The Project Gutenberg EBook of Arrows of Freethought, by George W. Foote This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Arrows of Freethought Author: George W. Foote Release Date: October 6, 2009 [EBook #30204] Last Updated: January 25, 2013 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARROWS OF FREETHOUGHT *** Produced by David Widger
(November, 1882.)
The Archbishop of York is peculiarly qualified to speak on religion and
progress. His form of thanksgiving to the God of Battles for our "victory"
in Egypt marks him as a man of extraordinary intellect and character, such
as common people may admire without hoping to emulate; while his position,
in Archbishop Tait's necessitated absence from the scene, makes him the
active head of the English Church. Let us listen to the great man.
Archbishop Thomson recently addressed "a working-men's meeting" in the
Drill Hall, Sheffield. It was densely crowded by six or seven thousand
people, and this fact was cited by the Archbishop as a proof that the
working classes of England have not yet lost interest in the Christian
faith. But we should very much like to know how it was ascertained that
all, or even the major portion, of the vast audience were working-men. It
is easy enough to give any meeting a name. We often hear of a Conservative
Working-men's banquet, with tickets at something like a guinea each, a
duke at the top of the table and a row' of lords down each side. And our
experience leads us to believe that nearly all religious meetings of
"working-men" are attended chiefly by the lower middle classes who go
regularly to church or chapel every Sunday of their lives.
Even, however, if the whole six or seven thousand were working-men, the
fact would prove little; for Sheffield contains a population of three
hundred thousand, and it was not difficult for the clergy who thronged the
platform to get up a big "ticket" meeting, at which a popular Archbishop
was the principal speaker, and the eloquence was all to be had for
nothing.
The Archbishop's lecture, or sermon, or whatever it was, contained nothing
new, nor was any old idea presented in a new light. It was simply a
summary of the vulgar declamations against the "carnal mind" with which we
are all so familiar. Progress, said his Grace, was of two kinds,
intellectual and moral. Of the former sort we had plenty, but of the
latter not so much. He repudiated the notion that moral progress would
naturally keep pace with intellectual progress, and he denied that
righteousness could ever prevail without "some sanction from above." This
was the sum and substance of his discourse, and we have no doubt that our
readers have heard the same thing, in various forms of language, some
hundreds of times.
Like the rest of his tribe, Archbishop Thomson went abroad for all his
frightful warnings, and especially to France. He severely condemned the
French "pride in progress," which led to the Revolution. His Grace has
certainly a most original conception of history. Ordinary historians tell
us that the Revolution was caused by hunger, bad government, and the
rigidity of old institutions that could not accommodate themselves to new
ideas. But whatever were the causes, look at the results. Compare the
state of France before the Revolution with its condition now. The despotic
monarchy is gone; the luxurious and privileged aristocracy has
disappeared; and the incredibly wealthy and tyrannous Church is reduced to
humbleness and poverty. But the starving masses have become the most
prosperous on the face of the earth; the ignorant multitudes are well
educated; the platform and the press are free; a career is open to every
citizen; science, art, and literature have made immense strides; and
although Paris, like every great capital, may still, as Mr. Arnold says,
lack morality, there is no such flagrant vileness within her walls as the
corruptions of the ancien régime; no such impudent affronting of
the decencies of life as made the parc aux cerfs for ever infamous,
and his Christian Majesty, Louis the Fifteenth, a worthy compeer of
Tiberius; no such shameless wickedness as made the orgies of the Duke of
Orleans and the Abbé Dubois match the worst saturnalia of Nero.
His Grace felt obliged to advert also to the Paris Commune, about which
his information seems to be equal to his knowledge of the Revolution. He
has the ignorance or audacity to declare that the Commune﹃destroyed a
city and ravaged the land;﹄when, as a matter of fact, the struggle was
absolutely confined to Paris, and the few buildings injured were in the
line of fire. This worthy prelate thinks destruction of buildings a crime
on the part of Communalists, but a virtue on the part of a Christian
power; and while denouncing the partial wreck of Paris, he blesses the
wholesale ruin of Alexandria.
His Grace ventures also to call the leading men of the Commune﹃drunken
dissolute villains.﹄The beaten party is always wicked, and perhaps Dr.
Thomson will remember that Jesus Christ himself was accused of consorting
with publicans and sinners. Drunken dissolute villains do not risk their
lives for an idea. The men of the Commune may have been mistaken, but
their motives were lofty; and Millière, falling dead on the Church steps
before the Versailles bullets, with the cry of Vive l'Humanité on
his lips, was as noble a hero as any crucified Galilean who questioned why
his God had forsaken him.
That intellectual and moral progress naturally go together, the Archbishop
calls "an absurd and insane doctrine," and he couples with these epithets
the honored names of Buckle and Spencer. Now it will be well to have a
clear understanding on this point. Are intellectual causes dominant or
subordinate? Even so intensely religious a man as Lamennais unhesitatingly
answers that they are dominant. He affirms, in his Du Passé et de
l'Avenir du, Peuple, that﹃intellectual development has produced all
other developments,﹄and he adds:—
"It is represented that evil, as it appears in history, springs entirely
from the passions. This is quite false. The passions disturb the existing
order, whatever it may be, but they do not constitute it. They have not
that power. It is the necessary result of the received ideas and beliefs.
Thus the passions show themselves the same in all epochs, and yet, in
different epochs, the established order changes, and sometimes
fundamentally."
The truth is that the great moral conceptions are securely established,
and the only possible improvement in them must come from the increased
fineness and subtlety of our mental powers.
Civilisation and progress are, according to Archbishop Thomson, nothing
but "cobwebs and terms." He besought the working men of Sheffield not to
go for information to a big book written in some garret in London. His
Grace, who lives in a palace at other people's expense, has a very natural
dislike of any man of genius who may live in a garret at his own. What has
the place in which a book is written to do with its value? "Don Quixote"
and the "Pilgrim's Progress" were written in gaol; and for all Archbishop
Thomson knows to the contrary every gospel and epistle of the New
Testament may have been written in an attic or a cellar.
The Archbishop seems to hate the very idea of Progress. What has it done,
he asks, to abolish drunkenness and gambling? To which we reply by asking
what Christianity has done. Those vices are unmistakably here, and on the
face of it any objection they may furnish against Progress must equally
apply to Christianity. Nay more; for Christianity has had an unlimited
opportunity to reform the world, while Progress has been hindered at every
turn by the insolent usurpation of its rival.
Dr. Thomson admits that he cannot find a text in the Bible against
gambling, and assuredly he cannot find one in favor of teetotalism. On the
contrary he will find plenty of texts which recommend the﹃wine that
cheereth the heart of God and man;﹄and he knows that his master, Jesus
Christ, once played the part of an amateur publican at a marriage feast,
and turned a large quantity of water into wine in order to keep the spree
going when it had once begun.
We repeat that all the Archbishop's objections to Progress, based on the
moral defects of men, apply with tenfold force against Religion, which has
practically had the whole field to itself. And we assert that he is
grievously mistaken if he imagines that supernatural beliefs can ennoble
knaves or give wisdom to fools. When he talks about﹃Christ's blood shed
to purchase our souls,﹄and specifies the first message of his creed as
"Come and be forgiven," he is appealing to our basest motives, and turning
the temple into a huckster's shop. Let him and all his tribe listen to
these words of Ruskin's:—
"Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both
your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be
based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the
firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night If you ask why
you are to be honest—you are, in the question itself, dishonored
'Because you are a man,' is the only answer; and therefore I said in a
former letter that to make your children capable of honesty is the
beginning of education. Make them men first and religious men afterwards,
and all will be sound; but a knave's religion is always the rottenest
thing about him.—Time and Tide, p. 37."
These are the words of a real spiritual teacher. Archbishop Thomson will
never get within a million miles of their meaning; nor will anybody be
deceived, by the unctuous "Oh that" with which he concludes his discourse,
like a mental rolling of the whites of his eyes.
As we approach the end of his address, we begin to understand his Grace's
hatred of Progress. He complains that﹃intellectual progress never makes a
man conceive eternal hopes, never makes a man conceive that he has an
eternal friend in heaven, even the Son of God.﹄Quite true. Intellectual
progress tends to bound our desires within the scope of their realisation,
and to dissipate the fictions of theology. It is therefore inimical to all
professional soul-savers, who chatter about another world with no
understanding of this; and especially to the lofty teachers of religion
who luxuriate in palaces, and fling jibes and sneers at the toiling
soldiers of progress who face hunger, thirst and death. These rich
disciples of the poor Nazarene are horrified when the scorn is retorted on
them and their creed; and Archbishop Thomson expresses his "disgust" at
our ridiculing his Bible and endeavoring to bring his "convictions" into
"contempt." It is, he says,﹃an offence against the first principles of
mutual sympathy and consideration.﹄Yet this angry complainant describes
other people's convictions as "absurd and insane." All the sympathy and
consideration is to be on one side! The less said about either the better.
There can be no treaty or truce in a war of principles, and the soldiers
of Progress will neither take quarter nor give it. Christianity must
defend itself. It may try to kill us with the poisoned arrows of
persecution; but what defence can it make against the rifleshot of
common-sense, or how stand against the shattering artillery of science?
Every such battle is decided in its commencement, for every religion
begins to succumb the very moment it is attacked.
(February, 1879.)
Fling mud enough and some of it will stick. This noble maxim has been the
favorite of traducers in all ages and climes. They know that the object of
their malignity cannot always be on the alert to cleanse himself from the
filth they fling, especially if cast behind his back; they know that lies,
and especially slanderous lies, are hard to overtake, and when caught
harder to strangle; and therefore they feel confident as to the ultimate
fate of their victim if they can only persevere long enough in their vile
policy of defamation. For human nature being more prone to believe evil
than good of others, it generally happens that the original traducers are
at length joined by a host of kindred spirits almost as eager and venomous
as themselves,﹃the long-neck'd geese of the world, who are ever hissing
dispraise because their natures are little;﹄while a multitude of others,
not so much malignant as foolish and given to scandal, lend their cowardly
assistance, and help to vilify characters far beyond the reach of their
emulation. And should such characters be those of men who champion
unpopular causes, there is no lie too black for belief concerning them, no
accusation of secret theft or hateful meanness or loathsome lust, that
will not readily gain credence. Mr. Tennyson speaks of—
That fierce light which beats upon a throne,
And blackens every blot
but what is that to the far fiercer and keener light which beats upon the
lives of the great heroes of progress? With all due deference to the Poet
Laureate, we conceive that kings and their kind have usually extended to
them a charity which covers a multitude of their sins. The late king of
Italy, for instance, was said to have had﹃the language of a guardroom,
the manners of a trooper, and the morals of a he-goat,﹄yet at his death
how tenderly his faults were dealt with by the loyal press, and how
strongly were all his merits brought into relief. Our own royal
Sardanapalus, George the Fourth, although Leigh Hunt had the courage to
describe him aright and went to the gaol for so doing, was styled by
Society "the first gentleman in Europe." Yet Mazzini, Vittor Emmanuel's
great contemporary, whose aims were high and noble as his life was pure,
got little else than abuse from this same loyal press; and the Society
which adored George the Fourth charged Shelley himself with unspeakable
vices equalled only by the native turpitude of his soul.
Perhaps no man has suffered more from calumny than Thomas Paine. During
his lifetime, indeed, his traducers scarcely ever dared to vent their
malice in public, doubtless through fear of receiving a castigation from
his vigorous and trenchant pen. But after his death they rioted in safety,
and gave free play to the ingenuity of their malevolence. Gradually their
libels became current; thousands of people who knew almost nothing of his
life and less of his writings were persuaded that Thomas Paine,﹃the
Infidel,﹄was a monster of iniquity, in comparison with whom Judas
appeared a saint, and the Devil himself nearly white; and this estimate
finally became a tradition, which the editors of illustrated religious
papers and the writers of fraudulent "Death-Bed Scenes" did their best to
perpetuate. In such hands the labor of posthumous vilification might have
remained without greatly troubling those who feel an interest in Thomas
Paine's honor through gratitude for his work. The lowest scavengers of
literature, who purvey religious offal to the dregs of orthodoxy, were
better employed thus than in a reverse way, since their praise is so very
much more dishonorable and appalling than their blame. But when other
literary workmen of loftier repute descend to the level of these, and help
them in their villainous task, it becomes advisable that some one who
honors the memory of the man thus aspersed should interpose, and attempt
that vindication which he can no longer make for himself.
In reviewing Mr. Edward Smith's "Life of Cobbett," our principal literary
paper, the Athenæum, in its number for January 11th, went out of its way
to defame Paine's character. This is what it said:—
"A more despicable man than Tom Paine cannot easily be found among the
ready writers of the eighteenth century. He sold himself to the highest
bidder, and he could be bought at a very low price. He wrote well;
sometimes he wrote as pointedly as Junius or Cobbett. Neither excelled him
in coining telling and mischievous phrases; neither surpassed him in
popularity-hunting. He had the art, which was almost equal to genius, of
giving happy titles to his productions. When he denounced the British
Government in the name of 'Common Sense' he found willing readers in the
rebellious American colonists, and a rich reward from their grateful
representatives. When he wrote on behalf of the 'Rights of Man,' and in
furtherance of the 'Age of Reason,' he convinced thousands by his
title-pages who were incapable of perceiving the inconclusiveness of his
arguments. His speculations have long since gone the way of all shams; and
his charlatanism as a writer was not redeemed by his character as a man.
Nothing could be worse than his private life; he was addicted to the most
degrading of vices. He was no hypocrite, however, and he cannot be charged
with showing that regard for appearances which constitutes the homage paid
by vice to virtue. Such a man was well qualified for earning notoriety by
insulting Washington. Only a thorough-paced rascal could have had the
assurance to charge Washington with being unprincipled and unpatriotic.
Certainly Mr. Smith has either much to learn, or else he has forgotten
much, otherwise he could not venture to suggest the erection of a monument
'recording the wisdom and political virtues of Thomas Paine.'"
Now we have in this tirade all the old charges, with a new one which the
critic has either furnished himself or derived from an obscure source—namely,
that Paine "sold himself to the highest bidder." Let us examine the last
charge first. The critic curiously contradicts himself. Paine, he admits,
could "sometimes write as pointedly as Junius or Cobbett," whose works
sold enormously, and he had the art of devising happy titles for his
productions; yet, although he sold himself to the highest bidder, he could
be bought at a very low price! The fact is, Paine was never bought at all.
His was not a hireling pen. Whatever he wrote he put his name to, and he
never parted with the copyright of any of his works, lest the Government
or some friend of despotism should procure their suppression. He also
published his writings at a ridiculously low price, so low indeed that he
lost by them instead of gaining. Of his "Common Sense," that fine pamphlet
which stirred the American colonists to battle against their oppressors,
not less than a hundred thousand copies were sold; yet he found himself
finally indebted to his printer £29 12s. 1d. Fifteen years later the
English Government tried through the publisher to get the copyright of the
"Rights of Man;" but though a large sum was offered, Paine refused on
principle to let it pass out of his own hands. The first part of this work
was published at a price which precluded any chance of profit; the
publication of the second part caused him to be tried and condemned for
treason, the penalty of the law being escaped only by flight. All
publication of his works, whether political or religious, was afterwards
illegal. Thousands of copies were circulated surreptitiously, or openly by
men like Richard Carlile, who spent nine years in prison for his sale of
prohibited books. But clearly Paine could derive no profit from this
traffic in his works, for he never set foot in England again. Thomas Paine
wrote in order to spread his political and religious views, and for no
other purpose. He was not a professional author, nor a professional
critic, and never needed payment for his literary work. And assuredly he
got none. Let the Athenæum critic inform the world to whom Paine
sold himself, or who ever paid him a penny for his writings. Until he does
so we shall believe that the author of "Common Sense," the﹃Rights of
Man,﹄and the "Age of Reason," was honest in saying: "In a great affair,
where the good of mankind is at stake, I love to work for nothing; and so
fully am I under the influence of this principle, that I should lose the
spirit, the pride, and the pleasure of it, were I conscious that I looked
for reward."
Popularity-hunting, to use the critic's graceless phrase, was Paine's next
fault; but as, according to the same authority, he was guilty in this
respect only in the same sense as Junius was, the burden of his iniquity
cannot be very great.
Addiction to the most degrading of vices, is a charge difficult to confute
until we know specifically what vice is meant. Paine has been accused of
drunkenness; but by whom? Not by his intimate acquaintances, who would
have detected his guilt, but by his enemies who were never in his society,
and therefore could know nothing of his habits. Cheetham, who first
disseminated this accusation, was a notorious libeller, and was more than
once compelled to make a public apology for his lies; but he was a
shameless creature, and actually in his "Life" of Paine resuscitated and
amplified falsehoods for which he had tendered abject apologies while his
victim was alive. Even, however, if Paine had yielded to the seductions of
strong drink, he should be judged by the custom of his own age, and not
that of ours.
Mr. Leslie Stephen does not rail against Boswell for his drinking powers;
Burns is not outlawed for his devotion to John Barlycorn; Byron and
Sheridan are not beyond pardon because they often went drunk to bed; and
some of the greatest statesmen of last century and this, including Pitt
and Fox, are not considered the basest of men because they exercised that
right which Major O'Gorman claims for all Irishmen—"to drink as much
as they can carry." But no such plea is necessary, for Paine was not
addicted to drink, but remarkably abstemious. Mr. Fellows, with whom he
lived for more than six months, said that he never saw him the worse for
drink. Dr. Manley said, "while I attended him he never was inebriated."
Colonel Burr said, "he was decidedly temperate." And even Mr. Jarvis, whom
Cheetham cited as his authority for charging Paine with drunkenness,
authorised Mr. Vale, of New York, editor of the Beacon, to say that
Cheetham lied. Amongst the public men who knew Paine personally
were Burke, Home Tooke, Priestley, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Dr. Moore,
Jefferson, Washington, Volney and Condorcet: but none of these ever hinted
at his love of drink. The charge of drunkeness is a posthumous libel,
circulated by a man who had publicly quarrelled with Paine, who had been
obliged to apologise for former aspersions, and who after Paine's death
was prosecuted and condemned for libelling a lady whom he had
accused of undue familiarity with the principal object of his malice.
Finding the charge of drunkenness unequivocally rebutted, Paine's
traducers advance that of licentiousness. But this is equally
unsuccessful. The authority relied on is still Cheetham, who in turn
borrowed from a no less disreputable source. A man named Carver had
quarrelled with Paine over money matters; in fact, he had been obliged
with a loan which he forgot to pay, and like all base natures he showed
his gratitude to his benefactor, when no more favors could be expected, by
hating and maligning him. A scurrilous letter written by this fellow fell
into the hands of Cheetham, who elaborated it in his "Life." It broadly
hinted that Madame Bonneville, the by no means youthful wife of a Paris
bookseller who had sheltered Paine when he was threatened with danger in
that city, was his paramour; for no other reason than that he had in turn
sheltered her when she repaired with her children to America, after her
home had been broken up by Buonaparte's persecution of her husband. This
lady prosecuted Cheetham for libel, and a jury of American citizens gave
her a verdict and damages.
Here the matter might rest, but we are inclined to urge another
consideration. No one of his many enemies ever accused Paine of
licentiousness in his virile manhood; and can we believe that he began a
career of licentiousness in his old age, when, besides the infirmities
natural to his time of life, he suffered dreadful tortures from an
internal abscess brought on by his confinement in the reeking dungeons of
the Luxembourg, which made life a terror and death a boon? Only lunatics
or worse would credit such a preposterous story.
The Athenoum critic alleges that Paine insulted Washington, and was
therefore a "thorough-paced rascal." But he did nothing of the kind. He
very properly remonstrated with Washington for coolly allowing him to rot
in a French dungeon for no crime except that he was a foreigner, when a
word from the President of the United States, of which he was a citizen,
would have effected his release. Washington was aware of Paine's miserable
plight, yet he forgot the obligations of friendship; and notwithstanding
frequent letters from Munro, the American ambassador at Paris, he supinely
suffered the man he had once delighted to honor to languish in
wretchedness, filth, and disease. George Washington did much for American
Independence, but Thomas Paine did perhaps more, for his writings animated
the oppressed Colonists with an enthusiasm for liberty without which the
respectable generalship of Washington might have been exerted in vain. The
first President of the United States was, as Carlyle grimly says,﹃no
immeasurable man,﹄and we conceive that Paine had earned the right to
criticise even him and his policy.
Every person is of course free to hold what opinion he pleases of Paine's
writings. The Athenoum critic thinks they have﹃gone the way of all
shams.﹄He is wrong in fact, for they circulate very extensively still.
And he may also be wrong in his literary judgment. William Hazlitt, whose
opinion on any subject connected with literature is at least as valuable
as an Athenoum critic's, ranked Paine very high as a political
writer, and affirmed of his "Rights of Man" that it was﹃a powerful and
explicit reply to Burke.﹄But Hazlitt had read Paine, which we suspect
many glib critics of to-day have not; for we well remember how puzzled
some of them were to explain whence Shelley took the motto﹃We pity the
Plumage, but Forget the Dying Bird﹄prefixed to his Address to the People
on the death of the Princess Charlotte. It was taken, as they should have
known, from one of the finest passages of the "Rights of Man." Critics, it
is well known, sometimes write as Artemus Ward proposed to lecture on
science, "with an imagination untrammeled by the least knowledge of the
subject."
Let us close this vindication of Paine by citing the estimate of him
formed by Walt Whitman, an authority not to be sneered at now even by Athenoum
critics. In 1877 the Liberal League of Philadelphia celebrated the 140th
birthday of Thomas Paine, and a large audience was gathered by the
announcement that Whitman would speak. The great poet, according to the Index
report, after telling how he had become intimate with some of Paine's
friends thirty-five years before, went on to say:—
"I dare not say how much of what our Union is owning and enjoying to-day,
its independence, its ardent belief in, and substantial practice of,
Radical human rights, and the severance of its Government from all
ecclesiastical and superstitious dominion—I dare not say how much of
all this is owing to Thomas Paine; but I am inclined to think a good
portion of it decidedly is. Of the foul and foolish fictions yet told
about the circumstances of his decease, the absolute fact is that, as he
lived a good life after its kind, he died calmly, philosophically, as
became him. He served the embryo Union with the most precious service, a
service that every man, woman, and child in the thirty-eight States is to
some extent receiving the benefit of to-day, and I for one here cheerfully
and reverently throw one pebble on the cairn of his memory."
We are content to let the reader decide between Whitman and the Athenoum
critic in their respective estimates of him who wrote, and as we think
acted up to it—"All the world is my country, and to do good my
religion."
