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NATlONALSECUlARSOCffil-Y
NEW LIFE OF JACOB.
BY C. BRADLAUGH.
It is pleasant work to present to the reader sketches of God’s chosen
people. More especially is it an agreeable task to recapitulate ^the in
teresting events occurring during the life of a man whom God has
loved. Jacob was the son of Isaac; the grandson of Abraham. These
three men were so free from fault, their lives so unobjectionable, that
the God of the Bible delighted to be called the “ God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” It is true Abraham owned
slaves, was not exact to the truth, and, on one occasion, turned his
wife and child out to the mercies of a sandy desert. That Isaac in
some sort followed his father’s example and disingenuous practices,,
and that Jacob was without manly feeling, a sordid, selfish, unfraternal
cozener, a cowardly trickster, a cunning knave, but they must never
theless have been good men, for God was “the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The name Jacob
js n0^
inappropriate. Kalisch says—“ This appellation, if taken in its obvious etvmological meaning, implies a deep ignominy : for the root
from which it is derived
signifies to deceive, to defraud, and in
such a despicable meaning the same form of the word is indeed used
elsewhere. (Jeremiah ix., v. 3.) Jacob would, therefore, be nothing
else but the crafty impostor; in this sense Esau, in the heat of his
animosity, in fact clearly explains the word, “justly is his name called
Jacob (cheat) because he has cheated me twice.” (Genesis xxvii., v. 36.)
According to the ordinary orthodox Bible chronology, Jacob was born
about 1836 or 1837 b.c., that is, about 2168 years from “in thebegin
ning,” his father Isaac being then sixty years of age. There is a diffi
culty connected with Holy Scripture chronology, which would be in
superable were it not that we have the advantage of spiritual aids m
elucidation of the text. This difficulty arises from the fact that tim
chronology of the Bible, in this respect, like the major portion o
Bible history, is utterly unreliable. But we do not look to the Old or
New Testament for mere common-place, every-day facts; or if we do,
severe will be the disappointment of the truth-seeker; we look there
for mysteries, miracles, paradoxes, and perplexities, and have no dif
ficulties in finding the objects of our search. Jacob was born, together
with his twin brother, Esau, in consequence of special entreaty ad
dressed by Isaac to the Lord on behalf of Rebekah, to whom he had been
married about nineteen years, and who was yet childless. Infidel
physiologists (and it is a strange, though not unaccountable fact, that
all who are physiologists are also in so far infidel) assert that prayer
would do 1’ttle to repair the consequence of such disease, or such
�NEV' LIFE OF JACOB.
2
abnormal organic structure, as would compel sterility. But our able
clergy are agreed that the Bible was not intended to teach us science;
or, at any rate, weSbve learned that its attempts in that direction are
miserable failures. Its mission is to teach the unteachabie ; to
enable us to comprehend the incomprehensible. Before Jacob was
born, God decreed that lie and his descendants should obtain the
mastery over Esau and his descendants, “ the elder shall serve the
younger.”* The God of the Bible is a just God, but it is hard for
weak'flesh to discover the justice of this proemial decree, which so
sentenced to servitude the children of Esau before their father’s birth.
Jacob came into the world holding by his brother’s heel, like some
eowardly knave in tWfe$battle of life, who, not daring to break a gap in
the hedge of conventional prejudice, which bars his path, is yet ready
enough to follow some bolder warrior, and to gather the fruits of his
courage. “ And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a
man of the field: and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.”
One day, Esau returned from his hunting, faint and wearied to the
very point of death. He was hungry, and came to Jacob, his twin and
only brother, saying, “ Feed me, I pray thee ”f ‘‘ for I am exceedingly
faint.In a like case would not any man so entreated immediately
offer to the other the best at his command, the more especially when
that other is his only brother, born at the same time, from the same
womb, suckled at the same breast, fed under the same roof? But
Jacob was not a man and a brother, he was one of God’s chosen people,
and one who had been honoured by God’s prenatal selection. £‘ If a
man come unto me and hate not his brother, he cannot be my disciple.”
So taught Jesus the Jew, in after time, but in this earlier age .Jacob
the Jew, in practice, anticipated the later doctrine. It is one of the
misfortunes of theologv, if not its crime, that profession of love to God
is often accompanied with bitter and active hate of man. Jacob was
one of the founders of the Jewish race, and even in this their pre
historic age, the instinct for driving a hard bargain seems strongly de
veloped. “ Jacob said ” to Esau, “ Sell me this day thy birthright.”
The famished man vainly expostulated, and the birthright was sold for
a mess of pottage. If to-day one man should so meanly and cruelly
take advantage of his brother's necessities to rob him of his birthright,
all good and honest men would shun him as an unbrotherly scoundrel,
and most contemptible knave; yet, less than 4.000 years ago, a very dif
ferent standard of morality must have prevailed. Indeed, if God is
unchangeable, divine notions of honour and honesty must to-day be
widely different from those of our highest men. God approved and
endorsed Jacob's conduct. His approval is shown by his love, after
wards expressed for Jacob, his endorsement by his subsequent atten
tion to Jacob's welfare. We may learn from this tale, so preg-nnt with instruction, that any deed which to the worldly and
sensible man appears like knavery while understood literally; becomes
to the devout and prayerful man an act of piety, when understood
* Genesis, chap, xxv., v. 23.
■ f Ibid, chap, xxv., v. 30.
| Douay Version.
�NEW LIFE OF JACOB.
3
spiritually. Much faith is required to thoroughly understand this;
per example—it looks like swindling to collect poor children’s half
pence and farthings in the Sunday schools for missionary purposes
abroad, and to spend thereout two or three hundred pounds in an
annual jubilatory dinner for well-fed pauper parsons at home ; and so
thought the noble Lord who wrote to the Times under the initials
S. G. O. If he had possessed more faith and less sense he would have
seen the piety and completely overlooked the knavery of the transac
tion. Pious preachers and clever commentators declare that Esau
despised his birthright. I do not deny that they might back
their declaration by scripture quotations, but fitlo deny the narrative
ought to convey any such impression. Esau’s words were, “ Behold
lam at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright be to me?”
Isaac growing old, and fearing from his physical infirmities the near
approach of death, was anxious to bless Esau before he died, and
directed him to take quiver and bow and go out in the field to hunt
some venison for a savory meat, such as old Isaac loved. Esau departed,
but when he had left his father’s presence in order to fulfil his request,
Jacob appeared on the scene. Instigated by his mother, he, by an
abject stratagem, passed himself off as Esau. With a savory meat
prepared by Rebekah, he came into his father’s presence, and Isaac
said, “ Who art thou, my son ? ” Lying lips are an abomination to the
Lord. The Lord loved Jacob, yet Jacob lied to his old blind father,
saying, “ I am Esau thy first-born.” Isaac had some doubts : these
are manifested by his inquiring how it was that the game was killed so
quickly. Jacob, whom God loved, in a spirit of shameless blasphemy
replied, “ Because the Lord thy God brought it to me.” Isaac still
hesitated, fancying that he recognised the voice to be the voice of
Jacob, and again questioned him, saying, “Art thou my very son
Esau? ’ God is the God of truth and loved Jacob, yet Jacob said,
“ I am.” Then Isaac blessed Jacob, believing that he was blessing
Esau : and God permitted the fraud to be successful, and himself also
blessed Jacob. In that extraordinary composition known as the Epistle
to the Hebrews, we are told that by faith Isaac blessed Jacob. But
what faith had Isaac ? Faith that Jacob was Esau ? His belief was
produced by deceptive appearances. His faith resulted from false
representations. And there are very many men in the w o'rid who have
no better foundation for their religious faith than had Isaac when he
blessed Jacob, believing him to be Esau. In the Douay Bible I find
the following note on this remarkable narrative“ St. Augustine
(L. contra mendacium, c. 10J, treating at large upon this place, excuseth
Jacob from a lie, because this whole passage was mysterious, as relating
to the preference which was afterwards to be given to the Gentiles
before the carnal Jews, which Jacob, by prophetic light, might under
stand. So far it is certain that the first birthright, both by divine
election and by Esau’s free cession, belonged to Jacob; so that :p
there were any lie in the case, it would be no more than an officious
and venial one.” How glorious to be a patriarch, and to have a real
saint labouring years after your death to twist your lies into truth by
aid of prophetic light. Lying is at all times most disreputable, but at
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NEW LIFE OF JACOB.
the deathbed the crime is rendered more heinous. The death hour
would have awed many men into speaking the truth, but it had little
effect on Jacob. Although Isaac was about to die, this greedy knave
cared not, so that he got from the dying man the sought-for prize.
God is said to love righteousness and hate iniquity, yet he loved the
iniquitous Jacob, and hated the honest Esau. All knaves are tinged
more or less with cowavdice. Jaaob was no exception to the rule.
His brother, enraged at the deception practised upon Isaac, threatened
to kill Jacob. Jacob was warned by his mother and fled. Induced
by Rebekah, Isaac charged Jacob to marry one of Laban’s daughters.
On the way to Haran, where Laban dwelt, Jacob rested and slept.
While sleeping he dreamed ; ordinarily, dreams have little significance,
but in the Bible they are more important. Some of the most weighty
and vital facts (?) of the Bible are communicated in dreams, and rightly
so ; if the men had been wideawake they would have probably rejected
the’revelation as absurd. So much does that prince of darkness, the
devil, influence mankind against the Bible in the day time, that it is
when all is dark, and our eyes are closed, and the senses dormant, that
God’s mysteries are most” clearly seen and understood. Jacob “saw
in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof
touching heaven; the angels also of God ascending and descending by
it, and the Lord leaning upon the ladder.”* In the ancient temples of
India, and in the mysteries of Mithra, the seven-stepped ladder by
which the spirits ascended to heaven is a prominent feature, and one
of probably far higher antiquity than the age of Jacob. Did paganism
furnish the groundwork for the patriarch’s dream? “No man hath
seen God at any time.” God is “invisible.” Yet Jacob saw’ the
invisible God, whom no man hath seen or can see, either standing above
a ladder or leaning upon it. True, it was all a dream. Yet God spoke
to Jacob, but perhaps that was a delusion too. We find by scripture,
that God threatens to send to some “ strong delusions that they might
believe a lie ancl be damned.” Poor Jacob was much frightened; as
any one might be, to dream of God leaning on so long a ladder. What
if it bad broken, and the dreamer underneath it? Jacob’s fears were
not so powerful but that his shrewdness and avarice had full scope in a
sort of half-vow, half-contract, made in the morning. Jacob said,
“ If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and
will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I shall come
again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the Lord be mv
God.” The inference deducible from this conditional statement is,
that if God failed to complete the items enumerated by Jacob, then
the latter would have nothing to do with him. Jacob was a shrewd
Jewr, w'ho would have laughed to scorn the preaching “ lake no thought,
saving, w’hat shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal
shall we be clothed ? ”
After this contract Jacob went on his journey, and reached the
'lipuse of his mother’s brother, Laban, into whose service he entered.
u Diamond cut diamond ” would be an appropriate heading to the tale
* Genesis, c. xxviii., vv. 12 and 13, Douay version
�5
NEW LIFE OF JACOH.
which gives the transactions between Jacob the Jew and Laban the
son of Nahor. Laban had two daughters. Rachel, the youngest, was
“ beautiful and well-favoured; ” Leah, the elder, was <£ blear-eyed.”
Jacob served for the pretty one; but on the wedding day Laban made
a feast, and when evening came gave Jacob the ugly Leah instead
of the pretty Rachel. Jacob being (according to Josephus) both in
drink and in the dark, it was morning ere he discovered his error.
After this Jacob served for Rachel also, and then the remainder of the
chapter of Jacob’s servitude to Laban is but the recital of a series of
frauds and trickeries. Jacob embezzled Laban’s property, and Laban
misappropriated and changed Jacob’s wages. In fact, if Jacob had not
possessed the advantage of divine aid, he would probably have failed in
the endeavour to cheat his master, but God, who says “ thou shalt not
covet thy neighbour’s house, nor anything that is thy neighbour’s,” en
couraged Jacob in his career of covetous criminalty. At last Jacob,
having amassed a large quantity of property, determined to abscond
from his employment, and taking advantage of his uncle’s absence at
sheepshearing, “ he stole away unawares,” taking with him his wives,
his children, flocks, herds, and goods. To crown the whole, Rachel,
worthy wife of a husband so fraudulent, stole her father’s gods. In the
present day the next phase would be the employment of Mr. Serjeant
Vericute, of the special detective department, and the issue of bills as
follows:—
“ONE HUNDRED SHEKELS
REWARD.
Absconded, with a. large amount of property,
JACOB, THE JEW.
Information to be given to Laban, the Syrian, at Haran, in the
East, or to Mr. Serjeant Vericute, Scotland Yard.”
But in those days, God’s ways were not as our ways. God came to
Laban in a dream and compounded the felony, saying, “ Take beed
thou speak not anything harshly against Jacob.”* This would
probably prevent Laban giving evidence in a police court against Jacob,
and thus save him from transportation or penal servitude. After a re
conciliation and treaty had been effected between Jacob and Laban,
the former went on his way “ and the angels of God met him.” Angels
are not included in the circle with which I have at present made ac
quaintance, and I hesitate, therefore, to comment on the meeting be
tween Jacob and the angels. Balaam’s ass, ata later period, shared the
good fortune which was the lot of Jacob, for that animal also had a
meeting with an angel. Jacob was the grandson of the faithful Abra
ham to whom angels also appeared. Perhaps angelic apparitions are
limited to asses and the faithful. On this point I do not venture to
assert, and but timidly suggest. It is somewhat extraordinary that
Jacob should have manifested no surprise at meeting a host of
angels. Still more worthy of note is it that our good translators
* Genesis, c. xxxi.. v. 24, Douay version.
�6
NEW LIFE OF JACOB.
elevate the same words into “ angels” in verse 1, which they degrade
into “messengers” in verse 3. John Bellamy, in his translation, says
the “angels” were not immortal angels, and it is very probable John
Bellamy was right. Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, and
heard that the latter was coming to meet him followed by 400 men.
Jacob, a timorous knave at best, became terribly afraid. He, doubtless,,
remembered the wrongs inflicted upon Esau, the cruel extortion of the
birthright, and the fraudulent obtainment of the dying Isaac's blessing.
He, therefore, sent forward to his brother Esau a large present as a
peace offering. He also divided the remaindei- of his flocks, herds,
and goods, into two divisions, that if one were smitten, the other might
escape ; sending these on, he was left alone. While alone he wrestled
with either a man, or an angel, or God. The text says “ a man,” the
heading to the chapter says “an angel,” and Jacob himself says that
he has “ seen God face to face.” W hether God, angel, or man, it was
not a fair wrestle, and were the present editor of Bell’s Life referee, he
would, unquestionably, declare it to be most unfair to touch “ the
hollow of Jacob’s thigh” so as to put it “ out of joint,” and conse
quently, award the result of the match to Jacob. Jacob, notwithstanding
the injury, still kept his grip, and the apocryphal wrestler, finding him
self no match at fair struggling, and that foul play was unavailing,
now trie 1 entreaty, and said, “Let me go, for the day breaketh.”
Spirits never appear in the day time, when if they did appear, they
could be seen and examined; they are often more visible in the twilight,
in the darkness, and in dreams. Jacob would not let go, his life’s in
stinct for bargaining prevailed, and probably, because he could get
nothing else, he insisted on his opponent’s blessing, before he let him
go. In the Roman Catholic version of the Bible there is the following ’
note :—“ Chap, xxxii., v. 24. A man, etc. This was an angel in
human shape, as we learn from Osee (c. xii. v. 4). He is called God
(xv. 28 and 30), because he represented the son of God. This wrestling,
in which Jacob, assisted by God, was a match for an angel, was so
ordered (v. 28) that he might learn by this experiment of the divine
assistance, that neither Esau, nor any other man, should have power
to hurt him.” How elevating it must be to the true believer to con
ceive God helping Jacob to wrestle with his own representative. Read
prayerfully, doubtless, the spiritual and inner meaning of the text (If
it have one) is most transcendental. Read sensibly, the literal and only
meaning the text conveys is, that of an absurd tradition of an ignorant
age. On the morrow Jacob met Esau.
“ And Esau ran to, meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck,
and kissed him; an&tliey wept.”
“ And he said, Wlitat meanest thou by all this drove which I met ?
And he said, these are to find grace in the sight of my lord.”
“ And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast
unto thyself.”
The following expressive comment, from the able pen of Mr. Holyoake, deserves transcription:—“ The last portion of the history of
�NEW LIFE OF JACOB.
7
Jacob and Esau is very instructive. The coward fear of Jacob to meet
his. brother is well delineated. He is subdued by a sense of his
treacherous guilt. The noble forgiveness of Esau invests his memory
with more respect than all the wealth Jacob won, and all the blessings
of the Lord he received. Could I change my name from Jacob to
Esau, I would do it in honour of him. The whole incident has a dra
matic interest. There is nothing in the Old or New Testament equal
to it. The simple magnanimity of Esau is scarcely surpassed by any
thing in Plutarch. In the conduct of Esau, we see the triumph of
time, of filial affection, and generosity ovei’ a deep sense of execrable
treachery, unprovoked and irrevocable injury.” Was not Esau a mer
ciful, noble, generous man ? Yet God hated him, and shut him out of
all share in the promised land. Was not Jacob a mean, prevaricating
knave, a crafty, abject cheat ? Yet God loved and rewarded him. How
great are the mysteries in this Bible representation of an all-good and
all-loving God, thus hating good, and loving evil. At the time of the
wrestling, a promise was made, which is afterwards repeated by God to
Jacob, that the latter should not be any more called Jacob, but Israel.
This promise was not strictly kept; the name “ Jacob” being used
repeatedly, mingled with that of Israel in the after part of Jacob’s
history. Jacob had a large family; his sons are reputedly the heads
of the twelve Jewish tribes. We have not much space to notice them :
suffice it to say that one Joseph, who was much loved by his father,was
sold bv his brethren into slavery. This transaction does not seem to
have called for any special reproval from God. Joseph, who from early
life was skilled in dreams, succeeded by interpreting the visions of
Pharaoh in obtaining a sort of premiership in Egypt; while filling which
office, he managed to act like the Russells and the Greys of our own
time. We are told that he “placed his father and his brethren, and
gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land.”
Joseph made the parallel still stronger between himself and a more
modern head of the Treasury Bench; he not only gave his own family
the best place in tlie land, but he also, by a trick of statecraft, obtained
the land for the king, made slaves of the people, and made it a law over
the land of Egypt that the king should be entitled to one-fifth of the
produce, always, of course, excepting and saving the rights of the priest.
Judah, another brother, sought to have burned a woman by whom he
had a child. A third, named Reuben, was guilty of the grossest vice,
equallea only by that of Absalom the son of David; of Simeon and
Levi, two more of Jacob’s sons, it is said, that “instruments of cruelty
were in their habitations their conduct, as detailed in the 34th chapter
of Genesis, alike shocks by its treachery and its mercilessness. After
Jacob had heard that his son Joseph was governor in Egypt, but before
he had journeyed farther than Beersheba, God spake unto him in the
visions of the night, and probably forgetting that he had given him a
new name, or being more accustomed to the old one, said, “ Jacob,
Jacob,” and then told him to go down into Egypt, where Jacob died
after a residence of about seventeen years, when 147 years of age.
Before Jacob died he blessed, first the sons of Joseph, and then his own
children, and at the termination of his blessing to Ephraim and
�?
NEW LIFE OP JACOB.
Manasseh, we find the following speech addressed to Joseph, " Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took
out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.”
This speech implies warlike pursuits on the part of Jacob, of whic-h the
Bible gives no record, and which seems incompatible with his recorded
life. The sword of craft and the bow of cunning are the only weapons
in the use of which he was skilled. When his sons murdered and
robbed the Hivites, fear seems to have been Jacob’s most prominent
characteristic. It is not my duty, nor have I space here to advocate any
theory of interpretation, but it may be well to mention that many
learned men contend that the whole history of Jacob is but an allegory.
That the twelve patriarchs but typify the twelve signs of the zodiac, as
do the twelve great Gods of the Pagans, and twelve apostles of the
gospels. Those curious to investigate this theory for the purpose of
refutation or verification, should read the works of Sir William
Drummond, M. Dupuis, and the Rev. Robert Taylor.
From the history of Jacob, it is hard to draw any conclusions
favourable to the man whose life is narrated. To heap additional
epithets on his memory, would be but waste of time and space. I con
clude by regretting that if God loved one brother and aated another,
he should have so unfortunately selected for his love the one whose
whole career shows him in a most despicable light.
Printed and Published by Charles Brahlaugh and Annie Besant,
at 28, Stonecutter Street, London, E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Title
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New life of Jacob
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant
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[n.d.]
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N099
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Bible
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Jacob (Biblical Patriarch)
NSS
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
IS THERE A GOD?
By CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
The initial difficulty is in defining the word “ God ”. It is
equally impossible to intelligently affirm or deny any pro
position unless there is at least an understanding, on the
part of the affirmer or denier, of the meaning of every
word used in the proposition. To me the word “God”
standing alone is a word without meaning. I find the
word repeatedly used even by men of education and refine
ment, and who have won reputation in special directions of
research, rather to illustrate their ignorance than to ex
plain their knowledge. Various sects of Theists do affix
arbitrary meanings to the word “ God ”, but often these
meanings are in their terms self-contradictory, and usually
the definition maintained by one sect of Theists more or
less contradicts the definition put forward by some other
sect. With the Unitarian Jew, the Trinitarian Christian,
the old Polytheistic Greek, the modern Universalist, or the
Calvinist, the word “God” will in each case be intended
to express a proposition absolutely irreconcilable with those
of the other sects. In this brief essay, which can by no
means be taken as a complete answer to the question
which forms its title, I will for the sake of argument take
the explanation of the word “God” as given with great
carefulness by Dr. Robert Elint, Professor of Divinity in
the University of Edinburgh, in two works directed by
him against Atheism. He defines God (“ Antitheistic
Theories,” p. 1,) as “a supreme, self-existent, omnipotent,
omniscient, righteous and benevolent being who is dis
tinct from and independent of what he has created ” ; and
(“Theism”, p. 1,) as “a self-existent, eternal being, in
finite in power and wisdom, and perfect in holiness and
goodness, the maker of heaven and earth”; and (p. 18,)
“the creator and preserver of nature, the governor of
nations, the heavenly father and judge of man ” ; (p. 18,)
�2
IS THERE A GOD ?
“ one infinite personal ” ; (p. 42,) “ the one infinite being ”
who “is a person—is a free and loving intelligence”;
(p. 59,) “the creator, preserver, and ruler of all finite
beings”; (p. 65,) “not only the ultimate cause, but the
supreme intelligence”; and (p. 74,) “the supreme moral
intelligence is an unchangeable being”. That is, in the
above statements “ God” is defined by Professor Flint to
be : M supreme, self-existent, the one infinite, eternal, omni
potent, omniscient, unchangeable, righteous, and benevolent, per
sonal being, creator and preserver of nature, maker of heaven
and earth ; who is distinct from and independent of what he has
created, who is a free, loving, supreme, moral intelligence, the
governor of nations, the heavenly father and judge of man.
