day find ways by which they can persecute dissenters from them without resort to physical means. There was not, two centuries ago, a single sect that did not uphold persecution.

“For sixteen years the church had rest. But in 1632 Galileo ventured on the publication of his work entitled ‘The System of the World,’ its object being the vindication of the Copernican doctrine. He was again summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, accused of having asserted that the earth moves around the sun. He was declared to have brought upon himself the penalty of heresy. On his knees with his hand on the Bible, he was compelled to abjure, and curse the doctrine of the movement of the [331]earth. What a spectacle! This venerable man, the most illustrious of his age, forced by the threat of death to deny facts which his judges as well as himself knew to be true! He was then committed to prison, treated with remorseless severity during the remaining ten years of his life, and he was denied burial in consecrated ground. Must not that be false which requires for its support so much imposture, so much barbarity? The opinions thus defended by the Inquisition are now objects of derision to the whole civilized world.” (Draper’s “Conflict Between Religion and Science.”)

“On the 17th of February, 1600, a vast concourse of people was assembled in the largest open space in Rome, gathered together by the irresistible sympathy which men always feel, with the terrible and tragic in human existence. In the center stood a huge pile of faggots, from out its logs and branches rose a stake, crowding around the pile were eager and expectant faces, men of various ages and of various characters, but all for one moment united in a common feeling of malignant triumph, religion was about to be avenged; a heretic was coming to expiate on that spot the crime of open defiance to the dogmas proclaimed by the church—the crime of teaching that the earth moved, and that there was an infinity of worlds. The stake is erected for the ‘maintenance and defense of the holy church, and the rights and liberties of the same.’ Whom does the crowd await? Giordano Bruno—the poet, philosopher, and heretic—the teacher of Galileo’s heresy—the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and the open antagonist of Aristotle. A hush comes over the crowd. The procession solemnly advances, the soldiers peremptorily clearing the way for it. His face is placid though pale. They offer him the crucifix; he turns his head; he refuses to kiss it! ‘The heretic!’ They show him the image of him who died upon the cross for the sake of the living truth—he refuses the symbol! A yell bursts from the multitude. [332]

“They chain him to the stake. He remains silent. Will he not pray for mercy? Will he not recant? Now the last hour has arrived—will he die in his obstinacy, when a little hypocrisy would save him from so much agony? It is even so; he is stubborn and unalterable. They light the faggots; the branches crackle; the flame ascends; the victim writhes—and now we see him no more. The smoke envelopes him; but not a prayer, not a plaint, not a single cry escapes him. In a little while the wind has scattered the ashes of Giordano Bruno.” (G. H. Lewes’s “History of Philosophy.”)

“What a contrast between this scene of manly honor, of unshaken firmness, of inflexible adherence to the truth, and that other scene which took place more than fifteen centuries previously by the fireside in the hall of Caiaphas the high priest, when the cock crew, and ‘the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.’ (Luke 22 : 61.) And yet it is upon Peter that the church has grounded her right to act as she did to Bruno.

“But perhaps the day is approaching when posterity will offer an expiation for this great ecclesiastical crime, and a statue of Bruno be unveiled under the dome of St. Peter’s at Rome.” (Draper’s “Conflict Between Religion and Science.”)

“A divine revelation must necessarily be intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising from the progressive intellectual development of man.” (Draper’s “Conflict Between Religion and Science.”)

“The system (of mediæval tortures) was matured under the mediæval habit of thought, it was adopted by the inquisitors, and it received its finishing touches from their ingenuity. In every prison the crucifix and the rack stood side by side, and in almost every country the abolition of torture was at last effected by a movement which the church [333]opposed, and by men whom she cursed.” (Lecky’s “Rationalism in Europe,” vol. 1, p. 333.)

“But the most powerful consideration with a truly benevolent man, if he be a Christian, for the extirpation of heresy by force, is the belief that its unfortunate victims will suffer unending torments in hell. Not for a few days, not for a few years must they suffer, but forever. Under the burden of such an awful thought can the sincere, kind-hearted Christian fold his arms and look calmly upon the efforts of men who are spreading unbelief or heresy in every direction, who are not only going to hell themselves, but are taking with them thousands of their fellow men. Is it not natural that the sincere Christian, having the power, should suppress such opinions? that if necessary he should resort to coercive measures? that if new heresies are constantly springing up he should punish some of the offenders with severity, and thereby endeavor to deter others from leaving the true faith? Under the influence of such a faith, must not the desire for the suppression of the heresy be a measure of the desire for the suppression of the most injurious and dangerous errors? and will not the zeal to destroy them be in proportion to the love of truth and regard for the welfare of humanity? Will not, therefore, the most sincere, earnest, and devoted Christians, in an age of unquestioning faith, be the most active and zealous persecutors? On a priori grounds we cannot help arriving at such a conclusion, and the facts of history attest the correctness of the conclusion thus arrived at from a consideration of the natural effects of the doctrine that certain opinions involve merit and others guilt.

“It has been shown by Llorente that the men who founded the Inquisition were men whose characters were free from the stains of vice, and who were actuated in their cruel work of torturing and burning men, by the most philanthropic motives. Many of the worst persecutors, Catholic and Protestant alike, as Mr. Buckle has mentioned, have been among the most conscientious of men and women. [334]Their cruelty was the result of their faith. What, they argued, are the fleeting pains of a few thousand men compared with the eternal agony of the thousands and tens of thousands they will, unless checked, lead to hell. Thus argued the Christians when they first obtained power and used it in killing Pagans; thus argued the Catholics of the Middle Ages; thus argued the Protestants of Geneva; thus argued the advocates of Episcopacy, the defenders of the Kirk of Scotland, and the pious Puritans of New England. In proportion as men believe that correct theological beliefs involve merit and are essential to salvation, and that theological errors involve guilt and are punished with torments in hell, and have power, they must be persecutors. Such has been the case in the past. It was only when rationalism, acting in opposition to the church, rendered persecution impossible, that theologians discovered that the punishment of men was at variance with their religion. ‘With the merits of this pleasing though tardy conversion,’ says Lecky, ‘I am not now concerned; but few persons, I think, can follow the history of Christian persecution without a feeling of extreme astonishment that some modern writer, not content with maintaining that the doctrine of exclusive salvation ought not to have produced persecution, have ventured, in defiance of unanimous testimony of theologians of so many centuries, to dispute the plain historical fact that it did produce it.’” (“History of Morals,” vol. 1, p. 422.)

“But independently of the influence of the Old Testament teachings, the Christian system makes persecution inevitable in proportion as the system is believed. Intolerance and persecution are a natural result of the doctrine that certain religious opinions involve moral guilt. The Bible declares, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.’ This makes unbelief and heresy a crime, and unbelievers and heretics criminals. It makes it the religious duty of Christians to legislate for the extirpation of the former and the punishment of the latter. Can men treat with charity and kindness [335]those with whom they believe God is displeased—those who are spreading doctrines that are regarded as plainly an offense to God? Is it not the wish of God that unbelief and heresy should be destroyed, and, as an obedient subject, is it not natural that the Christian should, as far as possible, carry out the wishes of the God he worships?”

“‘He that believeth not shall be damned.’ (Mark 16 : 16.) St. Paul exclaims (Galatians 1), ‘If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.’ He also says (1 Tim. 6), ‘If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ ... he is proud, knowing nothing ... from such withdraw thyself.’ ‘Of whom (1 Tim. 1) is Hymenæus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.’ In these passages persecution and punishment are clearly taught for disbelief. And that such teaching has had an immoral tendency the excommunications, the imprisonments, and sacrifice of the lives of heretics in connection with the history of Christianity abundantly prove.”—B. F. Underwood.

“Are men restrained by superstition? Are men restrained by what you call religion? I used to think they were not; now I admit they are. No man has ever been restrained from the commission of a real crime, but from an artificial one he has. There was a man who committed murder. They got the evidence, but he confessed that he did it. ‘What did you do it for?’ ‘Money.’ ‘Did you get any money?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How much?’ ‘Fifteen cents.’ ‘What kind of a man was he?’ ‘A laboring man I killed.’ ‘What did you do with the money?’ ‘I bought liquor with it.’ ‘Did he have anything else?’ ‘I think he had some meat and bread.’ ‘What did you do with that?’ ‘I ate the bread and threw away the meat; it was Friday.’ So you see it will restrain in some things.”—Ingersoll. [336]

“Upon the 16th of February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom, only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex or condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines.” (John L. Motley, “The Rise of the Dutch Republic,” vol. 2, p. 158.)