(August, 1882.)
Christians are perpetually crying that we destroy and never build up.
Nothing could be more false, for all negation has a positive side, and we
cannot deny error without affirming truth. But even if it were true, it
would not lessen the value of our work. You must clear the ground before
you can build, and plough before you sow. Splendor gives no strength to an
edifice whose foundations are treacherous, nor can a harvest be reaped
from fields unprepared for the seed.
Freethought is, in this respect, like a skilful physician, whose function
it is to expel disease and leave the patient sound and well. No sick man
claims that the doctor shall supply him with something in place of his
malady. It is enough that the enemy of his health is driven out. He is
then in a position to act for himself. He has legs to walk with, a brain
to devise, and hands to execute his will. What more does he need? What
more can he ask without declaring himself a weakling or a fool? So it is
with superstition, the deadliest disease of the mind. Free-thought casts
it out, with its blindness and its terrors, and leaves the mind clear and
free. All nature is then before us to study and enjoy. Truth shines on us
with celestial light, Goodness smiles on our best endeavors, and Beauty
thrills our senses and kindles our imagination with the subtle magic of
her charms.
What a boon it is to think freely, to let the intellect dart out in quest
of truth at every point of the compass, to feel the delight of the chase
and the gladness of capture! What a noble privilege to pour treasures of
knowledge into the crucible of the brain, and separate gold from the
dross!
The Freethinker takes nothing on trust, if he can help it; he dissects,
analyses, and proves everything. Does this make him a barren sceptic? Not
so. What he discards he knows to be worthless, and he also knows the value
of what he prizes. If one sweet vision turns out a mirage, how does it
lessen our enjoyment at the true oasis, or shake our certitude of water
and shade under the palm trees by the well?
The masses of men do not think freely. They scarcely think at all out of
their round of business. They are trained not to think. From the cradle to
the grave orthodoxy has them in its clutches. Their religion is settled by
priests, and their political and social institutions by custom. They look
askance at the man who dares to question what is established; not
reflecting that all orthodoxies were once heterodox, that without
innovation there could never have been any progress, and that if
inquisitive fellows had not gone prying about in forbidden quarters ages
ago, the world would still be peopled by savages dressed in nakedness,
war-paint, and feathers. The mental stultification which begins in youth
reaches ossification as men grow older. Lack of thought ends in incapacity
to think.
Real Freethought is impossible without education. The mind cannot operate
without means or construct without materials. Theology opposes education:
Freethought supports it. The poor as well as the rich should share in its
blessings. Education is a social capital which should be supplied to all.
It enriches and expands. It not only furnishes the mind, but strengthens
its faculties. Knowledge is power. A race of giants could not level the
Alps; but ordinary men, equipped with science, bore through their base,
and made easy channels for the intercourse of divided nations.
Growth comes with use, and power with exercise. Education makes both
possible. It puts the means of salvation at the service of all, and,
prevents the faculties from moving about in vacuo, and finally
standing still from sheer hopelessness. The educated man has a whole
magazine of appliances at his command, and his intellect is trained in
using them, while the uneducated man has nothing but his strength, and his
training is limited to its use.
Freethought demands education for all. It claims a mental inheritance for
every child born into the world. Superstition demands ignorance,
stupidity, and degradation. Wherever the schoolmaster is busy, Freethought
prospers; where he is not found, superstition reigns supreme and levels
the people in the dust.
Free speech and Freethought go together. If one is hampered the other
languishes. What is the use of thinking if I may not express my thought?
We claim equal liberty for all. The priest shall say what he believes and
so shall the sceptic. No law shall protect the one and disfranchise the
other. If any man disapproves what I say, he need not hear me a second
time. What more does he require? Let him listen to what he likes, and
leave others to do the same. Let us have justice and fair play all round.
Freethought is not only useful but laudable. It involves labor and
trouble. Ours is not a gospel for those who love the soft pillow of faith.
The Freethinker does not let his ship rot away in harbor; he spreads his
canvas and sails the seas of thought. What though tempests beat and
billows roar? He is undaunted, and leaves the avoidance of danger to the
sluggard and the slave. He will not pay their price for ease and safety.
Away he sails with Vigilance at the prow and Wisdom at the helm. He not
only traverses the ocean highways, but skirts unmapped coasts and ventures
on uncharted seas. He gathers spoils in every zone, and returns with a
rich freight that compensates for all hazards. Some day or other, you say,
he will be shipwrecked and lost. Perhaps. All things end somehow. But if
he goes down he will die like a man and not like a coward, and have for
his requiem the psalm of the tempest and the anthem of the waves.
Doubt is the beginning of wisdom. It means caution, independence, honesty
and veracity. Faith means negligence, serfdom, insincerity and deception.
The man who never doubts never thinks. He is like a straw in the wind or a
waif on the sea. He is one of the helpless, docile, unquestioning
millions, who keep the world in a state of stagnation, and serve as a
fulcrum for the lever of despotism. The stupidity of the people, says
Whitman, is always inviting the insolence of power.
Buckle has well said that scepticism is﹃the necessary antecedent of all
progress.﹄Without it we should still be groping in the night of the Dark
Ages. The very foundations of modern science and philosophy were laid on
ground which was wrested from the Church, and every stone was cemented
with the blood of martyrs. As the edifice arose the sharpshooters of faith
attacked the builders at every point, and they still continue their old
practice, although their missiles can hardly reach the towering heights
where their enemies are now at work.
Astronomy was opposed by the Church because it unsettled old notions of
the earth being the centre of the universe, and the sun, moon, and stars
mere lights stuck in the solid firmament, and worked to and fro like
sliding panels. Did not the Bible say that General Joshua commanded the
sun to stand still, and how could this have happened unless it moved round
the earth? And was not the earth certainly flat, as millions of flats
believed it to be? The Catholic Inquisition forced Galileo to recant, and
Protestant Luther called Copernicus "an old fool."
Chemistry was opposed as an impious prying into the secrets of God. It was
put in the same class with sorcery and witchcraft, and punished in the
same way. The early chemists were considered as agents of the Devil, and
their successors are still regarded as "uncanny" in the more ignorant
parts of Christendom. Roger Bacon was persecuted by his brother monks; his
testing fire was thought to have come from the pit, and the explosion of
his gunpowder was the Devil vanishing in smoke and smell. Even at the end
of last century, the clergy-led mob of Birmingham who wrecked Priestley's
house and destroyed his apparatus, no doubt felt that there was a close
connexion between chemistry and infidelity.
Physiology and Medicine were opposed on similar grounds. We were all
fearfully and wonderfully made, and the less the mystery was looked into
the better. Disease was sent by God for his own wise ends, and to resist
it was as bad as blasphemy. Every discovery and every reform was decried
as impious. Men now living can remember how the champions of faith
denounced the use of anaesthetics in painful labor as an interference with
God's curse on the daughters of Eve.
Geology was opposed because it discredited Moses, as though that famous
old Jew had watched the deposit of every stratum of the earth's crust. It
was even said that fossils had been put underground by God to puzzle the
wiseacres, and that the Devil had carried shells to the hilltops for the
purpose of deluding men to infidelity and perdition. Geologists were
anathematised from the pulpits and railed at by tub-thumpers. They were
obliged to feel their way and go slowly. Sir Charles Lyell had to keep
back his strongest conclusions for at least a quarter of a century, and
could not say all he thought until his head was whitened by old age and he
looked into the face of Death.
Biology was opposed tooth and nail as the worst of all infidelity. It
exposed Genesis and put Moses out of court. It destroyed all special
creation, showed man's kinship with other forms of life, reduced Adam and
Eve to myths, and exploded the doctrine of the Fall. Darwin was for years
treated as Antichrist, and Huxley as the great beast. All that is being
changed, thanks to the sceptical spirit. Darwin's corpse is buried in
Westminster Abbey, but his ideas are undermining all the churches and
crumbling them into dust.
The gospel of Freethought brands persecution as the worst crime against
humanity. It stifles the spirit of progress and strangles its pioneers. It
eliminates the brave, the adventurous and the aspiring, and leaves only
the timid, the sluggish and the grovelling. It removes the lofty and
spares the low. It levels all the hills of thought and makes an
intellectual flatness. It drenches all the paths of freedom with blood and
tears, and makes earth the vestibule of hell.
Persecution is the right arm of priestcraft. The black militia of theology
are the sworn foes of Freethought. They represent it as the sin against
the Holy Ghost, for which there is no forgiveness in this world or the
next. When they speak of the Holy Ghost they mean themselves. Freethought
is a crime against them. It strips off the mystery that invests
their craft, and shows them as they really are, a horde of bandits who
levy black mail on honest industry, and preach a despot in heaven in order
to main-tain their own tyranny on earth.
The gospel of Freethought would destroy all priesthoods. Every man should
be his own priest. If a professional soul-doctor gives you wrong advice
and leads you to ruin, he will not be damned for you He will see you so
first. We must take all responsibility, and we should also take the power.
Instead of putting our thinking out, as we put our washing, let us do it
at home. No man can do another's thinking for him. What is thought in the
originator is only acquiescence in the man who takes it at secondhand.
If we do our own thinking in religion we shall do it in everything else.
We reject authority and act for ourselves. Spiritual and temporal power
are brought under the same rule. They must justify themselves or go. The
Freethinker is thus a politician and a social reformer. What a Christian
may be he must be. Freethinkers are naturally Radicals. They
are almost to a man on the side of justice freedom and progress. The
Tories know this, and hence they seek to suppress us by the violence of
unjust law. They see that we are a growing danger to every kind of
privilege, a menace to all the idle classes who live in luxury on the
sweat and labor of others—the devouring drones who live on the
working bees.
The gospel of Freethought teaches us to distinguish between the knowable
and the unknowable. We cannot fathom the infinite﹃mystery of the
universe﹄with our finite plummet, nor see aught behind the veil of death.
Here is our appointed province:
"This world which is the world
Of all of us, and where in the end
We find our happiness or not at all."
Let us make the best of this world and take our chance of any other. If
there is a heaven, we dare say it will hold all honest men. If it will
not, those who go elsewhere will at least be in good company.
Our salvation is here and now. It is certain and not contingent. We need
not die before we realise it. Ours is a gospel, and the only gospel, for
this side of the grave. The promises of theology cannot be made good till
after death; ours are all redeemable in this life.
We ask men to acknowledge realities and dismiss fictions. When you have
sifted all the learned sermons ever preached, you will find very little
good grain. Theology deals with dreams and phantasies, and gives no
guidance to practical men. The whole truth of life may be summed up in a
few words. Happiness is the only good, suffering the only evil, and
selfishness the only sin. And the whole duty of man may be expressed in
one sentence, slightly altered from Voltaire—Learn what is true in
order to do what is right. If a man can tell you anything about these
matters, listen to him; if not, turn a deaf ear, and let him preach to the
wind.
The only noble things in this world are great hearts and great brains,
There is no virtue in a starveling piety which turns all beauty into
ugliness and shrivels up every natural affection. Let the heart beat high
with courage and enterprise, and throb with warm passion. Let the brain be
an active engine of thought, imagination and will. The gospel of sorrow
has had its day, and the time has come for the gospel of gladness. Let us
live out our lives to the full, radiating joy on all in our own circle,
and diffusing happiness through the grander circle of humanity, until at
last we retire from the banquet of life, as others have done before us,
and sink in eternal repose.
[A Paper read at the Annual Conference of the National
Secular Society, in the Co-operative Hall, Bury, June 5th,
1881.]
When I was invited to read a paper at this Conference, I thought that, as
editor of the Freethinker, I ought to say something about Freethonght. And
as the deliberations of this Conference are mostly on practical matters,
it occurred to me that I had better select a subject of less immediate
though not of insignificant interest. So I resolved to address you on
Freethonght in Current Literature.
I have said that this subject, if not practical and urgent, is assuredly
not unimportant. The power of literature over men's minds cannot be
estimated too highly. Science is a tremendous force, but its greatest
influence is exercised over the human mind when it quits the merely
practical task of ministering to our material desires, and seeks to mould
our moral and spiritual conceptions of our position and destiny in the
universe. To do this it must address us through the medium of literature.
Art also is a great force, more especially in countries which have not
been subjected, like ours, to the bondage of Puritanism. But art has
hitherto appealed to a restricted circle, although that circle is rapidly
widening in our own age. The greatest, most permanent, and most universal
force is literature. Raphael and Michael Angelo have not influenced the
world so profoundly as Shakespeare and Dante; while so many artistic
achievements of antiquity are lost or half decayed, its literary
masterpieces still survive with undiminished freshness and charm; and
while the most eminent works even of contemporary artists are seen only
occasionally by a few, the most eminent writings of the world's master
minds may and do become a household possession to thousands who move in
the humblest spheres of life.
In these cosmopolitan days the Freethinker and Humanitarian naturally
looks beyond his own country into the great world, which is at present
divided by national and other barriers, but which will in time become the
home of one all-embracing family. And I confess that I was strongly
tempted to trace the workings of the spirit of Freethought as far as I
could in the general literature of Europe. But I soon recognised the
necessity of limiting myself to the manifestations of that subtle and
pervasive spirit in the current literature of our English tongue.
When the present century commenced Europe was stirred to the utter depths
by that great French Revolution which marked a new epoch in the world's
history. The revolutionary wave surged across the western world, and
passed over England as well as other countries. Some thought the huge
eclipse of social order which accompanied it the herald of approaching
night, and others thought it the dawn of a new day; but none were
indifferent. There was an intense excitement of radical passions and
desires, a quickening of all the springs of life. This produced a
blossoming of our literature such as had not been witnessed since the
great Elizabethan age, and then, as before, Free-thought mixed with the
vital sap. Of the long array of post-revolutionary names I select three—Thomas
Paine, who represented the keen and restless common-sense of Freethought;
William Godwin, who represented its calmer philosophy; and Shelley, who
represented its lofty hopes and soaring aspirations. Godwin has almost
faded into a name; Paine's great work is nearly done, for a deeper and
more scientific scepticism has possessed itself of the field in which he
labored; but Shelley has a message for generations yet unborn. He emerges
as the supreme figure destined to immortality of fame. All great and noble
and beautiful qualities cohere in him, the﹃poet of poets and purest of
men.﹄And he is ours. Byron, with all his splendid energy and terrible
scorn, quailed before the supreme problems of life; but Shelley faced them
with a courage all the greater because it was unconscious, and casting
aside all superstitious dreams and illusory hopes, yearned prophetically
towards the Future, when freedom, truth and love shall supersede all other
trinities, and realise here on earth that Paradise which theologians have
only promised in a world to come.
A Shelley cultus has grown up during recent years, and many of our most
gifted writers reverently bow themselves before him. I have only to
mention such names as Browning, Swinburne, and Rossetti to show the
intellectual rank of his worshippers. Their number increases every year,
and it is touching to witness the avidity with which they seize on all new
facts relating to him, whether the record of some episode in his life, a
reported conversation, or a scrap of writing from his hand.
From the Shelley and Byron period to the fresh revolutionary outburst of
1848 there was a lull in England as well as elsewhere. Several great
political reforms were achieved in the interval. A Reform Bill was
carried. Catholics and Jews were emancipated, and freedom and cheapness of
the press were won by the untameable courage of men like Carlile,
Hetherington, Lovett, and Watson. But quietude reigned in the higher
spheres of literature. The age was eminently respectable, and it acclaimed
the highly respectable Wordsworth as, the prophet divinely inspired to
teach men how to rest and be thankful.
But during that interval of apathy and respectability, Science was slowly
gathering strength and making conquests, in preparation for the time when
she might plant her feet firmly on the solid ground she had won, and
challenge Theology to mortal combat. Geology and Biology, in especial,
were getting themselves ready to overthrow the fables of Genesis and
destroy its doctrines of special creation. And one is glad to admit that
they have completely succeeded at last. Professor Huxley declares that he
is not acquainted with any man of science or properly instructed person
who believes that Adam and Eve were the first parents of mankind, or that
we have all descended from the eight persons who superintended that
wonderful floating menagerie which survived a universal deluge less than
five thousand years ago. And all the clergy can say in reply is that
Professor Huxley is not endowed with that theological faculty which
enables them to perceive in the language of Scripture a meaning which is
quite undiscernible to the eyes of common sense.
Another influence was at work during that interval. Mainly through
Carlyle, the treasures of German literature were opened up to English
readers. The greatest German writers, from Leasing, Göethe, and Schiller
to Fichte, Richter, and Heine, were outrageous Freethinkers compared with
our own respectable and orthodox writers, and their influence soon made
itself evident in the tolerance and courage with which English authors
began to treat the great problems of morality and religion. German
scholarship, too, slowly crept among us. Its Biblical criticism showed us
the utter inadequacy of evidential works like Paley's, and made us see
that the Christian Scriptures would have to be viewed in a very different
light and studied in a very different spirit. To estimate the extent of
this change, we have only to place Paley's "Evidences of Christianity"
beside such a work as "Supernatural Religion." The gulf between these
works is enormous; and it is notable that the more scientific and rigorous
is the criticism of the New Testament books, the more heterodox are the
conclusions reached. Even Scotland has been invaded by this German
influence, and it now affords us the laughable spectacle of a number of
grave ministers pursuing as a damnable heretic a man like Dr. Robertson
Smith, whose only crime is having stated about the Bible nothing new, but
what every scholar in Europe knows to be admitted and indisputable. These
solemn ministers of the old creed are determined to keep the deluge of
what they call "German infidelity" from flooding the valleys and mounting
the hillsides of Scotland; but their heresy-hunts are just as efficacious
against what they so piously dread as Mrs. Partington's mop against the
mighty onrush of Atlantic rollers.
With the revolutionary movement of '48 came a fresh impulse from France.
The great evangel of '89 had not perished; it was only in abeyance; and
again it burst upon Europe with its words of fire. We all know how the
Republic which was then established was soon suppressed in blood by the
gang of adventurers presided over by Napoleon the Little. But the day of
retribution came, and the empire went the way of all tyrannies. On its
ruins the Republic has been established anew, and now it reckons in its
service and among its champions the best intellects and the noblest
characters in France; while the masses of the people, taught by the bitter
lessons of adversity, are also content to enjoy the benefits of ordered
liberty and peaceful progress under its benign sway.
Now French progress has always been a question of ideas no less than of
material advantage. The great democratic leaders in France have nearly all
been avowed Freethinkers. They have separated themselves alike from "the
blood on the hands of the king and the lie at the lips of the priest,"
being perfectly assured that outward freedom in politics is in the long
run impossible without inward freedom of thought. The chief statesman in
France, M. Gambetta, has publicly declared himself a disciple of Voltaire,
and neither at the marriages nor at the funerals of his friends does he
ever enter the doors of a church. He stays outside and quietly allows
those who desire it to go in and listen to the mumbling of the priest.
My purpose, however, being literary and not political, I must recur to my
remark that a fresh impulse came to us from France after the revolution of
'48. Lamartine at first exercised considerable influence here, but
gradually Victor Hugo's star ascended, and from the moment it reached the
zenith until now, he has been accounted the supreme poet of France, and
the greatest contemporary evangelist of the ideas of '89. He is a
Freethinker as well as a Republican; and it was inevitable that the
younger school of writers in England, who acknowledge him as a lofty
master, should drink from his inexhaustible spring the living waters of
Democracy and Freethought.
French influence on our very recent literature is evident in such works as
Mr. John Morley's Studies on Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and Condorcet;
Mr. Christie's monumental Life of Etienne Dolet, the Freethought martyr;
and Mr. Parton's new Life of Voltaire; all of which demand and will amply
requite our attention.
Such are the influences which have conspired to shape the literary
activities of the generation in which we live. Now Freethought, like a
subtle essence, penetrates everywhere. Every book betrays its presence,
and even the periodical literature of our age is affected by it. The
Archbishop of Canterbury laments that Christian men cannot introduce the
most respectable magazines into their homes without the risk of poisoning
the minds of their families with heretical ideas.
One of the signs that Freethought had begun to leaven the educated classes
was the publication of the famous "Essays and Reviews." The heresy of that
book was exceedingly small, but it roused a great storm in the religious
world and led to more than one clerical prosecution. Another sign was the
publication of Colenso's learned work on the Pentateuch. This hard-working
Colonial Bishop was denounced as a heretic by the idler home Bishops, and
Ruskin has said that they would have liked to burn Colenso alive, and make
Ludgate Hill easier for the omnibuses with the cinders of him. An
antagonist very different from the Bishops was Mr. Matthew Arnold, who
severely censured Colenso's whole method of criticism, as a handling of
religious questions in an irreligious spirit. Mr. W. R. Greg admirably
defended the Bishop, and the controversy ended in a drawn battle.
But what has happened since? The same Matthew Arnold who censured Colenso
has himself published two remarkable works on "Literature and Dogma" and
"God and the Bible," written it is true on a different plan from
Colenso's, but containing a hundred times more heresy than the Bishop
crammed into all his big volumes. For Mr. Arnold deprecates the idea of a
personal god, likens the Christian Trinity to three Lord Shaftesburys, and
says that the Bible miracles must all be given up without reservation. All
the positive religion he leaves us is the belief in﹃An eternal not
ourselves that makes for righteousness,﹄which is about as nebulous a
creed as ever was preached. Now Mr. Arnold is not an insignificant person.
He is recognised as a past-master of English letters, a ripe scholar, a
fine poet, and an exquisite critic. When such a man carries destructive
criticism to its utmost limits, we may well congratulate ourselves on a
signal triumph of Freethought. And we may also find comfort in the fact
that nobody thinks of flinging a stone at Mr. Arnold for his heresy.
By-and-by the censors of religion in the press will cease to throw stones
at the Freethought teachers among the masses of the people, who only put
into homlier English and publish in a cheaper form the sentiments and
ideas which Mr. Arnold expresses for the educated classes at a higher
price and in a loftier style.
During the winter a gap was made in the front rank of English literature
by the deaths of Carlyle and George Eliot. Neither of these great writers
was orthodox. Carlyle was a Freethinker to the extent of discarding
Christian supernaturalism. Very early in his life he told Edward Irving
that he did not, nor was it likely he ever would, regard Christianity as
he did. We all remember, too, his scornful references to Hebrew Old
Clothes, and his fierce diatribes against the clergy who, he said, went
about with strange gear on their heads, and underneath it such a theory of
the universe as he, for one, was thankful to have no concern with. In the
"Latter-Day Pamphlets" he likened Christianity to a great tree, sprung
from the seed of Nazareth, and since fed by the opulences of fifty
generations; which now is perishing at the root, and sways to and fro ever
farther and farther from the perpendicular; and which in the end must come
down, and leave to those who found shelter beneath it and thought it
infinite, a wholesome view of the upper eternal lights. And his contempt
for controversial or dogmatic theology may be gauged by his reply to one
who asked him whether he was a Pantheist. "No," said Carlyle, "never was;
nor a Pot-Theist either."