The two volumes, published by William Blackwood and
Son, from which this definition has been collected, form the
Baird Lectures in favor of Theism for the years 1876 and
1877. Professor Flint has a well-deserved reputation as a
clear thinker and writer of excellent ability as a Theistic
advocate. I trust, therefore, I am not acting unfairly in
criticising his definition. My first objection is, that to me
the definition is on the face of it so self-contradictory that
a negative answer must be given to the question, Is there
such a God ? The association of the word “ supreme ” with
the word “ infinite ” as descriptive of a “ personal being ”
is utterly confusing. “Supreme” can only be used as
expressing comparison between the being to whom it is
applied, and some other being with whom that “ supreme ”
being is assumed to have possible points of comparison and
is then compared. But “ the one infinite being ” cannot be
compared with any other infinite being, for the wording of
the definition excludes the possibility of any other infinite
being, nor could the infinite being—for the word “one”
may be dispensed with, as two infinite beings are unthink
able—be compared with any finite being. “ Supreme” is
an adjective of relation and is totally inapplicable to “the
infinite”. It can only be applied to one of two or more
finites. “Supreme” with “omnipotent” is pleonastic.
If it is said that the word “supreme” is now properly
used to distinguish between the Creator and the created,
the governor and that which is governed, then it is clear
that the word “supreme” would have been an inappli
cable word of description to “theone infinite being ” prior
to creation, and this would involve the declaration that the
�IS THERE A GOD?
3
exact description of the unchangeable has been properly
changed, which is an absurdity. The definition affirms
“creation”, that is, affirms “ God” existing prior to such
creation—i.e., then the sole existence; but the word
“ supreme ” could not then apply. An existence cannot be
described as “highest” when there is none other ; there
fore, none less high. The word “ supreme” as a word of
description is absolutely contradictory of Monism. Yet
Professor Flint himself says (“Anti-Theistic Theories”,
p. 132), “ that reason, when in quest of an ultimate expla
nation of things, imperatively demands unity, and that only
a Monistic theory of the universe can deserve the name of
U philosophy ”. Professor Flint has given no explanation
of the meaning he attaches to the word “ self-existent ”.
Nor, indeed, as he given any explanation of any of his
words of description. By self-existent I mean that to which
you cannot conceive antecedent. By “infinite” I mean
immeasurable, illimitable, indefinable ; i.e., that of which I
cannot predicate extension, or limitation of extension. By
‘(eternal ” I mean illimitable, indefinable, i.e., that of which
I cannot predicate limitation of duration or progression of
duration.
“ Nature ” is with me the same as “ universe ”, the same
as “ existence ”; i.e., I mean by it: The totality of all
phenomena, and of all that has been, is, or may be neces
sary for the happening of each and every phsenomenon. It
is from the very terms of the definition, self-existent, eternal,
infinite. I cannot think of nature commencement, discon
tinuity, or creation. I am unable to think backward to the
possibility of existence not having been. I cannot think
forward to the possibility of existence ceasing to be. I have
no meaning for the word “ create ” except to denote change
of condition. Origin of “universe” is to me absolutely
unthinkable. Sir William Hamilton (“ Lectures and Dis
cussions,” p. 610) affirms: that when aware of a new ap
pearance we are utterly unable to conceive that there has
originated any new existence ; that we are utterly unable to
think that the complement of existence has ever been either
increased or diminished; that we can neither conceive no
thing becoming something, or something becoming nothing.
.Professor Flint’s definition affirms “God ” as existing “ dis
tinct from, and independent of, what he has created ”. But
what can such words mean when used of the “ infinite ? ”
�IS THERE A GOD ?
Does “distinct from” mean separate from? Does the
“ universe ” existing distinct from God mean in addition to ?
and in other place than ? or, have the words no meaning ?
Of all words in Professor Flint’s definition, which would
be appropriate if used of human beings, I mean the
same as I should mean if I used the same words in the
highest possible degree of any human being. Here I
maintain the position taken by John Stuart Mill in his
examination of Sir W. Hamilton (p. 122). Righteous
ness and benevolence are two of the words of descrip
tion included in the definition of this creator and governor
of nations. But is it righteous and benevolent to create
men and govern nations, so that the men act crimi
nally and the nations seek to destroy one another in
war? Professor Flint does not deny (“Theism,” p. 256)
“ that God could have originated a sinless moral system”,
and he adds: “I have no doubt that God has actually made
many moral beings who are certain never to oppose their
own wills to his, or that he might, if he had so pleased, have
created only such angels as were sure to keep their first
estate ”. But it is inaccurate to describe a “ God ” as right
eous or benevolent who, having the complete power to
originate a sinless moral system, is admitted to have origi
nated a system in which sinfulness and immorality were
not only left possible, but have actually, in consequence of
God’s rule and government, become abundant. It cannot
be righteous for the “omnipotent” to be making human
beings contrived and designed by his omniscience so as to
be fitted for the commission of sin. It cannot be benevo
lent in “ God ” to contrive and create a hell in which he is
to torment the human beings who have sinned because
made by him in sin. “ God ”, if omnipotent and omnis
cient, could just as easily, and much more benevolently,
have contrived that there should never be any sinners, and,
therefore, never any need for hell or torment.
The Bev. B. A. Armstrong, with whom I debated this
question, says:—
“ ‘Either,’ argues Mr. Bradlaugh, in effect, ‘God could
make a world without suffering, or he could not. If he
could and did not, he is not all-good. If he could not, he
is not all-powerful.’ The reply is, What do you mean by
all-powerful? If you mean having power to reconcile
things in themselves contradictory, we do not hold that
�IS THERE A GOD ?
5
God is all-powerful. But a humanity, from the first en
joying immunity from suffering, and yet possessed of no
bility of character, is a self-contradictory conception.”
That is, Mr. Armstrong thinks that a “sinless moral
system from the first is a self-contradictory conception ”.
It is difficult to think a loving governor of nations
arranging one set of cannibals to eat, and another set of
human beings to be eaten by their fellow-men. It is im
possible to think a loving creator and governor contriving
a human being to be born into the world the pre-natal
victim of transmitted disease. It is repugnant to reason
to affirm this “free loving supreme moral intelligence”
planning and contriving the enduring through centuries of
criminal classes, plague-spots on civilisation.
The word “unchangeable ” contradicts the word “ crea
tor”. Any theory of creation must imply some period
when the being was not yet the creator, that is, when yet
the creation was not performed, and the act of creation
must in such case, at any rate, involve temporary or
permanent change in the mode of existence of the being
creating. So, too, the words of description “governor of
nations” are irreconcileable with the description “un
changeable ”, applied to a being alleged to have existed
prior to the creation of the “nations”, and therefore,
of course, long before any act of government could be
exercised.
To speak of an infinite personal being seems to me pure
contradiction of terms. All attempts to think “person”
involve thoughts of the limited, finite, conditioned. To
describe this infinite personal being as distinct from some
thing which is postulated as “what he has created” is
only to emphasise the contradiction, rendered perhaps still
more marked when the infinite personal being is described
as “intelligent”.
The Rev. R. A. Armstong, in a prefatory note to the
report of his debate with myself on the question “Is it
reasonable to worship God?”, says: “I have ventured
upon alleging an intelligent cause of the pheonomena of
the universe, in spite of the fact that in several of his
writings Mr. Bradlaugh has described intelligence as im
plying limitations. But though intelligence, as known to
us in man, is always hedged within limits, there is no diffi
culty in conceiving each and every limit as removed. In
�6
IS THERE A GOD?
that case the essential conception of intelligence remains
the same precisely, although the change of conditions
revolutionises its mode of working.” This, it seems to
me, is not accurate. The word intelligence can only be
accurately used of man, as in each case meaning the
totality of mental ability, its activity and result. If you
eliminate in each case all possibilities of mental ability
there is no “conception of intelligence” left, either essential
or otherwise. If you attempt to remove the limits, that
is the organisation, the intelligence ceases to be thinkable.
It is unjustifiable to talk of “ change of conditions ” when
you remove the word intelligence as a word of application
to man or other thinking animal, and seek to apply the
word to the unconditionable.
As an Atheist I. affirm one existence, and deny the possi
bility of more than one existence; by existence meaning,
as I have already stated, “the totality of all pheenomena,
and of all that has been, is, or may be necessary for the
happening of any and every pluenomenon ”. This exist
ence I know in its modes, each mode being distinguished
in thought by its qualities. By “mode” I mean each
cognised condition; that is, each pheenomenon or aggre
gation of phenomena. By “quality” I mean each charac
teristic by which in the act of thinking I distinguish.
The distinction between the Agnostic and the Atheist
is that either the Agnostic postulates an unknowable, or
makes a blank avowal of general ignorance. The Atheist
does not do either; there is of course to him much that
is yet unknown, every effort of inquiry brings some of this
within reach of knowing. With “the unknowable” con
ceded, all scientific teaching would be illusive. Every real
scientist teaches without reference to “God” or “the
unknowable ”. If the words come in as part of the
yesterday habit still clinging to-day, the scientist conducts
his experiments as though the words were not. Every
operation of life, of commerce, of war, of statesmanship,
is dealt with as though God were non-existent. The
general who asks God to give him victory, and who thanks
God for the conquest, would be regarded as a lunatic by
his Theistic brethren, if he placed the smallest reliance
on God’s omnipotence as a factor in winning the fight.
Cannon, gunpowder, shot, shell, dynamite, provision, men,
horses, means of transport, the value of these all estimated,
�IS THERE A GOD?
7
then the help of “ God ” is added to what is enough with
out God to secure the triumph. The surgeon who in
performing some delicate operation relied on God instead
of his instruments—the physician who counted on the
unknowable in his prescription—these would have poor
clientele even amongst the orthodox; save the peculiar
people the most pious would avoid their surgical or
medical aid. The “God” of the Theist, the “unknowa
ble” of the Agnostic, are equally opposed to the Atheistic
affirmation. The Atheist enquires as to the unknown,
affirms the true, denies the untrue. The Agnostic knows
not of any proposition whether it be true or false.
Pantheists affirm one existence, but Pantheists declare
that at any rate some qualities are infinite, e.g., that
existence is infinitely intelligent. I, as an Atheist, can
only think qualities of phsenomena. I know each pheno
menon by its qualities. I know no qualities except as the
qualities of some phenomenon.
So long as the word “ God ” is undefined I do not deny
“ God”. To the question, Is there such a God as defined
by Professor ..Plint, I am compelled to give a negative
reply. If the word “ God ” is intended to affirm Dualism,
then as a Monist I negate “ God ”.
_ The attempts to prove the existence of God may be
divided into three classes:—1. Those which attempt to
prove the objective existence of God from the subjective
notion of necessary existence in the human mind, or from
the assumed objectivity of space and time, interpreted as
the attributes of a necessary substance. 2. Those which
*{ essay to prove the existence of a supreme self-existent
cause, from the mere fact of the existence of the world by
the application of the principle of causality, starting with
the postulate of any single existence whatsoever, the world,
or anything in the world, and proceeding to argue back
wards or upwards, the existence of one supreme cause is
held to be regressive inference from the existence of these
effects”. But it is enough to answer to these attempts,
that if a supreme existence were so demonstrable, that
bare entity would not be identifiable with “God”. “A
demonstration of a primitive source of existence is of no
formal theological value. It is an absolute zero.”
3. The argument from design, or adaptation, in nature,
the fitness of means to an end, implying, it is said, an
�8
IS THERE A GOD?
architect or designer. Or, from the order in the universe,
indicating, it is said, an orderer or lawgiver, whose intelli
gence we thus discern.
But this argument is a failure, because from finite
instances differing in character it assumes an infinite cause
absolutely the same for all. Divine unity, divine per
sonality, are here utterly unproved. 11 Why should we rest
in our inductive inference of one designer from the alleged
phenomena of design, when these are claimed to be so
varied and so complex ? ”
If the inference from design is to avail at all, it must
avail to show that all the phenomena leading to misery
and mischief, must have been designed and intended by a
being finding pleasure in the production and maintenance
of this misery and mischief. If the alleged constructor of
the universe is supposed to have designed one beneficent
result, must he not equally be supposed to have designed
all results? And if the inference of benevolence and
goodness be valid for some instances, must not the in
ference of malevolence and wickedness be equally valid
from others ? If, too, any inference is to be drawn from
the illustration of organs in animals supposed to be
specially contrived for certain results, what is the inference
to be drawn from the many abortive and incomplete organs,
muscles, nerves, etc., now known to be traceable in man
and other animals ? What inference is to be drawn from
each instance of deformity or malformation? But the
argument from design, if it proved anything, would at the
most only prove an arranger of pre-existing material; it
in no sense leads to the conception of an originator of
substance.
There is no sort of analogy between a finite artificer
arranging a finite mechanism and an alleged divine creator
originating all existence. Brom an alleged product you
are only at liberty to infer a producer after having seen a
similar product actually produced.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh,
63, Fleet Street, London, E.C.—1887.
�
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Is there a god?
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
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Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh
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Atheism
God
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Atheism
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Text
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NEW LIFE OF MOSES.
BY C. BEADLAUGH
The “Life of Abraham ” was presented to our readers, because, as
the nominal founder of the Jewish race, his position entitled him
to that honour. The “ Life of David,” because, as one of the worst
men and worst kings ever known, his history might afford matter
for reflection to admirers of monarchical institutions and matter for
comment to the advocates of a republican form of government.
The “ Life of Jacob” served to show how basely mean and con
temptibly deceitful a man might become, and yet enjoy God's love.
Having given thus a brief outline of the career of the patriarch, the
king, and the knave, the life of a priest naturally presents itself as
the most fitting to complement the present quadrifid series.
Moses, the great grandson of Levi, was born in Egypt, not far
distant from the banks of the Nile, a river world-famous for its in
undations, made familiar to ordinary readers by the travellers who
have journeyed to discover its source, and held in bad repute by
strangers, especially on account of the carnivorous Saurians who
infest its waters. The mother and father of our hero were both of
the tribe of Levi, and were named Jochebed and Amram. The in
fant Moses was, at the age of three months, placed in an ark of
bulrushes by the river s brink. This was done in order to avoid
the decree of extermination propounded bv the reigning Pharaoh
against the male Jewish children. The daughter of Pharaoh, com
ing down to the river to bathe, found the child and took compas
sion upon him, adopting him as her son. Of the early life of
Moses we have but scanty record. We are told in the New Testa
ment that he was learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and
*
that “when he was come to years he refused” by faithf “to be
called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” Perhaps the record from
which the New Testament writers quoted lias been lost; it is certain
that the present version of the Old Testament does not contain
those statements. The record which is lost may have been God’s
original revelation to man, and of which our Bible may be an in
complete version. I am little grieved by the supposition that a
• Acts, c. vii, v. 21,
f Hebrews, c. xi. v. 24.
�2
NEW LIFE OF MOSES.
revelation may have been lost, being, for my own part, more in
clined to think that no revelation has ever been made. Josephus
says that, when quite a baby, Moses trod contemptuously on the
crown of Egypt. The Egyptian monuments and Exodus are both
silent on this point. Josephus also tells us that Moses led the
Egyptians in war against the Ethiopians, and married Tharbis, the
daughter of the Ethiopian monarch. This also is omitted both in
Egyptian history and in the sacred record. When Moses was
grown, according to the Old Testament, or when he was 40 years
of age according to the New, “ it came into his heart to visit his
brethren the children of Israel,” “ And he spied an Egyptian smit
ing an Hebrew;” “And he looked this way and that way, and
when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid
him in the sand.” The New Testament says that he did it, “for
he supposed that his brethren would understand how that God, by
his hand, would deliver them.”* But this is open to the following
objections :—The Old Testament says nothing of the kind;—there
was no man to see the homicide, and as Moses hid the body, it is
hard to conceive how he could expect the Israelites to understand
a matter of which they not only had no knowledge . whatever, but
which he himself did not think was known to them ;—if there were
really no man present, the story of the after accusation against
Moses needs explanation ;—it might be further objected that it does
not appear that Moses at that time did even himself conceive that
he had any mission from God to deliver his people. Moses fled
from the wrath of Pharaoh, and dwelt in Midian, where he married
the daughter of one Reuel or Raguel, or Jethro. This name is not
of much importance, but it is strange that if Moses wrote the books
of the Pentateuch he was not more exact in designating so near a
relation. While acting as shepherd to his father-in-law, “ he led
the flock to the back side of the desert,” and “ the angel of the
Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire that is, the angel was either
a flame, or was the object which was burning, for this angel ap
peared in the midst of a bush which burned with fire, but was not
consumed. This flame appears to have been a luminous one, for
it was a “ great sight,” and attracted Moses, who turned aside to
see it. But the luminosity would depend on substance ignited and
rendered incandescent. Is the angel of the Lord a substanceJsusceptible of ignition and incandesence ? Who knoweth ? If so,
will the fallen angels ingnite and bum in hell ? God called unto
Moses out of the midst of the bush. It is hard to conceive an in
finite God in the middle of a bush, yet as the law of England says
that we must not “deny the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New
Testameut to be of divine authority,” in order not to break
the law, I advise all to believe that, in addition to being in
the middle of a bush, the infinite and all-powerful God also sat
• Aets, c. vii., v. 25.
�NEW LIFE OF MOSES.
on the top of a box, dwelt sometimes in a tent, afterwards in a
temple; although invisible, appeared occasionally; and, being a
spirit without body or parts, was hypostatically incarnate as
a man. Moses, when spoken to by God, “ hid his face, for he was
afraid to look upon God.” If Moses had known that God was
invisible, he would have escaped this fear. God told Moses that
the cry of the children of Israel had reached him, and that he had
come down to deliver them, and that Moses was to lead them out
of Egypt. Moses does not seem to have placed entire confidence
in the phlegomic divine communication, and asked, when the Jews
should question him on the name of the Deity, what answer should
he make ? It does not appear from this that the Jews, if they
had so completely forgotten God’s name, had much preserved the
recollection of the promise comparatively so recently made to
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. The answer given according to
our version is, “I am that I am;” according to the Douay, “I
am who am.” God, in addition, told Moses that the Jews should
spoil the Egyptians of their wealth; but even this promise of
plunder, so congenial to the nature of a bill-discounting Jew of
the Bible type, did not avail to overcorfie the scruples of Moses.
God therefore taught him to throw his rod on the ground, and
thus transform it into a serpent, from which pseudo-serpent Moses
at first fled in fear, but on his taking it by the tail it resumed its
original shape. Moses, with even other wonders at command,
still hesitated; he had an impediment in his speech. God cured
this by the appointment of Aaron, who was eloquent, to aid his
brother. God directed Moses to return to Egypt, but his parting
words must somewhat have damped the future legislator’s hope of
any speedy or successful ending to his mission. God said, “ I will
harden Pharaoh’s heart that he shall not let the people go.” On
the journey back to Egypt God met Moses “ by the way in the inn,
and sought to kill him.” I am ignorant as to the causes which
prevented the omnipotent Deity from carrying out his intention ;
the text does not explain the matter, and I am not a bishop or a
D.D., and I do not therefore feel justified in putting my assump
tions in place of God’s revelation. Moses and Aaron went t<7
Pharaoh, and asked that the Jew's might be permitted to go three
days’ journey in the wilderness; but the King of Egypt not onlj
refused their request, but gave them additional tasks, and in conse
quence Moses and Aaron went again to the Lord, who told them,
“I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the
name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known
unto them.” Whether God had forgotten that the name Jehovah
was known to Abraham, or whether he was here deceiving Moses
and Aaron, are points the solution of wdiich I leave to the faithful,
referring them to the fact that Abraham called a place Jehovah*
Genesis, c. xxii., v. 14.
�NEW LIFE OF MOSES.
Jireh. After this Moses and Aaron again went to Pharaoh and
worked wonderfully in his presence. Thaumaturgy is coining into
fashion again, but the exploits of Moses far exceeded any of those
performed by Mr. Home or the Davenport Brothers. Aaron flung
down his rod, and it became a serpent; the Egyptian magicians
flung down their rods, which became serpents also; but the rod of
Aaron, as though it had been a Jew money-lender or a tithe col
lecting parson, swallowed up these miraculous competitors, and
the Jewish leaders could afford to laugh at their defeated rival
conjurors. Moses and Aaron carried on the miracle-working for
some time. All the water of the land of Egvpt was turned by
them into blood, but the magicians did so with their enchantments,
and it had no effect on Pharaoh. Then showers of frogs, at the
instance of Aaron, covered the land of Egypt; but the Egyptians
did so with their enchantments, and frogs abounded still more
plentifully. The Jews next tried their hands at the production of
lice, and here—to the glory of God be it said—the infidel Egyp
tians failed to imitate them. It is written that “ cleanliness is
next to godliness,” but we cannot help thinking that godliness must
have been far from cleanliness when the former so soon resulted
in lice. The magicians were now entirely discomfited. The pre
ceding wonders seem to have affected all the land of Egypt; but
in the next miracle the swarms of flies sent were confined to
Egyptians only, and were not extended to Goshen, in which the
Israelites dwelt.
The next plague in connection with the ministration of Moses
and Aaron was that “ all the cattle of Egypt died.” After “all
the cattle ” were dead, a boil was sent, breaking forth with blains
upon man and beast. This failing in effect, Moses afterwards
stretched forth his hand and smote “ both man and beast ” with
hail, then covered the land with locusts, and followed this with a
thick darkness throughout the land—a darkness which might have
been felt. Whether it was felt is a matter on which I am unable
to pass an opinion. After this, the Egyptians being terrified by
the destruction of their first-born children, the Jews, at the in
stance of Moses, borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, jewels
of gold, and raiment; and they spoiled the Egyptians. The fact
is, that the Egyptians were in the same position as the payers of
church rates, tithes, vicars’ rates, and Easter dues : they lent to
the Lord’s people, who are good borrowers, but slow when repay
*
ment is required. They prefer promising you a crown of glory
to paying you at once five shillings in silver.
Moses led th«
Jews through the Red Sea, which proved a ready means of escape,
as may be easily read in Exodus, which says that the Lord “ made
the sea dry land ” for the Israelites, and afterwards not only over
whelmed in it the Egyptians who sought to follow them, but, as
Josephus tells us, the current of the sea actually carried to the camp
of the Hebrews the arms of the Egyptians, so that the wandering
�NW LIFE OF MOSES.
6
Jews might not be destitute of weapons. After this the Israelites
were led by Moses into Sliur, where they were without water for three
days, and the water they afterwards found was too bitter to drink
until a tree had been cast into the well. The Israelites were then fed
with manna, which, when gathered on Friday, kept for the Sabbath,
but rotted if kept from one week day to another.
The people
grew tired of eating manna, and complained, and God sent fire I
amongst them and burned them up in the uttermost parts of the
camp; and after this the people wept and said, “ Who shall give us
flesh to eat? We remember the fish we did eat in Egypt freely;
the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and
the garlic; but now there is nothing at all beside this manna
before our eyes.’’ This angered the Lord, and he gave them a
feast of quails, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth,
ere it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled, and he
smote the Jewish people with a very great plague.