“In 1208. Innocent III. established the Inquisition. In 1209 De Montfort began the massacre of the Albigenses. In 1215 the Fourth Council of the Lateran enjoined all rulers, ‘as they desired to be esteemed faithful, to swear a public oath that they would labor earnestly and to the full extent of their power, to exterminate from their dominions all those who were branded as heretics by the church.’” (Lecky’s “Rationalism in Europe,” vol. 1, p. 38.)

“Llorente, who had free access to the archives of the Spanish Inquisition, assures us that by that tribunal alone more than 31,000 persons were burnt, and more than 290,000 condemned to punishment less severe than death. The number of those put to death for their religion in the Netherlands alone, in the reign of Charles V. has been estimated by a very high authority at 50,000, and at least half as many perished under his son. (Ibid. pp., 40, 41.)

“How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. And there never was such a statute that did not stain the book that it was in and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who passed it. Never. By making a statute and by defining [337]blasphemy, the church sought to prevent discussion—sought to prevent argument, sought to prevent a man from giving his honest opinion. Certainly a tenet, a dogma, a doctrine, is safe when hedged about by a statute that prevents your speaking against it. In the silence of slavery it exists. It lives because lips are locked. It lives because men are slaves.” (Ingersoll, “The Reynolds Blasphemy Trial.”)

“So I say if you believe the Bible say so; if you do not believe it say so. And here is the vital mistake, I might almost say, in Protestantism itself. The Protestants when they fought the Catholics, said: ‘Read the Bible for yourselves—stop taking it from your priests—read the sacred volume with your own eyes. It is a revelation from God to his children, and you are the children,’ and then they said: ‘If after you read it you do not believe it, and you say anything against it, we will put you in jail, and God will put you in hell.’ That is a fine position to get a man in. It is like a man who invited his neighbor to come and look at his pictures, saying: ‘They are the finest in the place, and I want your candid opinion. A man who looked at them the other day said they were daubs, and I kicked him down stairs—now I want your candid judgment.’” (Ibid.)

To-day we say that every man has a right to worship God or not, to worship him as he pleases. Is it the doctrine of the Bible? Let us see:

“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;

“Namely, of the gods of the people which are round 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; [338]

“Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity 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; 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. 13 : 6.)

And do you know according to that, if your wife—your wife that you love as your own soul—if you had lived in Palestine, and your wife had said to you, “Let us worship a sun whose golden beams clothe the world in glory; let us worship the sun; let us bow to that great luminary; I love the sun because it gave me your face; because it gave me the features of my babe; let us worship the sun,”—it was then your duty to lay your hands upon her, your eye must not pity her, but it was your duty to cast the first stone against that tender and loving breast. I hate such doctrine! I hate such books! I hate gods that will write such books! I tell you that it is infamous.

“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,

“And hath gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, either the sun, moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;

“And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel;

“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.” (Deut. 17 : 2–5.)—Ingersoll. [339]

1. It is objected that Freethought is destructive, not constructive.

(a) It is destructive of error, crime, cruelty, superstition and all kinds of wrong and oppression.

(b) It is constructive in its defense and support of the rights of man, woman, and child.

(c) It is constructive in seeking to establish the highest form of morality, that is, rational morality.

(d) It is constructive, because it inspires man with a thirst for knowledge, and puts him in sympathy with science. [340]

(e) It is positive and reconstructive in inspiring man with moral courage.

“What will you give us in place of religion?”

(a) We would put in place of religion, liberty, morality, honesty, courage, knowledge, and manliness.

(b) We do not wish to take away the Golden Rule; but we insist that it is not a Christian precept. It was in the world long before Jesus, before Moses, and before Abraham. Long before the pyramids were built mothers called their children to their knees and said to them, “Children be good to each other to-day.” This is the Golden Rule. We see then that it is of human origin, and not a part of Christianity, as Christianity is founded upon the supernatural. It is the old, old way that religions have of borrowing human virtues and ascribing them to the gods.

(c) We do not teach men to despise charity, but to so improve human conditions that charity and charitable institutions shall not be needed.

(d) “What will you give us in place of the Bible?”

We do not propose to take it away. We only ask people to read it as they do other books—accepting the good and rejecting the bad.

“What are we to have in place of the consolation of the gospel?”

The gospel means glad tidings. What are the glad tidings?

1. That man is totally depraved and polluted. Good news!

2. That he deserves eternal torment. Glad tidings!

3. And that nine tenths of the human race will get their deserts. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Glorious news!

4. That hell is in view,—near at hand. Delightful tidings!

5. That the reprobate cannot escape. Glorious gospel!

6. That God hates the most of the race and has from eternity doomed them to eternal woe. [341]

And all this is the gospel of glad tidings!

Suppose we expose the delusion of eternal torments, what does man want in its place? Does he need a smaller hell to taper off on, before he can give up hell altogether? What does any one want in place of infant damnation? And so also with witchcraft, polygamy, slavery, and many other wrongs—must we have something to take their place? I heard of a kid gloved dude, who put his finger into a bucket of water, and after taking it out looked for the hole in the water. As well might the poor fellow sick in the hospital ask the doctor, who promises to cure him of the small pox, what he will give him in its stead. Does he want the itch or measles in place of the small pox?

“How does the Freethinker come to know so much more than millions of good and great men who for eighteen centuries have believed in Christianity?” (a) Here we have the old question of majorities.

Millions of good and great men once firmly believed in witchcraft.

Luther said: “I would have no compassion on these witches, I would burn them all.”

John Wesley said: “Giving up witchcraft is giving up the Bible.”

Sir Matthew Hale believed in witchcraft.

(b) The good and great men of many ages believed in hell—that is, for somebody else. Practically hell is now in the lower case, if not entirely closed up for repairs.

(c) Millions of good and wise men for many centuries believed that this earth was flat, and that the sun went daily round it. And these good and wise people burned all those who did not agree with them.

(d) Millions of the best of earth at one time believed that it was right and proper to hang a man for stealing a sheep.

(e) At one time almost every body believed that it was well-pleasing to God, for Christians to torture and murder heretics. [342]

(f) Millions of the wisest and best men have at different times believed that the world was speedily coming to an end.

(g) The great men of the past professed to believe in Christianity because they were compelled to do so through fear of persecution, torture, and death. Millions of prominent men in society to-day, have to pretend to believe in the doctrines of the church in order to be respectable.

(h) In every country under the sun people believe in their own religion.—The good and great Mohammedans, believe in Islamism. The good and great Buddhists believe in Buddhism, and the good and great Brahmins, believe in Brahminism.

(i) The wise men of to-day in Europe and America do not believe in Christianity. The men of science do not attempt to prove the claims of Christianity.

It is claimed that Infidelity is demoralizing in its tendency.

(a) With such lives before us as those of Paine, Ingersoll, Palmer, Bennett, Wright, Seaver, and many others this charge proves to be groundless.

(b) Liberal principles are not degrading. Truth, liberty, and justice cannot demoralize, but blind faith does.

“Infidels always repent on their death bed.”

(a) Paine did not. Bennett did not. Dr. T. Brown did not. Courtlandt Palmer, Horace Seaver, Elizur Wright, did not—and millions of other good men have died tranquilly without any belief whatever in another world.

“Can Infidelity save the world?”

One thing is certain, namely, that Christianity cannot do it, as it has been trying to do so for eighteen centuries.

There is no such thing as salvation possible.

The world can be improved most rapidly by allowing everyone to mind his own business—by giving man his natural and equal rights, by inspiring him with liberty, for nothing so fully prepares people for liberty as liberty itself.

“What has Freethought done for the world?” [343]

(a) What has Christianity done for the world? Why it has built schools, churches, and charitable institutions.

(b) It is true that Christianity instituted schools, colleges, and universities; but not for the purpose of educating the people in truth, but in only such knowledge as would not conflict with its own superstitions. Christian schools have been for ages at war with science and liberty.

(c) It is true that the church builds asylums for the poor—but it is the church that is in a large degree responsible for the impoverished condition of the people. And the very money that builds the almshouse was begged from the poor, by the church. The church has nothing of itself to give except preaching. When the church builds an institution it first becomes a beggar.

(d) The church builds insane asylums. And the church has filled them with her own people. There are more people made crazy and insane by religious excitements than by any other one thing.

“What have Infidels given for education, charity, and science?”

We will give the names of six noted Freethinkers, and could give more, but give these six to begin with: Stephen Girard, Robert Owen, James Lick, William Maclure, John Rodman, and Peter Brigham. These gentleman who were all Infidels, gave at least fifteen millions of dollars for education, science, and charity. The vast sum given by Stephen Girard for a secular education of orphan children has been stolen by Christians and put to another use.