George Eliot was notoriously a Freethinker. Early in her literary career
she translated Strauss and Feuerback into English, and through all her
novels there runs a profound Secular spirit. Among her friends she was
well known to be a Positivist; and though her creed held forth no promise
of personal life beyond the grave, she found inspiration and comfort in
the thought that Humanity would advance after she was gone, that though
she died the race was practically immortal. Her mind was thoroughly imbued
with the scientific spirit, and her writings give some conception of the
way in which the Evolution theory affected a mind, fortified by culture
and abundant common sense against the crudities of enthusiasm. The
doctrine of Evolution did not fill her with despair; on the contrary, it
justified and strengthened her ardent hopes for the future of mankind.
Many other novelists betray a strong spirit of Freethought.
It pervades all George Meredith's later writings, and is still more
conspicuous in Mrs. Lynn Linton's "True History of Joshua Davidson" and
her powerful "Under which Lord?" the hero-husband of that story being an
Agnostic gentleman who founds a workmen's institute and delivers
Freethought lectures in it.
Almost all the young school of poets are Freethinkers. Browning, our
greatest, and Tennyson, our most popular, belong to a generation that is
past. Mr. Swinburne is at the head of the new school, and he is a
notorious heretic. He never sings more loftily, or with stronger passion,
or with finer thought, than when he arraigns and denounces priestcraft and
its superstitions before the bar of humanity and truth.
The reception of Mr. Thomsons poems and essays affords another sign of the
progress of Freethought. This gentleman for many years contributed to
secular journals under the initials of "B. V." He is a pronounced Atheist,
and makes no concealment of it in his poems. Yet, while a few critics have
expressed horror at his heresy, the majority have treated it as extremely
natural in an educated thoughtful man, and confined themselves to the task
of estimating the genius he has put into his work.
I must now draw to a close. Freethought, I hold, is an omnipresent active
force in the English literature of to-day. It appears alike in the
greatest works of scholarship, in the writings of men of science, in the
songs of poets, in the productions of novelists, in the most respectable
magazines, and in the multitudinous daily press. It is urgent and
aggressive, and tolerates no restraint. It indicates the progress we have
made towards that time when the mind of man shall play freely on every
subject, when no question shall be thought too sacred to be investigated,
when reason shall be the sovereign arbiter of all disputes, when priestly
authority shall have perished, when every man's thought shall decide his
own belief, and his conscience determine the way in which he shall walk.
(August, 1880.)
At one of Charles Lamb's delightful Wednesday evenings Coleridge had, as
usual, consumed more than his fair share of time in talking of some
"regenerated" orthodoxy. Leigh Hunt, who was one of the listeners,
manifested his surprise at the prodigality and intensity of the poet's
religious expressions, and especially at his always speaking of Jesus as
"our Savior." Whereupon Lamb, slightly exhilarated by a glass of
gooseberry cordial, stammered out,﹃Ne—ne—never mind what
Coleridge says; he's full of fun.﹄This jocular and irreverent criticism
is perhaps, after all, the most pertinent that can be passed on the
utterances of this school of "regenerated orthodoxy." Coleridge, who had
unbounded genius, and was intellectually capable of transforming British
philosophy, went on year after year maundering about his "sumject" and
"omject," mysteriously alluding to his great projected work on the Logos,
and assuring everybody that he knew a way of bringing all ascertained
truth within the dogmas of the Church of England. His pupil, Maurice,
wasted a noble intellect (as Mill says, few of his contemporaries had so
much intellect to waste) in the endeavor to demonstrate that the
Thirty-Nine Articles really anticipated all the extremest conclusions of
modern thought; afflicting himself perpetually, as has been well said,
with those "forty stripes save one." And now we have Dean Stanley,
certainly a much smaller man than Maurice, and infinitely smaller than
Coleridge, continuing the traditions of the school, of which let us hope
he will be the last teacher. What his theology precisely is no mortal can
determine. He subscribes the doctrines of the Church of England, but then
he interprets them in an esoteric sense; that is, of course, in a
Stanleyan sense; for when the letter of doctrine is left for its occult
meaning every man "runs" a private interpretation of his own. The Nineteenth
Century for August contains a characteristic specimen of his exegesis.
It is entitled "The Creed of the Early Christians," but is really a sermon
on the Trinity, which doubtless has been preached at Westminster. We shall
examine its peculiarities and try to reach its meaning; a task by no means
easy, and one which we could pardon anyone for putting aside with Lamb's
remark, "It's only his fun."
Dean Stanley has a new theory of the Trinity, partly deduced from other
mystics, and partly constructed on the plan of the negro who explained
that his wooden doll was made "all by myself, out of my own head." God the
Father, in this as in other theories, comes first: not that he is older or
greater than the other persons, for they are all three coequal and
coëternal; but because you must have a first for the sake of enumeration,
or else the most blessed Trinity would be like the Irishman's little pig
who ran about so that there was no counting him. There is also another
reason. God the Father corresponds to Natural Religion, which of
course has priority in the religious development of mankind; coming before
Revealed Religion, to which God the Son corresponds, and still more
before Spiritual Religion to which corresponds the Holy Ghost.
"We look round the physical world; we see indications of order, design,
and good will towards the living creatures which animate it. Often, it
is true, we cannot trace any such design; but, whenever we can, the
impression upon us is the sense of a Single, Wise, Beneficent Mind, the
same now that it was ages before the appearance of man—the same in
other parts of the Universe as it is in our own. And in our own hearts and
consciences we feel an instinct corresponding to this—a voice, a
faculty, that seems to refer us to a higher power than ourselves, and to
point to some Invisible Sovereign Will, like to that which we see
impressed on the natural world. And further, the more we think of the
Supreme, the more we try to imagine what his feelings are towards us, the
more our idea of him becomes fixed as in the one simple, all-embracing
word that he is Our Father."
The words we have italicised say that design cannot always be
traced in nature. We should like to know where it can ever be.
Evolution shows that the design argument puts the cart before the horse.
Natural Selection, as Dr. Schmidt appositely remarks, accounts for
adaptation as a result without requiring the supposition of design
as a cause. And if you cannot deduce God from the animate world,
you are not likely to deduce him from the inanimate. Dean Stanley himself
quotes some remarkable words from Dr. Newman's Apologia—"The
being of a god is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence.
Yet when I look out of myself into the world of men, I see a sight which
fills me with unspeakable distress. The world of men seems simply to
give the lie to that great truth of which my whole being is so full.
If I looked into a mirror and did not see my face, I should experience the
same sort of difficulty that actually comes upon me when I look into
this living busy world and see no reflection of its Creator." How,
asks the Dean, is this difficulty to be met? Oh, he replies, | we must
turn to God the Son in the person of Jesus Christ, and his utterances will
supplement and correct the uncertain sounds of nature; and then there is
the Holy Ghost to finally supply all omissions, and clear up all
difficulties. Now to our mind this is simply intellectual thimble-rigging.
Or rather does it not suggest the three-card trick? One card is useless,
two cards are unsafe, but with three cards to shuffle you are almost sure
to win. Dr. Newman gets his God through intuition; he maintains that the
existence of God is a primary fact of consciousness, and entirely declines
the impossible task of proving it from the phænomena of nature. Dean
Stanley should do the same. It is not honest to employ an argument and
then shirk all the difficulties it raises by resorting to the theological
three-card trick, which confounds instead of satisfying the spectator,
while emptying his mental pockets of the good cash of common sense.
The Dean's treatment of God the Son is amusing. He writes of Jesus Christ
as though he were a principle instead of a person. "The Mahometan," he
says,﹃rightly objects to the introduction of the paternal and
filial relations into the idea of God, when they are interpreted in the gross
and literal sense. But in the moral spiritual sense it is true that
the kindness, tenderness and wisdom we find in Jesus Christ is the
reflection of the same kindness, tenderness and wisdom which we recognise
in the governance of the universe.﹄This may be called mysticism, but we
think it moonshine. Gross and literal sense, forsooth! Why, was not Jesus
Christ a man, a most literal fact, "gross as a mountain, open, palpable?"
Dean Stanley approves the Mahometan's objection, and yet he knows full
well that it contravenes a fundamental dogma of the Christian Church, and
is accounted a most damnable heresy. Why this paltering with us in a
double sense? To our mind downright blatant orthodoxy, which is at least
honest if not subtle, is preferable to this hybrid theology which attempts
to reconcile contradictions in order to show respect to truth while
sticking to the flesh-pots of error, and evades all difficulties by a
patent and patently dishonest method of "interpretation."
Quoting Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister," Dean Stanley tells us that one great
benefit traceable to God the Son is the recognition of "humility and
poverty, mockery and despising, wretchedness and suffering, as divine."
Well, if these things are divine, the sooner we all become devilish the
better. Nobody thinks them divine when they happen to himself; on the
contrary, he cries out lustily against them. But it is a different matter
when they happen to others. Then the good Christian considers them divine.
How easily, says a French wit, we bear other people's troubles!
Undistracted by personal care, pious souls contemplate with serene
resignation the suffering of their neighbors, and acknowledge in them the
chastening hand of a Divine Father.
God the Holy Ghost represents Spiritual religion: the Father
represents God in Nature, the Son represents God in History, and "the Holy
Ghost represents to us God in our own hearts and spirits and consciences."
Here be truths! An illustration is given. Theodore Parker, when a boy,
took up a stone to throw at a tortoise in a pond, but felt himself
restrained by something within him; and that something, as his mother told
him, was the voice of God, or in other words the Holy Ghost. Now if the
Holy Ghost is required to account for every kind impulse of boys and men,
there is required also an Unholy Ghost to account for all our unkind
impulses. That is, a place in theology must be found for the Devil. The
equilateral triangle of theology must be turned into a square, with Old
Nick for the fourth side. But Dean Stanley does not like the Devil; he
deems him not quite respectable enough for polite society. Let him, then,
give up the Holy Ghost too, for the one is the correlative of the other.
"It may be," says the Dean, after interpreting the Trinity, "that the
Biblical words in some respects fall short of this high signification."
What, God's own language inferior to that of the Dean of Westminster?
Surely this is strange arrogance, unless after all "it's only his fun."
Perhaps that is how we should take it. Referring to some sacred pictures
in the old churches of the East on Mount Athos, intended to represent the
doctrine of the Trinity, the Dean says that standing on one side the
spectator sees only Christ on the Cross, standing on the other he sees
only the Holy Dove, while standing in front he sees only the Eternal
Father. Very admirable, no doubt. But there is a more admirable picture
described by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his "Study of Sociology," which
graphically represents the doctrine of the Trinity in the guise of three
persons trying to stand in one pair of boots!
Goethe is cited as a Christian, a believer in the Trinity. Doubtless the
Dean forgets his bitter epigram to the effect that he found four things
too hard to put up with, and as hateful as poison and serpents; namely,
tobacco, garlic, bugs, and the Cross. Heine also is pressed into
service, and an excellent prose translation of one of his poems is given,
wherein he celebrates the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God. But Dean Stanley
has read his Heine to little purpose if he imagines that this radiant and
splendid soldier of progress meant by the Spirit of God the third person
of the Christian Trinity. Heine was no Christian, and the very opposite of
a theologian. We might translate passages of scathing irony on the ascetic
creed of the Cross from the De L'Allemagne, but space does not
admit. A few of Heine's last words must do instead. To Adolph Stahr he
said:﹃For the man in good health Christianity is an unserviceable
religion, with its resignation and one-sided precepts. For the sick man,
however, I assure you it is a very good religion.﹄To Alfred Meissner:
﹃When health is used up, money used up, and sound human sense used up,
Christianity begins.﹄Once, while lying on his mattress-grave, he said
with a sigh:﹃If I could even get out on crutches, do you know whither I
would go? Straight to church.﹄And when his hearer looked incredulous, he
added:﹃Most decidedly to church. Where else should one go with
crutches?﹄Such exquisite and mordant irony is strange indeed in a
defender of the holy and blessed Trinity.
Dean Stanley's peroration runs thus:—"Wherever we are taught to know
and understand the real nature of the world in which our lot is cast,
there is a testimony, however humble, to the name of the Father; wherever
we are taught to know and admire the highest and best of human excellence,
there is a testimony to the name of the Son: wherever there is implanted
in us a presence of freedom, purity and love, there is a testimony to the
name of the Holy Ghost." Very fine, no doubt; also very soporific. One is
inclined to mutter a sleepy Amen. If this passage means anything at all it
implies that all who know truth, admire excellence, and have any share in
freedom and virtue, are testators to the names of Father, Son and Holy
Ghost; so that many Atheists are Trinitarians without knowing it.﹃In
Christianity,﹄says the Dean,﹃no thing is of real concern except that
which makes us wiser and better.﹄That is precisely what the sceptic says,
yet for that coroners reject his service on juries, and rowdy Christians
try to keep him out of Parliament when he has a legal right to enter. But
the Dean adds:﹃Everything which does make us wiser and better is the very
thing which Christianity intends.﹄That is, Christianity means just what
you like to find in it. How can a man of Dean Stanley's eminence and
ability write such dishonest trash? Must we charitably, though with a
touch of sarcasm, repeat Lamb's words of Coleridge—"Never mind; it's
only his fun?"
(March, 1882.)
The Queen is now safely lodged at Mentone. Although-the political outlook
is not very bright, there is pretty sure to be a good solid majority to
vote a dowry for Prince Leopold's bride; and so long as royalty is safe it
does not much matter what becomes of the people. That dreadful Bradlaugh
is gagged; hecannot open his mouth in the House of Commons against
perpetual pensions or royal grants. The interests of monarchy are in no
immediate peril, and so the Queen is off to Mentone.
Now she is gone, and the loyal hubbub has subsided, it is just the time to
consider her late "providential escape" from the bullet which was never
fired at her.
What is the meaning of providential? God does all or nothing. There
is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow, as well as in the fall
of empires. In that case everything is providential. But this is
not the ordinary view. When a railway accident occurs those who do not
come to grief ascribe their preservation to Providence. Who then is
responsible for the fate of those who perish? Centuries ago Christians
would have answered, "the Devil." Now they give no answer at all, but
treat the question as frivolous or profane.
Thomas Cooper, in his Autobiography, says that the perfecting touch
was given to his conversion by an interposition of God. During a
collision, the carriage in which he sat was lifted clean on to another
line of rails, and thus escaped the fate of the other carriages, which
were broken to pieces. Pious Thomas recognised at once the finger of God,
and he there and then fell on his knees and offered up a thanksgiving. He
was too vain to carry his argument out to its logical end. Why did the
Lord protect him, and not his fellow-travellers? Was he of more importance
than any of the others? And why, if it was right to thank God for saving
Thomas Cooper, would it be wrong to curse him for smashing all the rest?
This superstition of Providence is dying out. Common people are gradually
being left to the laws of Nature. If a workhouse were to catch on fire, no
one would speak of those who escaped the flames as providentially saved.
God does not look after the welfare of paupers; nor is it likely that he
would pluck a charwoman's brat out of the fire if it tumbled in during her
absence. Such interpositions are absurd. But with kings, queens, princes,
princesses, and big nobs in general, the case is different. God looks
after the quality. He stretches forth his hand to save them from danger,
from the pestilence that walketh by day and the terror that walketh by
night. And his worshippers take just the same view of the "swells." When
the Queen came to London, a few weeks ago, one of her mounted attendants
was thrown and badly hurt; and the next day one of the loyal Tory papers
reported that her Majesty had completely recovered from the accident to
her outrider!
But if the Lord overlooks the great ones of the earth, why is he not
impartial? He did not turn aside Guiteau's bullet, nor did he answer the
prayers of a whole nation on its knees. President Garfield was allowed to
die after a long agony. Poor Mrs. Garfield believed up to the very last
minute that God would interpose and save her husband. But he never did.
Why was he so indifferent in this case? Was it because Garfield was a
President instead of a King, the elected leader of free men instead of the
hereditary ruler of political slaves? Informer Newdegate would say so. In
his opinion God Almighty hates Republicans. Yet the Bible clearly shows
that the Lord is opposed to monarchy. He gave his chosen people a king as
a punishment, after plainly telling them what an evil they had sought; and
there is perhaps a covert irony in the story of Saul, the son of Kish, who
went to seek his father's asses and found instead a nation of subjects—two-legged
asses, who begged him to mount them and ride.
Take another case. Why did God permit the Nihilists to assassinate the
late Czar of Russia? All their previous plots had failed. Why was the last
plot allowed to succeed? There is only one answer. God had nothing to do
with any of them, and the last succeeded because it was better devised and
more carefully executed. If God protected the Czar against their former
attempts, they were too many for him in the end; that is, they defeated
Omnipotence—an absurdity too flagrant for any sane man to believe.
Why should God care for princes more than for peasants, for queens more
than for washerwomen? There is no difference in their compositions; they
are all made of the same flesh and blood. The very book these loyal
gushers call the Word of God declares that he is no respecter of persons.
What are the distinctions of rank and wealth? Mere nothings. Look down
from an altitude of a thousand feet, and an emperor and his subjects shall
appear equally small; and what are even a thousand feet in the infinite
universe? Nay, strip them of all their fictions of dress; reduce them to
the same condition of featherless bipeds; and you shall find the forms of
strength or beauty, and the power of brain, impartially distributed by
Nature, who is the truest democrat, who raises her Shakespeares from the
lowest strata of society, and laughs to scorn the pride of palaces and
thrones.
Providence is an absurdity, a superstitious relic of the ignorant past.
Sensible men disbelieve it, and scientists laugh it to scorn. Our very
moral sense revolts against it. Why should God help a few of his children
and neglect all the others? Explosions happen in mines, and scores of
honest industrious men, doing the rough work of the world and winning
bread for wife and child, are blown to atoms or hurled into shapeless
death. God does not help them, and tears moisten the dry bread of
half-starved widows and orphans. Sailors on the mighty deep go down with
uplifted hands, or slowly gaze their life away on the merciless heavens.
The mother bends over her dying child, the first flower of her wedded
love, the sweetest hope of her life. She is rigid with despair, and in her
hot tearless eyes there dwells a dumb misery that would touch a heart of
stone. But God does not help, the death-curtain falls, and darkness reigns
where all was light.
Who has the audacity to say that the God who will not aid a mother in the
death-chamber shelters the Queen upon her throne? It is an insult to
reason and a ghastly mockery of justice. The impartiality of Nature is
better than the mercy of such a God.
(April, 1882.)
Cardinal Newman is perhaps the only Catholic in England worth listening
to. He has immured his intellect in the catacombs of the Romish Church,
but he has not been able to quench it, and even there it radiates a
splendor through the gloom. His saintly character is as indubitable as the
subtlety of his mind, and no vicissitude has impaired the charm of his
style, which is pure and perfect as an exquisite and flawless diamond;
serene and chaste in its usual mood, but scintillating gloriously in the
light of his imagination.
On Sunday last Cardinal Newman preached a sermon at the Oratory in
Birmingham on "Modern Infidelity." Unfortunately we have not a full
report, from which we might be able to extract some notable passages, but
only a newspaper summary. Even this, however, shows some points of
interest.
Cardinal Newman told his hearers that﹃a great storm of infidelity and
irreligion was at hand,﹄and that﹃some dreadful spiritual catastrophe was
coming upon them.﹄We quite agree with the great preacher; but every storm
is not an evil, and every catastrophe is not a disaster. The revolutionary
storm in France cleared the air of much pestilence. It dissipated as by
enchantment the horrible cloud of tyranny, persecution and want, which had
for centuries hovered over the land. And certainly, to go back a stage
farther in history, the Reformation was not a misfortune, although it
looked like a "spiritual catastrophe" to a great many amiable people. The
truth is, Revolutions must occur in this world, both in thought and in
action. They may happen slowly, so that we may accommodate ourselves to
them; or rapidly, and so disturb and injure whole generations.
But come they must, and no power can hinder them; not even that once
mighty Church which has always striven to bind Humanity to the past with
adamantine chains of dogma. In Cardinal Newman's own words, from perhaps
his greatest and most characteristic book,—"here below to live is to
change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."
We cannot say that Cardinal Newman indicates how humanity will suffer from
the "coming storm of infidelity and irreligion." He does, indeed, refer to
the awful state of a people forsaken by God, but in our humble opinion
this is somewhat ludicrous. We can hardly understand how God can forsake
his own creatures. Why all this pother if he really exists? In that case
our scepticism cannot affect him, any more than a man's blindness obscures
the sun. And surely, if Omnipotence desired us all to believe the truth,
the means are ready to hand. The God who said, Let there be light, and
there was light, could as easily say, Let all men be Christians, and they
would be Christians. If God had spoken the universe would be convinced;
and the fact that it is not convinced proves, either that he does not
exist, or that he purposely keeps silent, and desires that we should mind
our own business.
The only tangible evil Cardinal Newman ventures to indicate is the
"indignity which at this moment has come over the Holy Father at Rome." He
declares, as to the Pope, that﹃there hardly seems a place in the whole of
Europe where he could put his foot.﹄The Catholics are carrying this
pretence of a captive Pope a trifle too far. His Holiness must have a
tremendous foot if he cannot put it fairly down on the floor of the
Vatican. He and his Cardinals really wail over their loss of temporal
power. It would be wiser and nobler to reconcile themselves to the
inevitable, and to end the nefarious diplomacy by which they are
continually striving to recover what is for ever lost. The whole world is
aware of the scandalous misrule and the flagrant immorality which, under
the government of the Papacy, made the Eternal City a byword and a
reproach. Under the secular government, Rome has made wonderful progress.
It has better streets, cleaner inhabitants, less fever and filth, and a
much smaller army of priests, beggars, and prostitutes. Catholics may rest
assured that the bad old times will never return. They may, of course,
promise a reformation of manners if the Holy Father's dominion is
restored, but the world will not believe them. Reforming the Papacy, as
Carlyle grimly said, is like tinkering a rusty old kettle. If you stop up
the holes of it with temporary putty, it may hang together for awhile; but
"begin to hammer at it, solder it, to what you call mend and rectify it,—it
will fall to shreds, as sure as rust is rust; go all into nameless
dissolution,—and the fat in the fire will be a thing worth looking
at, poor Pope!"
As a sincere Christian (a very rare thing, by the way, in these days),
Cardinal Newman is bound to lament the spread of infidelity. He is a keen
observer, and his word may be taken for the fact. A stormy time is
undoubtedly coming. Old creeds and institutions will have to give an
account of themselves, and nothing that cannot stand the test will live.