*
The people
again in Rephidim were without water, and Moses therefore smote
the Rock of Horeb with his rod, and water came out of the rock.
At Rephidim the Amalekites and the Jews fought together, and
while they fought Moses, like a prudent general, went to the top of
a hill, accompanied by Aaron and Hur, and it came to pass that
when Moses held up his hands Israel prevailed, and when he let
down his hands Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands w’ere heavy,
and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat thereon,
and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side
and the other ou the other side, and his hands were steady until
the going down of the sun, and Joshua discomfited Amalek, and
his people with the edge of the sword. How the true believer
ought to rejoice that the stone was so convenient, as otherwise the
Jews might have been slaughtered, and there might have been no
royal line of David, no Jesus, no Christianity. That stone should
be more valued than the precious black stone of the Moslem; it
is the corner-stone of the system, the stone which supported the
Mosaic rule. God is everywhere, but Moses went up unto him,
and the Lord called to him out of a mountain and came to him in a
thick cloud, and descended on Mount Sinai in a fire, in consequence
of which the mountain smoked, and the Lord came down upon the
top of the mountain and called Moses up to him; and then the
Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and also those pre
cepts which follow, in which Jews are permitted to buy their fellowcountrymen for six years, and in which it is provided that, if the
slave-master shall give his six-year slave a wife, and she bear him
sons or daughters, that the wife and the children shall be the pro
perty of her master. In these precepts it is also permitted that a
man may sell his own daughter for the most base purposes. Also
that a master may beat his slave, so that if he do not die until a
• Numbers, c. xi.
�6
NEW LIFE OF MOSES.
few days after the ill-treatment, the master shall escape justice be
cause the slave is his money. Also that Jews may buy strangers
and keep them as slaves for ever. While Moses was up in the
mount the people clamoured for Aaron to make them gods. Moses
had stopped away so long that the people gave him up for lost.
Aaron, whose duty it was to have pacified and restrained them, and
to have kept them in the right faith, did nothing of the kind. He
induced them to bring all their gold, and then made it into a calf,
before which he built an altar, and then proclaimed a feast. Man
ners and customs change. In those days the Jews did see the
God that. Aaron took their gold for, but now the priests take the
people’s gold, and the poor contributors do not even see a calf for
their pains, unless indeed they are near a mirror at the time when
they are making their voluntary contributions. And the Lord told
Moses what happened, and said, “ I have seen this people, and
behold it is a stiffnecked people. Now, therefore, let me alone
that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may
consume them.” Moses would not comply with God’s request,
but remonstrated, and expostulated, and begged him not to afford
the Egyptians an opportunity of speaking against him. Moses
succeeded in changing the unchangeable, and the Lord repented
of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
Although Moses would not let God’s “ wrath wax hot ” his own
“ anger waxed hot,” and he broke in his rage, the two tables of
stone which God had given him, and on which the Lord had graven
and written with his own finger. We have now no means of know
ing in what language God wrote, or whether Moses afterwards
took any pains to rivet together the broken pieces. It is almost
to be wondered at that the Christian Evidence Societies have not
sent missionaries to search for these pieces of the tables, which may
even yet remain beneath the mount. Moses took the calf which
they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder,
and strewed it upon water and made the children of Israel drink
of it. After this Moses armed the priests and killed 3,000 Jew's,
“ and the Lord plagued the people because they had made the
calf which Aaron had made.”* Moses afterwards pitched the ta
bernacle without the camp; and the cloudy pillar in which the
Lord w'ent, descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle;
and the Lord talked to Moses “ face to face, as a man would to
his friend.”f And the Lord then told Moses, “ Thou canst not
see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.”J Before
this Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the
elders of Israel, “ saw the God of Israel, and there w'as under his
feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone, . . . and
Upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand;
also they saw God, and did eat and drink.Ӥ
* Exodus, c. xxxii., v. 35.
f c. xxxiii., v. 11.
J v. 20.
§ c. xxiv., v. 9.
�NEW LIFE OF MOSES.
7
Aaron., the brother of Moses, died under very strange circum
stances. The Lord said unto Moses, “ Strip Aaron of his garments
and put them upon Eleazar, his son, and Aaron shall be gathered
unto his people and shall die there.” And Moses did as the Lord
commanded, and Aaron died there on the top of the mount, where
Moses had taken him. There does not appear to have been any
coroner’s inquest in the time of Aaron, and the suspicious circum
stances of the death of the brother of Moses have been passed over
by the faithful.
When Moses was leading the Israelites near Moab, Balak the
King of the Moabites sent to Balaam in order to get Balaam to
curse the Jews. When Balak’s messengers were with Balaam,
God came to Balaam also, and asked what men they were. Of
course God knew, but he inquired for his own wise purposes, and
Balaam told him truthfully. God ordered Balaam not to curse the
Jews, and therefore the latter refused, and sent the Moabitish
messengers away. Then Balak sent again high and mighty princes
under whose influence Balaam went mounted on an ass, and God’s
anger was kindled against Balaam, and he sent an angel to stop
him by the way; but the angel did not understand his business
well, and the ass first ran into a field, and then close against the
wall, and it was not until the angel removed to a narrower place
that he succeeded in stopping the donkey ; and when the ass saw
the angel she fell down. Balaam did not see the angel at first; and,
Indeed, we may take it as a fact of history that asses have always
been the most ready to perceive angels.
Moses may have been a great author, but we have little
means of ascertaining what he wrote in the present day. Divines
talk of Genesis to Deuteronomy as the five books of Moses,
but Eusebius, in the fourth century, attributed them to Ezra,
*
and Saint Chrysostom says that the name of Moses has been
affixed to the books without authority, by persons living long after
him.f It is quite certain that if Moses lived 3,300 years ago,
he did not write in square letter Hebrew, and this because the
character has not existed so long. It is indeed doubtful if it can
be carried back 2,000 years. The ancient Hebrew character, though
probably older than this, yet is comparatively modern amongst the
ancient languages of the earth.
°
It is urged by orthodox chronologists that Moses was born about
1450 B.c., and that the Exodus took place about 1491 b.c. Unfor
tunately “ there are no recorded dates in the Jewish Scripture^
that are trustworthy.” Moses, or the Hebrews, not being mentioned
upon Egyptian monuments from the twelfth to the seventeenth
century b.c. inclusive, and never being alluded to by any extant
writer who lived prior to the Septuagint translation at Alexandria
�NEW LIFE OF MOSES.
(commencing in the third century b.c.), there are no extraneous
aids, from sources alien to the Jewish Books, through which any
information, worthy of historical acceptance, can be gathered else
where about him or them.”*
Moses died in the land of Moab when he was 120 years of age.
The Lord buried Moses in a valley of Moab, over against Bethpeor,
but no man knowetli of his sepulchre unto this day. Josephus says
that “ a cloud came over him on the sudden and he disappeared in
a certain valley.” The devil disputed about the body of Moses,
contending with the Archangel Michael ;f but whether the devil or
the angel had the best of the discussion, the Bible does not tell us.
De Beauvoir Priaulx,J looking at Moses as a counsellor, leader,
and legislator, says:—“Invested with this high authority, he
announced to the Jews their future religion, and announced it to
them as a state religion, and as framed for a particular state, and
that state only. He gave this religion, moreover, a creed so nar
row and negative—he limited it to objects so purely temporal, he
crowded it with observances so entirely ceremonial or national—
that we find it difficult to determine whether Moses merely estab
lished this religion in order that by a community of worship he
might induce in the tribe-divided Israelites that community of
sentiment which would constitute them a nation; or, whether he
only roused them to a sense of their national dignity, in the hope
that they might then more faithfully perform the duties of priests
and servants of Jehovah. In other words, we hesitate to decide
whether in the mind of Moses the state was subservient to the pur
poses of religion, or religion to the purposes of state.”
The same writer observes§ that, according to the Jewish writings,
Moses “ is the friend and favourite of the Deity. He is one whose
prayers and wishes the Deity hastens to fulfil, one to whom the
Deitv makes known his designs. The relations between God and
the prophet are most intimate. God does not disdain to answer
the questions of Moses, to remove his doubts, and even occasionally
to receive his suggestions, and to act upon them even in opposition
to his own pre-determined decrees.”
* G R. Gliddon’s Types of Mankind: Mankind’s Chronology, p 711
f Jude, v. 9
J Quesliones Mosaicae, p. 438.
§ p. 418.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Printed by Annib Besavt and 0 hables Beadlaugh,
63, Fleet Street, E.O
�
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Victorian Blogging
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New life of Moses
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from Champion of liberty (Bradlaugh Centenary, 1933), bibliography. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh
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[1861]
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Bible
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Moses (Biblical Leader)
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&
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
BwAl au< k;
CL<5l v~(es
REPEAL OF THE BLASPHEMY
LAWS.
I
shall,
at the next meeting of the Norwood Liberal
and Radical Association, move :—
“That this meeting is of opinion that all Statutes
inflicting penalties for opinion (as the 9th and
10th William III, cap. 35), or placing hindrances
in the way of lectures and discussions (as the
21st George III, cap. 49), ought to be forthwith
repealed ”.
S. HARTMANN.
The following is a reprint of the speech made by Mr.
Bradlaugh on this subject in the House of Commons, on
12th April, 1889 (“Hansard,” vol. 335, page 450):—
Mr. Speaker, the Bill, the second reading of which I have
asked the House to pass, is directed against prosecutions
which are partly prosecutions at common law and partly
prosecutions by Statute. The Statute is the 9th and 10th,
William III, chapter 35, and that Statute enacts that any
person convicted of blasphemy, shall, for the first offence,
be adjudged incapable and disabled in law, to all intents
and purposes whatsoever, to have, to hold, or enjoy any
office or offices, employment or employments, and shall,
for a second offence, be adjudged disabled from being a
�( 2 )
plaintiff or defendant in any suit, or from being the guar
dian of his own children, or from being capable of receiv
ing any legacy, and shall be liable to imprisonment for
the space of three years. The Act has been held to be
supplemental to the common law. I may best describe
the Statute by using the words of Lord Coleridge uttered
in a case which was tried six years ago. In the course of
the defence, the Statute had been described as shocking,
and Lord Coleridge said—
“ Some old things, and amongst them this Statute, are
shocking enough, and I do not defend them.”
In a judgment which Lord Justice Lindley delivered in
1885, His Lordship spoke of this Statute as cruel in its
operation against the persons against whom it was directed.
The Statute of 6th of George, chapter 47, which applies
to Scotland, makes the offence punishable by 14 years’
transportation. Now, Mr. Justice Stephen in his “ His
tory of the Criminal Law ”, which was written and passed
through the Press in 1882, although it was published in
1883, wrote—
“ Offences against religion can hardly be treated as an actually
existing head of our criminal law. Prosecutions for such of
fences are still theoretically possible in a few cases, but they
have in practice become entirely obsolete.”
Unfortunately, whilst. the History was passing through
the Press, several prosecutions were initiated, one of which
4 was tried at Maidstone, two which were tried at the Old
Bailey, and two, in one of which I was myself the de
fendant, which were removed by certiorari to the High
Court, and were tried before the present Lord Chief Justice
of England. Here are two views of the law which it
is my duty to submit to the House, one, the view taken by
the present Lord Chief Justice of England—namely, that
it is only the manner of a blasphemous libel which should
be censured and that a calm, and clear, and cool statement
of views could not bring a person within the operation of
�( 3 )
the laws relating to blasphemy; and the other, the view
which, with all submission to the great Judge, who has
expressed the contrary opinion, I am afraid is the real
view of the law—the other, the view which was formed by
Mr. Justice Stephen and Mr. Justice Hawkins sitting in I "
the Queen’s Bench Division, which was mentioned in the
charge of Mr. Justice North in the trials at the Old Bailey,
and which was formed in the case of the AttorneyGeneral v. Bradlaugh reported in the Weekly Reporter, |
vol. 433, especially by Lord Justice Lindley. It seems to
me that the real state of the law has been very fully
explained by Mr. Justice Stephen in an article which
appeared in the Fortnightly Review, and which was pub
lished in examination and criticism of the charge of Lord
Coleridge to the jury in the case of the Queen v. Foote
and others. Mr. Justice Stephen urges that the law as
it now stands is a bad law, and recommends the very
measure which I am bringing before the House to-night.
It is right, however, I should state Lord Coleridge’s view
—the view that it is the manner and not the matter of the
blasphemous libel which should be considered, before I
put what I conceive is, unfortunately the real view of the
law. Lord Coleridge says—
“It is clear, therefore, to my mind that the mere denial of
the truth of the Christian religion is not enough alone to con
stitute the offence of blasphemy.”
and he goes on to point out that all prosecutions for blas
phemy, according to his view, tend to failure. Further on
in his judgment Lord Coleridge says—
“ Persecution, unless thorough-going, seldom succeeds. Ir
ritation, annoyance, punishment which stops short of exter
mination, very seldom alter men’s religious convictions. En
tirely without one fragment of historical exaggeration, I may
say that the penal laws which 50 or 60 years ago were enforced
in Ireland were unparalleled in the history of the world. They
existed 150 years ago ; they produced upon the religious con
victions of the Irish people absolutely no effect whatever.”
�( 4 )
I submit to the House that all kinds of enactments which
are in the nature of persecution for opinion are enactments
which fail in doing anything except driving the expression
of opinion into its worst and roughest forms, and, there
fore, ought not to be desired by anyone who has in any
degree any faith in any kind of liberty. Mr. Justice
Stephen, reviewing the charge of Lord Coleridge, a charge
which he praises in language not too strong, says —
“My only objection to it is that I fear that its merits may
be transferred illogically to the law which it expounds and lays
down, and that thus a humane and enlightened judgment may
tend to perpetuate a bad law by diverting public attention
from its defects. The law I regard as essentially and funda
mentally bad.”
Now when a learned judge, who is now engaged in trying
cases, can thus describe this portion of the law, I think I
can submit there is something like a prima facie case for
its appeal. Lord Justice Lindley in delivering judgment
in the case of the Attorney-General v. Bradlaugh says—
“ It is a mistake to suppose, and I think it as well the mistake
|$ *
,i'
7 should be known, that persons who do not believe in a Supreme
Being are in the state in which it is now commonly supposed
they are. There are old Acts of Parliament still unrepealed by
H which such people can be cruelly persecuted.”
And it was because Lord Justice Lindley found this law
on the Statute Book, that he said he felt constrained to
hold as he did in the case then before him. What is the
state of the law ? I prefer to put it in the words of Mr.
Jnstice Stephen than in my own. He quotes in support
of his statement a large number of cases, and he says—
“ The result of the examination of the authorities appears to
me to be that to this day Blackstone’s definition of blasphemy
must be taken ,to be true; and, if this is the case, it follows
that a large part of the most serious and most important litera
ture of the day is illegal—that, for instance, every bookseller
who sells, every one who lends to his friend, a copy of Comte’s
Positive Philosophy, or of Renan’s Vie de Jesu, commits a crime
punishable with fine and imprisonment. It may be said that
so revolting a consequence cannot be true; but, unfortunately,
�( 5 )
this is not the case. I suppose no one will, or indeed can deny
that if any person educated as a Christian, or having ever made
profession of the Christian religion, denied that the Bible was
of divine authority, even by word of mouth, he would incur the
penalties of the 9 and 10 William III, c. 32. I will take a par
ticular instance by way of illustration of this. The late Mr.
Greg was not only a distinguished author, but an eminent and
useful member of the Civil Service. I suppose he was educated
as a Christian, and no one could have a stronger sympathy with
the moral side of Christianity. In every one of his works the
historical truth of the Christian history is denied : and so is the
divine authority of the Old and New Testament. If he had
been convicted of publishing these opinions, or even of express
ing them to a friend in private conversation, his appointment
would have become void, and he Would have been adjudged in
capable and disabled in law to hold any office or employment
whatever; in a word, he would have lost his income and his
profession. Upon a second conviction, he must have been im
prisoned for three years, and incapacitated, amongst other things
to sue or accept any legacy. About this there neither is, nor
can be, any question whatever.”
And after a long and careful summary of the law, as laid
down in many decisions, Mr. Justice Stephen winds up—
“ In my own opinion the practical inference is that blasphemy
and blasphemous libel should cease to be offences at common
law at all, that the Statute of William III should be repealed,
and that it should be enacted that no one except a beneficed
clergyman of the Church of England should be liable to ecclesi
astical censures for ‘ atheism, blasphemy, heresy, schism, or any
other opinion ’. Such an abolition would not only secure com
plete liberty of opinion on these matters, but it would prevent
their recurrence at irregular intervals of scandalous prosecutions
which have never in any one instance benefited anyone least of
all the cause which they were intended to serve, and which
sometimes afford a channel for the gratification of private malice
under the cloak of religion.”
•
I ask this House to give effect- to what the learned Judge
has said. I know there are one or two arguments which
may be used to weigh heavily against me. One is, that
the class for whom I speak is a comparatively small class.
(Mr. DeLisle : “ Hear, hear.”) There would be no reason
in denying liberty to one man, even if he stood alone.
Every opinion, in every age, has been at some time small,
�( 6 )
and those who hold opinions which, within 100 years have
been the subject of cruel persecutions within this realm,
should be the last to endorse the doctrine of persecution
against those weaker than themselves. It may be urged
that the severe penalties of the law are seldom enforced.
It is only about 50 years ago that under this Act one man
suffered nine years and eight months’ imprisonment in
this country, and was also condemned to pay an enormous
fine. It did not check the issue of the literature by him
against which the prosecution was directed. It only had
the effect of endearing him to a large number of people,
and of making many purchase the writings he issued who
might otherwise not have done so. I hardly like to seem
to be thrusting my personal case upon the House, but I
may be permitted to remind the House that the declaration
has been made very formally in print that the prosecution
which was directed against me, was initiated for the direct
purpose of disqualifying me, under this Statute, for the
term of my natural life, from taking part in the political
work of the country. I submit to the House that, ruling
as it does over 330,000,000 of human beings, of every kind
of faith or lack of faith, it is our duty to treat all alike.
What is the effect of the law as it stands ? Two years ago
a legacy was left to myself and a gentleman in Manchester
for the purpose of endowing an institution. We were all
persons who might have been indicated as blasphemers
under the law. The legacy was left for purely educational
purposes, but the legacy was set aside, first of all in the
Court of the Palatine of Lancaster, and next on appeal,
on the ground that a bequest for such a purpose was an
j illegal bequest and voidable. It may be said “ we would
not object to you being allowed to utter your views, but
we object to you uttering your views in an offensive
language”. But if persons utter their views in an of
fensive manner, and so as to provoke a breach of the
peace, they are punishable under the law as it now stands.
The fact that the law is not always enforced, the fact that
�( 7 )
it is seldom enforced, the fact that Mr. Justice Stephen
in his “ History of the Criminal Law ”, describes the law
as obsolete, the fact that Lord Justice Lindley has referred
to the law as cruel in its operation, should tend, I submit,
to induce the House to grant the Second Reading of this
Bill. I can quite understand it is possible that people
will say that views which are different from their own
should not be offensively urged, but that brings in the
question of the manner of the advocate rather than that
of the matter, and I put it to persons who hold this view,
whether the keeping on the Statute Book of this harsh
and cruel law, does not deprive' any of us, who may wish
to tone and temper argument, of any fair reason for
checking harsh or hasty speech or utterance. Again, let
me point out that the word blasphemy for which' you
punish to-day, has been an ever-changing word. It is
only 240 years ago that a man, Naylor, the Quaker, of
the same faith as the man (Mr. Bright) all of us in this
House honored, was tried for blasphemy. George Box,
William Penn, and scores of their co-workers were sent to
gaol, or whipped at the cart tail as blasphemers. The
Unitarians, had they lived even later than the times of
which I have just spoken, would have come within the
penalties of this Statute which Lord Coleridge says gives
a ferocious power against people, and which Lord Justice
Lindley condemns as an essentially bad law. I feel' that
this is not a time of night to trespass unduly on the
attention of the House. I can only appeal to the generosity
of the majority, but I would point out to them the position
in which they put those who differ from them when they
lack generosity themselves. I have sometimes tried to
argue with my friends in Prance against the strict en
forcement some of them have put on the Anti-Clerical
laws ■ they have answered me “ the Church shows us no
mercy ”. It is that kind of unfortunate spirit which treats
opinion as if it were a crime and thought as if it were a
crime, when the very honesty of the utterance of that
�thought, that expression of opinion, shows you that
the persons against whom you direct your Statute,
have, at least, the virtue of honesty to redeem their
action from being classed as that of the ordinary
criminal. It is against this unfortunate spirit I am
arguing; it is for these people I am pleading to-night.
I am pleading for many who have found trusts for their
children cancelled, as was the case with a member of this
House, honored while sitting in it because of the family
to which he belonged, and for the great name and greater
traditions associated with it—I mean Lord Amberley. He
found his trust for his children cancelled, because the man
whom he honored enough to give the trust, might
have been brought within the scope of this statute. It is
too late to-day to keep these penalties on the Statute Book.
The Bill may not receive sanction for its second reading
to-night, but it is something—and I thank the House for
it—that the House has listened patiently and generously
to an appeal made on behalf of an unpopular minority;
and one day or other justice will have to be done, and I
ask the House to do it whilst those for whom they are
asked to do it are few and weak, rather than leave us to
win, as win we will, that outside public opinion by the
ballot which determines what the law shall be.
A. Bonner, Printer, 34 Bouverie St., E.C,
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Repeal of the blasphemy laws
Creator
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Annotations in pencil. Reprint of speech made by Bradlaugh in the House of Commons on 12 April 1889. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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A. Bonner, Printer
Date
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[1889?]
Identifier
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N103
Subject
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Blasphemy
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Repeal of the blasphemy laws), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Blasphemy-Law and Legislation-Great Britain
NSS
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https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/d6d73c2f4656a2966f96781cf1b7e629.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=XkY%7E4NyL0XOIW-HT-LD7X1syK3Qglymvuwvw9KgtiqHPfoKvJIgCNI2Chn-oU1ZU7KaVATdA18-iSzUv7o-5g3UosPaFPK4WD7dx8IFQ9FHw3e88E8eCri-Fg6ZsQfbCiHaTWG9-lTdmclJBJiVI9A12byPpvcZwBugoP7llAvGfkEt0slRDH1TnXY1drimBqOcZTBe3md7FFg%7Ebckhj4rYhLYoOioxBYkFX8%7EsMTNAJ9SaStqXs67xgryjxKS%7EbF6v7lG7TehUTE0D2e8lEmOueY1Iyn9B3WrWROTcI3UlUhsILggflOcU-UadqWaAZSFXfiH2V-TfVlxDBmWvkRA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
eed281eecda63eeca9da2d84a997f49d
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Text
K)0$
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
ATONEMENT.
BY 0. BRADLAUGH.
“Quel est done ce Dieu qui fait mourir Dieu pour apaiser Dieu?’