1. Orthodoxy has a creed, but Liberalism has none. A creed is something you do not understand, but it is nevertheless necessary for you to profess that you believe it—and the more unreasonable and impossible this something is the greater merit you have in saying you believe it.

2. Orthodoxy has a Bible. Liberalism accepts all bibles and books for what they are worth. [344]

3. Orthodoxy has a savior—Liberalism seeks to make all men saviors.

It should not be forgotten that the orthodox savior has failed after trying for eighteen centuries. He even fails to save his own professed people and to make them any better than other folks.

4. Orthodoxy has a prospective heaven. Liberalism takes no stock in harps and crowns in the sky country—and is not terrorized by smoke from the sulphur lake.

5. Orthodoxy insists that the most imperative duty is to believe, while Liberalism teaches that man should think, question, and investigate, and always be governed by reason.

The one preaches “he that hath ears to hear, let him hear (us the preachers);” the other teaches that “he who has brains to think, let him think.”

6. Orthodoxy commands you to obey. Liberalism inspires you to defy despotism and to love liberty.

7. Orthodoxy tells you that there is merit in believing. Liberalism shows you that there is no merit in belief.

8. Orthodoxy maintains that belief is subject to one’s will. Liberalism proves that intelligent belief depends upon evidence, and that religious beliefs are inherited.

9. Orthodoxy hinges most of its teachings upon the traditions of the past, the mysteries of the present and the hopes of an imaginary future.

Liberalism admits of no postponement. “One world at a time,” and now is the time.

10. Orthodoxy is opposed to the teachings of science. See the lives of Galileo, Bruno, Copernicus.

11. Orthodoxy persecutes her own followers; for example: Dr. Thomas, Professor Swing, Professor William Robertson Smith of Aberdeen College, Scotland, Professor Winchell of Vanderbilt University, Professor Blauvelt, Professor John Miller of Princeton, New Jersey, and hosts of others. [345]

12. Orthodoxy seeks to guide men by authority, mottoes, and texts. Liberalism inspires man to govern and guide himself through the exercise of his own reason.

13. Orthodoxy teaches that the innocent must suffer that the guilty may escape. Liberalism teaches that justice should be meted out to all. The great scheme of salvation failed because it was a “scheme.” It is now pretty well known as a “bankrupt scheme.”

14. “The Bible has stood the attack of Infidelity during eighteen centuries.” Ignorance has stood the attack of knowledge for a much longer time, and yet ignorance has not so very materially suffered—it is still ignorance.

Vice has stood the attacks of virtue ever since the world began. Superstition has been besieged by science for many centuries, and yet superstition seems hale and hearty and bids fair to have a long life. Is it true that those who believe in the Bible are willing to have it tested by reason, justice, or humanity? It is not true that it has stood the test of science. Christians are not willing to have the Bible tested.

“The Infidel rejects the religion of his mother.” Not always; but even suppose it were true, did not Jesus reject the religion of his mother? Did not Paul, Peter, Luther, Wesley—did they not all reject the religion of their mothers?

Does not preaching consist in asking people to reject the religion of their mothers and to come over to the preacher’s religion?

“Freethinkers are ruthless, and do not care how much they hurt our feelings. They speak coarsely upon sacred subjects.” Yes; but do not Christians hurt our feelings? They send us to hell, and then put on a look of injured innocence if we do not sweetly return them “thanks.”

It is often charged that Freethinkers do not believe anything. While it is true that we are not strong in any form of religious beliefs, yet it is true that we have most positive and decided convictions in regard to this world. We advocate freedom, truth, justice, equity, and every [346]known human virtue. These all have an existence, we believe in all these present existing virtues. We believe in the realities, but the saint believes in the unrealities. He relishes as the meat and drink of his soul, such airy nothings as: dreams, visions, trances, inspirations, revelations, mysteries, miracles, witches, evil spirits, demons, devils, angels, immaculate conception, raising of the dead, drinking poison with impunity, omens, signs, sorcery, magic, resurrection, and ascension.

“We are fools for Christ’s sake,” says the apostle, and in the language of the Quaker, we must say, we have not the heart to contradict him.

It is objected that “Freethought has no moral standard.”—Yes it has—it has Reason the only true lamp to man’s path. “But Reason is fallible, you can not always trust it.” You cannot always trust the reason of him who is not well developed mentally and well informed. But the Bible is fallible, and always fallible, and you can trust it in but very few places except where it presents truth; and this moral truth is older than it. So we could get along without the Bible, but we could hardly get along without Reason, although some people try to.

“There is no agreement among Freethinkers.” That is their glory. Freethought has no procrustean bed upon which it may bring all of its constituency to one and the same size. The glory of Freethought is that it inspires man to become free and possess his liberty against all invaders. To be free is to be a man, and not to be free is to be a slave.

Is there, let me ask, anything like agreement among the creeds? Have the Bible expounders always seen eye to eye? Do the biblical critics all harmonize? Where, I would like to know, can you find more disagreement than in the Christian church?

“Infidelity is honest. When it reaches the confines of reason, it says: I know no further. [347]

“Infidelity does not palm its guess upon the ignorant as a demonstration. 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 for no protection from legislatures. It wants no man fined because he contradicts its doctrines.

“Infidelity relies simply upon evidence—not evidence of the dead, but of the living.

“Infidelity has no infallible pope. It relies only on 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 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 dangerous not to be honest. It is dangerous not to investigate. It is dangerous not to follow where reason leads.

“Infidelity requires every man to judge for himself. Infidelity preserves the manhood of man.” (Ingersoll’s “Interviews,” p. 165.)

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! [348]

Liberalism, like all reform movements, is poorly understood by all the masses. The more ignorant of the clergy know nothing of its real objects, and the few who do understand it dare not tell the truth, therefore we can not refer to its real objects too often. In this article we propose to place side by side the principle objects of Orthodoxy and Liberalism without comment so that our readers will be able to study them in contrast and see which is the more reasonable.

Orthodoxy seeks first and above all to glorify God; Liberalism seeks first and above all to glorify man.

Orthodoxy seeks to save men from hell; Liberalism seeks to save them from vice, ignorance, and superstition.

Orthodoxy teaches men how to die; Liberalism teaches them how to live.

Orthodoxy says believe and be saved; Liberalism says behave and be saved.

Orthodoxy promises happiness to the elect in another world; Liberalism seeks to make all happy in this one.

Orthodoxy encourages men to seek for mansions in the skies; Liberalism encourages them to secure homes on earth.

Orthodoxy teaches men to rely on God and pray; Liberalism teaches them to rely on themselves and work.

Orthodoxy teaches self-abnegation; Liberalism teaches self-respect.

Orthodoxy tells you what the Bible means; Liberalism takes it for granted the Bible means what it says.

Orthodoxy says salvation is by faith only; Liberalism says it is by honesty, education, and industry.

Orthodoxy offers a substitute for the sins of such as believe; Liberalism expects every man to answer for his own acts. (Independent Pulpit.) [349]

It has often been argued that credulity is safer than skepticism—that “it is safest to believe;” inasmuch as if a man believes in heaven and hell, and there be no such places, he is, if no gainer, at least no loser; whereas the Infidel may lose, and cannot gain. Upon the same principle, it were safest to believe all the religions of the world at once—Christian, Mohammedan, Jewish, Hindoo, Confucian, and all the rest; because it is but insuring the matter by halves to trust to one only. If Allah be not the only God and Mahomet be an imposter, there is no harm done and nothing lost; and if there be not a paradise in another world, there has been a pleasant dream of anticipated joys in this.

Let us ask, is the balance of profit and loss fairly struck? Are the chances all in favor of the believer and all against the skeptic? Is there nothing to be thrown into the opposite scale? Surely much. If religion be a fallacy, it is a fallacy pregnant with mischief. It excites the fears [352]without foundation; it fosters feelings of separation between the believer and the unbeliever; it consumes valuable time that can never be recalled, and valuable talents that ought to be better employed; it draws money from our pockets to support a delusion; it teaches the elect to look upon their fellow men as heathen and castaways, living in sin here, and doomed to perdition hereafter; it awakens harassing doubts, gloomy despondency, and fitful melancholy; it turns our thoughts from the things of the world, where alone true knowledge is found; it speaks of temporal miseries and temporal pleasures as less than nothing and vanity, and thus fosters indifference to the causes of the weal and woe of mankind; worse than all, it chains us down to an antiquated orthodoxy, and forbids the free discussion of those very subjects which it most concerns us to investigate. If religion be a fallacy, its votaries are slaves. Whereupon, then, rests the assertion, that if the believer does not gain, he cannot lose? Is it nothing to lose time and talents, to waste our labor on that which is not bread, and our money upon that which profiteth not? Is it nothing to feel that the human beings that surround us are children of the devil and heirs of hell? Is it nothing to think that we may perhaps look across the great gulf and see some one we have loved on earth tormented in a fiery lake; and hear him ask us to dip a finger in water that it may cool his parched tongue? Is it no loss to live in disquiet by day, and in fear by night; to pass through dark seasons of doubt and temptation, and to be conscious that we are but as strangers and pilgrims here, toiling through a weary valley of cares and sorrows? Is it no loss to hold back when truth oversteps the line of orthodoxy, and when there ought to be free discussion, to shrink before we know not what? Is all this no loss? Or, is it not rather the loss of all that a free and rational being most values?