But truth will not suffer. Criticise the multiplication table as much as
you please, and twice two will still be four. In the storm and stress of
controversy what is true and solid will survive; only the hollow shams of
authority and superstition will collapse. Humanity has nothing to fear,
however the Churches may groan.
(May, 1882.)
Last Sunday the myriads of Paris turned out to the Chantilly races. The
sun shone brilliantly, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Yet there
was no drunkenness or disorder; on the contrary, the multitude behaved
with such decorum, that one English correspondent said it would not have
appeared strange if a bishop had stepped forward in full canonicals to
give them his benediction.
Why cannot Englishmen enjoy their Sunday's leisure like the French?
Because we are still under the bondage of Puritanism; because our
religious dress is nothing but Hebrew Old Clothes; because we follow Moses
instead of Jesus; because we believe that man was made for the Sabbath,
instead of the Sabbath for man; because, in short, there are in England a
lot of sour Christians who play the dog in the manger, and will neither
enjoy themselves on Sunday nor let anyone else. They often prate about
liberty, but they understand it as the Yankee did, who defined it as the
right to do as he pleased and the right to make everybody else do so too.
Let us all be unhappy on Sunday, is the burden of their song. Now, we have
no objection to their being miserable, if they desire it, on that or any
other day. This is supposed to be a free country; you decide to be
wretched and you select your own time for the treat. But you have no right
to interfere with your neighbors. This, however, is what the Christians,
with their customary "cheek," will insist on doing. They like going to the
church and the public-house on Sunday, and those establishments are
permitted to open; they have no wish to go elsewhere, and so they keep all
other establishments closed. This is mere impudence. Let them go where
they choose, and allow the same freedom to other people. Those who
advocate a free Sunday ask for no favor; they demand justice. They do not
propose to compel any Christian to enter a museum, a library, or an art
gallery; they simply claim the right to go in themselves.
The denial of that right is a violation of liberty, which every free man
is bound to resent.
This country is said to be civilised. To a certain extent it is, but all
our civilisation has been won against Christianity and its brutal laws.
Our toiling masses, in factory, mine, shop, and counting-house, have one
day of leisure in the week. Rightly considered it is of infinite value. It
is a splendid breathing-time. We cast off the storm and stress of life,
fling aside the fierce passion of gain, and let the spirit of humanity
throb in our pulses and stream from our eyes. Our fellow man is no longer
a rival, but a brother. His gain is not our loss. We enrich each other by
the noble give-and-take of fellowship, and feel what it really is to live.
Yet our Christian legislature tries its utmost to spoil the boon. It
cannot prevent us from visiting each other, or walking as far as our legs
will carry us; but almost everything else is tabooed. Go to church, it
says. Millions answer, We are sick of going; we have heard the same old
story until it is unspeakably stale, and many of the sermons have been so
frequently repeated that we suspect they were bought by the dozen. Then it
says, Go to the public-house. But a huge multitude answer, We don't want
to go there either, except for a minute to quench our thirst; we have no
wish for spirituous any more than spiritual intoxication; we desire some
other alternative than gospel or gin. Then our Christian legislature
answers, You are discontented fools. It crushes down their better
aspirations, and condemns them to a wearisome inactivity.
Go through London, the metropolis of the world, as we call it, on a
Sunday. How utterly dreary it is! The shutters are all up before the gay
shop-windows. You pace mile after mile of streets, with sombre houses on
either hand as though tenanted by the dead. You stand in front of the
British Museum, and it looks as if it had been closed since the date of
the mummies inside. You yearn to walk through its galleries, to gaze on
the relics of antiquity, to inspect the memorials of the dead, to feel the
subtle links that bind together the past and the present and make one
great family of countless generations of men. But you must wander away
disappointed and dejected. You repair to the National Gallery. You long to
behold the masterpieces of art, to have your imagination quickened and
thrilled by the glories of form and color, to look once more on some
favorite picture which touches your nature to its finest issues. But again
you are foiled. You desire to visit a library, full of books you cannot
buy, and there commune with the great minds who have left their thoughts
to posterity. But you are frustrated again. You are cheated out of your
natural right, and treated less like a man than a dog.
This Christian legislature has much to answer for. Drunkenness is our
great national vice. And how is it to be overcome? Preaching will not do
it. Give Englishmen a chance, furnish them with counter attractions, and
they will abjure intoxication like their continental neighbors. Elevate
their tastes, and they will feel superior to the vulgar temptation of
drink. Every other method has been tried and has failed; this is the only
method that promises success.
Fortunately the Sunday question is growing. Christian tyranny is evidently
doomed. Mr. Howard's motion for the opening of public museums and art
galleries, although defeated, received the support of eighty-five members
of Parliament. That minority will increase again next year, and in time it
will become a majority. Mr. Broadhurst, for some peculiar reason, voted
against it, but we imagine he will some day repent of his action. The
working-classes are fools if they listen to the idle talk about Sunday
labor, with which the Tories and bigots try to bamboozle them. The opening
of public institutions on Sunday would not necessitate a hundredth part of
the labor already employed in keeping open places of worship, and driving
rich people to and fro. All the nonsense about the thin end of the wedge
is simply dust thrown into their eyes. The very people who vote against
Sunday freedom under a pretence of opposing Sunday labor, keep their own
servants at work and visit the "Zoo" in the afternoon, where they
doubtless chuckle over the credulity of the lower orders. Christian
tyranny unites with Tory oppression to debase and enslave the people. It
is time that both were imperiously stopped. The upper classes wish to keep
us ignorant, and parsons naturally want everybody else's shutters up when
they open shop. We ought to see through the swindle. Let us check their
impudence, laugh at their hypocrisy, and rescue our Sunday from their
hands.
(June, 1882.)
Atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot
commit. God is to them merely a word, expressing all sorts of ideas, and
not a person. It is, properly speaking, a general term, which includes all
that there is in common among the various deities of the world. The idea
of the supernatural embodies itself in a thousand ways. Truth is always
simple and the same, but error is infinitely diverse. Jupiter, Jehovah and
Mumbo-Jumbo are alike creations of human fancy, the products of ignorance
and wonder. Which is the God is not yet settled. When the sects
have decided this point, the question may take a fresh turn; but until
then god must be considered as a generic term, like tree or
horse or men; with just this difference, however, that while the words
tree, horse and man express the general qualities of visible objects, the
word god expresses only the imagined qualities of something that nobody
has ever seen.
When the Atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not
dealing with persons but with ideas. He is incapable of insulting God, for
he does not admit the existence of any such being.
Ideas of god may be good or bad, beautiful or ugly; and according as he
finds them the Atheist treats them. If we lived in Turkey we should deal
with the god of the Koran, but as we live in England we deal with the god
of the Bible. We speak of that god as a being, just for convenience sake,
and not from conviction. At bottom, we admit nothing but the mass of
contradictory notions between Genesis and Revelation. We attack not a
person but a belief, not a being but an idea, not a fact but a fancy.
Lord Brougham long ago pointed out, in his "Life of Voltaire," that the
great French heretic was not guilty of blasphemy, as his enemies alleged;
since he had no belief in the actual existence of the god he dissected,
analysed and laughed at. Mr. Ruskin very eloquently defends Byron from the
same charge. In "Cain," and elsewhere, the great poet does not impeach
God; he merely impeaches the orthodox creed. We may sum up the whole
matter briefly. No man satirises the god he believes in, and no man
believes in the god he satirises.
We shall not, therefore, be deterred by the cry of "blasphemy," which is
exactly what the Jewish priests shouted against Jesus Christ. If there is
a God, he cannot be half so stupid and malignant as the Bible declares. In
destroying the counterfeit we do not harm the reality. And as it is
better, in the words of Plutarch, to have no notion of the gods than to
have notions which dishonor them, we are satisfied that the Lord (if he
exist) will never burn us in hell for denying a few lies told in his name.
The real blasphemers are those who believe in God and blacken his
character; who credit him with less knowledge than a child, and less
intelligence than an idiot; who make him quibble, deceive, and lie; who
represent him as indecent, cruel, and revengeful; who give him the heart
of a savage and the brain of a fool. These are the blasphemers.
When the priest steps between husband and wife, with the name of God on
his lips, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he resists education
and science, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes freedom
of thought and liberty of conscience, he blasphemes. When, in the name of
God, he robs, tortures, and kills those who differ from him, he
blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes the equal rights of all,
he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he preaches content to the poor
and oppressed, flatters the rich and powerful, and makes religious tyranny
the handmaiden of political privilege, he blasphemes. And when he takes
the Bible in his hand, and says it was written by the inspiration of God,
he blasphemes almost beyond forgiveness.
Who are the blasphemers? Not we who preach freedom and progress for all
men; but those who try to bind the world with chains of dogma, and to
burden it, in God's name, with all the foul superstitions of its ignorant
past.
(December, 1880.)
"The time draws near, the birth of Christ," as Tennyson sings in﹃In
Memoriam,﹄and the pious followers of the Nazarene will celebrate it with
wonted orgies of pleasure. The Incarnation will be pondered to the
accompaniment of roast beef, and the Atonement will play lambently around
the solid richness of plum-pudding. And thus will be illustrated the
biological truth that the stomach is the basis of everything, including
religion.
But while Christians comport themselves thus in presence of the subtlest
mysteries of faith, the Sceptic cannot be without his peculiar
reflections. He, of course, knows that the festal observance of this
season is far more ancient than Christianity; but he naturally wonders how
people, who imagine it to be a unique feature of their sublimely spiritual
creed, remain contented with its extremely sensual character. They profess
to believe that the fate of the whole human race was decided by the advent
of the Man of Sorrows; yet they commemorate that event by an unhealthy
consumption of the meat which perisheth, and a wild indulgence in the
frivolous pleasures of that carnal mind which is at enmity with God.
Astonished at such conduct, the Sceptic muses on the inconsistency of
mankind. He may also once more consider the circumstances of the birth of
Christ and its relation to the history of the modern world.
Jesus, called the Christ, is popularly supposed to have been of the seed
of David, from which it was promised that the Messiah should come. It is,
however, perfectly clear that he was in no-wise related to the man after
God's own heart His putative father, Joseph, admittedly had no share in
bringing him into the world; for he disdained the assistance of a father,
although he was unable to dispense with that of a mother. But Joseph, and
not Mary, according to the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, was the
distant blood relation of David; and therefore Jesus was not of the seed
of the royal house, but a bastard slip grafted on the ancient family-tree
by the Holy Ghost. It is a great pity that newspaper correspondents did
not exist in those days. Had Joseph been skilfully "interviewed," it is
highly probable that the world would have been initiated into his domestic
secrets, and enlightened as to the paternity of Mary's eldest son. The
Holy Ghost is rather too shadowy a personage to be the father of a lusty
boy, and no young lady would be credited in this age if she ascribed to
him the authorship of a child born out of wedlock. Most assuredly no
magistrate would make an order against him for its maintenance. Even a
father of the Spiritualist persuasion, who believed in what is grandly
called "the materialisation of spirit forms," would probably be more than
dubious if his daughter were to present him with a grandson whose father
lived on the other side of death and resided in a mansion not made with
hands. It is, we repeat, to be for ever regretted that poor Joseph has not
left his version of the affair. The Immaculate Conception might perhaps
have been cleared up, and theology relieved of a half-obscene mystery,
which has unfortunately perverted not a few minds.
The birth of Jesus was announced to "wise men from the East" by the
appearance of a singular star. Is not this a relic of astrology? Well does
Byron sing—
"Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven,
If in your bright beams we would read the fate
Of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar
That fortune, fame, power, life,
Have named themselves a star."
But this star was the most wonderful on record. It "went before" the wise
men, and "stood over where the young child was." Such an absurdity
could be related and credited only by people who conceived of the sky as a
solid vault, not far distant, wherein all the heavenly bodies were stuck.
The present writer once asked an exceedingly ignorant and simple man where
he thought he would alight if he dropped from the comet then in the sky.
"Oh," said he, naming the open space nearest his own residence,﹃somewhere
about Finsbury Circus.﹄That man's astronomical notions were very
imperfect, but they were quite as good as those of the person who
seriously wrote, and of the persons who seriously believe, this fairy tale
of the star which heralded the birth of Christ.
Luke's version of the episode differs widely from Matthew's. He makes no
reference to "wise men from the East," but simply says that certain
"shepherds" of the same country, who kept watch over their flock by night,
were visited by "the angel of the Lord," and told that they would find the
Savior, Christ the Lord, just born at Bethlehem, the City of David,
"wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." Luke does not, as is
generally supposed, represent Mary as confined in a stable because Joseph
was too poor to pay for decent accommodation, but because﹃there was no
room for them in the inn.﹄It is perfectly consistent with all the Gospel
references to Joseph's status to assume that he carried on a flourishing
business, and Jesus himself in later years might doubtless have earned a
good living in the concern if he had not deliberately preferred to lead
the life of a mendicant preacher. This, however, is by the way. Our point
is that Luke says nothing about the "star" or the﹃wise men from the
East,﹄who had an important interview with Herod himself; while Matthew
says nothing about the "manger" or the shepherds and their angelic
visitors. Surely these discrepancies on points so important, and as to
which there could be little mistake, are enough to throw discredit on the
whole story.
It is further noticeable that Luke is absolutely silent about Herod's
massacre of the innocents. What can we think of his reticence on such a
subject? Had the massacre occurred, it would have been widely known, and
the memory of so horrible a deed would have been vivid for generations.
Matthew, or whoever wrote the Gospel which bears his name, is open to
suspicion. His mind was distorted by an intense belief in prophecy, a
subject which, as old Bishop South said, either finds a man cracked or
leaves him so. After narrating the story of Herod's massacre, he adds:
"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy, the prophet, saying,"
etc. Now, he makes similar reference to prophecy no less than five times
in the first two chapters, and in each case we find that the "prophetical"
utterance referred to has not the faintest connexion with the incident
related.
Besides, a man who writes history with one eye on his own period, and the
other on a period centuries anterior is not likely to be veracious,
however earnestly he may intend to. There is an early tradition, which is
as strong as any statement about the history of the Primitive Church, that
Matthew's Gospel was originally written in Hebrew; and it has been
supposed that the writer gratuitously threw in these references to Jeremy
and others, in order to please the Jews, who were extremely fond of
prophecy. But this supposition is equally fatal to his credibility as an
historian. In any case, the Evangelists differ so widely on matters of
such interest and importance that we are constrained to discredit their
story. It is evidently, as scholarship reveals, a fairy tale, which slowly
gathered round the memory of Jesus after his death. Some of its elements
were creations of his disciples' fancy, but others were borrowed from the
mythology of more ancient creeds.
Yet this fairy tale is accepted by hundreds of millions of men as
veritable history. It is incorporated into the foundation of Christianity,
and every year at this season its incidents are joyously commemorated. How
slowly the world of intelligence moves! But let us not despair. Science
and scholarship have already done much to sap belief in this supernatural
religion, and we may trust them to do still more. They will ultimately
destroy its authority by refuting its pretensions, and compel it to take
its place among the general multitude of historic faiths.
If Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Deliverer, why is the world
still so full of sin and misery? The Redeemer has come, say the
Christians. Yes, we reply, but when will come the redemption?
Apostrophising Jesus in his lines "Before a Crucifix," Mr. Swinburne
reminds him that﹃the nineteenth wave of the ages rolls now usward since
thy birth began,﹄and then inquires:—
"Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls,
Or are there less oppressions done
In this wide world under the sun?"
Only a negative answer can be given. Christ has in no wise redeemed the
world. He was no god of power, but a weak fallible man like ourselves; and
his cry of despair on the cross might now be repeated with tenfold force.
The older myth of Prometheus is truer and more inspiring than the myth of
Christ. If there be gods, they have never yielded man aught of their
grace. All his possessions have been cunningly, patiently, and valorously
extorted from the powers that be, even as Prometheus filched the fire from
heaven. In that realm of mythology, whereto all religions will eventually
be consigned, Jesus will dwindle beneath Prometheus. One is feminine, and
typifies resigned submission to a supernatural will; the other is
masculine, and typifies that insurgent audacity of heart and head, which
has wrested a kingdom of science from the vast empire of nescience, and
strewed the world with the wrecks of theological power.
(January, 1880.)
Christmas and Easter are fruitful in panegyrics on Jesus and the religion
which fraudulently bears his name. On these occasions, not only the
religious but even the secular newspapers give the rein to their rhetoric
and imagination, and indulge in much fervid eloquence on the birth or the
crucifixion of the Nazarene. Time-honored platitudes are brought out from
their resting-places and dexterously moved to a well-known tune; and
fallacies which have been refuted ad nauseam are paraded afresh as
though their logical purity were still beyond suspicion. Papers that
differ on all other occasions and on all other subjects concur then, and
"when they do agree their unanimity is wonderful." While the more sober
and orthodox discourse in tones befitting their dignity and repute, the
more profane riotously join in the chorus; and not to be behind the rest,
the notoriously misbelieving Greatest Circulator orders from the profanest
member of its staff "a rousing article on the Crucifixion," or on the
birth of Jesus, as the case may be. All this, however, is of small
account, except as an indication of the slavery of our "independent"
journals to Bumble and his prejudices, before whom they are obliged to
masquerade when he ordains a celebration of his social or religious rites.
But here and there a more serious voice is heard through the din, with an
accent of earnest veracity, and not that of an actor playing a part. Such
a voice may be worth listening to, and certainly no other can be. Let us
hear the Rev. J. Baldwin Brown on "The Reign of Christ." He is, I believe,
honorably distinguished among Dissenters; his sermons often bear marks of
originality; and the goodness of his heart, whatever may be thought of the
strength of his head, is sufficiently attested by his emphatic revolt
against the doctrine of Eternal Torture in Hell.
Before criticising Mr. Brown's sermon in detail I cannot help remarking
that it is far too rhetorical and far too empty of argument.
Sentimentality is the bane of religion in our day; subservience to
popularity degrades the pulpit as it degrades the press. If we desire to
find the language of reason in theology, we must seek it in the writings
of such men as Newman, who contemplate the ignorant and passionate
multitude with mingled pity and disdain. The "advanced" school of
theologians, from Dean Stanley to the humblest reconciler of reason and
faith, are sentimentalists almost to a man; the reason being, I take it,
that although their emotional tendencies are very admirable, they lack the
intellectual consistency and rigor which impel others to stand on definite
first principles, as a sure basis of operation and an impregnable citadel
against attack. Mr. Brown belongs to this "advanced" school, and has a
liberal share of its failings. He is full of eloquent passages that lead
to nothing, and he excites expectations which are seldom if ever
satisfied. He faces stupendous obstacles raised by reason against his
creed, and just as we look to see him valiantly surmount them, we find
that he veils them from base to summit with a dense cloud of words, out of
which his voice is heard asking us to believe him on the other side. Yet
of all men professional students of the Bible should be freest from such a
fault, seeing what a magnificent masterpiece it is of terse and vigorous
simplicity. Mr. Brown and his "advanced" friends would do well to ponder
that quaint and pregnant aphorism of old Bishop Andrewes—"Waste
words addle questions." When I first read it I was thrown into
convulsions of laughter, and even now it tickles my risibility; but
despite its irresistible quaint-ness I cannot but regard it as one of the
wisest and pithiest sentences in our literature. Dr. Newman has splendidly
amplified it in a passage of his "University Sermons," which I
gratuitously present to Mr. Brown and every reader who can make use of it:—"Half
the controversies in the world are verbal ones; and could they be brought
to a plain issue, they would be brought to a prompt termination. Parties
engaged in them would then perceive, either that in substance they agreed
together, or that their difference was one of first principles. This is
the great object to be aimed at in the present age, though confessedly a
very arduous one. We need not dispute, we need not prove,—we need
but define. At all events, let us, if we can, do this first of all; and
then see who are left for us to dispute with, and what is left for us to
prove."
Mr. Brown's sermon on "The Reign of Christ" is preached from a verse of
St. Paul's first Epistle to Timothy, wherein Jesus is styled﹃The blessed
and only Potentate.﹄From this "inspired" statement he derives infinite
consolation. This, he admits, is far from being the best of all possible
worlds, for it is full of strife and cruelty, the wail of anguish and the
clamor of frenzy; but as Christ is "the blessed and only Potentate," moral
order will finally be evolved from the chaos and good be triumphant over
evil. Now the question arises: Who made the chaos and who is responsible
for the evil? Not Christ, of course: Mr. Brown will not allow that. Is it
the Devil then? Oh no! To say that would be blasphemy against God. He
admits, however, that the notion has largely prevailed, and has even been
formulated into religious creeds,﹃that a malignant spirit, a spirit who
loves cursing as God loves blessing, has a large and independent share in
the government of the world.﹄But, he adds,﹃in Christendom men dare not
say that they believe it, with the throne of the crucified and risen
Christ revealed in the Apocalypse to their gaze.﹄Ordinary people will rub
their eyes in sheer amazement at this cool assertion. Is it not plain that
Christians in all ages have believed in the power and subtlety of the
Devil as God's sleepless antagonist? Have they not held, and do they not
still hold, that he caused the Fall of Adam and Eve, and thus introduced
original sin, which was certain to infect the whole human race ever
afterwards until the end of time? Was not John Milton a Christian, and did
he not in his "Paradise Lost" develope all the phases of that portentous
competition between the celestial and infernal powers for the virtual
possession of this world and lordship over the destinies of our race? If
we accept Mr. Brown's statements we shall have to reverse history and
belie the evidence of our senses.
But who is responsible for the moral chaos and the existence of evil? That
is the question. If to say Christ is absurd, and to say the Devil
blasphemy, what alternative is left? The usual answer is: Man's freewill.