J
The chief feature of the Christian Religion is that Jesus, A;
the Son of God, sacrificed himself, or was sacrificed by God
the father, to atone for Adam’s transgression against the
divine command. It is declared in the New Testament, in A
clear and emphatic language, that in consequence of the one I
man, Adam’s sin, death entered into the world, and judg- '
ment and condemnation came upon all men. It is also
declared that a Christ died for the ungodly
“ that he died
for our sins,” and “ was delivered for our offences.” On
the one hand it is urged that Adam, the sole source of the
human family, offended Deity, and that the consequence of
this offence was the condemnation to death, after a life of
sorrow, of the entire race of mankind. On the other side of
the picture is pourtrayed the love of God, who sent his only
beloved son to die, and by his death, procuring for all
eternal life, to save the remnant of humanity from the
further vengeance of their all-merciful heavenly father. The
religion of Christ finds its source in the yet undiscovered
garden watered by a four-armed river.
Adam’s sin is the corner-stone of Christianity ; the key< I j
stone'd? the arch. Without the fall there is no redeemer, / I
for there isjio fallen one to be redeemed. It is then to the ’ [
fiistory of Adam that the examinant of the Atonement
theory should first direct his attention. To try the
doctrine of the Atonement by the aid of science would
be fatal to religion. As for the one man Adam, 6,000 years
�9
THI ATOKEiaWT.
ago the first of the human race, his existence is not
only unvouched for by science, but is actually ques
tioned by the timid, and challenged by the bolder expo
nents of modem ethnology. The human race is traced back
far beyond the period fixed for Adam’s sin. Egypt and
India speak for humanity busy with wars, cities, and
monuments, prior to the date given for the garden scene in.
Eden.
The fall of Adam could not have brought sin upon man
kind, and death by sin, if hosts of men and women had lived
and died ages before the words “thou shalt surely die,” were
spoken by God to man.
Nor could alL men inherit Adam’s misfortune, if it be true
that it is not to one, but to many centres of origin that we
ought to trace back the various races of mankind.
The theologian who finds no evidence of death at all
prior to the offence shared by Adam and Eve, is laughed to
scorn by the geologist who points to the innumerable
petrifactions on the earth’s bosom, which with a million
tongues declare more potently than loudest speech, that
organic life in myriads of myriads was destroyed incalculable
ages before man’s era on our world.
Science, however, has so little to offer in support of any
religious doctrine, and so much to advance against all purely
theologic tenets, that we turn to a point giving the Christian
greater vantage ground ; and accepting for the moment his
premises, we deny that he can maintain the possibility of
Adam’s sin, and yet consistently affirm the existence of an
All-wise, All-powerful, and All-good God. Did Adam sin?
We will take the Christians’ Bible in our hands to answer
the question, first defining the word sin. What is sin ?
Samuel-TayLor Coleridge^says, “ A sin is an evil which has
its ground or origin in the agent and not in the compulsion
of circumstances. Circumstances are compulsory from the
absence of a power to resist or control them, and if this
absence be likewise the effect of circumstances (that is, if
it have been neither directly nor indirectly caused by the
agent himself) the evil derived from the circumstance, and
therefore such evil is not sin, and the person who suffers it,
�THE ATONEMENT.
3
or is the compelled actor, or instrument of its infliction on
others, may feel regret but not remorse. Let us generalise
the word circumstance so as to understand by it all and
everything not connected with the will. . . . Even
though it were the warm blood circulating in the chambers
of the heart, or man’s own inmost sensations, we regard
them as circumstantial, extrinsic, or from without. . . .
9 An act to be sin must be original, and a state or act that has
not its origin in the will, may be calamity, deformity, or dis
ease, but sin it cannot be. It is not enough that the act
.1 aPPeara s0 voluntary, or that it has the most hateful passions, 5
or debasing appetite for its proximate cause and accompani
ment. All these may be found in a madhouse, where
neither law nor~humanity permit us to condemn the actor of I
Bin. The reason of law declared the maniac not a free
agent, and the verdict follows of course, not guilty.” Did 1
Adam sin?
The Bible story is that a Deity created one man and on©
woman ; that he placed them in a garden wherein he had
also placed a tree, which was good for food, pleasant to the
eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. That
although he had expressly given the fruit of every tree
bearing seed for food, he, nevertheless, commanded them not
to eat of the fruit of this attractive tree under penalty of
death. Supposing Adam to have at once disobeyed this in
junction, would it have been sin? The fact that God had
made the tree good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree
to be desired to make one wise, would have surely been
sufficient circumstance of justification on the God-created
(inducement to partake of its fruit. The inhibition lost its. a
f value as against the enticement. If the All-wise had in- 1
i Tendedthe tree to be avoided, would he have made its allure- /
. ments so overpowering to the senses? But the case does not I
rest here. In addition to aJ I the attractions of the tree, and I
as though there were not enough, there is a subtle serpent
gifted with suasive speech, who either wiser or more truthifiil than the All-perfect Deity, says that although God has
threatened immediate death as the consequence of dis- '
obedience to his command, yet they“shall not die ; for God
�TSE ATONEMENT.
doth know that in the .day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall
be opened, and ye shall be as gods knowing good and
evil.” The tempter is stronger than the tempted, the
witchery of the serpent is too great for ihe spell-bound
woman, the decoy tree is too potent in its temptations ;
overpersuaded herself by the honey-tongued voice of the
seducer, she plucks the fruit and gives to her husband
also. And for tbis^their offspring are to suffer ! The /
>
unbonrScbildren^ are. to be the victims of GocTs
j i vengeance ontheir parents’ weakness—though he had Hi
I made them weak. Though indeed he had created the If J
tempter sufficiently strong to practise upon this weakness,
and had arranged the causes, predisposing man and woman
to commit the offence—if indeed it be an offence to pluck
the fruit of a tree which gives knowledge to the eater. It
ss for this fall that Jesus is to atone. He is sacrificed to
redeem the world’s inhabitants from the penalties for a weak
ness (for sin it was not) they had no share in. It was not sin ;
for the man was influenced by circumstances pre-arranged
by Deity, and which man was powerless to resist or control.
But if the man was so influenced by such circumstances, '
then it was God who influenced the man—God who punished
the human race for an action to the commission of which he
impelled their progenitor.
Adam did not sim He ate of the fruit of a tree which
God had made good to be eaten. He was induced to this
through the indirect persuasion of a serpent God had
made for the very purpose to persuade him. But even if
4 Adam did sin, and even if he and Eve, his wife, were the
(first parents of the whole human family, what have we^to do
withjtheir sin ? We unborn when the act was committed,
and without choice as to coming into the world. Does
Jesus atone for Adam’s sin? Adam suffered for his own
offence ; he, according to the curse, was to eat in sorrow of
the fruit of the earth all his life as punishment for his
offence. Atonement, after punishment, is surely a super
fluity. Did the sacrifice of Jesus serve as atonement for
the whole world, and, if yes, for all sin, or for Adam’s sin
only ? If the atonement is for the whole world, does ii
�THE ATONEMENT.
0
extend to unbelievers as well as to believers in the efficacy ?
. If it only includes believers, then what has become of those 1
1 generations who, according to the Bible, for 4,000 years I
succeeded each other in the world without faith in Christ J
j because without knowledge of his mission? Should not Jesus have come 4000 years earlier, or, at least, should he
’ not have come when the Ark on Ararat served as monu’ ment of God’s merciless vengeance, which had made the
whole earth a battle field, whereon the omnipotent had
crushed the feeble, and had marked his prowess by the in- 1
numerable myriads of decaying dead? If it be declared
that, though the atonement by Jesus only applies to be
lievers in his mission so far as regards human beings born
since his coming, yet that it is wider in its retrospective
effect; then the answer is that it is unfair to be born after
Jesus to make faith the condition precedent to the saving
efficacy of atonement, especially if belief be required from
all mankind posterior to the Christian era, whether they have
heard of Jesus or not. Japanese, Chinese, savage Indians,
Kaffirs, and others have surely a right to complain of this
atonement scheme, which ensures them eternal damnation
by making it requisite to believe in a Gospel of which they
have no knowledge. If it be contended that belief shall \
only be required from those to whom the Gospel of Jesus \
has been preached, and who have had afforded to them the
opportunity of its acceptance, then how great a cause of
complaint against Christian Missionaries have those peoples
who, without such missions, might have escaped damnation
for unbelief. The gates of hell are opened to them by the I
/ earnest propagandist, who professes to show the road to ;
heaven.
’
But does this atonement serve only to redeem the human
family from the curse inflicted by Deity in Eden’s garden
for Adam’s sin, or does it operate as satisfaction for all sin ?
If the salvation is from the punishment for Adam’s sin
alone, and if belief and baptism are, as Jesus himself affirms,
to be the sole conditions precedent to any saving efficacy in
the much-lauded atonement by the sin of God, then what
becomes of a child that only lives a few hours, is never bap-
�e
1
I
•
1
|;
THE ATONEMENT.
tised, and never having any mind, consequently never has
any belief ? Or what becomes of one idiot born who, through
out his dreary life, never has mental capacity for the accept
ance or examination of, or credence in any religious dogmas
whatever? Is the idiot saved who cannot believe? Is the
infant saved ThaFcailnot believe? I, with some mental
faculties tolerably developed, cannot believe. Must I be
damned ? If so, fortunate short-lived babe 1 lucky idiot 1
That the atonement should not be effective until the person
to be saved has been baptised, is at least worthy of com
ment ; that the sprinkling a few drops of water should [Z
quench the flames of hell, is a remarkable feature in the $■
Christian’s creed.
“ One can’t but think it somewhat droll
Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul.”
K
How many fierce quarrels have raged on the formula of
baptism amongst those loving brothers in Christ who believe
he died for them I How strange an idea that, though G-od j I
I has been crucified to redeem mankind, it yet needs the font 11
■ of water to wash away the lingering stain of Adam’s crime. 1I
One minister of the Church of England, occupying the
presidential chair of a well-known training college for
Church clergymen in the North of England, seriously de
clared, in the presence of a large auditory and of several
church dignitaries, that the sin of Adam was so potent in
its effect, that if a man had never been born, he would yet
have been damned for sin. That is, he declared that man
existed before birth, and that he committed sin before he
was born ; and if never born, would notwithstanding deserve
to suffer eternal torment for that sin.
It is almost impossible to discuss seriously a doctrine so
monstrously absurd, and yet it is not one whit more ridi
culous than the ordinary orthodox and terrible doctrine, 1
that God the undying, in his infinite love, killed himself i r
under the form of his son to appease the cruel vengeance'J
ofjfiod, the just and merciful, who, without this, would
have been ever vengeful, unjust, and merciless.
I
The atonement theory, as presented to us by th*
Bible, is in effect as follows ;—God creates man surrounded
I
�the atonement.
7
by euch circumstance as the divine mind chose, in the selec
tion of which man had no voice, and the effects of which
on man were all forek nown and predestmed"hy "Deity,
’ldie result is’"man’s fall on the_very first temptation,
so frail the nature with which he was endowed, or so
powerful 'the temptation to which he was subjected.
For this fall not only does the All-merciful punish Adam,
but also his posterity; and this punishing went on for
many centuries, until God, the immutable, changed his pur
pose of continual condemnation of men for sins they had no
share in, and was wearied with his long series of unjust
judgments on those whom he created, in order that he
might judge them. That, then, God sent his son, who was
himaelf and was also his own father, and who was immortal,
to die upon the cross, and, by this sacrifice, to atone for the
sin which God himself had caused Adam to commit, and
thus to appease the merciless vengeance of the All-merciful,
which would otherwise have~been continued against men
yet unborn for an offence they could not have been con
cerned in or accessory to. Whether those who had died
before Christ’s coming are redeemed, the Bible does not
clearly tell us. Those born after are redeemed only on
condition of their faith in the efficacy of the sacrifice
offered, and in the truth of the history of Jesus’s life. The
doctrine of salvation by sacrifice of human life is the doe^
trihe~oFa barbarous and superstitious age; the outgrowth
of a brutal and depraved era. TheGod who accepts thj£
bloody offering of an innocent victim in lieu of punishing
tifF^fiilty culprit, shows no mercy in sparing the offender:
fie has already satiated his lust for vengeance on the first
object presented to him.
Yet sacrifice is an early and prominent, and with slight
exception an abiding feature in the Hebrew Record— sacri
fice of life finds appreciative acceptance from the Jewish
Deity. Cain’s offering of fruits is ineffective, but Abel’s
altar bearing the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof,
finds respect in the sight of the Lord. While the face of
the earth was disfigured by the rotting dead after God in.
his infinite mercy had deluged the world, then it was that
�8
THE ATONEMENT.
. the ascending smoke from Noah’s burnt sacrifice of bird
and beast produced pleasure in heaven, and God himself
smelled a sweet savour from the roasted meatsT^fo reach
atonement for the past by sacrifice is worse than folly—it
is crime. The past can never be recalled, and the only re
ference to it should be that, by marking its events we may
avoid its evil deeds and improve upon its good ones. For
Jesus himself—can man believe in him ? In his Listory.
contained in anonymous pamphEEs”uncorroborated by con
temporary testimony ? This history, in which, in order to
fulfil a prophecy which does not relate to him, his descent
from David is demonstrated by tracing through two self
contradictory genealogies the descent of Joseph who was
j^ot his father. This history, in which the infinite God
grows from babyhood and his cradle through childhood to
manhood, as though he were not God at all. This history
full of absurd wonders, devils, magicians, and eviFspirits,
rather fit for an Arabian Night’s legend, than the word
Qi God to his people. This history, with its miraculous
raisings of the dead to life, disbelieved and contradicted by
the people amongst whom they are alleged to have been
performed; but, nevertheless, to be accepted by us to-day
with all humility?'' This history of the Man-God subject to
human passions and infirmities, who comes to die, and who
prays to his heavenly father—that is, to himself, thathe
will spare him the bitter cup of death. Who is betrayed,
having himself, ere he laid the foundations of the world,
predestined Judas to betray him, and who dies being God
immortal crying with his almost dying breath—“ My God !
my God! why hast thou forsaken me ?”
Printed and Published by Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant,
at 28, Stonecutter Street, London, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
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The atonement
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Extensive annotations in pencil. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant
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[n.d.]
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N081
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Christianity
Bible
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The atonement), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Atonement
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national secular society
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS
WRITTEN ?
BY
CHARLES BRADLAUG1L
[fourth edition.]
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, STONECUTTER STREET E.C.
1881.
�i
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
----- .
AN ANSWER TO THE RELIGIOUS TRACT
SOCIETY.
The Religious Tract Society, some time since, issued, pre
faced with their high commendation, a translation of a
pamphlet by Dr. Constantine Tischendorf, entitled “ When
were our Gospels Written ? ” In the introductory preface
we are not unfairly told that “ on the credibility of the four
Gospels the whole of Christianity rests, as a building on its
foundations.” It is proposed in this brief essay to deal
with the character of Dr. Tischendorf’s advocacy, then to
examine the genuineness of the four Gospels, as affirmed by
the Religious Tract Society’s pamphlet, and at the same
time to ascertain, so far as is possible in the space, how far
the Gospel narrative is credible.
The Religious Tract Society state that Dr. Tischendorf’s
brochure is a repetition of “ arguments for the genuineness
and authenticity of the four Gospels,” which the erudite
Doctor had previously published for the learned classes,
“ with explanations ” now given in addition, to render the
arguments “ intelligible ” to meaner capacities ; and as the
“Infidel ” and “ Deist ” are especially referred to as likely
to be overthrown by this pamphlet, we may presume that the
society considers that in the 119 pages—which the trans
lated essay occupies—they have presented the best paper
that can be issued on their behalf for popular reading on
this question. The praise accorded by the society, and
sundry laudations appropriated with much modesty in his
own preface by Dr. Constantine Tischendorf to himself,
compel one at the outset to regard the Christian manifesto
as a most formidable production. The Society’s translator
impressively tells us that the pamphlet has been three times
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
printed in Germany and twice in France ; that it has been
issued in Dutch and Russian, and is done into Italian by an
Archbishop with the actual approbation of the Pope. The
author’s preface adds an account of his great journeyings
and heavy travelling expenses incurred out of an original
capital of a “ few unpaid bills,” ending in the discovery of
a basketful of old parchments destined for the flames by the
Christian monks in charge, but which from the hands of
Dr. Tischendorf are used by the Religious Tract Society to
neutralise all doubts, and to “ blow to pieces ” the Ration
alistic criticism of Germany and the coarser Infidelity of
England. Doubtless Dr. Tischendorf and the Society con
sider it some evidence in favor of the genuineness and
authenticity of the four Gospels that the learned Doctor was
enabled to spend 5,000 dollars out of less than nothing, and1
that the Pope regards his pamphlet with favor, or they would
not trouble to print such statements. We frankly accord
them the full advantage of any argument which may fairly
be based on such facts. An autograph letter of endorse
ment by the Pope is certainly a mattei* which a Protestant
Tract Society—who regard “ the scarlet whore at Babylon”
with horror—may well be proud of.
Dr. Tischendorf states that he has since 1839 devoted
himself to the textual study of the New Testament, and it
ought to be interesting to the orthodox to know that, as a
result of twenty-seven years’ labor, he now declares that
“ it has been placed beyond doubt that the original text
. . . . had in many places undergone such serious modi
fications of meaning as to leave us in painful uncertainty
as to what the apostles had actually written,” and that “ the
right course to take” “is to set aside the received text
altogether and to construct a fresh text.”
This is pleasant news for the true believer, promulgated by
authority of the managers of the great Christian depot in
Paternoster Row, from whence many scores of thousands of
copies of this incorrect received text have nevertheless been
issued without comment to the public, even since the society
have published in English Dr. Tischendorf’s declaration of
its unreliable character
With the modesty and honorable reticence peculiar to
great men, Dr. Tischendorf records his successes in reading
hitherto unreadable parchments, and we learn that he has.
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
7
received approval from “ several learned bodies, and even
from crowned heads,” for his wonderful performances. As
a consistent Christian, who knows that the “ powers that be
are ordained of God,” our “ critic without rival,” for so he
prints himself, regards the praise of crowned heads as higher
in degree than that of learned bodies.
The Doctor discovered in 1844 the MS. on which he now
relies to confute audacious Infidelity, in the Convent of St.
Catherine at Sinai; he brought away a portion, and handed
that portion, on his return, to the Saxon Government—they
paying all expenses. The Doctor, however, did not then
divulge where he had found the MS. It was for the advan
tage of humankind that the place should be known at once,
for, at least, two reasons. First, because by aid of the re
mainder of this MS.—“ the most precious Bible treasure in
existence ”—the faulty text of the New Testament was to be
reconstructed; and the sooner the work was done the better
for believers in Christianity. And, secondly, the whole
story of the discovery might then have been more easily
confirmed in every particular.
For fifteen years, at least, Dr. Tischendorf hid from the
world the precise locality in which his treasure had been
discovered. Nay, he was even fearful when he knew that
Other Christians were trying to find the true text, and he
experienced “peculiar satisfaction” when he ascertained
that his silence had misled some pious searchers after reliable
copies of God’s message to all humankind; although all this
time he was well aware that our received copies of God’s
revelation had undergone “serious modifications” since the
message had been delivered from the Holy Ghost by means
of the Evangelists.
In 1853, “ nine years after the original discovery,” Dr.
Tischendorf again visited the Sinai convent, but although
he had “enjoined on the monks to take religious care” of
the remains of which they, on the former occasion, would
not yield up possession, he, on this second occasion, and
apparently after careful search, discovered “ eleven short
lines,” which convinced him that the greater part of the
MS. had been destroyed. He still, however, kept the place
secret, although he had no longer any known reason for so
doing; and, having obtained an advance of funds from the
Russian Government, he, in 1859, tried a third time for his
�8
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
pearl of St. Catherine,” which, in 1853, he felt convinced
had been destroyed, and as to which he had nevertheless, in
the meantime, been troubled by fears that the good cause
might be aided by some other than Dr. Tischendorf discover
ing and publishing the “priceless treasure,” which, according
to his previous statements, he must have felt convinced did
not longer exist. On this third journey the Doctor dis
covered “ the very fragments which, fifteen years before, he
had taken out of the basket,” “ and also other parts of the
Old Testament, the J\ew Testament complete, and, in addi
tion, Barnabas and part of Hermas.”
With wonderful preciseness, and with great audacity, Dr.
Tischendorf refers the transcription of the discovered Bible
to the first half of the fourth century. Have Dr. Tischen
dorf s patrons here ever read of MSS. discovered in the
same Convent of St. Catherine, at Sinai, of which an
account was published by Dr. Constantine Simonides, and
concerning which the Westminster Review said, “ We share
the suspicions, to use the gentlest word which occurs to us,
entertained, we believe, by all competent critics and anti
quarians.”
In 18b3 Dr. Tischendorf published, at the cost of the
Russian Emperor, a splendid but very costly edition of his
Sinaitic MS. in columns, with a Latin introduction. The
book is an expensive one, and copies of it are not very
plentiful in England. Perhaps the Religious Tract Society
have not contributed to its circulation so liberally as did the
pious Emperor of all the Russias. Surely a text on which
our own is to be re-constructed ought to be in the hands at
least of every English clergyman and Young Men’s Christian
Association.
“ Christianity,” writes Dr. Tischendorf, “ does not, strictly
speaking, rest on the moral teaching of Jesus “it rests on
his person only.” “ If we are in error in believing in the
person of Christ as taught in the Gospels, then the Church
herself is in error, and must be given up as a deception.”
“ All the world knows that our Gospels are nothing else
than biographies of Christ.” “We have no other source of
information with respect to the life of Jesus.” So that,
according to the Religious Tract Society and its advocate, if
the’’ credibility of the Gospel biography be successfully
impugned, then the foundations of Christianity are destroyed.
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
9
It becomes, therefore, of the highest importance to show
that the biography of Jesus, as given in the four Gospels, is
absolutely incredible and self-contradictory.
It is alleged in the Society’s preface that all the objections
•of infidelity have been hitherto unavailing. This is, however,
not true. It is rather the fact that the advocates of Chris
tianity when defeated on one point have shuffled to another,
■either quietly passing the topic without further debate, or
loudly declaring that the point abandoned was really so
utterly unimportant that it was extremely foolish in the
assailant to regard it as worthy attack, and that, in any
case, all the arguments had been repeatedly refuted by pre
vious writers.
To the following objections to the Gospel narrative the
writer refuses to accept as answer, that they have been pre
viously discussed and disposed of.
The Gospels which are yet mentioned by the names popu- I
larly associated with each do not tell us the hour, or the
■day, or the month, or—save Luke—the year, in which Jesus
was born. The only point on which the critical divines, who
'have preceded Dr. Tischendorf, generally agree is, that Jesus
was not born on Christmas day. The Oxford Chronology,
collated with a full score of recognised authorities, gives us
a period of more than seven years within which to place the
■date. So confused is the story as to the time of the birth, ?
that while Matthew would make Jesus born in the lifetime
■of Herod, Luke would fix the period of Jesus’s birth as after ■
Herod’s death.