Those engaged in the trade of religion, imagine themselves to have a mighty advantage against Infidels upon the strength of the old, worn out argument that whether [353]the Christian religion be true or false there can be no harm in believing; and that belief is, at any rate, the safer side. Now to say nothing of this old popish argument, which a sensible man must see is the very essence of popery, and would oblige us to believe all the absurdities and nonsense in the world: inasmuch as if there be no harm in believing, and there be some harm and danger in not believing, the more we believe, the better; and all the argument for any religion whatever would be, that it should frighten us out of our wits; the more terrible, the more true; and it would be our duty to become the converts of that religion, whatever it might be, whose priests could swear the loudest, and damn and curse the fiercest. This is a wolfish argument in sheep’s clothing. (Truth Seeker tract.)

“Ours is the safe side,” says the Christian; “for if Infidelity be true then both Infidel and Christian have the same destiny, namely to die and end all, but if Christianity be true what will become of the Infidel?” In reply to this we say, that although at death both believer and unbeliever fall asleep side by side upon the bosom of mother earth, yet it does not make yours the safe side; because if Christianity be true then the most of the human race go into eternal torment. Orthodoxy has always taught that “many are called but few are chosen.” Now if nine tenths of the race are going to suffer endless pain I do not see how those who are going to constitute a large part of that number and are to be eternally lost, can call it the “safe side.” For it should not be forgotten that the vast majority of those who are going to suffer the wrath of God, are professed Christians. “Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them—I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity.” (Mat. 7 : 22, 23.) [354]

No, no, it will not do to trust that side as the “safe side” where “many are called but few are chosen.”

We need something safer than that.

Again, we do not see how it can be the “safe side,” to despise this life, in hopes of another that we know nothing of. If Infidelity be true, all Christians are superstitious idolaters. If Infidelity be true, Christians are deceived and are corrupting the minds of millions of children with superstition which will render them bigoted, cruel, and unhappy. And this is about the size of it. How, then, can it be the safe side. The safe side is always to be fair and honorable. It is safe always to examine both sides. It is safe to be on the alert for more truth. It is safe to accept the truth even when it cuts away old prejudices and old beliefs. It is safe not to be a sectarian. It is not safe to be a partizan, but it is safe to be free, courageous, and honest in all things. It is not safe for you to cling to myths, fables, and superstitions, and to leave them as a blighting inheritance to your children.

1. That we are negative, only.—We deny what we deem to be false, we affirm what we believe to be true, Christians do the same; only much that they affirm, we deny, and much that they deny, we affirm. Negation is necessary and healthful. No affirmation is possible that does not presuppose a negation. Negation is but the assailing side of affirmation. We deny the fables of mythology; we affirm the demonstrable truths of science.

2. That we have no incentive to good deeds.—If the Christian acts as he believes, he does good to escape hell and gain heaven—he respects the rights of others through fear of punishment and hope of reward. Hence it is that he cannot understand how the man who rejects his creed can be a good man. We do right because all the experience of the race has shown that what we call “right” is conducive to happiness; because the line of right action is the line [355]of least resistance; because we believe in the principle of reciprocity, and because every act of every individual becomes a part of the inheritance of the race, and thus as we are, so shall be our children. If we are intemperate, diseased, and criminal, our children shall suffer in consequence thereof. What higher or stronger incentive to right action can be offered?

3. That we are unhappy.—Why should we be more unhappy than the Christian? Why should we not be more happy? We live in the same world; we believe in making the most of its opportunities for obtaining happiness, while he (theoretically, at least,) believes that earthly joy depreciates heavenly bliss; we are cursed by no fear of an angry God, by no dreams of an endless hell and of a revengeful devil; the Christian no more than the Infidel, is exempt from accident, sickness and death, and the agony of parting with loved ones is his no less than ours. He accepts Revelation and Creation, and hence believes that we belong to a falling race; we accept Science and Evolution, and hence believe that we belong to a rising race. Which is the most rational and hope inspiring belief?

4. That it is “safest to believe.”—If this proves anything it proves too much. If our future (if we have one) can be rendered more secure by pretending to believe when we do not, then the Protestant should accept Catholicism, and the Catholic, Protestantism, while the members of every sect should believe all that is taught by all other sectarists and Christians of every school should believe all that is contained in the sacred books of other religions.

5. That we hurt the feelings of those who cherish the old faith.—Why should the Christian complain that we disturb settled convictions and cut loose the anchored bark of faith? Has not Christianity ever been a missionary religion? It seeks to disturb the religion of the whole world. Christians attack all religions other than their own—our offence is that we include Christianity in the category of false faiths. (Lucifer.) [356]

“It is a very common argument with Christians, that only those nations which have had the Bible are refined, civilized and learned. The following is the boastful manner in which Christians set forth the claims of their religion: “Take a map of the world, draw a line around those countries that have enjoyed the highest degree of refinement, and you will encircle just those nations that have received the Bible as their authority in religion.” In refutation of this assumption Horace Seaver writes: “From this language the plain inference is, that those nations have been indebted to the influence of the Bible for the positions to which they have attained. Let us follow out a little this line of argument and see where it will lead.

“The ancient Egyptians stood as far in advance of their contemporaries as do the nations of Christendom at the present day, as the remains of their cities and temples fully attest. And if the argument is good, they were indebted for that superiority to their worship of cats, crocodiles, and onions!

“The ancient Greek might have exclaimed, as he beheld the proud position to which Greece attained—‘See what we owe to a belief in our glorious mythology; we have reached the highest point of enlightenment the world has ever witnessed; we stand unequaled in power, wealth, the cultivation of the arts, and all that makes a nation refined, polished, and great!’

“How immeasurably would his faith in the elevating tendency of his religion have been increased could he have looked with prophetic eye into the distant ages of the future, and beheld the enlightened and Christianized nations of the nineteenth century adopting the remains of Grecian architecture, sculpture, painting, oratory, music and literature as their models! Pagan Rome, too, once mistress of the world and arbitress of nations—the home of philosophers and sages—the land in which the title ‘I am a Roman citizen,’ was the proudest that mortal could wear—Rome, [357]by the above Christian argument, should have ascribed all her honor, praise, and glory to her mythology.

“The Turk and the Saracen, likewise, have had their day of power and renown. Bagdad was the seat of science and learning at a time when the nations of Europe were sunk in darkness and superstition. The Turk and Saracen should have pointed to the Koran as the source of their refinement.

“Thus we see that the Christian argument we are noticing, if it proves anything, it proves too much. If the nations of Christendom are indebted to the Bible for their enlightenment, likewise were the Egyptians indebted to their cat and crocodile and onion worship, the Greeks and Romans to their mythology and the Turks and Saracens to their Koran.”—Seaver.

The following is from William Denton’s “Common Sense Thoughts on the Bible:”

“‘But it is well known, that in those countries where the Bible is read, studied, and believed in, there is more knowledge and greater freedom, more virtue and happiness, than in any other countries.’”

“If true, and if all this was the result of reading and believing the Bible, it would not prove the Bible to be divine. A book may be useful, though merely human. But where is the proof that we owe our virtue, liberty, and enlightenment to the Bible? The Abyssinians have had the Bible in their possession twice as long as the Anglo-Saxons, and yet they are a race of barbarians still. What did the Bible accomplish for the people of Syria, and Asia Minor, who were first blessed with it? So little, that the Koran superseded it; the Mohammedans being superior in almost every respect, to the Christians whom they conquered and converted. The Greeks and Romans were as far in advance of surrounding nations as we are or profess to be. Was it the Bible that elevated and made them and made their unsurpassed poets, painters, sculptors, and orators? Their priests, doubtless, attributed their superiority to the superior religion they [358]possessed. So Bible believers oppose science and reform to the last; but when they triumph in spite of their opposition, they are the first to shout glory to the Bible for what it has accomplished.”—Denton.