Christ as "the blessed and only Potentate" leaves us liberty of action,
and our own evil passions cause all the misery of our lives. But who gave
us our evil passions? To this question no answer is vouchsafed, and so we
are left exactly at the point from which we started. Yet Mr. Brown has a
very decided opinion as to the part these "evil passions" play in the
history cf mankind. He refers to them as﹃the Devil's brood of lust and
lies, and wrongs and hates, and murderous passion and insolent power,
which through all the ages of earth's sad history have made it liker hell
than heaven.﹄No Atheist could use stronger language. Mr. Brown even
believes that our "insurgent lusts and passions" are predetermining causes
of heresy, so that in respect both to faith and to works they achieve our
damnation. How then did we come by them? The Evolutionist frankly answers
the question without fear of blasphemy on the one hand or of moral despair
on the other. Mr. Brown is bound to give his answer after raising
the question so vividly. But he will not. He urges that it﹃presents
points of tremendous difficulty,﹄although﹃we shall unravel the mystery,
we shall solve the problems in God's good time.﹄Thus the solution of the
problem is to be postponed until we are dead, when it will no longer
interest us. However convenient this may be for the teachers of mystery,
it is most unsatisfactory to rationalists. Mr. Brown must also be reminded
that the "tremendous difficulties" he alludes to are all of his own
creation. There is no difficulty about any fact except in relation to some
theory. It is Mr. Brown's theory of the universe which creates the
difficulties. It does not account for all the facts of existence—nay,
it is logically contravened by the most conspicuous and persistent of
them. Instead of modifying or transforming his theory into accordance with
the facts, he rushes off with it into the cloud-land of faith. There let
him remain as he has a perfect right to. Our objection is neither to
reason nor to faith, but to a mischievous playing fast and loose with
both.
Mr. Brown opines that Christ will reign until all his enemies are under
his feet. And who are these enemies? Not the souls of men, says Mr. Brown,
for Christ "loves them with an infinite tenderness." This infinite
tenderness is clearly not allied to infinite power or the world's anguish
would long since have been appeased and extinguished, or never have been
permitted to exist at all. The real enemies of Christ are not the souls of
men, but "the hates and passions which torment them." Oh those hates and
passions! They are the dialectical balls with which Mr. Brown goes through
his performance in that circle of petitio principii so hated by all
logicians, the middle sphere of intellects too light for the solid earth
of fact and too gross for the aerial heaven of imagination.
It will be a fitting conclusion to present to Mr. Brown a very serious
matter which he has overlooked. Christ, "the blessed and only Potentate,"
came on earth and originated the universal religion nearly two thousand
years ago. Up to the present time three-fourths of the world's inhabitants
are outside its pale, and more than half of them have never heard it
preached. Amongst the quarter which nominally professes Christianity
disbelief is spreading more rapidly than the missionaries succeed in
converting the heathen; so that the reign of Christ is being restricted
instead of increased. To ask us, despite this, to believe that he is God,
and possessed of infinite power, is to ask us to believe a marvel compared
with which the wildest fables are credible, and the most extravagant
miracles but as dust in the balance.
(September, 1880.)
A bishop once twitted a curate with preaching indifferent orthodoxy.
"Well," answered the latter,﹃I don't see how you can expect me to be as
orthodox as yourself. I believe at the rate of a hundred a year, and you
at the rate of ten thousand.﹄In the spirit of this anecdote we should
expect an archbishop to be as orthodox as the frailty of human nature will
allow. A man who faithfully believes at the rate of fifteen thousand a
year should be able to swallow most things and stick at very little. And
there can be no doubt that the canny Scotchman who has climbed or wriggled
up to the Archbishopric of Canterbury is prepared to go any lengths his
salary may require. We suspect that he regards the doctrines of the Church
very much as did that irreverent youth mentioned by Sidney Smith, who, on
being asked to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, replied﹃Oh yes, forty if
you like.﹄The clean linen of his theology is immaculately pure. Never has
he fallen under a suspicion of entertaining dangerous or questionable
opinions, and he has in a remarkable degree that faculty praised by Saint
Paul of being all things to all men, or at least as many men as make a
lumping majority. What else could be expected from a Scotchman who has
mounted to the spiritual Primacy of England?
His Grace has recently been visiting the clergy and churchwardens of his
diocese and delivering what are called Charges to them. The third of these
was on the momentous subject of Modern Infidelity, which seems to have
greatly exercised his mind. This horrid influence is found to be very
prevalent, much to the disconcertion of his Grace, who felt constrained to
begin his Charge with expressions of despondency, and only recovered his
spirits towards the end, where he confidently relies on the gracious
promise of Christ never to forsake his darling church. Some of the
admissions he makes are worth recording—
"I can," he says, "have no doubt that the aspect of Christian society in
the present day is somewhat troubled, that the Church of Christ and the
faith of Christ are passing through a great trial in all regions of the
civilised world, and not least among ourselves. There are dark clouds on
the horizon already breaking, which may speedily burst into a violent
storm.... It is well to note in history how these two evils—superstition
and infidelity—act and react in strengthening each other. Still, I
cannot doubt that the most [? more] formidable of the two for us at
present is infidelity.... It is indeed a frightful thought that numbers of
our intelligent mechanics seem to be alienated from all religious
ordinances, that our Secularist halls are well filled, that there is an
active propagandism at work for shaking belief in all creeds."
These facts are of course patent, but it is something to get an Archbishop
to acknowledge them, His Grace also finds﹃from above, in the regions of
literature and art, efforts to degrade mankind by denying our high
original:﹄the high original being, we presume, a certain simple pair
called Adam and Eve, who damned themselves and nearly the whole of their
posterity by eating an apple six thousand years ago. The degradation of a
denial of this theory is hardly perceptible to untheological eyes. Most
candid minds would prefer to believe in Darwin rather than in Moses even
if the latter had, which he has not, a single leg to stand on. For the
theory of our Simian origin at least involves progression in the past and
perhaps salvation in the future of our race, while the "high original"
theory involved our retrogression and perdition. His grace wonders how
these persons can﹃confine their hopes and aspirations to a life which is
so irresistibly hastening to its speedy conclusion.﹄But surely he is
aware that they do so for the very simple reason that they know nothing of
any other life to hope about or aspire to. One bird in the hand is worth
twenty in the bush when the bush itself remains obstinately invisible, and
if properly cooked is worth all the dishes in the world filled only with
expectations. His grace likewise refers to the unequal distribution of
worldly goods, to the poverty and misery which exist﹃notwithstanding all
attempts to regenerate society by specious schemes of socialistic
reorganisation.﹄It is, of course, very natural that an archbishop in the
enjoyment of a vast income should stigmatise these "specious schemes" for
distributing more equitably the good things of this world; but the words
"blessed be ye poor" go ill to the tune of fifteen thousand a year, and
there is a grim irony in the fact that palaces are tenanted by men who
profess to represent and preach the gospel of him who had not where to lay
his head. Modern Christianity has been called a civilised heathenism; with
no less justice it might be called an organised hypocrisy.
After a dolorous complaint as to the magazines﹃lying everywhere for the
use of our sons and daughters,﹄in which the doctrines both of natural and
of revealed religion are assailed, the Archbishop proceeds to deal with
the first great form of infidelity, namely Agnosticism. With a feeble
attempt at wit he remarks that the name itself implies a confession of
ignorance, which he marvels to find unaccompanied by﹃the logical result
of a philosophical humility.﹄A fair account of the Agnostic position is
then given, after which it is severely observed that﹃the better feelings
of man contradict these sophisms.﹄In proof of this, his Grace cites the
fact that in Paris, the "stronghold of Atheistical philosophy," the number
of burials that take place without religious rites is﹃a scarcely
appreciable percentage.﹄We suspect the accuracy of this statement, but
having no statistics on the subject by us, we are not prepared to dispute
it. We will assume its truth; but the important question then arises—What
kind of persons are those who dispense with the rites of religion?
Notoriously they are men of the highest intellect and character, whose
quality far outweighs the quantity of the other side. They are the leaders
of action and thought, and what they think and do to-day will be thought
and done by the masses to-morrow. When a man like Gambetta, occupying such
a high position and wielding such immense influence, invariably declines
to enter a church, whether he attends the marriage or the funeral of his
friends, we are entitled to say that his example on our side is infinitely
more important than the practice of millions who are creatures of habit
and for the most part blind followers of tradition. The Archbishop's
argument tells against his own position, and the fact he cites, when
closely examined, proves more for our side than he thought it proved for
his own.
Atheism is disrelished by his Grace even more than Agnosticism. His
favorite epithet for it is "dogmatic." "Surely," he cries,﹃the boasted
enlightenment of this century will never tolerate the gross ignorance and
arrogant self-conceit which presumes to dogmatise as to things confessedly
beyond its ken.﹄Quite so; but that is what the theologians are
perpetually doing. To use Matthew Arnold's happy expression, they talk
familiarly about God as though he were a man living in the next street.
The Atheist and the Agnostic confess their inability to fathom the
universe and profess doubts as to the ability of others. Yet they are
called dogmatic, arrogant, and self-conceited. On the other hand, the
theologians claim the power of seeing through nature up to nature's
God. Yet they, forsooth, must be accounted modest, humble, and retiring.
"O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"
These abominable Atheists are by no means scarce, for, says his Grace,
"practical Atheists we have everywhere, if Atheism be the denial of God."
Just so; that is precisely what we "infidels" have been saying for years.
Christianity is utterly alien to the life of modern society, and in
flagrant contradiction to the spirit of our secular progress. It stands
outside all the institutions of our material civilisation. Its churches
still echo the old strains of music and the old dogmatic tones from the
pulpit, but the worshippers themselves feel the anomaly of its doctrines
and rites when they return to their secular avocations. The Sunday does
nothing but break the continuity of their lives, steeping them in
sentiments and ideas which have no relation to their experience during the
rest of the week. The profession of Christendom is one thing, its practice
is another. God is simply acknowledged with the lips on Sunday, and on
every other day profoundly disregarded in all the pursuits of life whether
of business or of pleasure. Even in our national legislature, although the
practice of prayer is still retained, any man would be sneered at as a
fool who made the least appeal to the sanctions of theology. An allusion
to the Sermon on the Mount would provoke a smile, and a citation of one of
the Thirty-nine Articles be instantly ruled as irrelevant. Nothing from
the top to the bottom of our political and social life is done with any
reference to those theological doctrines which the nation professes to
believe, and to the maintenance of which it devotes annually so many
millions of its wealth.
In order to pose any member of the two great divisions of "infidelity,"
the Archbishop advises his clergy to ask the following rather comical
questions:—
"Do you believe nothing which is not capable of being tested by the
ordinary rules which govern experience in things natural? How then do you
know that you yourself exist? How do you know that the perceptions of your
senses are not mere delusions, and that there is anything outside you
answering to what your mind conceives? Have you a mind? and if you have
not, what is it that enables you to think and reason, and fear, and hope?
Are these conditions of your being the mere results of your material
organism, like the headache which springs from indigestion, or the high
spirits engendered by too much wine? Are you something better than a
vegetable highly cultivated, or than your brothers of the lower animals?
and, if so, what is it that differentiates your superiority? Why do things
outside you obey your will? Who gave you a will? and, if so, what is it? I
think you must allow that intellect is a thing almost divine, if there be
anything divine; and I think also you must allow that it is not a thing to
be propagated as we propagate well-made and high-bred cattle. Whence came
Alexander the Great? Whence Charlemagne? And whence the First Napoleon?
Was it through a mere process of spontaneous generation that they sprang
up to alter by their genius and overwhelming will the destinies of the
world? Whence came Homer, Shakespeare, Bacon? Whence came all the great
historians? Whence came Plato and all the bright lights of divine
philosophy, of divinity, of poetry? Their influence, after all, you must
allow to be quite as wide and enduring as any produced by the masters of
those positive material sciences which you worship. Do you think that all
these great minds—for they are minds, and their work was not the
product of a merely highly organised material frame—were the outcome
of some system of material generation, which your so-called science can
subject to rule, and teach men how to produce by growth, as they grow
vegetables?"
The Archbishop is not a very skilful physician. His prescription shows
that he has not diagnosed the disease. These strange questions might
strike the infidel "all of a heap," as the expressive vernacular has it,
but although they might dumbfounder him, they would assuredly not
convince. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were not so exalted a personage
we should venture to remark that to ask a man how he knows that he exists
betrays a marvellous depth of ignorance or folly. Ultimate facts of
consciousness are not subjects of proof or disproof; they are their own
warranty and cannot be transcended. There is, besides, something
extraordinary in an archbishop of the church to which Berkeley belonged
supposing that extreme idealism follows only the rejection of deity.
Whether the senses are after all delusory does not matter to the Atheist a
straw; they are real enough to him, they make his world in which he lives
and moves, and it is of no practical consequence whether they mirror an
outer world or not. What differentiates you from the lower animals? asks
his Grace. The answer is simple—a higher development of nervous
structure. Who gave you a will? is just as sensible a question as Who gave
you a nose? We have every reason to believe that both can be accounted for
on natural grounds without introducing a supernatural donor. The question
whether Alexander, Napoleon, Homer, Bacon and Shakespeare came through a
process of spontaneous generation is excruciatingly ludicrous. That
process could only produce the very lowest form of organism, and not a
wonderfully complex being like man who is the product of an incalculable
evolution. But the Archbishop did not perhaps intend this; it may be that
in his haste to silence the "infidel" he stumbled over his own meaning.
Lastly, there is a remarkable naïveté in the aside of the final question—"for
they are minds." He should have added "you know," and then the episode
would have been delightfully complete. The assumption of the whole point
at issue in an innocent parenthesis is perhaps to be expected from a
pulpiteer, but it is not likely that the "infidel" will be caught by such
a simple stratagem. All these questions are so irrelevant and absurd that
we doubt whether his Grace would have the courage to put one of them to
any sceptic across a table, or indeed from any place in the world except
the pulpit, which is beyond all risk of attack, and whence a man may ask
any number of questions without the least fear of hearing one of them
answered.
The invitation given by his grace, to﹃descend to the harder ground of
strictest logical argumentation,﹄is very appropriate. Whether the
movement be ascending or descending, there is undoubtedly a vast distance
between logical argumentation and anything he has yet advanced. But even
on the "harder" ground the Archbishop treads no more firmly. He demands to
know how the original protoplasm became endowed with life, and if that
question cannot be answered he calls upon us to admit his theory of divine
agency, as though that made the subject more intelligible. Supernatural
hypotheses are but refuges of ignorance. Earl Beaconsfield, in his impish
way, once remarked that where knowledge ended religion began, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury seems to share that opinion. His Grace also avers
that﹃no one has ever yet been able to refute the argument necessitating a
great First Cause.﹄It is very easy to assert this, but rather difficult
to maintain it. One assertion is as good as another, and we shall
therefore content ourselves with saying that in our opinion the argument
for a great First Cause was (to mention only one name) completely
demolished by John Stuart Mill, who showed it to be based on a total
misconception of the nature of cause and effect, which apply only to
phænomenal changes and not to the apparently unchangeable matter and force
of which the universe is composed.
But the overwhelming last argument is that﹃man has something in him which
speaks of God, of something above this fleeting world, and rules of right
and wrong have their foundation elsewhere than in man's opinion.... that
there is an immutable, eternal distinction between right and wrong—that
there is a God who is on the side of right.﹄Again we must complain of
unbounded assertion. Every point of this rhetorical flourish is disputed
by "infidels" who are not likely to yield to anything short of proof. If
God is on the side of right he is singularly incapable of maintaining it;
for, in this world at least, according to some penetrating minds, the
devil has hitherto had it pretty much his own way, and good men have had
to struggle very hard to make things even as equitable as we find them.
But after all, says his Grace, the supreme defence of the Church against
the assaults of infidelity is Christ himself. Weak in argument, the clergy
must throw themselves behind his shield and trust in him. Before his
brightness﹃the mists which rise from a gross materialistic Atheism
evaporate, and are scattered like the clouds of night before the dawn.﹄It
is useless to oppose reason to such preaching as this. We shall therefore
simply retort the Archbishop's epithets. Gross and materialistic are just
the terms to describe a religion which traffics in blood and declares that
without the shedding of it there is no remission of sin; whose ascetic
doctrines malign our purest affections and defile the sweetest fountains
of our spiritual health; whose heaven is nothing but an exaggerated
jeweller's shop, and its hell a den of torture in which God punishes his
children for the consequences of his own ignorance, incapacity or crime.
(February, 1880.)
Bishops should speak as men having authority, and not as the Scribes and
Pharisees. Even the smallest of them should be a great man. An archbishop,
with fifteen thousand a year, ought to possess a transcendent intellect,
almost beyond comprehension; while the worst paid of all the reverend
fathers of the Church, with less than a fifth of that salary, ought to
possess no common powers of mind. The Bishop of Carlisle is not rich as
bishops go, but he enjoys a yearly income of £4,500, besides the patronage
of forty-nine livings. Now this quite equals the salary of the Prime
Minister of the greatest empire in the world, and the Bishop of Carlisle
should therefore be a truly great man. We regret however, to say that he
is very much the reverse, if we may judge from a newspaper report which
has reached us of his lecture on "Man's Place in Nature," recently
delivered before the Keswick Scientific and Literary Society. Newspaper
reports, we know, are often misleading in consequence of their summary
character; nevertheless two columns of small type must give some idea of a
discourse, however abstruse or profound; here and there, if such occured,
a fine thought or a shrewd observation would shine through the densest
veil. Yet, unless our vision be exceptionally obtuse, nothing of the kind
is apparent in this report of the Bishop's lecture. Being, as his lordship
confessed, the development of﹃a sermon delivered to the men at the Royal
Agricultural Society's Show last summer,﹄the lecture was perhaps, like
the sermon, adapted to the bucolic mind, and thus does meagre justice to
the genius of its author. His lordship, however, chose to read it before a
society with some pretentions to culture, and therefore such a plea cannot
avail. As the case stands, we are constrained to accuse the bishop of
having delivered a lecture on a question of supreme importance, which
would do little credit to the president of a Young Men's Christian
Association; and when we reflect that a parson occupied the chair at the
meeting, and that the vote of thanks to the episcopal lecturer was moved
by a canon, who coupled with it some highly complimentary remarks, we are
obliged to think the Church more short of brains than even we had
previously believed, and that Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin has already been
written on its temple walls by the finger of doom.
Very early in his lecture the Bishop observed that﹃the Scriptures are
built on the hypothesis of the supreme and unique position of man.﹄Well,
there is nothing novel in this statement. What we want is some proof of
the hypothesis. His lordship's way of supplying this need is, to say the
least, peculiar. After saying that﹃he would rather trust the poet as an
exponent of man than he would a student of natural history,﹄he proceeds
to quote from Shakespeare, Pope and Plato, and ends that part of his
argument with a rhetorical flourish, as though he had thus really settled
the whole case of Darwin versus Moses. Our reverence of great poets
is probably as deep and sincere as the Bishop's, but we never thought of
treating them as scientific authorities, or as witnesses to events that
happened hundreds of thousands of years before their birth. Poets deal
with subjective facts of consciousness, or with objective facts as related
to these. The dry light of the intellect, radiated from the cloudless sun
of truth, is not their proper element, but belongs exclusively to the man
of science. They move in a softer element suffused with emotion, whose
varied clouds are by the sun of imagination touched to all forms of beauty
and splendor. The scientific man's description of a lion, for instance,
would be very different from a poet's; because the one would describe the
lion as it is in itself, and the other as it affects us, a living whole,
through our organs of sight and sound. Both are true, because each is
faithful to its purpose and expresses a fact; yet neither can stand for
the other, because they express different facts and are faithful to
different purposes. Shakespeare poetically speaks of﹃the ruddy drops that
visit this sad heart,﹄but the scientific truth of the circulation of the
blood had to await its Harvey. In like manner, it was not Milton but
Newton who expounded the Cosmos; the great poet, like Dante before him,
wove pre-existent cosmical ideas into the texture of his sublime epic,
while the great scientist wove all the truth of them into the texture of
his sublime theory. Let each receive his meed of reverent praise, but do
not let us appeal to Newton on poetry or to Milton on physics. And when a
Bishop of Carlisle, or other diocese, complains that﹃the views advanced
by scientific men tend painfully to degrade the views of poets and
philosophers,﹄let us reply that in almost every case the great truths of
science have been found to transcend infinitely the marvels of theology,
and that the magnificence of song persists through all fluctuations of
knowledge, because its real cause lies less in the subject than in the
native grandeur of the poet's mind.
Man's place in nature is, indeed, a great question, and it can be settled
only by a wide appeal to past and present facts. And those facts, besides
being objective realities, must be treated in a purely scientific, and not
in a poetic or didactic spirit. Let the poet sing the beauty of a
consummate flower; and, if such things are required, let the moralist
preach its lessons. But neither should arrogate the prerogative of the
botanist, whose special function it is to inform us of its genesis and
development, and its true relations to other forms of vegetable life. So
with man. The poet may celebrate his passions and aspirations, his joys
and sorrows, his laughter and tears, and ever body forth anew the shapes
of things unseen; the moralist may employ every fact of his life to
illustrate its laws or to enforce its duties; but they must leave it to
the biologist to explain his position in the animal economy, and the
stages by which it has been reached. With regard to that, Darwin is
authoritative, while Moses is not even entitled to a hearing.
Although the Bishop is very ready to quote from the poets, he is not
always ready to use them fairly. For instance, he cites the splendid and
famous passage in "Hamlet:"—"What a piece of work is man! How noble
in reason! How infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and
admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!
the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!" There his lordship
stops, and then exclaims,﹃Shakespeare knew nothing of the evolution of
man from inferior forms.﹄But why did he not continue the quotation?
Hamlet goes on to say,﹃And yet, what to me is this quintessence of
dust?﹄How now, your lordship? We have you on the hip!﹃Quintessence
of dust﹄comes perilously near to evolution. Does not your lordship
remember, too, Hamlet's pursuing the dust of Cæsar to the ignominious
bunghole? And have you never reflected how the prescient mind of
Shakespeare created an entirely new and wonderful figure in literature,
the half-human, half-bestial Caliban, with his god Setebos—a truly
marvellous resuscitation of primitive man, that in our day has inspired
Mr. Browning's "Caliban on Setebos," which contains the entire essence of
all that Tylor and other investigators in the same field have since
written on the subject of Animism? It seems that the Lord Bishop of
Carlisle reads even the poets to small purpose.
Haughtily waving the biologists aside, his lordship proceeds to remark
that﹃man's superiority is not the same that a dog would claim over a
lobster, or an eagle over a worm;﹄the difference between man and other
animals being "not one of degree, but of kind." Such a statement, without
the least evidence being adduced to support it, places the Bishop almost
outside the pale of civil discussion. When will these lordly ecclesiastics
learn that the time for dogmatic assertion is past, and that the
intellectual temper of the present age can be satisfied only by proof? We
defy the Bishop of Carlisle to indicate a single phase of man's nature
which has no parallel in the lower animals. Man's physical structure is
notoriously akin to theirs, and even his brain does not imply a
distinction of kind, for every convolution of the brain of man is
reproduced in the brain of the higher apes. His lordship draws a
distinction between instinct and reason, which is purely fanciful and
evinces great ignorance of the subject. That, however, is a question we
have at present no room to discuss; nor, indeed, is there any necessity to
do so, since his lordship presently admits that the lower animals share
our "reason" to some extent, just as to a much larger extent we share
their "instinct," and thus evacuates the logical fortress he took such
pains to construct.