Christmas itself is a day surrounded with curious cere
monies of pagan origin, and in no way serving to fix the
25th December as the natal day. Yet the exact period at
which Almighty God, as a baby boy, entered the world to
redeem long-suffering humanity from the consequences of
Adam’s ancient sin, should be of some importance.
Nor is there any great certainty as to the place of birth of >
Christ. The Jews, apparently in the very presence of Jesus,
reproached him that he ought to have been born at
Bethlehem. Nathaniel regarded him as of Nazareth. Jesus
never appears to have said to either, “I was born at
Bethlehem.” In Matthew ii., 6, we find a quotation
from the prophet: “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of
Judah, art not the least amongst the princes of Juda, for
�10
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my peopleIsrael.” Matthew lays the scene of the birth in Bethlehem,
and Luke adopts the same place, especially bringing the child
to Bethlehem for that purpose, and Matthew tells us it is
done to fulfil a prophecy. Micah v., 2, the only place in
which similar words occur, is not a prophecy referring to
Jesus at all. The words are: “ But thou Beth-lehem
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of
Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that isto be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of
old, from everlasting.” This is not quoted correctly in
Matthew, and can hardly be said by any straining of
language to apply to Jesus. The credibility of a story on
which Christianity rests is bolstered up by prophecy in
default of contemporary corroboration. The difficulties are
not lessened in tracing the parentage. In Matthew i., 17,
it is stated that “ the generations from Abraham to David
are fourteen generations, and from David until the carrying
away into Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the
carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen genera
tions.” Why has Matthew made such a mistake in his
computation of the genealogies—in the last division we have
only thirteen names instead of fourteen, even including the
name of Jesus? Is this one of the cases of “painful
uncertainty ” which has induced the Religious Tract Society
and Dr. Tischendorf to wish to set aside the textus receptus
altogether ?
From David to Zorobabel there are in the Old Testament
twenty generations ; in Matthew, seventeen generations ;
and in Luke, twenty-three generations. In Matthew from
David to Christ there are twenty-eight generations, and in
Luke from David to Christ forty-three generations. Yet,
according to the Religious Tract Society, it is on the credi
bility of these genealogies as part of the Gospel history
that the foundation of Christianity rests. The genealogy
in the first Gospel arriving at David traces to Jesus through
Solomon; the third Gospel from David traces through
Nathan. In Matthew the names from David are Solomon,
Roboam, Abia, Asa, Josaphat, Joram, Ozias; and in the Old
Testament we trace the same names from David to Ahaziah,
whom I presume to be the same as Ozias. But in 2nd
Chronicles xxii., 11, we find one Joash, who is not men-
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
11
tioned in Matthew at all. If the genealogy in Matthew is
correct, why is the name not mentioned ? Amaziah is
mentioned in chap, xxiv., v. 27, and in chap, xxvi., v. 1,
Uzziah, neither of whom are mentioned in Matthew, where
Ozias is named as begetting Jotham, when in fact three
generations of men have come in between. In Matthew
and Luke, Zorobabel is represented as the son of Salathiel,
while in 1 Chronicles iff., 17—19, Zerubbabel is stated to be
the son of Pedaiah, the brother of Salathiel. Matthew
says Abiud was the son of Zorobabel (chap, i., v. 13).
Luke iii., 27, says Zorobabel’s son was Rhesa. The Old
Testament contradicts both, and gives Meshullam, and
Hananiah, and Shelomith, their sister (1 Chronicles iii., 19),
as the names of Zorobabel’s children. Is this another piece
of evidence in favor of Dr. Tischendorf’s admirable
doctrine, that it is necessary to reconstruct the text ?
. three names agreeing after that of David, viz., Salathiel,
Zorobabel, and Joseph—all the rest are utterly different. , |
! 1 The attempts at explanation which have been hitherto
offered, in order to reconcile these genealogies, are scarcely
creditable to the intellects of the Christian apologists. They
allege that “ Joseph, who by nature was the son of Jacob,
in the account of the law was the son of Heli. For Heli
and Jacob were brothers by the same mother, and Heli, who
was the elder, dying without issue, Jacob, as the law
directed, married his widow; in consequence of such mar
riage, his son Joseph was reputed in the law the son of Heli.’^
This is pure invention to get over a difficulty—an invention
not making the matter one whit more clear. For if you
suppose that these two persons were brothers, then unless
you invent a death of the mother’s last husband and the
widow’s remarriage Jacob and Heli would be the sons of the
same father, and the list of the ancestors should be identical
in each genealogy. But to get over the difficulty the pious j
do this. They say, although brothers, they were only half
brothers ; although sons of the same mother, they were not
sons of the same father, but had different fathers. If so,
how is it that Salathiel and Zorobabel occur as father and
son in both genealogies ? Another fashion of accounting
for the contradiction is to give one as the genealogy of
Joseph and the other as the genealogy of Mary. “ Which?
�12
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
I “ Luke,” it is said. Why Luke ? what are Luke’s words ?
Luke speaks of Jesus being, “as was supposed, the son of
Joseph, which was the son of Heli.” When Luke says
Joseph, the son of Heli, did he mean Mary, the daughter of
Heli ? Does the Gospel say one thing and mean another ?
because if that argument is worth anything, then in every
case where a man has a theory which disagrees with the
text, he may say the text means something else. If this
argument be permitted we must abandon in Scriptural
criticism the meaning which we should ordinarily intend to
convey by any given word. If you believe Luke meant
daughter, why does the same word mean son in every other
' case all through the remainder of the genealogy ? And if
the genealogy of Matthew be that of Joseph, and the
genealogy of Luke be that of Mary, they ought not to have
any point of agreement at all until brought to David. They,
nevertheless, do agree and contradict each other in several
places, destroying the probability of their being intended as
distinct genealogies. There is some evidence that Luke
does not give the genealogy of Mary in the Gospel itself.
We are told that Joseph went to Bethlehem to be numbered
because he was of the house of David : if it had been Mary
it would have surely said so. As according to the Christian
» theory, Joseph was not the father of Jesus, it is not unfair
to ask how it can be credible that Jesus’s genealogy could
I be traced to David in any fashion through Joseph?
So far from Mary being clearly of the tribe of Judah (to
which the genealogy relates) her cousinship to Elizabeth
would make her rather appear to belong to the tribe of
Levi.
To discuss the credibility of the miraculous conception and
birth would be to insult the human understanding. The
mythologies of Greece, Italy, and India, give many prece
dents of sons of Gods miraculously born. Italy, Greece, and
India, must, however, yield the palm to Judea. The inIcarnate Chrishna must give way to the incarnate Christ.
A miraculous birth would be scouted to- day as monstrous ;
-antedate it 2,000 years and we worship it as miracle.
1
Matt, i., 22, 23, says: “ Now all this was done, that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring
forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
13
being interpreted is, God with us.” This is supposed to be
a quotation from Isaiah vii., 14—16 : “ Therefore the Lord
himself shall give you a sign ; Behold a virgin shall con
ceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse
the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall
know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that
thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.”
But in this, as indeed in most other cases of inaccurate
quotation, the very words are omitted which would show its
utter inapplicability to Jesus. Even in those which are
given, the agreement is not complete. Jesus was not called
Emmanuel. And even if his mother Mary were a virgin,
this does not help the identity, as the word
OLME in i
Isaiah, rendered “virgin” in our version, does not convey
the notion of virginity, for which the proper word is nbUTZl
BeThULE; OLME is used of a youthful spouse recently
married. The allusion to the land being forsaken of both
her kings, omitted in Matthew, shows how little the passage
is prophetic of Jesus.
The story of the annunciation made to Joseph in one
Gospel, to Mary in the other, is hardly credible on any ex
planation. If you assume the annunciations as made by a
God of all-wise purpose, the purpose should, at least, have
been to prevent doubt of Mary’s chastity; but the annun
ciation is made to Joseph only after Mary is suspected by
Joseph. Two annunciations are made, one of them in a
dream to Joseph, when he is suspicious as to the state of
his betrothed wife ; the other made by the angel Gabriel
(whoever that angel may be) to Mary herself, who apparently
conceals the fact, and is content to be married, although
with child not by her intended husband. The statement—
that Mary being found with child by the Holy Ghost, her
husband, not willing to make her a public example, was
minded to put her away privily—is quite incredible. If
Joseph found her with child &?/ the Holy Ghost, how could
he even think of making a public example of her shame
when there was nothing of which she could be ashamed—
nothing, if he believed in the Holy Ghost, of which he need
have been ashamed himself, nothing which need have in
duced him to wish to put her away privily. It is clear—
according to Matthew—that Mary was found with child,
�14
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
and that the Holy Ghost parentage was not even imagined
by Joseph until after he had dreamed about the matter.
Although the birth of Jesus was specially announced by
an angel, and although Mary sang a joyful song consequent
on the annunciation, corroborated by her cousin’s greeting,
yet when Simeon speaks of the child, in terms less extra
ordinary, Joseph and Mary are surprised at it and do not
understand it. Why were they surprised ? Is it credible
that so little regard was paid to the miraculous annuncia
tion? Or is this another case of the “painful uncertainty”
alluded to by Dr. Tischendorf ?
Again, when Joseph and Mary found the child Jesus in
the temple, and he says, “ Wist ye not that I must be about
my father’s business ? ” they do not know what he means, so
that either what the angel had said had been of little effect,
or the annunciations did not occur at all. Can any reliance
be placed on a narrative so contradictory ? An angel was
specially sent to acquaint a mother that her son about to be
born is the Son of God, and yet that mother is astonished
when her son says, “ Wist ye not I must be about my
father’s business ? ”
The birth of Jesus was, according to Matthew, made
publicly known by means of certain wise men. These men
saw his star in the East, but it did not tell them much, for
they were obliged to come and ask information from Herod
the King. Is astrology credible ? Herod inquired of the
chief priests and scribes; and it is evident Jeremiah was
right, if he said, “ The prophets prophecy falsely and the
priests bear rule by their means,” for these chief priests
misquoted to suit their purposes, and invented a false pro
phecy by omitting a few words from, and adding a few
words to, a text until it suited their purpose. The star, after
they knew where to go, and no longer required its aid, went
before them, until it came and stood over where the young
child was. The credibility of this will be better understood
if the reader notice some star, and then see how many houses
it will be over. Luke does not seem to have been aware
of the star story, and he relates about an angel who tells
some shepherds the good tidings, but this last-named adven
ture does not appear to have happened in the reign of Herod
at all. Is it credible that Jesus was born twice ? After the
wise men had left Jesus, an angel warned Joseph to flee
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
15
with him and Mary into Egypt, and Joseph did fly, and re
mained there with the young child and his mother until the
•death of Herod ; and this, it is alleged, was done to fulfil a
prophecy. On referring to Hosea xi., 1, we find the words
have no reference whatever to Jesus, and that, therefore,
-either the tale of the flight is invented as a fulfilment of the
prophecy, or the prophecy manufactured to support the tale
of the flight. The Jesus of Luke never went into Egypt at
all in his childhood. Directly after the birth of the child
his parents instead of flying away because of persecution
into Egypt, went peacefully up to Jerusalem to fulfil all
things according to the law, returned thence to Nazareth,
and apparently dwelt there, going up to Jerusalem every
year until Jesus was twelve years of age.
In Matthew ii., 15, we are told that Jesus remained in
Egypt, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the
Lord by the prophet saying, Out of Egypt have I called my
sou.” In Hosea ii., 1, we read, “When Israel was a child,
then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” In no
•other prophet is there any similar text.
This not only is
not a prophecy of Jesus, but is, on the contrary, a reference
to the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. Is the prophecy manu
factured to give an air of credibility to the Gospel history,
or how will the Religious Tract Society explain it? The
Gospel writings betray either a want of good faith,
or great incapacity on the part of their authors in the
mode adopted of distorting quotations from the Old Testa
ment ?
When Jesus began to be about thirty years of age
he was baptised by John in the river Jordan. John,
who, according to Matthew, knew him, forbade him
directly he saw him; but, acccording to the writer of
the fourth Gospel, he knew him not, and had, there
fore, no occasion to forbid him. God is an “ invisible ”
“spirit,” whom no man hath seen (John i., 18), or can see
(Exodus xxxiii., 20); but the man John saw the spirit of
God descending like a dove. God is everywhere, but at
that time was in heaven, from whence he said, “This is my
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Although John
heard this from God’s own mouth, he some time after sent
two of his disciples to Jesus to inquire if he were really the
Christ (Matthew xi., 2, 3). Yet it is upon the credibility
�16
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
of this story, says Dr. Tischendorf, that Christianity rests
like a building on its foundations.
It is utterly impossible John could have known and not
have known Jesus at the same time. And if, as the New
Testament states, God is infinite and invisible, it is in
credible that as Jesus stood in the river to be baptised, the
Holy Ghost was seen as it descended on his head as a dove,
and that God from heaven said, “This is my beloved son, in
whom I am well pleased.” Was the indivisible and invisible
spirit of God separated in three distinct and two separately
visible persons ? How do the Religious Tract Society recon
cile this with the Athanasian Creed ?
The baptism narrative is rendered doubtful by the lan
guage used as to John, who baptised Jesus. It is said,
“ This is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias,
saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare
ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Isaiah xl.,
1—5? is? “ Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your
God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto
her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity
is pardoned ; for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double
for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilder
ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the
desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be
exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low :
and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough
places plain : and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”
These verses have not the most remote relation to John ?
And this manufacture of prophecies for the purpose of
bolstering up a tale, serves to prove that the writer of the
Gospel tries by these to impart an air of credibility to an
otherwise incredible story.
Immediately after the baptism, Jesus is led up of the
Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. There
he fasts forty days and forty nights.
John says, in chapter i., 35, “Again, the next day after,
John stood and two of his disciples ; and looking upon
Jesus as he walked, he said, behold the Lamb of God. And
the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.”
Then, at the 43rd verse, he says, “ The day following Jesus
would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith
unto him, follow me.” And in chapter ii., 1, he says, “And
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
17
the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and
the mother of Jesus was there ; and both Jesus was called
and his disciples unto the marriage.” According to Matthew,
there can be no doubt that immediately after the baptism
Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.
And we are to believe that Jesus was tempted of the Devil
and fasting in the wilderness, and at the same time feasting
at a marriage in Cana of Galilee ? Is it possible to believe
that Jesus actually did fast forty days and forty nights ? If
Jesus did not fast in his capacity as man, in what capacity
did he fast ? And if Jesus fasted, being God, the fast
would be a mockery; and the account that he became a
hungered must be wrong. It is barely possible that in some
very abnormal condition or cataleptic state, or state of
trance, a man might exist, with very slight nourishment or
without food, but that a man could walk about, speak, and
act, and, doing this, live forty days and nights without food
is simply an impossibility.
Is the story that the Devil tempted Jesus credible ? If
Jesus be God, can the Devil tempt God ? A clergyman of
the Church of England writing on this says: “ That the
Devil should appear personally to the Son of God is cer
tainly not more wonderful than that he should, in a more
remote age, have appeared among the sons of God, in the
presence of God himself, to torment the righteous Job. But
that Satan should carry Jesus bodily and literally through
the air, first to the top of a high mountain, and then to the
topmost pinnacle of the temple, is wholly inadmissable,
it is an insult to our understanding, and an affront to
our great creator and redeemer.” Supposing, despite the
monstrosity of such a supposition, an actual Devil—and this
involves the dilemma that the Devil must either be Godcreated, or God’s co-eternal rival; the first supposition
being inconsistent with God’s goodness, and the second
being inconsistent with his power; but supposing such a
Devil, is it credible that the Devil should tempt the
Almighty maker of the universe with “ all these will I
give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me ? ”
In the very names of the twelve Apostles there is an un
certainty as to one, whose name was either Lebbmus, Thad
daeus, or Judas. It is in Matthew x., 3, alone that the name
of Lebbaeus is mentioned, thus—“Lebbaeus, whose surname
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
was Thaddaeus.” We are told, on this point, by certain
Biblicists, that some early MSS. have not the words “ whose
surname was Thaddaeus,” and that these words have pro
bably been inserted to reconcile the Gospel according to
Matthew with that attributed to Mark. In the English
version of the Rheims Testament used in this country by
our Roman Catholic brethren, the reconciliation between
Matthew and Mark is completed by omitting the words
“ Lebbaeus whose surname was,” leaving only the name
“ Thaddaeus ” in Matthew’s text. The revised version of
the New Testament now agrees with the Rheims version,,
and the omission will probably meet with the entire concur
rence of Dr. Tischendorf and the Religious Tract Society,,
now they boast autograph letters of approval from the in
fallible head of the Catholic Church. If Matthew x., 3,.
and Mark iii., 18, be passed as reconciled, although the first
calls the twelfth disciple Lebbeeus, and the second gives him
the name Thaddaeus; there is yet the difficulty that in Luke
vi., 16, corroborated by John xiv., 22, there is a disciple
spoken of as “ Judas, not Iscariot,” “Judas, the brother of
James.” Commentators have endeavored to clear away this
last difficulty by declaring that Thaddams is a Syriac word,
having much the same meaning as Judas. This has been
answered by the objection that if Matthew’s Gospel uses
Thaddaeus in lieu of Judas, then he ought to speak of Thad
daeus Iscariot, which he does not; and it is further objected’
also that while there are some grounds for suggesting a
Hebrew original for the Gospel attributed to Matthew, there
is not the slightest pretence for alleging that Matthew wrote
in Syriac. The Gospels also leave us in some doubt as to.
whether Matthew is Levi, or whether Matthew and Levi are
two different persons.
The account of the calling of Peter is replete with con
tradictions. According to Matthew, when Jesus first saw
Peter, the latter was in a vessel fishing with his brother
Andrew, casting a net into the sea of Galilee. Jesus walk
ing by the sea said to them—“Follow me, and I will make
you fishers of men.” The two brothers did so, and they
became Christ’s disciples. When Jesus called Peter no one
was with him but his brother Andrew. A little further on,
the two sons of Zebedee were in a ship with their father
mending nets, and these latter were separately called. From
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John, we learn that Andrew was originally a disciple of
John the Baptist, and that when Andrew first saw Jesus,
Peter was not present, but Andrew went and found Peter
who, if fishing, must have been angling on land, telling him
!:we have found the Messiah,” and that Andrew then
brought Peter to Jesus, who said, “Thou art Simon, the
son of Jonas ; thou shalt be called Cephas.” There is no
mention in John of the sons of Zebedee being a little further
on, or of any fishing in the sea of Galilee. This call is
clearly on land. Luke’s Gospel states that when the call
took place, Jesus and Peter were both at sea. Jesus had
been preaching to the people, who pressing upon him, he got
into Simon’s ship, from which he preached. After this he
directed Simon to put out into the deep and let down the
nets. Simon answered, “ Master, we have toiled all night
and taken nothing ; nevertheless at thy word I will let down
the net.” No sooner was this done, than the net was filled
to breaking, and Simon’s partners, the two sons of Zebedee,
came to help, when at the call of Jesus, they brought their
ships to land, and followed him.
Is it credible that there were three several calls, or that
the Gospels being inspired, you could have three contradic
tory versions of the same event ? Has the story been here
“ painfully modified,” or how do Dr. Tischendorf and the
Religious Tract Society clear up the matter? Is it credible
that, as stated in Luke, Jesus had visited Simon’s house, and
cured Simon’s wife’s mother, before the call of Simon, but
did not go to Simon’s house for that purpose, until after the
call of Simon, as related in Matthew ? It is useless to reply
that the date of Jesus’s visit is utterly unimportant, when
we are told that it is upon the credibility of the complete
narrative that Christianity must rest. Each stone is im
portant to the building, and it is not competent for the
Christian advocate to regard as useless any word which the
Holy Ghost has considered important enough to reveal.
Are the miracle stories credible ? Every ancient nation
has had its miracle workers, but modern science has relegated
all miracle history to realms of fable, myth, illusion, delusion,
or fraud. Can Christian miracles be made the exceptions ?
Is it likely that the nations amongst whom the dead were
restored to life would have persistently ignored the author
of such miracles? Were the miracles purposeless, or if in
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
tended to convince the Jews, was God unable to render his
intentions effective ? That five thousand persons should be
, fed with five loaves and two fishes, and that an apparent
f excess should remain beyond the original stock, is difficult
to believe; but that shortly after this—Jesus having to
again perform a similar miracle for four thousand persons—
his own disciples should ignore his recent feat, and wonder
from whence the food was to be derived, is certainly start
lingly incredible. If this exhibition of incredulity were
pardonable on the part of the twelve apostles, living wit
nesses of greater wonders, how much more pardonable the
unbelief of the sceptic of to-day, which the Religious Tract
Society seek to overcome by a faint echo of asserted events
all contrary to probability, and with nineteen centuries
intervening.
I The casting out the devils presents phenomena requiring
j considerable credulity, especially the story of the devils and
t the swine. To-day insanity is never referable to demoniacal
possession, but eighteen hundred years ago the subject of
lunacy had not been so patiently investigated as it has been
since. That one man could now be tenanted by several
devils is a proposition for which the maintainer would in the
present generation incur almost universal contempt; yet the
repudiation of its present possibility can hardly be consistent
with implicit credence in its ancient history. That the devils
and God should hold converse together, although not with
out parallel in the book of Job, is inconsistent with the
theory of an infinitely good Deity ; that the devils should
address Jesus as son of the most high God, and beg to be
allowed to enter a herd of swine, is at least ludicrous ; yet all
this helps to make up the narrative on which Dr. Tischendorf
relies. That Jesus being God should pray to his Father
4 that “ the cup might pass ” from him is so incredible that
even the faithful ask us to regard it as mystery. That an
angel from heaven could strengthen Jesus, the almighty
God, is equally mysterious. That where Jesus had so pro
minently preached to thousands, the priests should need any
-one like Judas to betray the founder of Christianity with a
kiss, is absurd; his escapade in flogging the dealers, his
wonderful cures, and his raising Lazarus and Jairus’s
daughter should have secured him, if not the nation’s love,
faith, and admiration, at least a national reputation and
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
21
notoriety. It is not credible if Judas betrayed Jesus by a
kiss that the latter should have been arrested upon his own
statement that he was Jesus. That Peter should have had I
a so little faith as to deny his divine leader three times in a <
few hours is only reconcilable with the notion that he had i
remained unconvinced by his personal intercourse with the
; incarnate Deity. The mere blunders in the story of the I
j denial sink into insignificance in face of this major difficulty.
Whether the cock did or did not crow before the third denial,
whether Peter was or was not in the same apartment with
Jesus at the time of the last denial, are comparatively
trifling questions, and the contradictions on which they are
based may be the consequence of the errors which Dr.
Tischendorf says have crept into the sacred writings.
Jesus said, “ as Jonah was three days and three nights in
the belly of the whale, so shall the son of man be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Jesus was
crucified on Friday, was buried on Friday evening, and yet
the first who went to the grave on the night of Saturday
as it began to dawn towards Sunday, found the body of
Jesus already gone. Did Jesus mean he should be three
days and three nights in the grave ? Is there any proof
that his body remained in the grave for three hours ?