“I had a conversation with a gentleman once—and these gentlemen are always mistaking something that goes along with a thing for the cause of the thing—and he stated to me that his particular religion was the cause of all advancement. I said to him, ‘No, sir; the causes of all advancement in my judgment, are plug hats and suspenders.’ And I said to him, ‘You go to Turkey, where they are semi-barbarians, and you won’t find a pair of suspenders or a plug hat in all that country; you go to Russia, and you will find now and then a pair of suspenders at Moscow or St. Petersburg; but you go on down until you strike Austria, and black hats begin; then you go to Paris, Berlin, and New York, and you will find everybody wears suspenders and everybody wears black hats. Wherever you find education and music, there you will find black hats and suspenders.’ He said that any man who said to him that plug hats and suspenders had done more for mankind than the Bible and religion he would not talk to.” (Ingersoll’s “Ghosts.”)

“Jacob, blessing Judah, said: (Gen. 49 : 11, 12): ‘Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.’ [359]

“Doesn’t look as though Yahweh, the ‘God of Jacob,’ thought wine a very bad article.

“Num. 6 : 20: ‘After that the Nazarite may drink wine.’

“In Deut. 7 : 13, God, through Moses, said to his chosen people: ‘And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; and he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil,’ etc., etc.

“Just think of it, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union people, God has solemnly promised to bless his faithful children with an especially large vintage, a better vintage than that of their unbelieving neighbors! Rather rough on the heretic French and the Infidel Germans!

“Deut. 11 : 14: ‘That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil.’

“Yahweh is determined that the supply of wine shall not fall short.

“Deut. 14 : 26: ‘And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth; and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thine household.’

“Rev. Mr. Stevenson to the box! Repeat your testimony, please. ‘I said that, The education of the children of the republic in temperance principles logically involves the maintenance in those schools of the Bible as the great text book in morals.’

“Deut. 15 : 14: ‘Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.’

“This is said regarding the manumitted Hebrew slave. And so it is a blessing for God to give the fruit of the wine-press to his children? And we are to emulate him?

“It seems that God punishes his people by blasting their vineyards, and thus cutting short their supply of wine, as below:

“Deut. 28 : 39: ‘Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but thou shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them.’

“Verse 51 of the same chapter tells the people that their cattle and wine and oil shall be taken from them if they disobey God’s commands. This is the famous ‘cursing chapter’ of the Bible, and [360]is just the reading calculated to make a man believe that God was the first pope of Rome.

“Deuteronomy is a very good book for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and I suggest that it hold a special meeting to pray for the evidently ‘rum’-loving god who wrote it. There is much other matter in it that helps to make it an admirable work for use in the schools.

“Judges 9 : 13: ‘And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?’

“Ah! so it appears that God, the ‘original prohibitionist,’ according to the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union drinks wine, else how could it cheer him?

“Second Sam. 6 : 19: ‘And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine.’

“Query: What would the Christian temperance ladies have done with that wine had they been present when David, the man after God’s own heart, dealt it out to all, men as well as women?

“Second Sam. 16 : 2: ‘And Ziba said, The asses be for the king’s household to ride on; and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat; and the wine that such as faint in the wilderness may drink.’

“In Kansas and Iowa many get ‘faint in the wilderness,’ judging by the business of the drugstores. No doubt they have all seen this prescription given by God.

“Second Chron. 2 : 10: ‘And behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.’

“The article which Solomon, ‘the wisest of all men,’ gave to the servants of the king of Tyre in one-fourth payment for their labor in preparing the temple which he built to the Lord, was probably especially blessed by the Lord for that use, and so rendered non-intoxicating, else we must conclude that he pays those who build houses for him in what friend St. John would call ‘liquid damnation.’

“And inasmuch as Solomon was the wisest of all men (or God made a mistake when he so said), and the temple was for the said [361]God, I am justified in concluding that this God regards wine as a legal tender, and so I put the above passage in this category as one in which God has sanctified the use of wine.

“Neh. 5 : 11: (To the usurers): ‘Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them.’

“Neh. 10 : 39: ‘For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn, of the new wine, and the oil ... and we will not forsake the house of our God.’

“Wine, old or ‘new,’ seems to have been always acceptable to ‘our God,’ whether tendered as a holy offering or otherwise.

“‘The Lord’ makes wine, according to the Psalmist:

“Psalm 104 : 15: ‘And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.’

“If ‘the Lord’ lived in Iowa, Lozier and Foster would have him arrested for violation of the new iron-clad prohibitory law.

“Prov. 3 : 10: ‘So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.’

“Prov. 31 : 6, 7: ‘Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy heart. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more.’

“In these two verses, the author of Proverbs has more than nullified all the good things he said in his earlier chapters, and which I have quoted in List A. I am quite sure that where they have prevented the drinking of one glass of wine or strong drink, these passages have led to the drinking of one thousand. And this is a mild statement of the case.

“Eccl. 9 : 7: ‘Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.’

“Song of Sol. 1 : 2: ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for thy love is better than wine.’

“From this we gather that, next to love wine is the best thing in the world. This is the opinion of most bacchanalian experts, I believe. Solomon seems to have had much experience.

“Song of Sol. 5 : 1: ‘I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O believers.’

“Is this the earliest mention of milk punch? [362]

“Song of Sol. 8 : 2: ‘I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.’ Metaphorical, undoubtedly.

“Isa. 1 : 22: ‘Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.’

“Have your wine full strength, as much as you would have your silver unalloyed, is the admonition of God’s prophet.

“Isa. 24 : 7: ‘The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth; all the merry-hearted do sigh.’

“One more in the long list of passages wherein it is said that God punished his chosen people by cutting off their vintage. What God regards as a real deprivation to lose must be good to have and to keep, in his opinion, whatever the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union people may think about it. Verse 9 says: ‘They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.’ Verse 11: ‘There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened; the mirth of the land is gone.’

“God thus punished them by taking away their wine, on the same principle that he punishes us by killing our children, as Christians say that he does. Will they contend that children are inherently an evil? They must if they follow the same line of reasoning that they do in interpreting these texts.

“Isa. 27 : 2, 3: ‘In that day sing ye unto her, a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.’

“Figurative, doubtless! So is the next, but all the influence of these passages is on the side of intemperance, necessarily, for the simple reason that the great mass of the people will take them literally, and for the further reason that the constant association of wine with ‘good news’ and symbols of religion familiarize the mind with it and serve to give it something of a sacred character. This last mentioned fact helps to explain why the church so long opposed the modern temperance movement. But here is the passage above indicated, Isa. 55 : 1: ‘Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat: yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.’

“Isa. 62 : 8: ‘The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast labored.’ [363]

“Rev. Stevenson should suggest to the Lord that, whereas wine is an evil thing, and the Bible a ‘great text book of morals,’ and the palladium of temperance, essential in the proper training of our children, therefore, he, the Lord, should have clearly shown that he meant that the enemies of his chosen people should take from them their wine that through such deprivation they should be better and happier. But, no! he ranks wine with corn, and registers a mighty oath that the people shall have them both.

“Isa. 65 : 8: ‘Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so I will do for my servants’ sake, that I may not destroy them all.’

“Jer. 31 : 12: ‘Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil,’ etc.

“Jer. 40 : 10: ‘But ye, gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in the cities that ye have taken.’

“Probably ‘wine’ here means grapes, though it is used in the same construction as ‘oil.’

“Jer. 48 : 33: ‘And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field, and from the land of Moab, and I have caused wine to fail from the wine presses.’

“Dan. 1 : 5: ‘And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king’s meat, and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.’

“Here God intends, plainly, to convey the impression that wine is nourishing! The only way in which the Christian temperance people can relieve him from the imputation of teaching lessons so opposite to theirs is to enter the plea that he did not inspire the writer!

“Hos. 2 : 8, 9: ‘For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal. Therefore I will return and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.’

“Of course, if these passages and very many of like import, are any argument against wine, they are of equal weight in the scale against corn, wool, and many other useful and necessary articles. The authors of such verses, wherever found, unquestionably [364]looked upon wine as one of God’s good gifts to his children, but which he was compelled to sometimes deprive them of because of their disobedience.

“Hos. 9 : 2: ‘The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.’

“That is, Israel shall be punished for her transgressions by the destruction of the fertility of the soil.

“Evidently the perfume of wine was pleasing unto the Lord, for he says, in promising his blessing to the repentant people (Hos. 14 : 7): ‘They shall revive as the corn, and grow as the wine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.’

“Joel 1 : 5: ‘Awake, ye drunkards, and howl, all ye drinkers of wine.’