Quitting that ground, which proves too slippery for his feet, the Bishop
goes on to notice the moral and aesthetic difference between man and the
lower animals. No animal, says his lordship, shows﹃anything approaching
to a love of art.﹄Now we are quite aware that no animal except man ever
painted a picture or chiselled a statue, for these things involve a very
high development of the artistic faculty. But the appreciation of form and
color, which is the foundation of all fine art, is certainly manifested by
the lower animals, and by some fathem to an extreme degree. If his
lordship doubts this, let him study the ways of animals for himself; or,
if he cannot do that, let him read the chapters in Mr. Darwin's﹃Descent
of Man﹄on sexual selection among birds. If he retains any doubt after
that, we must conclude that his head is too hard or too soft to be
influenced, in either of which cases he is much to be pitied.
His lordship thinks that the moral sense is entirely absent in the lower
animals. This, however, is absurdly untrue; so much so, indeed, that we
shall not trouble to refute it Good and noble, he avers, are
epithets inapplicable to animals, even to the horse or dog. What vain
creatures men are to talk thus! Does his lordship remember Byron's epitaph
on his Newfoundland dog, and the very uncomplimentary distinction drawn
therein between dogs and men? Look at that big pet with the lordly yet
tender eye! How he submits to the boisterous caresses of children, because
he knows their weakness and shares their spirit of play! Let their elders
do the same, and he will at once show resentment. See him peril his life
ungrudgingly for those he loves, or even for comparative strangers! And
shall we deny him the epithet of noble or good? Whatever
theologians may say, the sound heart of common men and women will answer
No!
Lastly, we are told that﹃the religious sentiment is characteristically
and supremely human.﹄But here again we must complain of his lordship's
mental confusion. The religious sentiment is not a simple but a highly
complex emotion. Resolve it into its elemental feelings, and it will be
found that all these are possessed in some degree by lower animals. The
feeling of a dog who bays the moon is probably very similar to that of the
savage who cowers and moans beneath an eclipse; and if the savage has
superstitious ideas as well as awesome feelings, it is only because he
possesses a higher development of thought and imagination.
Canon Battersby, who moved the vote of thanks to the Bishop, ridiculed the
biologists, and likened them to Topsy who accounted for her existence by
saying "Specs I growed." Just so. That is precisely how we all did come
into existence. Growth and not making is the law for man as well as for
every other form of life. Moses stands for manufacture and Darwin stands
for growth. And if the great biologist finds himself in the company of
Topsy, he will not mind. Perhaps, indeed, as he is said to enjoy a joke
and to be able to crack one, might he jocularly observe to﹃tremendous
personages﹄like the Bishop of Carlisle, that this is not the first
instance of truths being hidden from the "wise" and revealed unto babes.
(January, 1877.)
Professor Flint delivered last week the first of the present year's course
of Baird lectures to a numerous audience in Blythswood Church, Glasgow,
taking for his subject "The Theories opposed to Theism." Anti-Theism, he
said, is more general now than Atheism, and includes all systems opposed
to Theism. Atheism he defined as﹃the system which teaches that there is
no God, and that it is impossible for man to know that there is a God.﹄At
least this is how Professor Flint is reported in the newspapers, although
we hope he was not guilty of so idiotic a jumble.
Where are the Atheists who say there is no God? What are their names?
Having mingled much with thoroughgoing sceptics, and read many volumes of
heretical literature, we can confidently defy Professor Flint to produce
the names of half a dozen dogmatic Atheists, and we will give him the
whole world's literature to select from. Does he think that the brains of
an Atheist are addled? If not, why does he make the Atheist first affirm
that there is noGod, and then affirm the impossibility of man's
ever knowing whether there is a God or not? How could a man who holds his
judgment in suspense, or who thinks the universal mystery insoluble to us,
dogmatise upon the question of God's existence? If Professor Flint will
carefully and candidly study sceptical literature, he will find that the
dogmatic Atheist is as rare a the phoenix, and that those who consider the
extant evidences of Theism inadequate, do not go on to affirm an universal
negative, but content themselves with expressing their ignorance of
Nature's why. For the most part they endorse Thomas Cooper's words,
"I do not say there isno God, but this I say, I know not"
Of course this modesty of affirmation may seem impiously immodest to one
who has been trained and steeped in Theism so long that the infinite
universe has become quite explicable to him; but to the sceptic it seems
more wise and modest to confess one's ignorance, than to make false
pretensions of knowledge.
Professor Flint﹃characterised the objections which Atheism urges against
the existence of God as extremely feeble.﹄Against the existence of what
God? There be Gods many and Lords many; which of the long theological list
is to be selected as the God? A God, like everything else from the
heights to the depths, can be known only by his attributes; and what the
Atheist does is not to argue against the existence of any God,
which would be sheer lunacy, but to take the attributes affirmed by Theism
as composing its Deity and inquire whether they are compatible with each
other and with the facts of life. Finding that they are not, the Atheist
simply sets Theism aside as not proven, and goes on his way without
further afflicting himself with such abstruse questions.
The Atheist must be a very dreary creature, thinks Professor Flint. But
why? Does he know any Atheists, and has he found them one half as dreary
as Scotch Calvinists? It may seem hard to the immoderately selfish that
some Infinite Spirit is not looking after their little interests, but it
is assuredly a thousandfold harder to think that this Infinite Spirit has
a yawning hell ready to engulph the vast majority of the world's miserable
sinners. If the Atheist has no heaven, he has also no hell, which is a
most merciful relief. Far better were universal annihilation than that
even the meanest life should writhe for ever in hell, gnawed by the worm
which never dieth, and burnt in the fire which is never quenched.
Even Nature, thinks Professor Flint, cannot be contemplated by the Atheist
as the Theist contemplates it; for while the latter views it as God's
vesture wherewith he hides from us his intolerable glory, the latter views
it as the mere embodiment of force, senseless, aimless, pitiless, an
enormous mechanism grinding on of itself from age to age, but towards no
God and for no good. Here we must observe that the lecturer trespasses
beyond the truth. The Atheist does not affirm that Nature drives on to no
God and no good; he simply says he knows not whither she is driving. And
how many Theists are there who think of God in the presence of Nature, who
see God's smile in the sunshine, or hear his wrath in the storm? Very few,
we opine, in this practical sceptical age. To the Atheist as to the
Theist, indeed to all blessed with vision, Nature is an ever new wonder of
majesty and beauty! Sun, moon, and stars, earth, air, and sky, endure
while the generations of men pass and perish; but every new generation is
warmed, lighted, nurtured and gladdened by them with most sovereign and
perfect impartiality. The loveliness and infinite majesty of Nature speak
to all men, of all ages, climes and creeds. Not in her inanimate beauty do
we find fatal objections to the doctrine of a wise and bountiful power
which overrules her, but rather in the multiplied horrors, woes, and pangs
of sentient life. When all actual and recorded misery is effaced, when no
intolerable grief corrodes and no immedicable despair poisons life, when
the tears of anguish are assuaged, when crime and vice are unknown and
unremembered, and evil lusts are consumed in the fire of holiness; then,
and then only, could we admit that a wise and righteous omnipotence rules
the universal destinies. Until then we cannot recognise the fatherhood of
God, but must find shelter and comfort in the more efficacious doctrine of
the brotherhood of Man.
Professor Flint concluded his lecture, according to the newspaper report,
thus:—"History bears witness that the declension of religion has
ever been the decline of nations, because it has ever brought the decay of
their moral life; and people have achieved noble things only when strongly
animated by religious faith." All this is very poor stuff indeed to come
from a learned professor. What nation has declined because of a relapse
from religious belief? Surely not Assyria, Egypt, Greece, or Carthage? In
the case of Rome, the decline of the empire was coincident with the rise
of Christianity and the decline of Paganism; but the Roman Empire fell
abroad mainly from political, and not from religious causes, as every
student of history well knows. Christianity, that is the religion of the
Bible, has been dying for nearly three centuries; and during that period,
instead of witnessing a general degradation of mankind we have witnessed a
marvellous elevation. The civilisation of to-day, compared with that which
existed before Secular Science began her great battle with a tyrannous and
obscurantist Church, is as a summer morn to a star-lit winter night.
Again, it is not true that men have achieved noble things only when
strongly animated by religious faith; unless by "religious faith" be meant
some vital idea or fervent enthusiasm. The three hundred Spartans who met
certain death at Thermopylae died for a religious idea, but not for a
theological idea, which is a very different thing. They perished to
preserve the integrity of the state to which they belonged. The greatest
Athenians were certainly not religious in Professor Flint's sense of the
word, and the grand old Roman patriots had scarcely a scintillation of
such a religious faith as he speaks of. Their religion was simply
patriotism, but it was quite as operant and effective as Christian piety
has ever been. Was it religious faith or patriotism which banded Frenchmen
together in defiance of all Europe, and made them march to death as a
bridegroom hastens to his bride? And in our own history have not our
greatest achievers of noble things been very indifferent to theological
dogmas? Nay, in all ages, have not the noblest laborers for human welfare
been impelled by an urgent enthusiasm of humanity rather than by any
supernatural faith? Professor Flint may rest assured that even though all
"the old faiths ruin and rend," the human heart will still burn, and
virtue and beauty still gladden the earth, although divorced from the
creeds which held them in the thraldom of an enforced marriage.
(October, 1879.)
The Christian World is distinguished among religious journals by a
certain breadth and vigor. On all social and political subjects it is
remarkably advanced and outspoken, and its treatment of theological
questions is far more liberal and intelligent than sceptics would expect.
Of late years it has opened its columns to correspondence on many topics,
some of a watery character, like the reality of Noah's flood, and others
of a burning kind, like the doctrine of eternal punishment, on all of
which great freedom of expression has been allowed. The editor himself,
who is, we suspect, far more sceptical than most of his readers, has had
his say on the question of Hell, and it is to be inferred from his
somewhat guarded utterance that he has little belief in any such place.
This, however, we state with considerable hesitation, for the majority of
Christians still regard the doctrine of everlasting torture as indubitable
and sacred, and we have no desire to lower him in the estimation of the
Christian world in which he labors, or to cast a doubt on the orthodoxy of
his creed. But the editor will not take it amiss if we insist that his
paper is liberal in its Christianity, and unusually tolerant of unbelief.
Yet, while entitled to praise on his ground, the Christian World
deserves something else than praise on another. It has recently published
a series of articles for the purpose of stimulating faith and allaying
doubt. If undertaken by a competent writer, able and willing to face the
mighty difference between Christianity and the scientific spirit of our
age, such a series of articles might be well worth reading. We might then
admire if we could not agree, and derive benefit from friendly contact
with an antagonist mind. But the writer selected for the task appears to
possess neither of these qualifications. Instead of thinking he gushes;
instead of reason he supplies us with unlimited sentiment. We expect to
tread solid ground, or at least to find it not perilously soft; and lo!
the soil is moist, and now and then we find ourselves up to the knees in
unctuous mud. How difficult it is nowadays to discover a really
argumentative Christian! The eminent favorites of orthodoxy write
sentimental romances and call them "Lives of Christ," and preach sermons
with no conceivable relation to the human intellect; while the apologists
of faith imitate the tactics of the cuttle-fish, and when pursued cast out
their opaque fluid of sentimentality to conceal their position. They
mostly dabble in the shallows of scepticism, never daring to venture in
the deeps; and what they take pride in as flashes of spiritual light
resembles neither the royal gleaming of the sun nor the milder radiance of
the moon, but rather the phosphorescence of corruption.
In the last article of the series referred to, entitled﹃Thou art a God
that Hidest Thyself,﹄there is an abundance of fictitious emotion and
spurious rhetoric. From beginning to end there is a painful strain that
never relaxes, reminding us of singers who pitch their voices too high and
have to render all the upper notes in falsetto. An attempt is made to
employ poetical imagery, but it ludicrously fails. The heaven of the Book
of Revelation, with its gold and silver and precious stones, is nothing
but a magnified jeweller's shop, and a study of it has influenced the
style of later writers. At present Christian gushers have descended still
lower, dealing not even in gold and jewels, but in Brummagem and paste.
The word gem is greatly in vogue. Talmage uses it about twenty
times in every lecture, Parker delights in it, and it often figures on the
pages of serious books. In the article before us it is made to do frequent
service. A promise of redemption is represented as shining gem-like on the
brow of Revelation, Elims gem the dark bosom of the universal
desert, and the morning gleams on the dew-gemmed earth. Perhaps a
good recipe for this kind of composition would be an hour's gloat on the
flaming window of a jeweller's shop in the West End.
But let us deal with the purport and purpose of the article. It aims at
showing that God hides himself, and why he does so. The fact which it is
attempted to explain none will deny. Moses ascended Mount Sinai to see God
and converse with him, Abraham and God walked and talked together, and
according to St. Paul the Almighty is not far from any one of us. But the
modern mind is not prone to believe these things. The empire of reason has
been enlarged at the expense of faith, whose provinces have one after
another been annexed until only a small territory is left her, and that
she finds it difficult to keep. Coincidently, God has become less and less
a reality and more and more a dream. The reign of law is perceived
everywhere, and all classes of phenomena may be explained without recourse
to supernatural power. When Napoleon objected to Laplace that divine
design was omitted from his mechanical theory of the universe, the French
philosopher characteristically replied:﹃I had no need of that
hypothesis.﹄And the same disposition prevails in other departments of
science. Darwin, for instance, undertakes to explain the origin and
development of man, physical, intellectual and moral, without assuming any
cause other than those which obtain wherever life exists. God is being
slowly but surely driven from the domain of intermediate causes, and
transformed into an ultimate cause, a mere figment of the imagination. He
is being banished from nature into that poetical region inhabited by the
gods of Polytheism, to keep company there with Jupiter and Apollo and
Neptune and Juno and Venus, and all the rest of that glorious Pantheon. He
no longer rules the actual life and struggle of the world, but lives at
peace with his old rivals in—
『The lucid interspace of world and world,
Where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans;
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts, to mar
Their sacred everlasting calm.』*
* Tennyson: "Lucretius."
The essence of all this is admitted by the writer in the Christian
World; he admits the facts, but denies the inference. They show us one
of God's ways of hiding himself. Order prevails, but it is the expression
of God's will, and not a mere result of the working of material forces. He
operates by method, not by caprice, and hence the unchanging stability of
things. While doing nothing in particular, he does everything in general.
And this idea must be extended to human history. God endows man with
powers, and allows him freedom to employ them as he will. But, strangely
enough, God has a way of "ruling our freedom," and always there is﹃a
restraining and restoring hand.﹄How man's will can be free and yet
overruled passes our merely carnal understanding, although it may be
intelligible enough to minds steeped in the mysteries of theology.
According to this writer, God's government of mankind is a﹃constitutional
kingdom.﹄Quite so. It was once arbitrary and despotic; now it is far
milder and less exacting, having dwindled into the "constitutional" stage,
wherein the King reigns but does not govern. Will the law of
human growth and divine decay stop here? We think not. As the despotism
has changed to a constitutional monarchy, so that will change to a
republic, and the empty throne be preserved among other curious relics of
the past.
God also hides himself in history. Although unapparent on the surface of
events, his spirit is potent within them. "What," the writer asks,﹃is
history—with all its dark passages of horror, its stormy
revolutions, its ceaseless conflict, its tears, its groans, its blood—but
the chronicle of an ever-widening realm of light, of order, of
intelligence, wisdom, truth, and charity?﹄But if we admit the progress,
we need not explain it as the work of God. Bunsen wrote a book on﹃God in
History,﹄which a profane wag said should have been called﹃Bunsen in
History;﹄yet his attempt to justify the ways of God to men was not very
successful. It is simply a mockery to ask us to believe that the slow
progress of humanity must be attributed to omniscient omnipotence. A God
who can evolve virtue and happiness only out of infinite evil and misery,
and elevate us only through the agency of perpetual blood and tears, is
scarcely a being to be loved and worshipped, unless we assume that his
power and wisdom are exceedingly limited. Are we to suppose that God has
woven himself a garment of violence, evil, and deceit, in order that we
might not see too clearly his righteousness, goodness, and truth?
It must further be observed that Christian Theists cannot be permitted to
ascribe all the good in the world to God, and all the evil to man, or else
leave it absolutely unexplained. In the name of humanity we protest
against this indignity to our race. Let God be responsible for good and
evil both, or for neither; and if man is to consider himself chargeable
with all the world's wrong, he should at least be allowed credit for all
the compensating good.
The theory of evolution is being patronised by Theists rather too
fulsomely. Not long ago they treated it with obloquy and contempt, but now
they endeavor to use it as an argument for their faith, and in doing so
they distort language as only theological controversialists can. Changing
"survival of the fittest" into "survival of the best," they
transform a physical fact into a moral law; and thus, as they think, take
a new north-west passage to the old harbor of "whatever is is right." But
while-evolution may be construed as progress, which some would contest, it
cannot be construed as the invariable survival of the best; nor, if it
were, could the process by which this result is achieved be justified. For
evolution works through a universal struggle for existence, in which the
life and well-being of some can be secured only through the suffering and
final extinction of others; and even in its higher stages, cunning and
unscrupulous strength frequently overcomes humane wisdom fettered by
weakness.﹃Nature, red in tooth and claw, with ravin shrieks against the
creed﹄of the Theist. If God is working through evolution, we must admit
that he has marvellously hidden himself, and agree with the poet that he
does "move in a mysterious way his wonders to perform."
The writer in the Christian World borrows an image from the puling
scepticism of "In Memoriam," which describes man as
"An infant crying in the night,
And with no language but a cry."
This image of the infant is put to strange use. The writer says that God
is necessarily hidden from us because we can grasp﹃his inscrutable nature
and methods﹄only as﹃an infant can grasp the thought and purpose of a
man.﹄Similes are dangerous things. When it is demanded that they shall
run upon all fours, they often turn against their masters. This one does
so. The infant grows into a man in due course, and then he can not only
grasp the thought and purpose of his father, but also, it may be,
comprehend still greater things. Will the infant mind of man, when it
reaches maturity, be thus related to God's? If not, the analogy is
fallacious. Man is quite mature enough already, and has been so for
thousands of years, to understand something of God's thought and purpose
if he had only chosen to reveal them. This, however, if there be a God, he
has not condescended to do. An appeal to the various pretended revelations
of the world serves to convince us that all are the words of fallible men.
Their very discord discredits them. As D'Holbach said, if God had spoken,
the universe would surely be convinced, and the same conviction would fill
every breast.
The reason given for God's hiding himself is very curious. "If," says the
writer, "the way of God were not in large measure hidden, it would mean
that we could survey all things from the height and the depth of God."
Truly an awful contemplation! May it not be that God is hidden from us
because there is none to be revealed, that "all the oracles are dumb or
cheat because they have no secret to express"?
But, says the writer in the Christian World, there is one
revelation of God that can never be gainsaid; "while the Cross stands as
earth's most sacred symbol, there can be no utter hiding of his love."
This, however, we venture to dispute. That Cross which was laid upon the
back of Jesus poor mankind has been compelled to carry ever since, with no
Simon to ease it of the load. Jesus was crucified on Calvary, and in his
name man has suffered centuries of crucifixion. The immolation of Jesus
can be no revelation of God's love. If the Nazarene was God, his
crucifixion involves a complicated arrangement for murder; the Jews who
demanded his death were divinely instigated, and Judas Iscariot was
pre-ordained to betray his master; in which case his treachery was a
necessary element of the drama, entitling him not to vituperation but to
gratitude, even perhaps to the monument which Benjamin Disraeli suggested
as his proper reward. Looking also at the history of Christianity, and
seeing how the Cross has sheltered oppressors of mind and body, sanctioned
immeasurable shedding of blood, and frightened peoples from freedom, while
even now it symbolises all that is reactionary and accursed in Europe, we
are constrained to say that the love itreveals is as noxious as
the vilest hate.
(April, 1882.)
Mountebank Talmage has just preached a funeral sermon on General Joshua.
It is rather behind date, as the old warrior has been dead above three
thousand years. But better late than never. Talmage tells us many things
about Joshua which are not in the Bible, and some sceptics will say that
his panegyric is a sheer invention. They may, however, be mistaken. The
oracle of the Brooklyn Jabbernacle is known to be inspired. God holds
converse with him, and he is thus enabled to supply us with fresh facts
about Jehovah's fighting-cock from the lost books of Jasher and the Wars
of the Lord.
Joshua, says Talmage, was a magnificent fighter. We say, he was a
magnificent butcher. Jehovah did the fighting.
He was the virtual commander of the Jewish hosts; he won all their
victories; and Joshua only did the slaughter. He excelled in that line of
business. He delighted in the dying groans of women and children, and
loved to dabble his feet and hands in the warm blood of the slain. No
"Chamber of Horrors" contains the effigy of any wretch half so
bloodthirsty and cruel.
According to Talmage, Joshua "always fought on the right side." Wars of
conquest are never right. Thieving other people's lands is an abominable
crime. The Jews had absolutely no claim to the territory they took
possession of, and which they manured with the blood of its rightful
owners. We know they said that God told them to requisition that fine
little landed estate of Canaan. Half the thieves in history have said the
same thing. We don't believe them. God never told any man to rob his
neighbor, and whoever says so lies. The thief's statement does not
suffice. Let him produce better evidence. A rascal who steals and murders
cannot be believed on his oath, and 'tis more likely that he is a liar
than that God is a scoundrel.
Talmage celebrates "five great victories" of Joshua. He omits two mighty
achievements. General Joshua circumcised a million and a half Jews in a
single day. His greatest battle never equalled that wonderful feat. The
amputations were done at the rate of over a thousand a minute. Samson's
jaw-bone was nothing to Joshua's knife. This surprising old Jew was as
great in oratory as in surgery. On one occasion he addressed an audience
of three millions, and everyone heard him. His voice must have reached two
or three miles. No wonder the walls of Jericho fell down when Joshua
joined in the shout. We dare say the Jews wore ear-preservers to guard
their tympanums against the dreadful artillery of his speech.
Joshua's first victory, says Tahnage, was conquering the spring freshet of
Jordan. As a matter of fact, Jehovah transacted that little affair. See,
says Talmage,﹃one mile ahead go two priests carrying a glittering box
four feet long and two feet wide. It is the Ark of the Covenant.﹄He
forgets to add that the Jew God was supposed to be inside it. Jack in the
box is nothing to God in a box. What would have happened if the Ark had
been buried with Jehovah safely fastened in? Would his godship have
mouldered to dust? In that case he would never have seduced a carpenter's
wife, and there would have been no God the Son as the fruit of his
adultery.