Who went first to'* the grave? was it Mary Magdalene
alone, as in John, or two Maries as in Matthew, or the two
Maries and Salome as in Mark, or the two Maries, Joanna,
and several unnamed women as in Luke ? To whom did
did Jesus first appear? Was it, as in Mark, to Mary
Magdalene, or to two disciples going to Emmaus, as in
Luke, or to the two Maries near the sepulchre, as in
Matthew? Is the eating boiled fish and honeycomb by
a dead God credible ? Did Jesus ascend to heaven the
I very day of his resurrection, or did an interval of nearly
six weeks intervene ?
Is this history credible, contained as it is in four con- '
t tradictory biographies, outside which biographies we have, ■
as UrTTischendorf admits, “no other source of informa- •
tion with respect to the life of Jesus ” ? This history of
III an earth-born Deity, descended through a crime-tainted .
ancestry, and whose genealogical tree is traced through one I
I who was not his father ; this history of an infinite God nursed
G as a baby, growing through childhood to manhood like any
J
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
frail specimen of humanity; this history, garnished with
bedevilledjnen, enchanted tig tree, myriads of ghosts, and
scores of miracles, and by such garnishment made more
akin to an oriental romance than to a sober history ; thjs
picture of the infinite invisible spirit incarnate visible as,
man; immutability subject to human passions and infirmi
ties ; the 'creator come to die, yet wishing to escape the
death which shall bring peace to Tris God-tormented crea
tures; God praying to himself and rejecting his own prayer;
God betrayed by a divinely-appointed traitor ; God the
immortal dying, and in the agony of the death-throes—
stronger than the strong man’s will—crying with almost
the last effort of his dying breath, that he being God, is
God forsaken !
* If all this be credible, what story is there any man need
hesitate to believe ?
Dr. Tischendorf asks how it has beeu possible to impugn
the credibility of the four Gospels, and replies that this has
been done by denying that the Gospels were written by the
men whose names they bear. In the preceding pages it has A
, been shown that the credibility of the Gospel narrative is
impugned because it is uncorroborated by contemporary
history, because it is self-contradictory, and because many
of its incidents are prima facie most improbable, and some
of them utterly impossible. Even English Infidels are quite
prepared to admit that the four Gospels may be quite anony
mous ; and yet, that their anonymous character need be of •
no weight as an argument against their truth. All that is |
urged on this head is that the advocates of the Gospel history ■
have sought to endorse and give value to the otherwise un- |
reliable narratives by a pretence that some of the Evange
lists, at least, were eyewitnesses of the events they refer to. ‘
Dr. Tischendorf says: “The credibility of a writer clearlyic*
I' depends on the interval of tifrle which lies between him and |
I the events which he describes. The farther the narrator is ■ i
removed from the facts which heTays before us the more ( y,
his claims to credibility are reduced in value.” Presuming
t truthfulness in intention for any writer, and his ability to
comprehend the facts he is narrating, and his freedom from a
prejudice which may distort the picture he intends to paint
correctly with his pen: we might admit the correctness of
the passage we have quoted; but can these always be pre
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
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sumed in the case of the authors of the Gospels ? On the
contrary, a presumption in an exactly opposite direction may
he fairly raised from the fact that immediately after the
Apostolic age the Christian world was flooded with forged
testimonies in favor of the biography of Jesus, or in favor
of his disciples.
A writer in the Edinburgh Review observes : “ To say
nothing of such acknowledged forgeries as the Apostolic
constitutions and liturgies, and the several spurious Gospels,
the question of the genuineness of the alleged remains of
the Apostolic fathers, though often overlooked, is very
material. Any genuine remains of the ‘ Apostle ’ Barnabas,
of Hermas, the contemporary (Romans xvi., 14), and
Clement, the highly commended and gifted fellow laborer
of St. Paul (Phil, iv., 3), could scarcely be regarded as less
•sacred than those of Mark and Luke, of whom personally
we know less. It is purely a question of criticism. At the
present day, the critics best competent to determine it. have,
agreed in opinion, that the extant writings ascribed to Bar
nabas and Hermas are wholly spurious-—the frauds of a
later age. How much suspicion attaches to the 1st Epistle
of Clement (for the fragment of the second is also generally
rejected) is manifest from the fact, that in modern times
it has never been allowed the place expressly assigned to it
among the canonical books prefixed to the celebrated Alex
andrian MS., in which the only known copy of it is included.
It must not be forgotten that Ignatius expressly lays claim
to inspiration, that Ireneeus quotes Hermas as Scripture,
and Origen speaks of him as inspired, while Polycarp, in
modestly disclaiming to be put on a level with the Apostles,
clearly implies there would have been no essential distinction
in the way of his being ranked in the same order. But the
question is, how are these pretensions substantiated ? ” So
far the Edinburgh Review, certainly not an Infidel publica
tion.
Eusebius, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” admits the4
*’ existence of many spurious gospels and epistles, and some .
writings put forward by him as genuine, such as the corres
pondence between Jesus and Agbaras, have since been rejected as fictitious. It is not an unfair presumption from it
this that many of the most early Christians considered the
then existing testimonies insufficient to prove the history of
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WHEN WERE O'UR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
Jesus, and good reason is certainly afforded for carefully
examining the whole of the evidences they have bequeathed us.
On p. 48, Dr. Tischendorf quotes Irenaeus, whose writings
belong to the extreme end of the second century, as though
that Bishop must be taken as vouching the four Gospels as
we now have them. Yet, if the testimony of Irenaeus be
reliable (“ Against Heresies,” Book III., cap. i.) the Gospel
attributed to Matthew was believed to have been composed
in Hebrew, and Irenaeus says that as the Jews desired a
Messiah of the royal line of David, Matthew having the
same desire to a yet greater degree, strove to give them full
satisfaction. This may account for some of the genealogical
curiosities to which we have drawn attention, but hardly
renders Matthew’s Gospel more reliable ; and how can the /
| suggestion that Matthew wrote in Hebrew prove that Mat- I
ithew penned the first Gospel, which has only existed ini
Greek ? Irenaeus, too, flatly contradicts the Gospels by \
declaring that the ministry of Jesus extended over ten years I
and that Jesus lived to be fifty years of age (“Against £
Heresies,” Book II., cap. 22).
If the statement of Irenaeus (“Against Heresies,” Book’
11“ III., cap. 11) that the fourth Gospel was written to refute the 1
errors of Cerinthus and Nicolaus, have any value, then the
’ actual date of issue of the fourth Gospel will be consider- £.
* ably after the others. Dr. Tischendorf’s statement that
i Polycarp has borne testimony to the Gospel of John is noth,
I even supported by the quotation on which he relies. All w
that is said in the passage quoted (Eusebius, “ Ecc. Hist.(” "
Book V., cap. 20) is that Irenaeus when he was a child
heard Polvea.rn reneat from memorv the dise.onrses of John I?
- in the time of Polycarp it would have been at least as easy jj
to have read them from the MS. as to repeat them from n
memory. Dr. Tischendorf might also have added that
I the letter to Florinus, whence he takes the passage on '
which he relies, exists only in the writings of Eusebius, to ,
whom we are indebted for many pieces of Christian evidence
since abandoned as forgeries. Dr. Tischendorf says : “Any
testimony of Polycarp in favor of the Gospel refers us back
to the Evangelist himself, for Polycarp, in speaking to
Irenaeus of this Gospel as the work of his master, St. John,
must have learned from the lips of the apostle himself,.
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
25
evidence
whether he was its author or not.” Now, what evidence^
is there that Polycarp ever saida single word as to the
authorship of the fourth Gospel, of of any Gospel, or that
, he even said that John had penned a single word? In the (\\
[ I Epistle to the Philippians (the only writing attributed to
; Polycarp for which any genuine character is even pre
tended), the Gospel of John is never mentioned, nor is
there even a single passage in the Epistle which can be
identified with any passage in the Gospel of John.
Surely Dr. Tischendorf forgot, in the eager desire to
make his witnesses bear good testimony, that the highest
duty of an advocate is to make the truth clear, not to put
forward a pleasantly colored falsehood to deceive the igno
rant. It is not even true that Irenasus ever pretends1
, that Polycarp in any way vouched our fourth Gospsl as
having been written by John, and yet Dr. Tischendorf had
the cool audacity to say “there is nothing more damaging
to the doubters of the authenticity of St. John’s Gospel *
than this testimony of St. Polycarp.” Do the Religious
Tract Society regard English Infidels as so utterly ignorant
that they thus intentionally seek to suggest a falsehood, or
are the Council of the Religious Tract Society themselves
unable to test the accuracy of the statements put forward
on their behalf by the able decipherer of illegible parch
ments ?
It is too much to suspect the renowned Dr. Con
stantine Tischendorf of ignorance, yet even the coarse
English sceptic regrets that the only other alternative will
be to denounce him as a theological charlatan.
Dr. Mosheim, writing on behalf of Christianity, says that |
the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians is by some treated'
. as genuine and by others as spurious, and that it is no easy
matter to decide.
Many critics, of no mean order, class it I
amongst the apostolic Christian forgeries, but whether the
/ Epistle be genuine or spurious, it contains no quotation
I I from, it makes no reference to, the Gospel of John.
M ‘ To what is said of Irenasus, Tertullian, and Clement of
l\ Alexandria, it is enough to note that all these are after
a.d. 150. Irenasus may be put 177 to 200, Tertullian about
193, and Clement of Alexandria as commencing the third' _
century.
One of Dr. Tischendorf’s most audacious flourishes is that
(p. 49) with reference to the Canon of Muratori, which we
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
are told “enumerates the books of the New Testament
which, from the first, were considered canonical and sacred,”
and which “ was written a little after the age of Pins I,
about a.d. 170.”
First the anonymous fragment contains books which were
never accepted as canonical; next, it is quite impossible to
say when or by whom it was written or what was its original
language. Muratori, who discovered the fragment in 1740^ 1|
conjectured that it was written about the end of the second i
dr beginning of the third century, but itjg, noteworthy that
neither Eusebius nor any other of the ecclesiastical advocates
ofjhe third, fourth, or fifth centuries, ever refers to it. It
may be the compilation of any monk at any date prior to
1740, and is utterly valueless as evidence.
Dr. Tischendorf’s style is well exemplified by the positive
manner in which he fixes the date a.d. 139 to the first
apology of Justin, although a critic so “ learned ” as the un
rivalled Dr. Tischendorf could not fail to be aware that
more than one writer has supported the view that the date
of the first apology was not earlier than a.d. 145, and others
have contended for a.d. 150. The Benedictine editors of
Justin’s works support the latter date. Dr. Kenn argues
for a.d. 155—160. On page 63, the Religious Tract Society’s
champion appeals to the testimony of Justin Martyr, but in »
order not to shock the devout while convincing the profane,
he omits to mention that more than half the writings once
attributed to Justin Martyr are now abandoned, as either of
doubtful character or actual forgeries, and that Justin’s
value as a witness is considerably weakened by the fact that
he quotes the acts of Pilate and the Sybilline Oracles as
though they were reliable evidence, when in fact they are
both admitted specimens of “ a Christian forgery.” But |
what does Justin testify as to the Gospels ? Does he say
that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were their writers ?
On the contrary, not only do the names of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John never occur as Evangelists in the writings
of Justin, but he actually mentions facts and sayings as to
Jesus, which are not found in either of the four Gospels.
The very words rendered Gospels only occur where they are
strongly suspected to be interpolated, Justin usually speaking
of some writings which he calls “ memorials ” or “memoirs
of the Apostles.”
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�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
27
Dr. Tischendorf urges that in the writings of Justin the
G-ospels are placed side by side with the prophets, and that
“this undoubtedly places the Gospels in the list of canon
ical books.” If this means that there is any statement in
-Justin capable of being so construed, then Dr. Tischendorf
was untruthful. Justin does quote specifically the Sybilline
oracles, but never Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. He
‘-quotes statements as to Jesus, which may be found in the
-apocryphal Gospels, and which are not found in ours, so that
if the evidence of Justin Martyr be taken, it certainly does not
tend to prove, even in the smallest degree, that four Gospels
were specially regarded with reverence in his day. The
Rev. W. Sanday thinks that Justin did not assign an ex
clusive authority to our Gospels, and that he made use also
of other documents no longer extant. (“ Gospels in 2nd
Century,” p. 117.)
On p. 94 it is stated that “as early as the time of Justin i»
’ the expression ‘ the Evangel ’ was applied to the four 7
Gospels.” This statement by Dr. Tischendorf and its »
"publication by the Religious Tract Society call for the
I strongest condemnation. Nowhere in the writings of Justin
are the words “the Evangel” applied to the four Gospels.
Gardner only professes to discover two instances in which
the wTord anglicised by Tischendorf as “Evangel,” occurs;
■€.vayyeX.L<i> and evayyeXca, the second being expressly pointed
out by Schleiermacher as an interpolation, and as an in
stance in which a marginal note has been incorporated with
the text; nor would one occurrence of such a word prove
that any book or books were so known by Justin, as the
word is merely a compound of ev good and ayyekta message;
nor is there the slightest foundation for the statement that
in the time of Justin the word Evangel was ever applied to
■designate the four Gospels now attributed to Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John.
Dr. Tischendorf (p. 46) admits that the “ faith of the I
! Church . . . would be seriously compromised ” if we ;
>do not find references to the Gospels in writings between /
a.d. 100 and a.l>. 150; and—while he does not directly '
.assert—he insinuates that in such writings the Gospels were
“ treated with the greatest respect,” or “ even already
treated as canonical and sacred writings
and he distinctly
affirms that the Gospels “ did see the light ” during the
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
“ Apostolic age,” “ and before the middle of the second’
century our Gospels were held in the highest respect by the
Church,” although for the affirmation, he neither has nor
advances the shadow of evidence.
The phrases, “ Apostolic age ” and ‘‘Apostolic fathers”
denote the first century of the Christian era, and those
fathers who are supposed to have flourished during that
period, and who are supposed to have seen or heard, or had
the opportunity of seeing or hearing, either Jesus or some
one or more of the twelve Apostles., Barnabas, Clement,
Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, are those whose names
figure most familiarly in Christian evidences as Apostolic
fathers. But the evidence from these Apostolic fathers is
of a most unreliable character. Mosheim (“ Ecclesiastical
t History,” cent. 1, cap. 2, sec. 3, 17) says that “ the Apostolic
history is loaded with doubts, fables, and difficulties,” and
that not long after Christ’s ascension several histories were
current of his life and doctrines, full of “ pious frauds and
fabulous wonders.” Amongst these were “The Acts of
Paul,” “ The Revelation of Peter,” “ The Gospel of Peter,”
I “The Gospel of Andrew,” “The Gospel of John,” “The
.Gospel of James,” “The Gospel of the Egyptians,” etc.
The attempts often made to prove from the writings of
Barnabas, Ignatius, etc., the prior existence of the four
Gospels, though specifically unnamed, by similarity of
phraseology in quotations, is a failure, even admitting for
the moment the genuineness of the Apostolic Scriptures, if
the proof is intended to carry the matter higher than that
such and such statements were current in some form or other,
at the date the fathers wrote. As good an argument might
’ be made that some of the Gospel passages were adopted from
* the fathers. The fathers occasionally quote, as from the
4 mouth of Jesus, words which are not found in any of our
four Gospels, and make reference to events not included in
the Gospel narratives, clearly evidencing that even if the
four documents ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
were in existence, they were not the only sources of infor
mation from which some of the Apostolic fathers derived
their knowledge of Christianity, and evidencing also that the
four Gospels had attained no such specific superiority as to
entitle them to special mention by name.
Of the epistle attributed to Barnabas, which is sup-
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
29
<posed by its supporters to have been written in the latter
part of the first century, which, Paley says, is probably
genuine, which is classed by Eusebius as spurious (“Eccle
siastical History,” book iii., cap. 25), and which Dr.
Donaldson does not hesitate for one moment in refusing to
ascribe to Barnabas the Apostle (“ Ante-Nicene Fathers,”
vol. i., p. 100), it is only necessary to say that so far from
speaking of the Gospels with the greatest respect, it does not
mention by name any one of the four Gospels. There are
some passages in Barnabas which are nearly identical in
phraseology with some Gospel passages, and which it has
been argued are quotations from one or other of the four
Gospels, but which may equally be quotations from other
Gospels, or from writings not in the character of Gospels.
There are also passages which are nearly identical with
several of the New Testament epistles, but even the great
framer of Christian evidences, Gardner, declares his convic
tion that none of these last-mentioned passages are quota
tions, or even allusions, to the Pauline or other epistolary
writings. Barnabas makes many quotations which clearly
demonstrate that the four Gospels, if then in existence and
if he had access to them, could not have been his only source
of information as to the teachings of Jesus (E. G., cap. 7).
“ The Lord enjoined that whosoever did not keep the fast
should be put to death.” “ He required the goats to be of
goodly aspect and similar, that when they see him coming
they may be amazed by the likeness to the goat.” Says he,
“ those who wish to behold me and lay hold of my kingdom,
must through tribulation and suffering obtain me” (cap. 12).
And the Lord saith, “When a tree shall be bent down and
again rise, and when blood shall flow out of the wound.”
Will the Religious Tract Society point out from which of
the Gospels these are quoted ?
Barnabas (cap. 10) says that Moses forbade the Jews to
eat weasel flesh, “ because that animal conceives with the
mouth,” and forbad them to eat the hyena because that
animal annually changes its sex. This father seems to have
made a sort of melange of some of the Pentateuchal
ordinances. He says (cap. 8) that the Heifer (mentioned
in Numbers) was a type of Jesus, that the three (?) young
men appointed to sprinkle, denote Abraham, Isaac, and
- -Jacob, that wool was put upon a stick because the
�30
I
.
,
1
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
kingdom of Jesus was founded upon the cross, and
(cap. 9) that the 318 men circumcised by Abraham
stood for Jesus crucified. Barnabas also declared that
the world was to come to an end in 6,000 years (“Free
thinkers’ Text Book,” part ii., p. 268). In the Sinaitic
Bible, the Epistle of St. Barnabas has now, happily for
misguided Christians, been discovered in the original Greek.
To quote the inimitable style of Dr. Tischendorf, “ while
so much has been lost in the course of centuries by the
tooth of time and the carelessness of ignorant monks, an in
visible eye had watched over this treasure, and when it was
on the point of perishing in the fire, the Lord had decreed itsdeliverance;” “while critics have generally been divided
between assigning it to the first or second decade of the
second century, the Sinaitic Bible, which has for the first
time cleared up this question, has led us to throw its com
position as far back as the last decade of the first century.”
A fine specimen of Christian evidence writing, cool assertion
without a particle of proof and without the slightest reason
given. How does the Siniatic MS., even if it be genuine,
clear up the question of the date of St. Barnabas’s Epistle?
Dr. Tischendorf does not condescend to tell us what has led
the Christian advocate to throw back the date of its com
position ? We are left entirely in the dark: in fact, what
Dr. Tischendorf calls a “throw back,” is if you look at
Lardner just the reverse. What does the epistle of Barnabas
prove, even if it be genuine ? Barnabas quotes, by name,
Moses and Daniel, but never Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
Barnabas specifically refers to Deuteronomy and the pro
phets, but never to either of the four Gospels.
There is an epistle attributed to Clement of Rome, whichhas been preserved in a single MS. only where it is coupled
with another epistle rejected as spurious. Dr. Donaldson(“ Ante-Nicene Fathers,” vol. i-, p. 3) declares that who the
Clement was to whom these writings are ascribed cannot
with absolute certainty be determined. Both epistles stand
on equal authority; one is rejected by Christians, the other is
received. In this epistle while there is a distinct reference
to an Epistle by Paul to the Corinthians, there is no mention
by name of the four Gospels, nor do any of the words attri
buted by Clement to Jesus agree for any complete quotation
with anyone of the Gospels as we have them. The Rev.
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
31
W. Sanday is frank enough to concede “ that Clement is
not quoting directly from our Gospels.”
Is it probable that Clement would have mentioned a
writing by Paul, and yet have entirely ignored the four
Gospels, if he had known that they had then existed ?
And could they have easily existed in the Christian world in
his day without his knowledge ? If anyone takes cap. xxv.
of this epistle and sees the phoenix given as a historic fact,
and as evidence for the reality of the resurrection, he will be
better able to appreciate the value of this so-called epistle
of Clement.
The letters of Ignatius referred to by Dr. Tischendorf
are regarded by Mosheim as laboring under many difficul
ties, and embarrassed with much obscurity. Even Lardner,
doing his best for such evidences, says, that if we find
matters in the Epistles inconsistent with the notion that
Ignatius was the writer, it is better to regard such passages
as interpolations, than to reject the Epistles entirely,
especially in the “ scarcity ” of such testimonies.
There are fifteen epistles of which eight are undisputedly
forgeries. Of the remaining seven there are two versions, a
long and a short version, one of which must be corrupt,
both of which may be. These seven epistles, however, are
in no case to be accepted with certainty as those of Ignatius.
Dr. Cureton contends that only three still shorter epistles are
genuine (“Ante-Nicene Fathers,” vol. i., pp. 137 to 143).
The Rev. W. Sanday treats the three short ones as probably
genuine, waiving the question as to the others (“ Gospels in
Second Century,” p. 77, and see preface to sixth edition
“ Supernatural Religion”), Ignatius, however, even if he be
the writer of the epistles attributed to him, never mentions
either of the four Gospels. In the nineteenth chapter of the
Epistles to the Ephesians, there is a statement made as to
the birth and death of Jesus, not to be found in either
Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
If the testimony of the Ignatian Epistles is reliable, then
it vouches that in that early age there were actually Chris
tians who denied the death of Jesus. A statement as to
Mary in cap. nineteen of the Epistle to the Ephesians is
not to be found in any portion of the Gospels. In his
Epistle to the Trallians, Ignatius, attacking those who denied
the real existence of Jesus, would have surely been glad to
�32
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
quote the evidence of eye witnesses like Matthew and John,
if such evidence had existed in his day. In cap. eight
of the Epistles to the Philadelphians, Ignatius says, “I have
jlr heard of some who say : Unless I find it in the archives I
*' will not believe the Gospel. And when I said it is written,
they answered that remains to be proved.” This is the
most distinct reference to any Christian writings, and how
little does this support Dr. Tischendorf’s position. From
which of our four Gospels could Ignatius have taken the
words, “lam not an incorporeal demon,” which he puts into
the mouth of Jesus in cap. iii., the epistle to the Smyrnasans ?
Dr. Tischendorf does admit that the evidence of the Ignatian Epistles is not of decisive value; might he not go
farther and say, that as proof of the four Gospels it is of no
value at all ?
On page 70, Dr. Tischendorf quotes Hippolytus without
any qualification. Surely the English Religious Tract Society
might have remembered that Dodwell says, that the name
of Hippolytus had been so abused by impostors, that it was
not easy to distinguish any of his writings. That Mill de
clares that, with one exception, the pieces extant under his
name are all spurious. That, except fragments in the writ
ings of opponents, the works of Hippolytus are entirely
lost. Yet the Religious Tract Society permit testimony so
tainted to be put forward under their authority, to prove the
truth of Christian history. The very work which Dr. Tis
chendorf pretends to quote is not even mentioned by Euse
bius, in the list he gives of the writings of Hippolytus.