“This, taken by itself, would be an unqualified condemnation of intoxicants, but such was not the prophet’s meaning. The verse concludes: ‘Because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouths.’

“In the vision of the prophet he sees the great evils that have come upon his country; the palmer-worm, and the locust, and the canker-worm have destroyed the crops. ‘The meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut off from the house of the Lord, ... the corn is wasted, the oil languisheth,’ etc. While in the verse quoted the drinkers are mildly requested to howl, in verse thirteen we have, ‘Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests; howl ye ministers of the altar.’ No temperance admonition or lesson here, that is plain.

“Joel 3 : 18: ‘And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with water,’ etc.

“Thus, again, among the great blessings to be bestowed upon the faithful is wine in abundance. One of the facts that strikes me most forcibly, in making such an examination as this, is the almost universal favor with which the Hebrew prophets looked upon wine and wine-drinking; and in prophesying the evils to come upon their people because of their disobedience to God or their oppression of their fellows, they rarely fail to include the cutting off of the wine supply. This they evidently regarded as one of the greatest of calamities. Our Christian temperance friends would gladly, so they say, visit wholesale destruction upon the vineyards and barley fields, and they seem almost to seek to convey the impression that God made a mistake when he created grapes and [365]barley. This proves how honest they are when they say that the Bible is a temperance book. In Amos 5 : 11, we have another example of the above-mentioned fact in the utterances of the prophet. Denouncing the people for their injustice, he says: ‘Ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.’ In the preceding sentence he had said: ‘Ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them.’ Houses were good, wine was good; but because of their sins they should be deprived of both. There is here no argument either direct or implied in behalf of abstinence.

“Amos 9 : 14: ‘And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them.’

“It does not seem that even Mr. Stevenson would venture to claim this verse as a Bible argument for temperance. They shall drink the wine!

“Micah. 6 : 15: ‘Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.’

“How can apparently honorable men claim that God, as revealed in the Bible, disapproves of the use of intoxicants when he is continually telling his chosen people that he will punish them by destroying their corn, and their wine, and their oil; evidently taking particular pains to impress upon them the fact that they (wine, corn, and oil) are equally good and useful?

“Zeph. 1 : 13: ‘They shall also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.’

“The same old story:

“In chapter 1, verse 11, Haggai calls for a drouth upon the land to punish the people, and he includes, as usual, the corn, and the oil, and the new wine among the things to be destroyed.

“Zech. 9 : 17: ‘For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty; corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.’

“Rather a singular apportionment of his bounty, unless ‘corn’ means something stronger than wine.

“Matt. 11 : 19: ‘The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a man is gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a [366]friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.’ But are these her children who claim Jesus as very God and yet fly directly in the face of his precepts and practice? Or is it moral uprightness instead of wisdom that they lack?

“In Mat. 21 : 33 to 41, and Mark 12 : 1 to 9, Jesus gives us the parable of the vineyard and the husbandman, and in it all there is no hint that there was anything wrong in the business of winemaking.

“The thought that we find expressed in Mat. 11 : 19, is given again in Luke 7 : 33–4–5, where we read: ‘For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified of all her children.’

“Whoever uttered these words, man or god; whoever wrote them, John or some one else one hundred or more years later, there can be no disputing regarding the lesson which is taught. It is that each individual is to determine for himself or herself in all things pertaining to personal conduct and habits. ‘Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind’ is the central idea of the various renderings. There is no rebuke, expressed or implied, of intemperance; there is nothing that can be tortured into a condemnation of wine-drinking or into an approval of the principle of total abstinence, or that of prohibition. Here was his opportunity to condemn the drinking of wine, to speak for that which is now called temperance; but from his lips fell no words of warning; to those gathered about him he said nothing in favor of the great reform which Christians of to-day, falsely assuming to speak in his name, declare finds its sanction and inspiration, its bulwark and tower of defense, in the Bible.

“It seems that the good Samaritan (Luke 10 : 34) had with him a supply of wine with which he dressed the wounds of the stranger.

“John 2 : 3–11: ‘And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots with [367]water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which drew the water knew), the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.’

“John 4 : 46: ‘So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine.’

“The first miracle which Jesus performed was to convert six pots of water into wine! And this feat convinced his disciples of his supernatural origin and powers! And he did this to manifest forth his glory! Either this is true or the Bible is false. Whether true or not, it has been a most powerful argument against abstinence; it has resulted directly in making drunkards, as it has indirectly in making hypocrites and Jesuitical sophists. I of course mean by this last sentence that the seeming necessity to prove the Bible a temperance work has made any number of Christian apologists resort to all kinds of specious arguments and make any number of false claims in order to make good their assertions. The assumption that this wine was not of an intoxicating nature is purely gratuitous. There is not even the ghost of a fact to be found in support of it. Hundreds of passages, which I have quoted under their appropriate heads, prove beyond a doubt that the wine so often mentioned in the Bible was intoxicating; the words of the governor prove that this miraculously produced portion of it certainly was of the very best, for it is against all reason to suppose that men accustomed to the taste and effects of wine would pronounce simple grape-juice to be better than all that had already been served to them at the feast; and, finally, the declaration that this act of Jesus was a miracle and that it made his disciples to ‘believe on him,’ gives the last stroke to the already nearly dead ‘non-intoxicating’ theory.

“Col. 2 : 16: ‘Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.’

“In other words, judge for yourselves in all these matters, [368]submit to no dictation from without. How does that strike you, Messrs. Bible Prohibitionists?

“1 Tim. 5 : 23: ‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.’

“It is probable that this short verse has led to the consumption of more wine and caused more intemperance than any other equal number of words in any language or contained in any book. It has had more potent effect upon the mind of the Christian believer than have twenty passages which have in a hesitating, half-hearted, uncertain way caution against the use of much wine.

“Comparing this class of passages with those grouped under ‘A,’ we find that the Bible pleas for temperance are out voted more than five to one by those in favor of the use of intoxicants. The record is an astonishingly bad one for the Bible as a total abstinence and Prohibition work, and should put to the blush all of its worshipers and apologists who have been so foolish or unscrupulous as to claim that it is indispensable to the temperance cause and in the education of our children. Both claims are absurd.” (E. C. Walker’s “Bible Temperance.”)

“But pray, why? Does not that proposition tacitly concede that it is irrational to say there is a God? If so, how can it be irrational to deny an irrational proposition or absurdity? Are not the two propositions antithetical? If so, one or the other is, of necessity, false. Conceding then, as he does, the absurdity of the God idea, why will Mr. Pentecost persist, inconsistently, in maintaining that there is no difference between the rationality of Theism and Materialism, with its incidental Atheism?

“Will he kindly tell us the difference in degree of rationality between the position that there is a personal Devil and that there is a God? Are not both notions of the same origin and equally absurd? Are not both transmitted to us from the dark ages, from the same book, and must not both stand or fall together? Yet Mr. Pentecost would not, [369]from pure deference and respect for our poor, non-evolved pious friends, assume an Agnostic’s attitude and concede that ‘it is as irrational to say there is no Devil as to say there is a Devil.’ Of course not. He simply denies the existence of His Satanic Majesty without equivocation, and the proof of his existence not being forthcoming his denial is equivalent to proof that such a being does not exist.

“In law and equity the affirmative is obliged to prove its case. If then a proposition is self-evidently absurd, unnatural and absolutely impossible, why concede to those affirming, without a shadow of proof, that their belief is equally rational with our unbelief, that ‘it may be so,’ ‘I don’t know,’ etc.

“Having discarded as authoritative ancient traditions, there is absolutely no logic, no reason, no science, no analogy that will sustain or demonstrate the existence of a God. And in view of this fact a simple denial is all-sufficient to prove the negative. As the plea of the prisoner at the bar of ‘not guilty’ is equivalent to proof of his innocence and bound to be respected by court and juror, unless, indeed, the affirmative, beyond a shadow of a doubt, establishes his guilt, so the Atheist’s fearless denial, nowadays, must demand profound respect, and is equivalent to proof, unless, indeed, the Church brings proof, outside of a discarded Bible, of the truth of its basic idea.

“Now, though unnecessary to prove a negative, and the God-idea not having been established by history, revelation, science, or reason, yet alleged arguments being continually advanced in the vain endeavor to resuscitate a vanishing religion, a few propositions are here advanced which prove there is no God.

“There is a universe. This proves there is no God.

“The universe is infinite. This excludes anything else of like character—two infinities being an absurdity.

“The universe (nature) is here and there and everywhere. This proves that God cannot be here and there and everywhere. [370]

“Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Matter (implying energy and force) monopolizing every point of space, nothing else can occupy it in addition.