Talmage credits General Joshua with the capture of Jericho. The Bible says
that Jehovah overcame it. Seven priests went blowing rams' horns round the
city for seven days. On the seventh day they went round it seven times. It
must have been tiresome work, for Jericho was a large city several miles
in circumference. But priests are always good "Walkers." After the last
blowing of horns all the Jews shouted "Down Jericho, down Jericho!" This
is Talmage's inspired account. The Bible states nothing of the kind. Just
as the Islamites cry "Allah, Il Allah," it is probable that the Jews cried
"Jahveh, Jahveh." But Talmage and the Bible both agree that when their
shout rent the air the walls of Jericho fell flat—as flat as the
fools who believe it.
Then, says Talmage,﹃the huzza of the victorious Israelites and the groan
of the conquered Canaanites commingle!﹄Ah, that groan! Its sound still
curses the Bible God. Men, women and children, were murdered. The very
cattle, sheep and asses, were killed with the sword. Only one woman's
house was spared, and she was a harlot.
It is as if the German army took Paris, and killed every inhabitant except
Cora Pearl. This is inspired war, and Talmage glories in it. He would
consider it an honor to be bottle-washer to such a pious hero as General
Joshua. When Ai was taken, all its people were slaughtered, without any
regard to age or sex. Talmage grins with delight, and cries﹃Bravo,
Joshua!﹄The King of Ai was reserved for sport. They hung him on a tree
and enjoyed the fun. Talmage approves this too. Everything Joshua did was
right. Talmage is ready to stake his own poor little soul on that.
Joshua's victory over the five kings calls forth a burst of supernatural
eloquence. Talmage pictures the﹃catapults of the sky pouring a volley of
hailstones﹄on the flying Amorites, and words almost fail him to describe
the glorious miracle of the lengthening of the day in order that Jehovah's
prize-fighters might go on killing. One passage is almost sublime. It is
only one step off. "What," asks Talmage,﹃is the matter with Joshua? Has
he fallen in an apoplectic fit? No. He is in prayer.﹄Our profanity would
not have gone to that length. But we take Talmage's word for it that
prayer and apoplexy are very much alike.
The five kings were decapitated. "Ah," says Talmage,﹃I want five
more kings beheaded to-day, King Alcohol, King Fraud, King Lust, King
Superstition, and King Infidelity.﹄Soft, you priestly calumniator! What
right have you to associate Infidelity with fraud and lust? That
Freethought, which you call "infidelity," is more faithful to truth and
justice than your creed has ever been. And it will not be disposed of so
easily as you think. You will never behead us, but we shall strangle you.
We are crushing the life out of your wretched faith, and your spasmodic
sermons are only the groans of its despair.
Talmage's boldest step on the line which separates the ludicrous from the
sublime occurs in his peroration. He makes General Joshua conquer Death by
lying down and giving up the ghost, and then asks for a headstone and a
foot-stone for the holy corpse. "I imagine," he says,﹃that for the head
it shall be the sun that stood still upon Gibeon, and for the foot the
moon that stood still in the valley of Ajalon.﹄This is about the finest
piece of Yankee buncombe extant. If the sun and moon keep watch over
General Joshua's grave, what are we to do? When we get to the New
Jerusalem we shall want neither of these luminaries, for the glory of the
Lord will shine upon us. But until then we cannot dispense with them, and
we decidedly object to their being retained as perpetual mourners over
Joshua's grave. If, however, one of them must do service, we humbly beg
that it may be the moon. Let the sun illumine us by day, so that we may
see to transact our affairs. And if ever we should long to behold﹃pale
Dians beams﹄again, we might take Talmage as our guide to the unknown
grave of General Joshua, and while they played softly over the miraculous
two yards of turf we should see his fitting epitaph—Moonshine.
(June, 1882.)
Editing a Freethought paper is a dreadful business. It brings one into
contact with many half-baked people who have little patent recipes for
hastening the millennium; with ambitious versifiers who think it a
disgrace to journalism that their productions are not instantly inserted;
with discontented ladies and gentlemen who fancy that a heterodox paper is
the proper vehicle for every species of complaint; and with a multitude of
other bores too numerous to mention and too various to classify. But the
worst of all are the anonymous bores, who send their insults, advice, or
warnings, through the post for the benefit of the Queen's revenue. We
generally pitch their puerile missives into the waste-paper basket; but
occasionally we find one diverting enough to be introduced to our readers.
A few days ago we received the following lugubrious epistle, ostensibly
from a parson in Worcestershire, as the envelope bore the postmark of
Tything.
"The fool hath said in his heart 'there is no God'—I have seen one
of your blasphemous papers; and I say solemnly, as a clergyman of the
Church of England, that I believe you are doing the work of the Devil, and
are on the road to hell, and will spend eternity with the Devil, unless
God, in his mercy, lead you, by the Holy Spirit, to repentance.
Nothing is impossible, with him. A Dean in the Church of England says, 'Be
wise, and laugh not through a speck of time, and then wail through an
immeasurable eternity.' Except you change your views you will most
certainly hear Christ say, at the Judgment Day, 'Depart ye cursed into
everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.' (Matt, xxv.)"
This is a tolerably warm, though not very elegant effusion, and it is
really a pity that so grave a counsellor should conceal his name; for if
it should lead to our conversion, we should not know whom to thank for
having turned us out of the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire. Our
mentor assures us that with God nothing is impossible. We are sorry to
learn this; for we must conclude that he does not take sufficient trouble
with parsons to endow them with the courage of their convictions, or to
make them observe the common decencies of epistolary intercourse.
This anonymous parson, who acts like an Irish "Moonlighter," and masks his
identity while venting his spleen, presumes to anticipate the Day of
Judgment, and tells exactly what Jesus Christ will say to us on that
occasion. We are obliged to him for the information, but we wonder how he
obtained it. The twenty-fifth of Matthew, to which he refers us, contains
not a word about unbelievers. It simply states that certain persons, who
have treated the Son of Man very shabbily in his distress, shall be sent
to keep company with Old Nick and his imps. Now, we have never shown the
Son of Man any incivility, much less any inhumanity, and we therefore
repudiate this odious insinuation. Whenever Jesus Christ sends us a
message that he is sick, we will pay him a visit; if he is hungry, we will
find him a dinner; if he is thirsty, we will stand whatever he likes to
drink; if he is naked, we will hunt him up a clean shirt and an old suit;
and if he is in prison, we will, according as he is innocent or guilty,
try to procure his release, or leave him to serve out his term. We should
be much surprised if any parson in the three kingdoms would do any more
Some of them, we believe, would see him condemned (new version) before
they would lift a finger or spend sixpence to-help him.
We are charged with doing the work of the Devil. This is indeed news. We
never knew the Devil required any assistance. He was always very active
and enterprising, and quite able to manage his own business. And although
his rival, Jehovah, is so dotingly senile as to yield up everything to his
mistress and her son, no one has ever whispered the least hint of the
Devil's decline into the same abject position. But if his Satanic Majesty
needed our aid we should not be loth to give it, for after carefully
reading the Bible many times from beginning to end, we have come to the
conclusion that he is about the only gentleman in it.
We are "on the road to hell." Well, if we must gosomewhere, that
is just the place we should choose. The temperature is high, and it would
no doubt at first be incommodious. But, as old Sir Thomas Browne says,
afflictions induce callosities, and in time we should get used to
anything.
When once we grew accustomed to the heat, how thankful we should be at
having escaped the dreary insipidity of heaven, with its perpetual psalms,
its dolorous trumpets, its gruesome elders, and its elderly beasts! How
thankful at having missed an eternity with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David,
and all the many blackguards and scoundrels of the Bible! How thankful at
having joined for ever the society of Rabelais, Bruno, Spinoza, Voltaire,
Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, and all the great poets, sages and wits,
who possess so much of that carnal wisdom which is at enmity with the
pious folly of babes and sucklings!
On the whole, we think it best to keep on our present course. Let the
bigots rave and the parsons wail. They are deeply interested in the
doctrine of heaven and hell beyond the grave. We believe in heaven and
hell on this side of it; a hell of ignorance, crime, and misery; a heaven
of wisdom, virtue, and happiness. Our duty is to promote the one and
combat the other. If there be a just God, the fulfilment of that duty will
suffice; if God be unjust, all honest men will be in the same boat, and
have the courage to despise and defy him.
(December, 1881.)
Christmas Eve had come and almost gone. It was drawing nigh midnight, and
I sat solitary in my room, immersed in memory, dreaming of old days and
their buried secrets. The fire, before which I mused, was burning clear
without flame, and its intense glow, which alone lighted my apartment,
cast a red tint on the furniture and walls. Outside the streets were
muffled deep with snow, in which no footstep was audible. All was quiet as
death, silent as the grave, save for the faint murmur of my own breathing.
Time and space seemed annihilated beyond those four narrow walls, and I
was as a coffined living centre of an else lifeless infinity.
My reverie was rudely broken by the staggering step of a fellow-lodger,
whose devotion to Bacchus was the one symptom of reverence in his nature.
He reeled up stair after stair, and as he passed my door he lurched
against it so violently that I feared he would come through. But he slowly
recovered himself after some profane mutterings, reeled up the next flight
of stairs, and finally deposited his well-soaked clay on the bed in his
own room immediately over mine.
After this interruption my thoughts changed most fancifully. Why I know
not, but I began to brood on the strange statement of Saint Paul
concerning the man who was lifted up into the seventh heaven, and there
beheld things not lawful to reveal. While pondering this story I was
presently aware of an astonishing change. The walls of my room slowly
expanded, growing ever thinner and thinner, until they became the filmiest
transparent veil which at last dissolved utterly away. Then (whether in
the spirit or the flesh I know not) I was hurried along through space,
past galaxy after galaxy of suns and stars, separate systems yet all
mysteriously related.
Swifter than light we travelled, I and my unseen guide, through the
infinite ocean of ether, until our flight was arrested by a denser medium,
which I recognised as an atmosphere like that of our earth. I had scarcely
recovered from this new surprise when (marvel of marvels!) I found myself
before a huge gate of wondrous art and dazzling splendor. At a word from
my still unseen guide it swung open, and I was urged within. Beneath my
feet was a solid pavement of gold. Gorgeous mansions, interspersed with
palaces, rose around me, and above them all towered the airy pinnacles of
a matchless temple, whose points quivered in the rich light like tongues
of golden fire. The walls glittered with countless rubies, diamonds,
pearls, amethysts, emeralds, and other precious stones; and lovely
presences, arrayed in shining garments, moved noiselessly from place to
place. "Where am I?" I ejaculated, half faint with wonder. And my hitherto
unseen guide, who now revealed himself, softly answered, "In Heaven."
Thereupon my whole frame was agitated with inward laughter. I in Heaven,
whose fiery doom had been prophesied so often by the saints on earth! I,
the sceptic, the blasphemer, the scoffer at all things sacred, who had
laughed at the legends and dogmas of Christianism as though they were
incredible and effete as the myths of Olympus! And I thought to myself,
﹃Better I had gone straight to Hell, for here in the New Jerusalem they
will no doubt punish me worse than there.﹄But my angelic guide, who read
my thought, smiled benignly and said,﹃Fear not, no harm shall happen to
you. I have exacted a promise of safety for you, and here no promise can
be broken.﹄"But why," I asked,﹃have you brought me hither, and how did
you obtain my guarantee of safety?﹄And my guide answered,﹃It is our
privilege each year to demand one favor which may not be refused; I
requested that I might bring you here; but I did not mention your name,
and if you do nothing outrageous you will not be noticed, for no one here
meddles with another's business, and our rulers are too much occupied with
foreign affairs to trouble about our domestic concerns.﹄"Yet," I
rejoined, "I shall surely be detected, for I wear no heavenly robe." Then
my guide produced one from a little packet, and having donned it, I felt
safe from the fate of him who was expelled because he had not on a
wedding-garment at the marriage feast.
As we moved along, I inquired of my guide why he took such interest in me;
and he replied, looking sadly,﹃I was a sceptic on earth centuries ago,
but I stood alone, and at last on my death-bed, weakened by sickness, I
again embraced the creed of my youth and died in the Christian faith.
Hence my presence in Heaven. But gladly would I renounce Paradise even for
Hell, for those figures so lovely without are not all lovely within, and I
would rather consort with the choicer spirits who abide with Satan and
hold high revel of heart and head in his court. Yet wishes are fruitless;
as the tree falls it lies, and my lot is cast for ever.﹄Whereupon I laid
my hand in his, being speechless with grief!
We soon approached the magnificent temple, and entering it we mixed with
the mighty crowd of angels who were witnessing the rites of worship
performed by the elders and beasts before the great white throne. All
happened exactly as Saint John describes. The angels rent the air with
their acclamations, after the inner circle had concluded, and then the
throne was deserted by its occupants.
My dear guide then led me through some narrow passages until we emerged
into a spacious hall, at one end of which hung a curtain. Advancing
towards this with silent tread, we were able to look through a slight
aperture, where the curtain fell away from the pillar, into the room
beyond. It was small and cosy, and a fire burned in the grate, before
which sat poor dear God the Father in a big arm-chair. Divested of his
godly paraphernalia, he looked old and thin, though an evil fire still
gleamed from his cavernous eyes. On a table beside him stood some phials,
one of which had seemingly just been used. God the Son stood near, looking
much younger and fresher, but time was beginning to tell on him also. The
Ghost flitted about in the form of a dove, now perching on the Father's
shoulder and now on the head of the Son.
Presently the massive bony frame of the Father was convulsed with a fit of
coughing; Jesus promptly applied a restorative from the phial, and after a
terrible struggle the cough was subdued. During this scene the Dove
fluttered violently from wall to wall. When the patient was thoroughly
restored the following conversation ensued:—
Jesus.—Are you well now, my Father?
Jehovah.—Yes, yes, well enough. Alack, how my strength wanes! Where
is the pith that filled these arms when I fought for my chosen people?
Where the fiery vigor that filled my veins when I courted your mother?
(Here the Dove fluttered and looked queer.)
Jesus.—Ah, sire, do not speak thus. You will regain your old
strength.
Jehovah.—Nay, nay, and you know it. You do not even wish me to
recover, for in my weakness you exercise sovereign power and rule as you
please.
Jesus.—O sire, sire!
Jehovah.—Come now, none of these demure looks. We know each other
too well. Practise before the saints if you like, but don't waste your
acting on me.
Jesus.—My dear Father, pray curb your temper. That is the very thing
the people on earth so much complain of.
Jehovah.—My dearly beloved Son, in whom I am not at all well
pleased, desist from this hypocrisy. Your temper is as bad as mine. You've
shed blood enough in your time, and need not rail at me.
Jesus.—Ah, sire, only the blood of heretics.
Jehovah.—Heretics, forsooth! They were very worthy people for the
most part, and their only crime was that they neglected you. But why
should we wrangle? We stand or fall together, and I am falling. Satan
draws most souls from earth to his place, including all the best workers
and thinkers, who are needed to sustain our drooping power; and we receive
nothing but the refuse; weak, slavish, flabby souls, hardly worth saving
or damning; gushing preachers, pious editors, crazy enthusiasts, and
half-baked old ladies of both sexes. Why didn't you preach a different
Gospel while you were about it? You had the chance once and let it slip:
we shall never have another.
Jesus.—My dear Father, I am reforming my Gospel to make it suit the
altered taste of the times.
Jehovah.—Stuff and nonsense! It can't be done; thinking people see
through it; the divine is immutable. The only remedy is to start afresh.
Could I beget a new son all might be rectified; but I cannot, I am too
old. Our dominion is melting away like that of all our predecessors. You
cannot outlast me, for I am the fountain of your life; and all the
multitude of "immortal" angels who throng our court, live only while I
uphold them, and with me they will vanish into eternal limbo.
Here followed another fit of coughing worse than before. Jesus resorted
again to the phial, but the cordial seemed powerless against this sharp
attack. Just then the Dove fluttered against the curtain, and my guide
hurried me swiftly away.
In a corridor of the temple we met Michael and Raphael. The latter
scrutinised me so closely that my blood ran cold; but just when my dread
was deepest his countenance cleared, and he turned towards his companion.
Walking behind the great archangels we were able to hear their
conversation. Raphael had just returned from a visit to the earth, and he
was reporting to Michael a most alarming defection from the Christian
faith. People, he said, were leaving in shoals, and unless fresh miracles
were worked he trembled for the prospects of the dynasty. But what most
alarmed him was the spread of profanity. While in England he had seen
copies of a blasphemous paper which horrified the elect by ridiculing the
Bible in what a bishop had justly called "a heartless and cruel way."
"But, my dear Michael," continued Raphael,﹃that is not all, nor even the
worst. This scurrilous paper, which would be quickly suppressed if we
retained our old influence, actually caricatures our supreme Lord and his
heavenly host in woodcuts, and thousands of people enjoy this wicked
profanity. I dare say our turn will soon come, and we shall be held up to
ridicule like the rest.﹄"Impossible!" cried Michael;﹃Surely there is
some mistake. What is the name of this abominable print?﹄With a grave
look, Raphael replied: "No, Michael, there is no mistake. The name of this
imp of blasphemy is—I hesitate to say it—the Free—————"
*
* Was it the Freethinker?
But at this moment my guide again hurried me along. We reached the
splendid gate once more, which slowly opened and let us through. Again we
flew through the billowy ether, sweeping past system after system with
intoxicating speed, until at last, dazed and almost unconscious, I
regained this earthly shore. Then I sank into a stupor. When I awoke the
fire had burnt down to the last cinder, all was dark and cold, and I
shivered as I tried to stretch my half-cramped limbs. Was it all a dream?
Who can say? Whether in the spirit or the flesh I know not, said Saint
Paul, and I am compelled to echo his words. Sceptics may shrug their
shoulders, smile, or laugh; but "there are more things in heaven and earth
than are dreamt of in their philosophy."
(January, 1879.)
Professor Blackie is a man with whom we cannot be angry, however greatly
his utterances are calculated to arouse that feeling. He is so impulsive,
frank, and essentially good-natured, that even his most provoking words
call forth rather a smile of compassion than a frown of resentment. Those
who know his character and position will yield him the widest allowance.
His fiery nature prompts him to energetic speech on all occasions. But
when his temper has been fretted, as it frequently is, by the boisterous
whims of his Greek students in that most boisterous of universities, it is
not surprising if his expressions become splenetic even to rashness. The
ingenuous Professor is quite impartial in his denunciations. He strikes
out right and left against various objects of his dislike. Everything he
dissents from receives one and the same kind of treatment, so that no
opinion he assails has any special reason to complain; and every blow he
deals is accompanied with such a jolly smile, sometimes verging into a
hearty laugh, that no opponent can well refuse to shake hands with him
when all is over.
This temper, however, is somewhat inconsistent with the scientific purpose
indicated in the title of Professor Blackie's book. A zoologist who had
such a particular and unconquerable aversion to one species of animals
that the bare mention of its name made his gorge rise, would naturally
give us a very inadequate and unsatisfactory account of it. So, in this
case, instead of getting a true natural history of Atheism, which would be
of immense service to every thinker, we get only an emphatic statement of
the authors' hatred of it under different aspects. Atheism is styled﹃a
hollow absurdity,﹄"that culmination of all speculative absurdities,"﹃a
disease of the speculative faculty,﹄"a monstrous disease of the reasoning
faculty," and so on.
The chapter on "Its Specific Varieties and General Root" is significantly
headed with that hackneyed declaration of the Psalmist,﹃The fool hath
said in his heart, There is no God,﹄as though impertinence were better
from a Jew than from a Christian, or more respectable for being three
thousand years old. Perhaps Professor Blackie has never heard of the
sceptical critic who exonerated the Psalmist on the ground that he was
speaking jocosely, and really meant that the man who said in his heart
only "There is no God," without saying so openly, was the fool. But
this interpretation is as profane as the other is impertinent; and in fact
does a great injustice to the Atheist, who has never been accustomed to
say "There is no God," an assertion which involves the arrogance of
infinite knowledge, since nothing less than that is requisite to prove an
universal negative: but simply "I know not of such an existence," which is
a modest statement intellectually and morally, and quite unlike the
presumption of certain theologians who, as Mr. Arnold says, speak
familiarly of God as though he were a man living in the next street.
For his own sake Professor Blackie should a little curb his proneness to
the use of uncomplimentary epithets. He does himself injustice when he
condescends to describe David Hume's theory of causation as﹃wretched
cavil.﹄Carlyle is more just to this great representative of an
antagonistic school of thought. He exempts him from the sweeping
condemnation of his contemporaries in Scottish prose literature, and
admits that he was "too rich a man to borrow" from France or elsewhere.
And surely Hume was no less honest than rich in thought. Jest and
captiousness were entirely foreign to his mind. Wincing under his
inexorable logic, the ontologist may try to console himself with the
thought that the great sceptic was playing with arguments like a mere
dialectician of wondrous skill; but in reality Hume was quite in earnest,
and always meant what he said. We may also observe that it is Professor
Blackie and not Darwin who suffers from the asking of such questions as
these:—"What monkey ever wrote an epic poem, or composed a tragedy
or a comedy, or even a sonnet? What monkey professed his belief in any
thirty-nine articles, or well-compacted Calvinistic confession, or gave in
his adhesion to any Church, established or disestablished?" If Mr. Darwin
heard these questions he might answer with a good humored smile, "My dear
sir, you quite mistake my theories, and your questions travesty them. I
would further observe that while the composition of poems would
unquestionably be creditable to monkeys, I, who have some regard for them
as relatives, however distant, am heartily glad they have never done any
of the other things you mention, which I deem a negative proof that their
reason, though limited, is fortunately sane."
Professor Blackie's opening chapter on "Presumptions" fully justifies its
title. The general consent of mankind in favor of Theism is assumed to
have established its validity, and to have put Atheists altogether out of
court; and a long list of illustrious Theists, from Solomon to Hegel, is
contrasted with a meagre catalogue of Atheists, comprising only the names
of David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. * Confucius and
Buddha are classed apart, as lying﹃outside of our Western European
Culture altogether,﹄but with a promise that﹃in so far as they seem to
have taught a morality without religion, or a religion without God, we
shall say a word or two about them by-and-by.﹄So far as Buddha is
concerned this promise is kept; but in relation to Confucius it is broken.
Probably the Chinese sage was found too tough and embarrassing a subject,
and so it was thought expedient to ignore him for the more tractable
prophet of India, whose doctrine of Transmigration might with a little
sophistry be made to resemble the Christian doctrine of Immortality, and
his Nirvana the Kingdom of Heaven.