On page 94, Dr. Tischendorf states that Basilides, before ».
\ a.d. 138, and Valentinus, about a.d. 140, make use of
three out of four Gospels, the first using John and Luke,
the second, Matthew, Luke, and John. What words of
either Basilides or Valentinus exist anywhere to justify this ,
reckless assertion ? Was Dr. Tischendorf again presuming
’ on the utter ignorance of those who are likely to read his
pamphlet ? The Religious Tract Society are responsible
for Dr. Tischendorf’s allegations, which it is impossible to
support with evidence.
The issue raised is not whether the followers of Basilides
or the followers of Valentinus may have used these gospels,
but whether there is a particle of evidence to justify Dr.
'Tischendorf’s declaration, that Basilides and Valentinus
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
33
themselves used the above-named gospels. That the four
Gospels were well known during the second half of the first
century is what Dr. Tischendorf undertook to prove, and
statements attributed to Basilides and Valentinus, but which ■*
ought to be attributed to their followers, will go but little
way as such proof (see “ Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., pp
41 to 63).
It is pleasant to find a grain of wheat in the bushel of
Tischendorf chaff. On page 98, and following pages, the
erudite author applies himself to get rid of the testimony of
Papias, which was falsified and put forward by Paley as of
great importance. Paley says the authority of Papias is com- 1
plete; Tischendorf declares that Papias is in error. Paley
says Papias was a hearer of John, Tischendorf says he was /
not. We leave the champions of the two great Christian
evidence-mongers to settle the matter as best they can. If,
however, we are to accept Dr. Tischendorf’s declaration
that the testimony of Papias is worthless, we get rid of the
chief link between Justin Martyr and the apostolic age. It
pleases Dr. Tischendorf to damage Papias, because that
father is silent as to the gospel of John ; but the Religious
Tract Society must not forget that in thus clearing away
<1 the second-hand evidence of Papias, they have cut away
their only pretence for saying that any of the Gospels are
mentioned byname within 150 years of the date claimed for
the birth of Jesus. In referring to the lost work of Theo
philus of Antioch, which Dr. Tischendorf tells us was a
kind of harmony of the Gospels, in which the four narra
tives are moulded and fused into one, the learned Doctor
forgets to tell us that Jerome, whom he quotes as giving I
some account of Theophilus, actually doubted whether the ;
so-called commentary was really from the pen of that
writer. Lardner says : “ Whether those commentaries which »
> St. Jerome quotes were really composed by Theophilus may |
be doubted, since they were unknown to Eusebius, and were ■
observed by Jerome to differ in style and expression from
his other works. However, if they were not his, they were
the work of some anonymous ancient.” But if they were
the work of an anonymous ancient after Eusebius, what be
comes of Dr. Tischendorf’s “ as early as a.d. 170?”
1
Eusebius, who refers to Theophilus, and who speaks of his
using the Apocalypse, would have certainly gladly quoted
�34
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
the Bishop of Antioch’s “ Commentary on the Four Gos
pels,” if it had existed in his day. Nor is it true that the
references we have in Jerome to the work attributed to
Theophilus, justify the description given by Dr. Tischendorf,
or even the phrase of Jerome, “gm quatuor Evangelistarum
in unum opus dicta comping ens. ” Theophilus seems, so far
as it is possible to judge, to have occupied himself not with a
connected history of Jesus, or a continuous discourse as to
his doctrines, but rather with mystical and allegorical eluci
dations of occasional passages, which ended, like many pious
commentaries on the Old or New Testament, in leaving the
point dealt with a little less clear with the Theophillian com
mentary than without it. Dr. Tischendorf says that Theo
doret and Eusebius speak of Tatian in the same way—that
is, as though he had, like his Syrian contemporary, composed
a harmony of the four Gospels. This is also inaccurate.
Eusebius talks of Tatianus “having found a certain body
and collection of Gospels, I know not how,” which collection
Eusebius does not appear even to have ever seen; and so far
from the phrase in Theodoret justifying Dr. Tischendorf’s
explanation, it would appear from Theodoret that Tatian’s
Diatessaron was, in fact, a sort of spurious gospel, “The
Gospel of the Four” differing materially from our four
Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Neither
Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria, or Jerome, who refer to
other works of Tatian, make any mention of this. Dr.
Tischendorf might have added that Diapente, or “the
Gospel of the Five,” has also been a title applied to this
work of Tatian.
, In the third chapter of his essay, Dr. Tischendorf refers
/' to apocryphal writings “which bear on their front the names
of Apostles” “used by obscure writers to palm off” their
forgeries. Dr. Tischendorf says that these spurious books
were composed “partly to embellish” scripture narratives,
and “ partly to support false doctrine ; ” and he states that
in early times, the Church was not so well able to distin
guish true gospels from false ones, and that consequently
some of the apocryphal writings “ were given a place they
did not deserve.” This statement of the inability of the
Church to judge correctly, tells as much against the whole,
\ as against any one or more of the early Christian writings,
and as it may be as fatal to the now received gospels as to
I
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
35
those now rejected, it deserves the most careful conside
ration. According to Dr. Tischendorf, Justin Martyr falls
into the category of those of the Church who were “not so
critical in distinguishing the true from the false; ” for Justin,
says Tischendorf, treats the Gospel of St. James and the
Acts of Pilate, each as a fit source whence to derive mate
rials for the life of Jesus, and therefore must have regarded
the Gospel of St. James and the Acts of Pilate, as genuine
and authentic writings; while Dr. Tischendorf, wiser, and a
greater critic than Justin, condemns the Gospel of St. James
as spurious, and calls the Acts of Pilate “a pious fraud ; ”
but if Dr. Tischendorf be correct in his statement that
* “Justin made use of this Gospel” and quotes the “Acts of
Pontius Pilate,” then, according to his own words, Justin
did not know how to distinguish the true from the false,
and the whole force of his evidence previously used by Dr.
Tischendorf in aid of the four Gospels would have been
seriously diminished, even if it had been true, which it
is not, that Justin Martyr had borne any testimony on the
subj’ect.
Such, then, are the weapons, say the Religious Tract
Society, by their champion, “which we employ against un
believing criticism.” And what are these weapons ? We
have shown in the preceding pages, the suppressio veri and
the suggestio falsi are amongst the weapons used. The
Religious Tract Society directors are parties to fabrication
of evidence, and they permit a learned charlatan to forward
the cause of Christ with craft and chicane. But even this
is not enough ; they need, according to their pamphlet, “ a
new weapon; ” they want “to find out the very words the
Apostles used.”
True believers have been in a state of
delusion ; they were credulous enough to fancy that theft
authorised version of the Scriptures tolerably faithfully 1
represented God’s revelation to humankind. But no, says ‘
Dr. Tischendorf, it has been so seriously modified in the
copying and re-copying that it ought to be set aside alto-i
gether, and a fresh text constructed. Glorious news thisk
for the Bible Society. Listen to it, Exeter Hall 1 Glad tidings
to be issued by the Paternoster Row saints 1 After spending
hundreds of thousands of pounds in giving away Bibles to
soldiers, in placing them in hotels and lodging-houses, and
shipping them off to negroes and savages, it appears that
�36
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
| the wrong text has been sent through the world, the true
version being all the time in a waste-paper heap at Mount
Sinai, watched over by an “invisible eye.” But, adds Dr.
| Tischendorf, “if you ask me whether any popular version
contains the original text, my answer is Yes and No. I
say Yes as far as concerns your soul’s salvation.” If these
are enough for the soul’s salvation, why try to improve the
matter? If we really need the “full and clear light” of
the Sinaitic Bible to show us “ what is the Word written
by God,” then most certainly our present Bible is not
believed by the Religious Tract Society to be the Word
written by God. The Christian advocates are in this
I dilemma : either the received text is insufficient, or the pro* posed improvement is unnecessary. Dr. Tischendorf says
( that “ The Gospels, like the only begotten of the Father,
will endure as long as human nature itself,” yet he says
“ there is a great diversity among the texts,” and that
the Gospel in use amongst the Ebionites and that used
’^amongst the Nazarenes have been “ disfigured here and
there with certain arbitrary changes.” He admits, more1 over, that “ in early times, when the Church was not so
critical in distinguishing the true from the false,” spurious
Gospels obtained a credit which they did not deserve. And
- while arguing for the enduring character of the Gospel, he
requests you to set aside the received text altogether, and to
try to construct a new revelation by the aid of Dr. Tischendorf’s patent Sinaitic invention.
We congratulate the Religious Tract Society upon their
manifesto, and on the victory it secures them over German
Rationalism and English Infidelity. The Society’s trans
lator, in his introductory remarks, declares that “ circum
stantial evidence when complete, and when every link in
the chain has been thoroughly tested, is as strong as direct
testimony; ” and, adds the Society’s penman, “ This is the
kind of evidence which Dr. Tischendorf brings for the
genuineness of our Gospels.” It would be difficult to
imagine a more inaccurate description of Dr. Tischendorf’s
work. Do we find the circumstantial evidence carefully
tested in the Doctor’s boasting and curious narrative of his
journeys commenced on a pecuniary deficiency and culmi
nating in much cash ? Do we find it in Dr. Tischendorf’s
concealment for fifteen years of the place, watched over by
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
37
an invisible eye, in which was hidden the greatest biblical
treasure in the world ? Is the circumstantial evidence
shown in the sneers at Renan ? or is each link in the chain
tested by the strange jumbling together of names and con
jectures in the first chapter ? What tests are used in the
cases of Valentinus and Basilides in the second chapter?
How is the circumstantial testimony aided by the references
in the third chapter to the Apocryphal Gospels? Is there
a pretence even of critical testing in the chapter devoted to
the apostolic fathers ? All that Dr. Tischendorf has done
is in effect to declare that our authorised version of the New
Testament is so unreliable, that it ought to be got rid of
altogether, and a new text constructed. And this declara
tion is circulated by the Religious Tract Society, which
sends the sixpenny edition of the Gospel with one hand,
and in the other the shilling Tischendorf pamphlet, declaring
that many passages of the Religious Tract Society’s New
Testament have undergone such serious modifications of
meaning as to leave us in painful uncertainty as to what
was originally written.
The very latest contribution from orthodox sources to the
study of the Gospels, as contained in the authorised version,
is to be found in the very candid preface to the recentlyissued revised version of the New Testament, where the
ordinary Bible receives a condemnation of the most sweeping
description. Here, on the high authority of the revisers,
we are told that, with regard to the Greek text, the trans
lators of the authorised version had for their guides “manu
scripts of late date, few in number and used with little
critical skill.” The revisers add what Freethinkers have
long maintained, and have been denounced from pulpits for
maintaining, viz., “ that the commonly received text needed
thorough revision,” and, what is even more important,
they candidly avow that “it is but recently that materials
have been acquired for executing such a work with even
approximate completeness.” So that not only “ God’s
Word” has admittedly for generations not been “God’s
Word ” at all, but even now, and with materials not formerly
known, it has only been revised with “ approximate com
pleteness,” whatever those two words may mean. If they
have any significance at all, they must convey the belief of
the new and at present final revisers of the Gospel, that, even
�38
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
after all their toil, they are not quite sure that god’s reve
lation is quite exactly rendered into English. So far as the
ordinary authorised version of the New Testament goes—
i and it is this, the law-recognised, version which is still used
in administering oaths—we are told that the old translators
“used considerable freedom,” and “ studiously adopted a
variety of expressions which would now be deemed hardly con
sistent with the requirements of faithful translation.” This
I is a pleasant euphemism, but a real and direct charge of dis
honest translation by the authorised translators. The new
revisers add, with sadness, that “ it cannot be doubted that
they (the translators of the authorised version) carried this
liberty too far, and that the studied avoidance of uniformity
in the rendering of the same words, even when occurring in
the same context, is one of the blemishes of their work.”
These blemishes the new revisers think were increased by
the fact that the translation of the authorised version of the
New Testament was assigned to two separate companies, who
never sat together, which “ was beyond doubt the cause of
many inconsistencies,” and, although there was a final super
vision’, the new revisers add, most mournfully : “ When it
is remembered that the supervision was completed in nine
months, we may wonder that the incongruities which remain
are not more numerous.”
Nor are the revisers by any means free from doubt and
misgiving on their own work. They had the “ laborious
task ” of “ deciding between the rival claims of various
readings which might properly affect the translation,” and,
as they tell us, “ Textual criticism, as applied to the Greek
New Testament, forms a special study of much intricacy and’
difficulty, and even now leaves room for considerable variety
of opinion among competent critics.” Next they say: “ the
■ frequent inconsistencies in the authorised version have caused
| us much embarrassment,” and that there are “ numerous
passages in the authorised version in which .... the
studied variety adopted by the Translators of 1611 has pro
duced a degree of inconsistency that cannot be reconciled
with the principle of faithfulness.” So little are the new
revisers always certain as to what god means that they
provide “alternative readings in difficult or debateable
passages,” and say “ the notes of this last group are
numerous and largely in excess of those which were ad
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
39
mitted by our predecessors.” And with reference to the
pronouns and other words in italics we are told that “ some
of these cases .... are of singular intricacy, and make
it impossible to maintain rigid uniformity.” The new
revisers conclude by declaring that “ through our manifold
experience of its abounding difficulties we have felt more
and more as we went onward that such a work can never be
accomplished by organised efforts of scholarship and criticism
unless assisted by divine help.” Apparently the new revisers r
are conscious that they did not receive this divine help in
their attempt at revision, for they go on: “We know full H
well that defects must have their place in a work so long and
so arduous as this which has now come to an end. Blemishes
and imperfections there are in the noble translation which 11
we have been called upon to revise ; blemishes and imper- ‘
fections will assuredly be found in our own revision; . .
. . we cannot forget how often we have failed in express- I
ing some finer shade of meaning which we recognised in the
original, how often idiom has stood in the way of a perfect
rendering, and how often the attempt to preserve a familiar
form of words, or even a familiar cadence, has only added ,
I another perplexity to those which have already beset us.”
J
THE END.
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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When were our gospels written?
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 4th ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 39 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Annotations in pencil. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Freethought Publishing Company
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1881
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N105
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Bible
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (When were our gospels written?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Bible. N.T. Gospels
NSS
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LABOURS PRAYER.
BY C. BBADLAUGH.
“ Give us thisday our daily bread ” is the entreaty addressed
by the tiller of the soil to the “ Otr Father,” who has pro
mised to answer prayer. And what answer cometh from
heaven to this the bread winner’s petition? Walk amongst
the cotton workers of Lancashire, the clothweavers of
Yorkshire, the Durham pit men, the Staffordshire puddlers,
the Cornish miners, the London dock labourers, go any
where where hands are roughened with toil, where foreheads
are bedewed with sweat of work, and see the Lord’s res
ponse to the prayer, the fatlrer’s answer to his children!
The only bread they get is the bread they take; in their
hard struggle for life-sustenance, the loaves come but
slowly, and heaven adds not a crust, even though the
worker be hungry, when he rises from his toil-won meal.
Not even the sight of pale faced wife, and thin forms of
half starved infants can move to generosity the Ruler of
the world. The labourer may pray, but, if work be scant
and wages low, he pines to death while praying. His
prayer gives no relief, and misery’s answer is the mocking
echo to his demand.
It is said by many a pious tongue that God helps the
poor; the wretchedness of some of their hovel houses, found,
alas ! too often in the suburbs of our wealthiest cities, grimy,
black, squalid, and miserable; the threadbare raggedness of
their garments ; the unwholesomeness of the food they eat;
the poisoned air they breathe in their narrow wynds and
filthy alleys; all these tell how much God helps the poor.
Do you want to see how God helps the poor ? go into any
police court when some little child-thief is brought up for
�2
labour’s prayer.
hearing; see him shoeless, with ragged trousers, thread»
bare, grimy, vest, hardly hanging to his poor body, shirt
that seems as though it never could have been white, skin
dull brown with dirt, hair innocent of comb or brush, eye
ignorantly, sullenly-defiant, yet downcast; born poor, born
wretched, born in ignorance, educated amongst criminals,
crime the atmosphere in which he moved ; and society, his
nurse and creator, is now virtuously aghast at the depra
vity of this its own neglected nursling, and a poor creature
whom God alone hath helped. Go where the weakly wife
in a narrow room huddles herself and little children day after
day : and where the husband crowds in to lie down at night:
they are poor and honest, but their honesty bars not the
approach of disease, fever, sorrow, death—God helps not
the line of health to their poor wan cheeks. Go to the
country workhouse in which is temporarily housed the
worn out farm labourer, who, while strength enough re
mained, starved through weary years with wife and several
children on eight shillings per week—it is thus God helps
the poor. And the poor are taught to pray for a continu
ance of this help, and to be thankful and content to pray
that to-morrow may be like to-day, thankful that yester
day was no worse than it was, and content to-day is as
good as it is. Are there many repining at their miseries,
the preacher, with gracious intonation, answers rebukingly
that God, in his wisdom, has sent these troubles upon them
as chastisement for their sins. So, says the church, all are
sinners, rich as well as poor, but rich sinners feel the
chastising rod is laid more lightly on their backs than it
is upon those of their meaner brethren. Week-day and
Sunday it is the same contrast; one wears fustian, the
other broadcloth, one prepares for heaven in the velvet
cushioned pew, the other on the wooden benches of the
free seats. In heaven it will be different—all there above
are to wear crowns of gold and fine linen, and, therefore,
here below the poor man is to be satisfied with the state of
life into which it has pleased God to call him. The pastor
who tells him this, looks upon the labourer as an inferior
�LABOUR. S PRAYER.
S
animal, and the labourer by force of habit regards the great
landowner and peer, who patronises his endeavours, as a
being of a superior order. Is there no new form of prayer
that labour might be taught to utter, no other power to
■which his petition might be addressed ? Prayer to the un
known for aid gives no strength to the prayer. In each
beseeching, he loses dignity and self-reliance, he trusts to
he knows not what, for an answer which cometh, he knows
■not when, and mayhap may never come at all. Let labour
pray in the future in another fashion and at another altar.
Let labourer pray to labourer that each may know labour’s
rights, and be able to fulfil labour’s duties. The size of
the loaf of daily bread must depend on the amount of the
daily wages, and the labourer must pray for better wages.
But his prayer must take the form of earnest, educated en
deavour to obtain the result desired. Let workmen, in
stead of praying to God in their distress, ask one another
why are wages low? how can wages be raised? can we
raise our own wages? having raised them, can we keep
them fixed at the sum desired ? what causes produce a rise
and fall in wages ? are high wages beneficial to the labourer ?
These are questions the pulpit has no concern with. The
reverend pastor will tell you that the “ wages of sin is death,”
and will rail against “filthy lucrebut he has no incli
nation for answering the queries here propounded. Why
are wages low? Wages are low because the wage-winners
crowd too closely. W ages are low because too many seek
to share one fund. Wages are lower still because the
. ’abourer fights against unfair odds; the laws of the country
overriding the laws of humanity, have been enacted with
out the labourer’s consent, although his obedience to them
is enforced. The fund is unfairly distributed as well as
too widely divided. Statutes are gradually being modified,
and the working man may hope for ampler justice from the
employer in the immediate future than was possible in
the past, but high and healthy wages depend on the work
ing man himself. Wages can be raised by the working
classes exereising a moderate degree of caution in increase
�4
LABOUR’S PRAYER.
ing their numbers. Wages must increase when capital in
creases more rapidly than population, and it is the duty of
the working man, therefore, to take every reasonable pre
caution to check the increase of population, and to accelerate
the augmentation of capital.
Can working-men, by combination, permanently raise the
rate of wages ? One gentleman presiding at a meeting of
the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science
for the discussion of the labour question, very fairly said,
“ It is not in the power of the men alone, or of the masters
alone, or of both combined, to say what shall be the amount
of wages at any particular time in any trade or country.
The men and the masters are, at most, competitors for the
division at a certain rate, of a certain fund, provided by
[themselves and] others—that is, by the consumers. If that
fund is small, no device can make the rate of profit or rate
of wages higher.” This is in theory quite correct, if it
means that no device can make the total divisible greater
than it is, but not if it refers to the increase of profit or
wages by partial distribution. In practice, although it is
true that if the fund be small and the seekers to share it
be many, the quotient to each must be necessarily very
small, yet it is also true that a few of the competitors—i.e.t
the capitalists, may and do absorb for their portions of
profits an improper and unfairly large amount, thus still
further reducing the wretchedly small pittance in any case
receivable by the mass of labourers. It is warmly con
tended that the capitalist and labourer contend for division
of the fund appropriable in fair and open field; that the
capitalist has his money to employ, the man his labour to
sell ; that if workmen are in excess of the capitalist’s
requirements, so that the labourer has to supplicate for
employment, wages cannot rise, and will probably fall; but
that if, on the contrary, capital has need to invite additional
labourers, then wages must rise. That is the law of supply
and demand brought prominently forward. In great part
this is true, but it is not true that capital and labour com
pete in fair and open field, any more than it is true that a<
�labour’s prayer.
yron-elad war vessel, with heavy ordnance, would compete
in fair field with a wooden frigate, equipped with the
materiel in use thirty years ago. Capital is gold-plated,
and carries too many guns for unprotected labour. The
intelligent capitalist makes the laws affecting master and
servant, which the uneducated labourer must obey, but has
no effective voice to alter. The capitalist forms the govern
ment of the country, which in turn protects capital against
labour; this government the labourer must sustain, and
dares not modify. The capitalist does combine, and has
combined, and the result of this combination has been an
unfair appropriation of the divisible fund. Why should
not the labourer combine also ? The answer is truly that
no combination of workmen can increase the rate of wages,
if at the same time the number of labourers increases more
rapidly than the capital out of which their wages must be
paid. But the men may combine to instruct one another
in the laws of political economy; they may combine to
apply their knowledge of those laws to the contracts be
tween employer and employed. They may combine to
compel the repeal of unjust enactments under which an un
fair distribution of the labour fund is not only possible,
but certain. Organisations of labourers are, therefore, wise
and necessary: the object of such organisations should be
the permanent elevation and enfranchisement of the mem
bers. No combination of workmen, which merely dictates
a temporary cessation from labour, can ultimately and per
manently benefit the labourer; while it certainly imme
diately injures him and deteriorates his condition, making
his home wretched, his family paupers. Nor can even co
operative combination, praiseworthy as it certainly is, to
procure for the labourer a larger share of the profits of his
labour, permanently benefit him, except in so far that
temporarily alleviating his condition, and giving him lei
sure for study, it enables him to educate himself: unless,
at the same time, the co-operator is conscious that the in
crease or reduction in the amount of wages depends entirely
on the ratio of relation preserved between population and
�labour’s prayer.
its means of subsistence, the former always having a tendency to increase more rapidly than the latter. It is with
the problem of too many mouths for too little bread that
the labourer has really to deal: if he must pray, it should
be for more bread and for fewer mouths. The answer often
given by the workman himself to the advocate of Malthusian
views is, that the world is wide enough for all, that there
are fields yet tfnploughed broad enough to bear more corn
than man at present could eat, and that there is neither too
little food, nor are there too many mouths ; that there is, in
fact, none of that over-population with which it is sought
to affright the working-man. Over-population in the sense
that the whole world is too full to contain its habitants, or
that it will ever become too full to contain them, is certainly
a fallacy, but over-population is a lamentable truth in its
relative sense. We find evidences of over-population in
every old country of the world. The test of over-population
is the existence of povei’ty, squalor, wretchedness, disease,
ignorance, misery, and crime. Low rate of wages, and food
dear, here you have two certain indices of relative over
population. Wages depending on the demand for and
supply of labourers, wherever wages are low it is a certain
sign that there are too many candidates for employment in
that phase of the labour market. The increased cost of
pioduction of food, and its consequent higher price, also
mark that the cultivation has been forced by the numbers
of the people to descend to less productive soils. Poverty
is the test and result of over-population.