“The universe exists now. Something cannot come from nothing, therefore the universe has always existed.

“Being eternal and infinite, this excludes anything anterior, exterior, or superior to it.

“Is God in the universe or the universe in God? If there is a God, either of these propositions must be true, yet both are glaringly absurd.

“Can an engineer drive a locomotive and be a locomotive at the same time? If not, how can a God manipulate an infinite universe and be infinite ‘Himself?’

“Yet the universe, outside of a God, is an absolute reality, as much so as a locomotive is a reality outside of the engineer. The world is a reality, our planets, the sun, all the countless millions of stars within reach of our telescopes and the infinitude of stars and systems beyond the reach of our strongest lenses, which science infers to exist, all these are a reality and all these, yes, every object of knowledge is a reality, and all these are not God! How then, in the name of reason I ask, can a God, of whom we know absolutely nothing, be infinite, when an infinite number of material objects—not God—fill all space?

“But does the universe exist in God? If we but imagine for a moment the aspect of the universe to resemble a huge machine of infinite proportions, eternally active in all its vast proportions, the idea of the universe existing within a God will appear equally childish and simple.

“All phenomena are the results of energy co-existent and inseparable from matter. All cosmic motion, change, and life may be traced to this physical and chemical energy pervading all nature—never to a God.

“Mind—the so-called infinite as well as finite—implies limit, localization, conditions, etc. This fact tends to prove that while God, perchance, might concentrate his mind on the world or some particular sect or individual, considering [371]their exhortations, the rest of the world and the universe for the time being would be Godless!

“From a late scientific authority I quote in proof: ‘It is impossible for a person’s mind to be in two places at the same time.’ Noted chess players may play twenty games simultaneously, but it is done by speedy transfer of thoughts from one game to another and not by considering two moves at once.

“Thus ‘Omniscience’ is impossible.

“Again; mind implies limit and necessitates organism, brain, nervous force, etc. This again makes impossible a God. Let the Church demonstrate how a God without a brain can be a God and all it implies, or how a God with a brain can be infinite, and I will kneel down and worship with them.

“Is this dogmatism? The ‘dogmatism of the Infidel’ we hear so much about? If it is, then asserting that twice two is four is dogmatism. Then we state all the facts of mathematics, all the truths of history is dogmatism. We simply confine ourselves to fact, to knowledge and demonstrated truth. There we stop and refuse to accept the crude notions transmitted from our ignorant ancestors, which, it is dogmatically asserted, are true in spite of our knowledge and reason.

“I protest against being accused of dogmatism, I studiously endeavor to be fair and make no pretensions to scholarship and learning. But I emphatically protest against the dogmatism of others who, assuming a superior air of knowledge assert notions contrary to fact. Supposing some one should affirm that twice two is five, would it be dogmatism, to deny the proposition, and would thinking minds be justified to assume the attitude of Agnostics and concede that while in their opinion twice two is four, yet twice two may be five, ‘I don’t know,’ ‘one proposition is as irrational as the other,’ etc.?

“We know a universe exists. Existing now proves it [372]is eternal. This simple fact absolutely makes impossible, yes, needless, a God.

“I simply assert that twice two is four and cannot possibly be five. That the universe filling all space nothing else can fill it in addition. If this be dogmatism all knowledge is a farce.”—Wettstein.

“If God foreknew whatever was to come to pass, he must have been perfectly well aware that his whole creation, including the scheme of redemption, would be the most stupendous failure imaginable,—as it certainly has been if the Christian religion be true. For what rational or humane man would raise a family of children, if he knew beforehand that they would all be vagabonds and criminals, ending their days in prison or on the scaffold? What prudent farmer would intentionally sow wheat on land certain to produce a bad crop? What sensible business man would knowingly embark in an enterprise sure to prove disastrous, and to involve himself and his family in irretrievable ruin? And yet such conduct on the part of men would be far less irrational and criminal than that of which the Creator is guilty, if the doctrine of his foreknowledge and omnipotence be true. For, according to this doctrine, he alone is responsible for whatever has occurred and will occur, and for all the suffering in the world, since he had full power to prevent it but did not, and does not; and the conclusion to be drawn from this fact is, that he intended all things to be just as they have been in the past, are now and are to be in the future. For, if he possessed absolute power, he might have placed man under entirely different circumstances, and surrounded him by influences which would have led him into the path of perfect rectitude, but did not choose to do so; and we fail to understand how man can be justly held responsible either for his own creation, for the nature with which he is endowed, or for the environment which determines his conduct.” (J. W. Stillman’s “God and the Universe.”) [373]

“I think it is not a good thing for people to believe in God. I think it is a bad thing for them to do so. I think the belief in God is one of the things that is helping very strongly to keep knaves in power and honest people in weakness; it is one of the things that is preventing the people from thinking for themselves and helping themselves. The human mind will never be perfectly free, and peasants and mechanics and day laborers will never be perfectly fairly treated in this world, until the church is utterly destroyed. I do not want to see the church reformed. I want to see her utterly destroyed, because as long as she exists the ruling classes in society will always have in her a faithful ally to help them carry on their infernal schemes of pillage. I do not want people to have a better idea of God or an idea of a better God. I want the idea of God entirely rooted out of the mind, because I know that as long as any idea of God remains in the mind, the priest and the politician will have something to work upon, and this world will never be free and happy until the priest and the politician are gone.

“One man will tell you that God is a Roman Catholic, another that he is a Presbyterian, another that he is a Baptist, and so on. One man will say that he is a Republican, another that he is a single taxer, another that he is a Socialist, and so on. What we must come to see is, that nothing is done in human society that is not done by men. Poverty must be destroyed, not because it is God’s will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should be. And general wealth must be achieved, not because it is God’s will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should be. Beware of those men who tell you what is or what is not the will of God. In every case you will find a person who is intellectually asleep, or half asleep, or mentally dishonest, or else you will find—and this is more likely—a priest or a politician, a person who wants to get you to not think about what he is teaching you. We have been dragged through enough mire and [374]blood and darkness doing things according to the will of God. It is now time we began to think things out for ourselves.”—Pentecost.

“Mr. Barnum said that Christians had a different way of thinking about God now from that of fifty years ago. ‘When I first heard of the doctrine of the Universalists,’ said he, ‘I felt so utterly astonished that I thought I’d drop dead in my boots. The orthodox faith painted God as so revengeful a being that you could hardly distinguish the difference between God and the Devil. If I had almighty power and could take a pebble and give it life, knowing beforehand that fifty-nine seconds out of every sixty would be extreme misery, I would be a monster. Yet this is how God was described, and people talk about loving such a being.’” (Newspaper clipping.)

1. Something (substance) must have always been, or anything could not now be.

2. Then this something was eternal, and hence self-existent.

3. Since self-existent and eternal, it must have been infinite, and hence was everything existing everywhere.

4. Therefore, all that is, has always been; that is, everything has eternally existed everywhere.

But will you say that this something, this self-existent, eternal everything, is God? Very well. Then nothing but God could be. Then he must be the all of everything existing everywhere. Then where is your universe? You see you cannot have a universe if you have a God. We have the universe; hence you cannot have a God. “But he created the universe,” you say. Very well; from what did he create it? Nothing? Omnipresent God alone extending on, and on, and forever on through all the everywheres, cramming all the immensities full of his essential self. He could not have created the universe beyond himself, since there was no beyond. There could have been no place in which to [375]put it outside of himself when created, since there was no outside. If created, it must have been from his own essence; and then it would not have been a creation of anything, but a changing of himself into something different; and that was not possible, since he was self-existent, and must necessarily exist the same forever, since he was eternal, and must exist unchangeable. So the universe could not have been made from nothing, since all the spaces everywhere were crammed completely full of everything, and hence there was no unoccupied premises where the raw material could have been stored away. It could not have been created from God-substance, since that already was; it could not have been formed from God’s pre-existing self, since that would have been to change the eternally unchangeable into something else—to annihilate himself as God by working himself over into the universe. You see that there can be but one Eternal All. You cannot have both—a God and the universe. And since we have the universe, that is, everything eternally existing everywhere, we need no God, there is no room for a God, and there has never been anything for a God to do. Therefore, there is no God.

As an infinite God must necessarily fill the entirety of space, there could be no room for aught else. God and man could not live together in the same universe. God would necessarily be everything; then the universe must be nothing. But we have the universe, and that is everything; therefore God is nothing—existing nowhere. A mote that is, is better than a God that is not. If we part with God and obtain a universe, we make a magnificent exchange. The issue has always been God versus matter. When people come to understand that matter has always been, that it eternally had the start of everything else, and hence needed no creation, it will be seen that there never has been any necessity for a God, and as the universe is ever governed by law, there is nothing for a God to do. Men must believe in matter, because it is everything, and does everything. Something [376]is always better than nothing. If God is not matter he is not anything; and the idea of God is destined to become obsolete, and gradually pass into utter forgetfulness. The God-idea has been the center and foundation of all the superstitions of the world. When men have learned to dispense with it, their emancipation will be great indeed.—Sam Preston.