* Professor Blackie is singularly silent as to James Mill,
the father of the celebrated Utilitarian philosopher, far
more robust in intellect and character than his son. He is
the dominant figure of Mill's "Autobiography," and has about
him a more august air than his son ever wore.
What does the general consent of mankind prove in regard to beliefs like
Theism? Simply nothing. Professor Blackie himself sees that on some
subjects it is worthless, particularly when special knowledge or special
faculty is required. But there are questions, he contends, which public
opinion rightly decides, even though opposed to the conclusions of subtle
thinkers. "Perhaps," he says,﹃we shall hit the mark here if we say
broadly that, as nature is always right, the general and normal sentiment
of the majority must always be right, in so far as it is rooted in the
universal and abiding instincts of humanity; and public opinion, as the
opinion of the majority, will be right also in all matters which belong to
the general conduct of life among all classes, and with respect to which
the mind of the majority has been allowed a perfectly free, natural, and
healthy exercise.﹄Now, in the first place, we must reiterate our opinion
that the general consent of mankind on a subject like Theism proves
absolutely nothing. It is perfectly valid on questions of ordinary taste
and feeling, but loses all logical efficacy in relation to questions which
cannot be determined by a direct appeal to experience. And undeniably
Theism is one of those questions, unless we admit with the
transcendentalist what is contrary to evident fact, that men have an
intuitive perception of God. In the next place, the minor premise of this
argument is assumed. There is no general consent of mankind in favor of
Theism, but only a very extensive consent. Mr. Gladstone, not long since,
in the Nineteenth Century, went so far as to claim the general
consent of mankind in favor of Christianity, by simply excluding all
heathen nations from a right to be heard. Professor Blackie does not go to
this length, but his logical process is no different. Lastly, our author's
concluding proviso vitiates his whole case; for if there be one question
on which "the mind of the majority" has not been allowed a
"perfectly free, natural, and healthy exercise," it is that of the
existence of God. We are all prepossessed hi its favor by early training,
custom, and authority. Our minds have never been permitted to play freely
upon it. A century ago Atheists stood in danger of death; only recently
have penal and invidious statutes against them been cancelled or
mitigated; and even now bigotry against honest disbelief in Theism is so
strong that a man often incurs greater odium in publicly avowing it than
in constantly violating all the decalogue save the commandment against
murder. Murderers and thieves, though punished here, are either forgotten
or compassionated after death; but not even the grave effectually shields
the Atheist from the malignity of pious zeal. Fortunately, however, a wise
and humane tolerance is growing in the world, and extending towards the
most flagrant heresies. Perhaps we shall ultimately admit with sage old
Felltham, that﹃we fill the world with cruel brawls in the obstinate
defence of that whereof we might with more honor confess ourselves to be
ignorant,﹄and that "it is no shame for man not to know that which is not
in his possibility."
The causes of Atheism are, according to Professor Blackie, very numerous.
He finds seven or eight distinct ones. The lowest class of Atheists are
"Atheists of imbecility," persons of stunted intellect, incapable of
comprehending the idea of God. These, however, he will not waste his time
with, nor will we. He then passes to the second class of reprobates, whose
Atheism springs not from defect of intellect, but from moral disorder, and
who delight to conceive the universe as resembling their own chaos. These
we shall dismiss, with a passing remark that if moral disorder naturally
induces Atheism, some very eminent Christians have been marvellous
hypocrites. Lack of reverence is the next cause of Atheism, and is indeed
its "natural soil." But as Professor Blackie thinks this may be
﹃congenital, like a lack of taste for music, or an incapacity of
understanding a mathematical problem,﹄we are obliged to consider this
third class of Atheists as hopeless as the first. Having admitted that
their malady may be congenital, our author inflicts upon these
unfortunates a great deal of superfluous abuse, apparently forgetting that
they are less to blame than their omnipotent maker. The fourth cause of
Atheism is pride or self-will. But this seems very erratic in its
operations, since the only two instances cited—namely, Napoleon the
Great and Napoleon the Little, were certainly Theists. Next comes
democracy, between which and irreverence there is a natural connexion, and
from which,﹃as from a hotbed, Atheism in its rankest stage naturally
shoots up.﹄Professor Blackie, as may be surmised, tilts madly against
this horrible foe. But it will not thus be subdued. Democracy is here and
daily extending itself, overwhelming slowly but surely all impediments to
its supremacy. If Theism is incompatible with it, then the days of Theism
are numbered. Professor Blackie's peculiar Natural History of atheism is
more likely to please the opposite ranks than his own, who may naturally
cry out, with a sense of being sold, "call you that backing of your
friends?"
Pride of intellect is the next cause of Atheism. Don Juan sells himself to
perdition for a liberal share of pleasure, but Faust hankers only after
forbidden knowledge. This is of various kinds; but﹃of all kinds, that
which has long had the most evil reputation of begetting Atheism is
Physical Science.﹄Again does the fervid Professor set lance in rest, and
dash against this new foe to Theism, much as Don Quixote charged the
famous windmill. But science, like the windmill, is too big and strong to
suffer from such assaults. The "father of this sort of nonsense," in
modern times was David Hume, who, we are elegantly informed, was﹃a very
clever fellow, a very agreeable, gentlemanly fellow too.﹄His﹃nonsense
about causation﹄is to be traced to a want of reverence in his character.
Indeed, it seems that all persons who adhere to a philosophy alien to
Professor Blackie's have something radically wrong with them. Let this
Edinburgh Professor rail as he may, David Hume's theory of causation will
suffer no harm, and his contrast of human architecture, which is
mechanism, with natural architecture, which is growth, will still form an
insuperable obstacle to that "natural theology" which, as Garth Wilkinson
says with grim humor, seeks to elicit, or rather "construct," "a
scientific abstraction answering to the concrete figure of the Vulcan of
the Greeks—that is to say a universal Smith"!
Eventually Professor Blackie gets so sick of philosophers, that he turns
from them to poets, who may more safely be trusted﹃in matters of healthy
human sentiment.﹄But here fresh difficulties arise. Although﹃a poet is
naturally a religious animal,﹄we find that the greatest of Roman poets
Lucretius, was an Atheist, while even﹃some of our most brilliant
notorieties in the modern world of song are not the most notable for
piety.﹄But our versatile Professor easily accounts for this by assuming
that there﹃may be an idolatry of the imaginative, as well as of the
knowing faculty.﹄Never did natural historian so jauntily provide for
every fact contravening his theories. Professor Blackie will never
understand Atheism, or write profitably upon it, while he pursues this
course. Let him restrain his discursive propensities, and deal
scientifically with this one fact, which explodes his whole theory of
Atheism. The supreme glory of our modern poetry is Shelley, and if ever a
man combined splendor of imagination with keen intelligence and saintly
character it was he. Raphael incarnate he seems, yet he stands outside all
the creeds, and to his prophetic vision, in the sunlight of the world's
great age begun anew, the—
Faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
In his treatment of Buddhism Professor Blackie is candid and impartial,
until he comes to consider its Atheistic character. Then his reason seems
almost entirely to forsake him. After saying that﹃what Buddha preached
was a gospel of pure human ethics, divorced not only from Brahma and the
Brahminic Trinity, but even from the existence of God;﹄and describing
Buddha himself as﹃a rare, exceptional, and altogether transcendental
incarnation of moral perfection;﹄he first tries to show that Nirvana
is the same as the Christian eternal life, and transmigration of
souls a faithful counterpart of the Christian doctrine of future reward
and punishment. Feeling, perhaps, how miserably he has failed in this
attempt, he turns with exasperation on Buddhism, and affirms that it﹃can
in no wise be looked upon as anything but an abnormal manifestation of the
religious life of man.﹄We believe that Professor Blackie himself must
have already perceived the futility and absurdity of this.
The last chapter of Professor Blackie's book is entitled﹃The Atheism of
Reaction.﹄In it he strikes characteristically at the five points of
Calvinism, at Original Guilt, Eternal Punishment, Creation out of Nothing,
and Special Providence; which he charges with largely contributing to the
spread of Atheism. While welcoming these assaults on superstition, we are
constrained to observe that the Christian dogmas which Professor Blackie
impugns and denounces are not specific causes of Atheism. Again he is on
the wrong scent. The revolt against Theism at the present time is indeed
mainly moral, but the preparation for it has been an intellectual one.
Modern Science has demonstrated, for all practical purposes, the
inexorable reign of law. The God of miracles, answering prayer and
intimately related to his children of men, is an idea exploded and
henceforth impossible. The only idea of God at all possible, is that of a
supreme universal intelligence, governing nature by fixed laws, and
apparently quite heedless whether their operation brings us joy or pain.
This idea is intellectually permissible, but it is beyond all proof, and
can be entertained only as a speculation. Now, the development of
knowledge which makes this the only permissible idea of God, also changes
Immortality from a religious certitude to an unverifiable supposition. The
rectification of the evils of this life cannot, therefore, be reasonably
expected in another; so that man stands alone, fighting a terrible battle,
with no aid save from his own strength and skill. To believe that
Omnipotence is the passive spectator of this fearful strife, is for many
minds altogether too hard. They prefer to believe that the woes and pangs
of sentient life were not designed; that madness, anguish, and despair,
result from the interplay of unconscious forces. They thus set Theism
aside, and unable to recognise the fatherhood of God, they cling more
closely to the brotherhood of Man.
(April, 1882.)
There is no new thing under the sun, said the wise king Many a surprising
novelty is only an old thing in a new dress. And this is especially true
in respect to religion. Ever since the feast of Pentecost, when the
Apostles all jabbered like madmen, Christianity has been marked by
periodical fits of insanity. It would occupy too much space to enumerate
these outbursts, which have occurred in every part of Christendom, but we
may mention a few that have happened in our own country. During the
Commonwealth, some of the numerous sects went to the most ludicrous
extremes; preaching rousing sermons, praying through the nose, assuming
Biblical names, and prophesying the immediate reign of the saints. There
was a reaction against the excesses of Puritanism after the death of
Cromwell; and until the time of Whitfield and Wesley religion continued to
be a sober and respectable influence, chiefly useful to the sovereign and
the magistrate. But these two powerful preachers rekindled the fire of
religious enthusiasm in the hearts of the common people, and Methodism was
founded among those whom the Church had scarcely touched. Not many years
ago the Hallelujah Band spread itself far and wide, and then went out like
a straw fire. And now we have Salvationism, doing just the same kind of
work, and employing just the same kind of means. Will this new movement
die away like so many others? It is difficult to say. Salvationism may be
only a flash in the pan; but, on the other hand, it may provide the only
sort of Christianity possible in an age of science and freethought. The
educated classes and the intelligent artisans will more and more desert
the Christian creed, and there will probably be left nothing but the dregs
and the scum, for whom Salvationism is exactly suited. Christianity began
among the poor, ignorant, and depraved; and it may possibly end its
existence among the very same classes.
In all these movements we see a striking illustration of what the
biologists call the law of Atavism. There is a constant tendency to return
to the primitive type. We can form some idea of what early Christianity
was by reading the Acts of the Apostles. The true believers went about
preaching in season and out of season; they cried and prayed with a loud
voice; they caused tumult in the streets, and gave plenty of trouble to
the civil authorities. All this is true of Salvationism to-day; and we
have no doubt that the early Church, under the guidance of Peter, was just
a counterpart of the Salvation Army under "General" Booth—to the
Jews, or men of the world, a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks, or
educated thinkers, a folly.
Early Christians were "full of the Holy Ghost," that is of wild
enthusiasm. Scoffers said they were drunk, and they acted like madmen.
Leap across seventeen centuries, and we shall find Methodists acting in
the same way. Wesley states in his Journal (1739) of his hearers at
Wapping, that﹃some were torn with a kind of convulsive motion in every
part of their bodies, and that so violently that often four or five
persons could not hold one of them.﹄And Lecky tells us, in his﹃History
of the Eighteenth Century,﹄that﹃religious madness, which from the nature
of its hallucinations, is usually the most miserable of all the forms of
insanity, was in this, as in many later revivals, of no unfrequent
occurrence.﹄Now Salvationism produces the very same effects. It drives
many people mad; and it is a common thing for men and women at its
meetings to shout, dance, jump, and finally fall on the floor in a pious
ecstacy. While they are in this condition, the Holy Ghost is entering them
and the Devil is being driven out. Poor creatures! They take us back in
thought to the days of demoniacal possession, and the strange old world
that saw the devil-plagued swine of Gadara drowned in the sea.
The free and easy mingling of the sexes at these pious assemblies, is
another noticeable feature. Love-feasts were a flagrant scandal in the
early Church, and women who returned from them virtuous must have been
miracles of chastity. Methodism was not quite so bad, but it tolerated
some very strange pranks. The Rev. Richard Polwhele, in his﹃Anecdotes of
Methodism﹄(a very rare book), says that﹃At St. Agnes, the Society stay
up the whole night, when girls of twelve and fourteen years of age, run
about the streets, calling out that they are possessed.﹄He goes on to
relate that at Probus﹃the preacher at a late hour of the night, after all
but the higher classes left the room, would order the candles to be put
out, and the saints fall down and kneel on their naked knees; when he
would go round and thrust his hand under every knee to feel if it were
bare.﹄Salvationism does not at present go to this length, but it has
still time enough to imitate all the freaks of its predecessor. There was
an All-Night meeting in Whitechapel a few months ago, which threatened to
develope into a thoroughgoing love-feast. The light was rather dim, voices
grew low, cheeks came perilously near, and hands met caressingly. Of
course it was nothing but the love of God that moved them, yet it looked
like something else; and the uninitiated spectator of﹃the mystery of
godliness﹄found it easy to understand how American camp-meetings tend to
increase the population, and why a Magistrate in the South-west of England
observed that one result of revivals in his district was a number of
fatherless weans.
In one respect Salvationism excels all previous revivals. It is
unparalleled in its vulgarity. The imbecile coarseness of its language
makes one ashamed of human nature. Had it existed in Swift's time, he
might have added a fresh clause to his terrible indictment of mankind. Its
metaphors are borrowed from the slaughter-house, its songs are frequently
coarser than those of the lowest music-hall, and the general style of its
preaching is worthy of a congregation of drunken pugilists. The very names
assumed by its officers are enough to turn one's stomach. Christianity has
fallen low indeed when its champions boast such titles as the﹃Hallelujah
Fishmonger,﹄the "Blood-washed Miner," the "Devil Dodger," the﹃Devil
Walloper,﹄and "Gipsy Sal."
The constitution of the Salvation Army is a pure despotism. General Booth
commands it absolutely. There is a Council of War, consisting of his own
family. All the funds flow into his exchequer, and he spends them as he
likes. No questions are allowed, no accounts are rendered, and everything
is under his unqualified control. The "General" may be a perfectly honest
man, but we are quite sure that none but pious lunatics would trust him
with such irresponsible power.
We understand that the officials are all paid, and some of them extremely
well. They lead a very pleasant life, full of agreeable excitement; they
wear uniform, and are dubbed captain, major, or some other title. Add to
all this, that they suppose themselves (when honest) to be particular
favorites of God; and it will be easy to understand how so many of them
prefer a career of singing and praying to earning an honest living by hard
work, The Hallelujah lads and lasses could not, for the most part, get
decent wages in any other occupation. All they require for this work is a
good stomach and good lungs; and if they can only boast of having been the
greatest drunkard in the district, the worst thief, or the most brutal
character, they are on the high road to fortune, and may count on living
in clover for the rest of their sojourn in this vale of tears.
(October, 1882.)
We all remember how that clever showman, Barnum, managed to fan the Jumbo
fever. When the enterprising Yankee writes his true autobiography we shall
doubtless find some extraordinary revelations. Yet Barnum, after all,
makes no pretence of morality or religion. He merely goes in for making a
handsome fortune out of the curiosity and credulity of the public. If he
were questioned as to his principles, he would probably reply like Artemus
Ward—"Princerpuls? I've nare a one. I'm in the show bizniz."
General Booth is quite as much a showman as Barnum, but he is a pious
showman. He is a perfect master of the vulgar art of attracting fools.
Every day brings a fresh change in his "Walk up, Walk up." Tambourine
girls, hallelujah lasses, converted clowns and fiddlers, sham Italian
organ grinders, bands in which every man plays his own tune, officers in
uniform, Davidic dances, and music-hall tunes, are all served up with a
plentiful supply of blood and fire. The "General" evidently means to stick
at nothing that will draw; and we quite believe that if a pair of
Ezekiel's cherubim were available, he would worry God Almighty into
sending them down for exhibition at the City Road show.
Booth's latest dodge is to say the least peculiar. Most fathers would
shrink from trafficking in a son's marriage, but Booth is above such nice
scruples. The worst deeds are sanctified by love of God, and religion
condones every indecency.
Mr. Bramwell Booth, whom the General has singled out as his apostolic
successor, and heir to all the Army's property, got married last week; and
the pious showman actually exhibited the bridegroom and bride to the
public at a shilling a head. About three hundred pounds were taken at the
doors, and a big collection was made inside. Booth's anxiety for the cash
was very strongly illustrated. Commissioner Bailton, who has had a very
eccentric career, was enjoying his long deferred opportunity of making a
speech, when many of the crowd began to press towards the door. "Stop,"
cried Booth, "don't go yet, there's going to be a collection." But the
audience melted faster than ever. Whereupon Booth jumped up again, stopped
poor Railton unceremoniously, and shouted﹃Hold on, we'll make the
collection now.﹄This little manouvre was quite in keeping with the
showman's instruction to his subalterns, to have plenty of good strong
collecting boxes and pass them round often.
Booth's facetious remarks during his son's marriage according to the Army
forms were well adapted to tickle the ears of his groundlings. The whole
thing was a roaring farce, and well sustained the reputation of the show.
There was also the usual spice of blasphemy. Before Bramwell Booth marched
on to the platform a board was held up bearing the inscription﹃Behold the
bridegroom cometh.﹄These mountebanks have no reverence even for what they
call sacred. They make everything dance to their tune. They prostitute
"God's Word," caricature Jesus Christ, and burlesque all the watchwords
and symbols of their creed.
One of Booth's remarks after the splicing was finished is full of
suggestion. He said that his enemies might cavil, but he had found out a
road to fortune in this world and the next. Well, the Lord only knows how
he will fare in the next world, but in this world the pious showman has
certainly gained a big success. He can neither write nor preach, and as
for singing, a half a dozen notes from his brazen throat would empty the
place as easily as a cry of "Fire." But he is a dexterous manager; he
knows how to work the oracle; he understands catering for the mob; in
short, he is a very clever showman, who deals in religion just as other
showmen deal in wild animals, giants, dwarfs, two-headed sheep, fat women,
and Siamese twins.
Fortune has brought to our hands a copy of a private circular issued by
"Commissioner" Railton, soliciting wedding presents for Mr. Bramwell
Booth. With the exception of Reuben May's begging letters, it is the
finest cadging document we ever saw. Booth was evidently ashamed to sign
it himself, so it bears the name of Railton. But the pious showman cannot
disown the responsibility for it. He will not allow the officers of the
Army to marry without his sanction; he forbids them to accept any private
present; he keeps a sharp eye on every detail of the organisation. Surely,
then, he will not have the face to say that he knew nothing of Railton's
circular. He has face enough for almost anything, but hardly for this.
There is one damning fact which he cannot shirk. Bailton asks that all
contributions shall be made "payable to William Booth, as usual."
Bailton spreads the butter pretty freely on Booth and his family. He says
that their devotion to the Army has﹃loaded them with care, and often made
them suffer weakness and pain.﹄As to Mr. Bramwell Booth, in particular,
we are informed that he has worked so hard behind the scenes, as Chief of
the Staff, that many of his hairs are grey at twenty-seven. Poor Bramwell!
The Army should present him with a dozen bottles of hair restorer. Perhaps
his young wife will renew his raven head by imitating the lady in the
fable, and pulling out all the grey hairs.
In order to compensate this noble family in some degree for their
marvellous devotion to the great cause, Bailton proposes that wedding
presents in the shape of cash should be made to Mr. Bramwell Booth
on the day of his marriage. Whatever money is received will go, not to the
young gentleman personally, but to reducing the Army debt of £11,000. But
as the Army property is all in Booth's hands, and Mr. Bramwell is his heir
and successor, it is obvious that any reduction of the debt will be so
much clear gain to the firm.
The General evidently saw that the case was a delicate one; so Bailton
sends out a private circular, which he excuses on the ground that﹃any
public appeal would not be at all agreeable to Mr. Bramwell's own
feelings.﹄Of course not. But we dare say the wedding presents will be
agreeable enough. As this is a strong point with the firm, Bailton repeats
it later on. "I do not wish," he says,﹃to make any public announcement of
this.﹄The reason of this secrecy is doubtless the same as that which
prompts the General to exclude reporters and interlopers from his
all-night meetings. Only the initiated are allowed in, and they of course
may be safely trusted.
With the circular Bailton sent out envelopes in which the pious dupes were
to forward their contributions; and printed slips, headed﹃Wedding
Presents to Mr. Bramwell Booth,﹄on which they were asked to specify the
amount of their gift and the sin from which the Salvation Army had rescued
them. This printed slip contains a list of sins, which would do credit to
a Jesuit confessor. Booth has we think missed his vocation. He might have
achieved real distinction in the army of Ignatius Loyola.
The circular is a wonderful mixture of piety and business. Nearly every
sentence contains a little of both. The cash will not only gladden the
hearts of the Booths, but "make the devil tremble," and﹃give earth and
hell another shock.﹄This last bit of extravagance is rather puzzling.
That hell should receive another shock is very proper, but why is there to
be an earthquake at the same time?
We have said enough to show the true character of this cadging trick. It
throws a strong light on the business methods of this pious showman. Booth
is playing a very astute game. By reducing the Army to military
discipline, and constituting himself its General, he retains an absolute
command over its resources, and is able to crush out all opposition and
silence all criticism. He wields a more than Papal despotism. All the
higher posts are held by members of his own family. His eldest son is
appointed as his successor. The property thus remains in the family, and
the Booth dynasty is established on a solid foundation. Such an impudent
imposture would scarcely be credible if it were not patent that there is
still amongst us a vast multitude of two-legged sheep, who are ready to
follow any plausible shepherd, and to yield up their fleeces to his
shears.
End of Project Gutenberg's Arrows of Freethought, by George W. Foote
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARROWS OF FREETHOUGHT ***
***** This file should be named 30204-h.htm or 30204-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/2/0/30204/
Produced by David Widger
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase『Project
Gutenberg』is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the『Right
of Replacement or Refund』described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
http://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.