1. He was unsuccessful in creation. He made Adam and Eve and the serpent; but all his plans were frustrated in a short time; and “it repented the Lord that he had made man.”

2. In repeopling the world from Noah’s family he decidedly failed again. How easy it would have been after drowning the whole world, to create a new man and woman of perfect character, and omit the Devil business.

3. In attempting to save the world through Jesus Christ he made another failure. It is not in the nature of things for this world to be saved. “To be saved” means too much, and it means too little. Man can not be saved entirely from his weakness, ignorance, and selfishness; and hence can never be perfect. Man can be made morally better, intellectually wiser, physically healthier, individually and socially happier; but his betterment cannot be achieved through preaching, Bible-reading, praying and other religious exercises. It must come through liberty. He must have equal rights with his fellow men. He must have justice established between man and man. The toiler must get the fruits of his toil. A good home has a more sacred influence over the hearts of men to make them kind and good, than all the preaching in the world. With a home of his own man has a little heaven of his own, and a truer and better love of his neighbor.

“The character of a god is the character of the people who have made him. When therefore I expose the crimes of Jehovah, I expose the defective morality of Israel; and when I criticise the God of modern Europe, I criticise the defective [377]intellects of Europeans. The reader must endeavor to bear this in mind; for though he may think that his idea of the Creator is actually the Creator, that belief is not shared by me.” (Winwood Reade, “Martyrdom of Man.”)

1. The doctrine of the atonement is of heathen origin, and is predicated upon the assumption that no sin can be fully expiated without the shedding of blood. In the language of Paul, “Without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin.” A barbarous and bloody doctrine truly! But this doctrine was almost universally prevalent amongst the orientals long before Paul’s time.

2. Christians predicate the dogma of atonement for sin upon the assumption that Christ’s death and sufferings were a substitute for Adam’s death, incurred by the fall. But as Adam’s sentence was death, and he suffered that penalty, this assumption cannot be true.

3. If the penalty for sin was death, as taught in Genesis 3, and Christ suffered that penalty for man, then man should not die; but, as he does, it makes the doctrine preposterous. It could not have meant spiritual death, as some argue, because a part of the penalty was that of being doomed to return to dust (Gen. 3 : 19).

4. If crucifixion was indispensably necessary as a penalty, then the punishment should have been inflicted either upon the instigator or perpetrator of the deed; either the serpent or Adam should have been nailed to the cross.

5. We are told in reply, that as an infinite sin was committed, it required an infinite sacrifice. But Adam, being a finite being, could not commit an infinite sin; and Christ’s sacrifice and sufferings could not be infinite unless he had continued to suffer to all eternity. Therefore the assumption is false. [378]

6. An all-wise God would not let things get into such a condition as to require the murder of his only son from any consideration whatever.

7. And no father, cherishing a proper regard and love for his son, could have required him to be, or consented to have him put to death in a cruel manner; for the claims of mercy and paternal affection are as imperative as justice.

8. To put an intelligent and innocent being to death, for any purpose is a violation of the moral law, and as great a sin as that for which he died. Hecatombs of victims cannot atone for the infraction of the moral law which is engraven upon our souls.

9. If it were necessary for Christ to be put to death, then Judas is entitled to one half the merit of it for inaugurating the act, as it could not have taken place without his aid; and no one who took part in it should be censured, but praised.

10. It is evident, that, if everybody had been Quakers no atonement would have been made, as their religion is opposed to bloodshed.

11. The atonement is either one God putting another to death or God putting himself to death to appease his own wrath; but both assumptions are monstrous absurdities, which no person distinguished for science or reason can indorse.

12. Anger and murder are the two principal features in the doctrine of the atonement; and both are repugnant to our moral sense and feelings of refinement, and indicate a barbarous and heathen origin.

13. The atonement punishes the innocent for the guilty, which is a twofold crime, and a reversal of the spirit of justice. If a father should catch four of his children stealing and the fifth one standing by and remonstrating against the act, and should seize on the innocent one and administer a severe flagellation, he would commit a double crime: 1st, that of punishing an innocent child; 2d, that of exonerating [379]and encouraging the four children in the commission of crime. The atonement involves the same principle.

14. No person with true moral manhood would consent to be be saved on any such terms; but would prefer to suffer for his own sins, rather than let an innocent being suffer for them. And the man who would accept salvation upon such terms must be a sneak and a coward, with a soul not worth saving.

15. Who that possesses any sense of justice would want to swim through blood to get to the heavenly mansion. I want neither animals, men, nor Gods murdered to save my soul.

16. If there is any virtue in the atonement in the way of expiating crime, then there is now another atonement demanded by the principles of moral justice to cancel the sin committed by the first atonement—that of murdering an innocent being, “in whose mouth was no guile;” and then another atonement to wipe out the sin of this atonement, and so on. And thus it would be atonement after atonement, murder after murder, ad infinitum. What shocking consequences and absurdities are involved in this ancient heathen superstition!

17. It seems strange that any person can cherish the thought for a moment that the Infinite Father would require a sacrificial offering for the trifling act of eating a little fruit, and require no atonement for the infinitely greater sin of murdering “his only begotten son.” Another monstrous absurdity!

18. The advocates of the atonement tell us that man stands toward his Creator in the relation of a debtor, and the atonement cancels the debt. To be sure! How does it do it?—Graves.

“A Protestant minister of Oakland, California, in a recent address on the public school system of the United [380]States, expressed himself as follows: ‘In one of the schools of San Francisco Herbert Spencer’s “Data of Ethics” was introduced as a text book of morals—as palpable a violation of the law forbidding sectarian instruction as the introduction of the Catholic or Methodist catechism; for Hebert Spencer belongs to a very small and narrow sect which promulgates the creed of Agnosticism.’

“If the reverend speaker had taken the ground that the ‘Data of Ethics’ was too abstruse to be placed in the hands of public school pupils we should have felt inclined to sustain his objection. But when he says that to introduce such a book is to give a sectarian character to the school in which it is used, we must enter a protest. Science is never sectarian; philosophy is never sectarian. Sectarian teaching begins when you ask a man or a child to assume what cannot be proved, for the sake of keeping within the dogmatic lines that fence round some particular creed. The followers of Mr. Spencer may be in a minority, but they are no more a sect than were the adherents of the Copernican system of astronomy, or than are the believers in the Darwinian theory of natural selection. Mr. Spencer makes no appeal to faith, but finds his premises in the common experience of mankind. A pupil who was being taught out of the ‘Data of Ethics’ would be quite at liberty to dispute either the premises or the arguments of the author; and he would not be silenced by the declaration that Mr. Spencer is infallible. But when catechisms are taught they are taught, not as containing matter for discussion, but as containing doctrines that must not be disputed, on pain of more or less disagreeable consequences. Similarly when the Bible is read in school it is read not as a fallible record of events, or a fallible guide in morals, but as something absolutely authoritative—the very voice of God. It is perfectly obvious then, where sectarianism in education begins; it begins just at the point where doctrines of any kind accepted on faith by a portion of the community and not discussible on grounds of reason, are made a part of public school instruction. [381]Sectarianism comes in whenever the teacher is obliged to say, ‘Hush’ to the inquiring scholar who wants his reason satisfied before he will believe. There is no sectarianism, on the other hand, in making use of a book which lays no claim to any kind of privilege, and which, therefore, cannot force the belief of anyone. The followers of Mr. Spencer do not form a sect because they have no beliefs which they wish to exempt from criticism or discussion, and because they hold themselves at full liberty to pass beyond the bounds of Mr. Spencer’s thought whenever they can see their way to doing so. Mr. Spencer’s ‘Data of Ethics’ may not contain all the truth on the subject of morals, but the truth which it does contain lends itself to demonstration; and no one can be the worse for being taught demonstrable truths. Upon that foundation he can afterward build what he likes—hay, stubble, or what not; and after his superstructure has been tried by the fire of experience, as it is very likely to be, he will still have something solid left on which to rebuild in perchance wiser fashion. We do not advocate the introduction of the ‘Data of Ethics’ into the public schools: but we are convinced that it would be a very good thing for the rising generation if some of the ideas contained in that book could be brought home to their minds.” (Popular Science Monthly, November 1889.) [383]