It is not against some possible increase of their numbers,
which may produce possibly greater affliction, that the
working men are entreated to agitate. It is against the
_ existing evils which afflict their ranks, evils alleged by
sound students of political economy to have already resulted
from inattention to the population question, that the ener
gies of the people are sought to be directed. The operation
. the law of population has been for centuries entirely
agnoie by those who have felt its adverse influence most
severely. It is only during the last thirty years that any
�labour’s prayer.
pf the working classes have turned their attention to the
question; and only during the last few years that it has
been to any extent discussed amongst them. Yet all the
prayers that labour ever uttered since the first breath of
human life, have not availed so much for human happiness
as will the earnest examination by one generation of this,;
the greatest of all social questions, the root of all political
problems, the foundation of all civil progress. Poor—man
must be wretched. Poor—he must be ignorant. Poor—
he must be criminal: and poor he must be till the cause
of poverty has been ascertained by the poor man himself,
and its cure planned by .the poor man’s brain, and effected
by the poor man’s hand
Outside his own rank none can save the poor. Others
may show him the abyss, b ut he must avoid its dangerous
brink himself. Others may point out to him the chasm,
but he must build his own bridge over. Labour’s prayer
must be to labour’s head for help from labour’s hand to
strike the blow that severs labour’s chain, and terminates
the too long era of labour’s suffering.
During the last few years our daily papers, and various
periodicals, magazines, and reviews have been more fre
quently, and much less partially, devoted than of old to the
discussion of questions relating to the labourer’s condition,
and the means of ameliorating it. In the Legislative As
sembly debates have taken place which would have been
impossible fifty years since. Works on political economy
are now more easily within the reach of the working man
than they were some few years ago. People’s editions are
now published of treatises on political economy which half
a century back the people were unable to read. It is now
possible for the labourer, and it is the labourer’s duty, to
make himself master of the laws which govern the produc
tion and distribution of wealth. Undoubtedly there is
much grievous wrong in the mode of distribution of wealth,
by which the evils that afflict the poorest strugglers are
often specially and tenfold aggravated. The monopoly of
land, the serf state of th$ labourer, are points requiring
�iiABOtritsr PAAYEte.
energetic agitation. The grave and real question is, ho^S
ever, that which lies at the root of all, the increase of
wealth as against the increase of those whom it subsists.
The leaders of the great trades’ unions of the country, if
hey really desire to permanently increase the happiness of
the classes amongst whom they exercise influence, can
speedily promote this object by encouraging their members
to discuss freely the relations of labour to capital; not
moving in one groove, as if labour and capital were neces
sarily antagonistic, and that therefore labour must always
have rough-armed hand to protect itself from the attacks
of capital; but, taking new ground, to inquire if labour and
capital are bound to each other by any and what ties, ascer
taining if the share of the labourer in the capital fund
depends, except so far as affected by inequality in distribu
tion, on the proportion between the number of labourers and
the amount of the fund. The discussing, examining, and
dealing generally with these topics, would necessarily
compel the working man to a more correct appreciation of
his position.
Any such doctrine as that ‘ ‘ the poor shall never cease
out of the landor that we are to be content with the
station in life into which it has pleased God to call us ; or
that we are to ask and we shall receive, must no longer
avail. Schiller most effectively answers the advocates of
prayer—
“ Help, Lord, help ! Look with pity down!
A paternoster pray;
What God does, that is justly done,
His grace endures for aye.”
u Oh, mother! empty mockery,
God hath not justly dealt by me:
Have I not begged and prayed in vain;
What boots it now to pray again ?”
Labour’s only and effective prayer must be in life action
for its own redemption ; action founded on thought, crude
thought, and sometimes erring at first, but ultimately
developed into useful thinking, by much patient experi
menting for the right and true*
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Labour's prayer
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from the Selection of Bradlaugh's political pamphlets / John Saville (New York: 1970).
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Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant
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[1865]
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N097
G5678
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Labour
Social problems
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Labour Movement-England-History-19th Century
Wages
Working Classes
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Text
B'ZrXS
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
POVERTY:
ITS EFFECTS ON THE .
POLITICAL CONDITION OF TEE PEOPLE.
BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63 FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 9 0.
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
COMPANY,
�Since this little pamphlet was first issued, nearly twentyfive years ago, there have been enormous changes. The
Reform Bills of 1867 and 1884 have placed the suffrage
in town and country in the hands of the very lowest. The
working of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, has
developed in the masses a higher and more acute sense of
suffering as well as capacity for happiness. The incite
ments to the poorest to require from the legislature and
the executive remedies for all wrongs are loud and
frequent. There are fairly good people, as well as very
wild ones, who seem to think that an Act of Parliament
or an Order in Council can provide food for the hungry
and work for the unemployed. In 1877, I was indicted
for trying to place within the reach of the very poor the
knowledge necessary to the application of the arguments
here outlined. From 1877 until now I have, on this
ground, been the object of coarsest assailment and grossest
misrepresentation. Yet, at least, I have the satisfaction
of knowing that the birth-rate in this country has sensibly
diminished; that an association of Church clergymen and
others in the East End of London has helped in this
direction; and that a respectable journal, the Weekly Times
and Echo, has boldly taken the very course for which I
was nearly sent to gaol. I have had, too, the advantage
of reading a judicial deliverance at the Antipodes, which
more than outweighs many of the hard things said of me
here. My co-defendant in 1877 has, in her “Law of
Population”, dealt with details necessary to be known
by the very poor. This pamphlet is, as it was at first
intended, only a finger-post to a possible road.
1890.
�POVERTY, AND ITS EFFECT ON THE POLITICAL
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
‘'•'Political Economy does not itself instruct how to make a nation
rich, but whoever would be qualified to judge of the means of making
a nation rich must first be a political economist.”—John Stuart Mill.
“The object of political economy is to secure the means of sub
sistence of all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which
might render this precarious, to provide everything necessary for
supplying the wants of society, and to employ the inhabitants so as to
make their several interests accord with then- supplying each other’s
wants.”—Sir James Stewart.
At the close of the eighteenth century, a people rose
searching for upright life, who had previously, for several
generations, depressed by poverty and its attendant hand
maidens of misery, prowled hunger-stricken and discon
solate, stooping and stumbling through the byways of
existence. A terrible revolution resulted in much rough
justice and some brutal vengeance, much rude right, and
some terrific wrong. Amongst the writers who have since
narrated the history of this people’s struggle, some penmen
have been assiduous and eager to search for, and chronicle
the errors, and have even not hesitated to magnify the
crimes, of the rebels; while they have been very slow to
recognise the previous demoralising and dehumanising
tendency of the system rebelled against. In very briefly
dealing with the state of the people in France immediately
prior to the grand convulsion which destroyed the Bastille
Monarchy, and set a glorious example of the vindication of
the rights of man against opposition the most formidable
that can be conceived; I hold that in this illustration of
the condition of the masses in France who sought to erect
on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice of civil
and religious liberty, an answer may be found to the
question—“What is the.effect of poverty on the political
condition of the people? ”
In taking the instance, of France, it is not that the writer
for one moment imagines that poverty is a word without
meaning in our own lands. In some of the huge aggre
gations making up our great cities there are extremes
of poverty and squalor difficult to equal in any part of the
�4
civilized world. But in England poverty is happily partial,
while in France in the eighteenth century outside the
palaces of the nobles and the mansions of the church,
where luxury, voluptuousness, and effeminacy were
supreme, poverty was universal. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries travellers in France could learn from
the sadness, the solitude, the miserable poverty, the
dismal nakedness of the empty cottages, and the starving,
ragged, population, how much men could endure without
dying . On the one side a discontented, wretched, hungry
mass of tax-providing slaves, and on the other a rapacious,
pampered, licentious, spendthrift monarchy. This culmi
nated in the refusal of the laborers to cultivate the fertile
soil, because the tax-gatherer’s rapacity left an insufficient
remnant to provide the cultivator with the merest necessaries
of life. Then followed “ uncultivated fields, unpeopled
villages, and houses dropping to decay; ” the great cities—
as Paris, Lyons, and Bordeaux—crowded with begging
skeletons, frightful in their squalid disease and loathsome
aspect. Even after the National Assembly had passed
some .measures of temporary alleviation, the distress in
Paris itself was so great that at the gratuitous distributions'
of bread ‘‘old people have been seen to expire with their
hands stretched out to receive the loaf, and women waiting
their turn in front of the baker’s shop were prematurely
delivered of dead children in the open street ”. The great
mass of the people were as ignorant as they were poor;
were ignorant indeed because they were poor. Ignorance
is the pauper’s inalienable heritage. Partial education to
a badly fed and worse housed population is only the stimulus
to the expression of discontent and disaffection. When
the struggle is for the means of subsistence, and these are
only partially obtained, there is little hope for the luxury
of a leisure hour in which other emotions can be cultivated
than those of the mere desires for food and rest—sole results
of the laborious monotonousness of machine work; a round
of toil and sleep closing in death—the only certain refuge
for the worn-out laborer. Without the opportunity
afforded by the possession of more than will satisfy the
immediate wants, there can be little or no culture of the
mental faculties. The toiler, when badly paid and ill-fed,
is separated from the thinker. Nobly-gifted, highlycultured though the poet may be, his poesy has no charms
for the father to whom one hour’s leisure means short
�5
food for his hungry children clamoring for bread. At
best the song like that of the Corn Law Rhymer, or the
Ca Ira of Paris, serves as a hymn of vengeance. The picture
gallery, replete with the finest works of our greatest
masters, is rarely trodden ground to the pitman, the
ploughman, the poor pariahs to whom the conceptions of
the highest art-treasures are impossible. The beauties of
nature are almost equally inaccessible to the dwellers in
the narrow lanes of great cities. Out of your narrow
wynds in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and on to the moor and
mountain side, ye poor, and breathe the pure life-renewing
breezes. Not so ; the moors are for the sportsmen and
peers, not for peasants ; and a Scotch Duke—emblem of
the worst vices of a selfish, but fast decaying House
of Lords—closes miles of heather against the pedestrian’s
foot. But even this paltry oppression is unheeded. Duke
Despicable is in unholy alliance with King Poverty, who
mocks at the poor mother and her wretched, ragged family,
when from the garret or cellar in a great Babylon wilder
ness they set out to find green fields and new life. Work
days are sacred to bread, and clothes, and rent; hunger, in
clement weather, and pressing landlord forbid the study
of nature ’twixt Monday morn and Saturday night, and on
Sunday God’s ministers require to teach a weary people
how to die, as if the lesson were not unceasingly inculcated
in their incessant toil. Oh! horrid mockery; men need
teaching how to live. According to religionists, this world’s
bitter misery is a dark and certain preface, “ just pub
lished,” to a volume of eternal happiness, which for 2,000
years has been advertised as in the press and ready for
publication, but which after all may never appear. And
notwithstanding that everyday misery is so very potent,
mankind seem to heed it but very little. The second
edition of a paper containing the account of a battle in
which some 5,000 were killed and wounded, is eagerly
perused, but the battle in which poverty kills and maims
hundreds of thousands, is allowed to rage with com
paratively small expression of concern.
“ If a war or a pestilence threatens us, every one is excited at
the prospect of the misery which may result; prayers are put
up, and every solemn and mournful feeling called forth; but
these evils are to poverty but as a grain of sand in the desert,
as the light waves that ruffle a dark sea of despair. Wars
come, and go, and perhaps their greatest evils consist in their
�6
aggravation of poverty by the high prices they cause ; pesti
lences last a season and then leave us; but poverty, the grim
tyrant of our race, abides with us through all ages and in
a 1 circumstances. For each victim that war and pestilence
have slain, for each, heart that they have racked with suffering,
poverty has slain its millions whom it has first condemned
to drag out wearily a life of bondage and degradation.”
The poor in France were awakened by Rousseau’s start
ling declaration that property was spoliation; they knew
they had been spoiled, the logic of the stomach was con
clusive ; empty bellies and aching brains were the pre
decessors of a revolution which sought vengeance when
justice was denied, but which full-stomached critics of
later days have calumniated and denounced.
Warned by. the past, ought we not to make some
endeavor to give battle to that curse of all old countries
-—poverty ? The fearful miseries of want of food and
leisure which the poor have to endure seriously hinder
their political enfranchisement. Those who desire that
men and women shall have the rights of citizens, should be
conscious how low the poor are trampled dowm, and how
incapable poverty renders them for the performance of the
duties of citizenship. The question of political freedom is
really determined by the wealth or poverty of the masses;
to this, extent, at any rate, that a poverty-stricken people
must, if that state of pauperism has long existed, neces
sarily be an ignorant and enslaved people.
The problem is, how to remove or at least to lessen
poverty,. as it is only by the diminution of poverty that
the political emancipation of the nation can be rendered
possible. Twenty years ago the average food of the
agricultural laborer in England was about half that
allotted by the gaol dietary to sustain criminal life. So
that the peasant who built and guarded his master’s hay
stack got worse fed and worse lodged than the incendiary
convicted for burning it down. An anonymous writer,
thirty years ago, said :—
The rural population of many parts of England are, as
a general rule, half-starved. They have to toil like bond
slaves, with no leisure for amusement, education, or any other
blessing which elevates or sweetens human life; and after all,
they have only half enough of the very first essential of life,
the working classes in the towns, are also miserably paid, often
half-starved ; and are sweated to death in unhealthy sedentary
diudgery, such as tailoring, cotton-spinning, weaving, etc.”
�4
How can suoli poverty bo removed and prevented?
“ Thero is but one possible mode of preventing any evil—
namely, to seek for and romovo its cause. The cause of low
wages, or in other words of Poverty, is over-population; that
is, the existence of too many people in proportion to the food,
of too many laborers in proportion to the capital. It is of the
very first importance, that the attention of all who seek to
remove poverty, should never be diverted from this great truth.
The disproportion between the numbers and the food is the
only real cause of social poverty. Individual cases of poverty
may be produced by individual misconduct, such as drunken
ness, ignorance, laziness, or disoaso ; but these of all other
accidental influences must bo wholly thrown out of the question
in considering the permanent cause, and aiming at the pre
vention of poverty. Drunkenness and ignorance, moreover,
a,re far more frequently tho effect than the cause of poverty.
Population and food, like two runners of unequal swiftness
chained together, advance sido by side; but tho ratio of
increase of tlio former is so immensely superior to that of tho
latter, that it is necessarily greatly cheeked ; and tho chocks are
of course either more deaths or fewer births—that is, either
positive or preventive.”
Unless the necessity of the preventive or positive chocks
to population bo perceived ; unless it be clearly seen, that
they must operate in one form, if not in another; and that
though individuals may escape them, the race cannot; human
society is a hopeless and insoluble riddle.
Quoting John Stuart Mill, the writor from whom the
foregoing extracts have been made, proceeds—
“The groat object of statesmanship should bo to raise tho
habitual standard of comfort among the working classes, and
to bring them into such a position as shows them most,
clearly that their welfare depends upon themselves. For
this purpose ho advises that there should bo, first, an ex
tended scheme of national emigration, so as to produce a,
striking and sudden improvement in the condition of the
laborers loft at home, and raise their standard of comfort;
also that tho population truths should bo disseminated as
widely as possible, so that a powerful public fooling should
bo a,wakened among tho working classes against undue pro
creation on tho part of any individual among them- a feel
ing which oould not fail greatly to influence individual conduct;
and also that we should use every endeavor to got rid of
tho present system of labor—-namely, that of employers
and employed, and adopt to a. great extent that of independent
or associated industry. His res,son for this is, that a, hired
laborer, who has no personal interest in tho work he is
�8
engaged in, is generally reckless and without foresight,
living from hand to mouth, and exerting little control over
his powers of procreation; whereas the laborer who has a
personal stake in his work, and the feeling of independence
and self-reliance which the possession of property gives, as,
for instance, the peasant proprietor, or member of a co
partnership, has far stronger motives for self-restraint, and
can see much more clearly the evil effects of having a large
family.”
The end in view in all this is the attainment of a greater
amount of happiness for humankind—the rendering life
more worth the living, by distributing more equally than
at present its love, its beauties, and its charms. In one of
his latest publications, John Stuart Mill wrote—
‘ ‘ In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to
enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who
has a moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is
capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and
unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the
will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happi
ness within his reach, he will not fail to find this enviable
existence, if he escape the possible evils of life, the great
sources of physical and mental suffering, such as indigence,
disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of
objects of affection. The main stress of the problem lies,
therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is
a rare good fortune entirely to escape, which, as things now are,
cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree
mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment’s
consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of
the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human
affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within
narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering,
may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society,
combined with the good sense and providence of individuals.
Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be in
definitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral
education and proper control of noxious influences, while the
progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still
more direct conquests over this detestable foe.”
My desire is to provoke discussion of this subject
amongst all classes, and I affirm, therefore, as a proposi
tion which I am prepared to support—‘1 That the political
condition of the people can never be permanently reformed
until the cause of poverty has been discovered and the
evil itself prevented and removed.”
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Beadlaugh, 63 Fleet St., E.C.—1890.
�
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Poverty : its effect on the political condition of the people
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
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Notes: First published 30 May 1863 in the National Reformer. - 1890 ed. has a foreword, unsigned, by Bradlaugh. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Political Economy
Poverty
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NATIONAL secular society
HUMANITY’S GAIN from UNBELIEF.
BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
[Reprinted from the “North American Review” of March, 1889.J
LONDON:
•FREETHOUGrHT
PUBLISHING-
63 FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 8 9.
PRICE
TWOPENCE.
COMPANY,
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
63
ELEET STREET, E.C.
�HUMANITY’S GAIN FROM UNBELIEF.
As an unbeliever, I ask leave to plead that humanity has
been real gainer from scepticism, and that the gradual
and growing rejection of Christianity—like the rejection
of the faiths which preceded it—has in fact added, and
Will add, to man’s happiness and well being. I maintain
that in physics science is the outcome of scepticism, and
that general progress is impossible without scepticism on
matters of religion. I mean by religion every form of
belief which accepts or asserts the supernatural. I write
as a Monist, and use the word “nature ” as meaning all
phenomena, every phenomenon, all that is necessary for
the happening of any and every phenomenon. Every
religion is constantly changing, and at any given time is
the measure of the civilisation attained by what Guizot
described as theywszte milieu of those who profess it. Each
religion is slowly but certainly modified in its dogma and
practice by the gradual development of the peoples amongst
whom it is professed. Each discovery destroys in whole
or part some theretofore cherished belief. No religion is
suddenly rejected by any people ; it is rather gradually
out-grown. None see a religion die ; dead religions are
like dead languages and obsolete customs; the decay is
long and—like the glacier march—is only perceptible to
the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long
periods. A superseded religion may often be traced in the
festivals, ceremonies, and dogmas of the religion which has
replaced it. Traces of obsolete religions may often be
found in popular customs, in old wives’ stories, and in
children’s tales.
�4
humanity’s GAIN FROM UNBELIEF.
It is necessary, in order that my plea should be under
stood, that I should explain what I mean by Christianity ;
and in the very attempt at this explanation there will, I
think, be found strong illustration of the value of unbelief,
Christianity in practice may be gathered from its more
ancient forms, represented by the Roman Catholic and the
Greek Churches, or from the various churches which have
grown up in the last few centuries. Each of these churches
calls itself Christian. Some of them deny the right of the
others to use the word Christian. Some Christian churches
treat, or have treated, other Christian churches as heretics
or unbelievers. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants
in Great Britain and Ireland have in turn been terribly
cruel one to the other; and the ferocious laws of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enacted by the
English Protestants against English and Irish Papists, are
a disgrace to civilisation. These penal laws, enduring
longest in Ireland, still bear fruit in much of the political
mischief and agrarian crime of to-day. It is only the
tolerant indifference of scepticism that, one after the other,
has repealed most of the laws directed by the Established
Christian Church against Papists and Dissenters, and also
against Jews and heretics. Church of England clergymen
have in the past gone to great lengths in denouncing non
conformity ; and even in the present day an effective sample
of such denunciatory bigotry may be found in a sort of
orthodox catechism written by the Rev. F. A. Gace, of
Great Barling, Essex, the popularity of which is vouched
by the fact that it has gone through ten editions.
This catechism for little children teaches that “ Dissent is
a great sin ”, and that Dissenters “ worship God according
to their own evil and corrupt imaginations, and not ac
cording to his revealed will, and therefore their worship is
idolatrous ”. Church of England Christians and Dissent
ing Christians, when fraternising amongst themselves,
often publicly draw the line at Unitarians, and positively
deny that these have any sort of right to call themselves
Christians.
In the first half of the seventeenth century Quakers
were flogged and imprisoned in England as blasphemers ;
and the early Christian settlers in New England, escaping
from the persecution of Old World Christians, showed
scant mercy to the followers of Fox and Penn. It is
�humanity’s gain from unbelief.
5
customary, in controversy, for those advocating the claims
of Christianity, to include all good done by men in nomi’
nally Christian countries as if such good were the result of
Christianity, while they contend that the evil which exists
prevails in spite of Christianity. I shall try to make out
that the ameliorating march of the last few centuries has
been initiated by the heretics of each age, though I quite
concede that the men and women denounced and per
secuted as infidels by the pious of one century, are fre
quently claimed as saints by the pious of a later genera
tion.
What then is Christianity ? As a system or scheme
of doctrine, Christianity may, I submit, not unfairly be
gathered from the Old and New Testaments. It is true
that some Christians to-day desire to escape from submis
sion to portions, at any rate, of the Old Testament; but this
very tendency seems to me to be part of the result of
the beneficial heresy for which I am pleading. Man’s
humanity has revolted against Old Testament barbarism;
and therefore he has attempted to disassociate the Old Testa
ment from Christianity. Unless Old and New Testaments
are accepted as God’s revelation to man, Christianity has
no higher claim than any other of the world’s many
religions, if no such claim can be made out for it apart
from the Bible. And though it is quite true that some
who deem themselves Christians put the Old Testament
completely in the background, this is, I allege, because
they are out-growing their Christianity. Without the
doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, Christianity,
as a religion, is naught; but unless the story of Adam’s
fall is accepted, the redemption from the consequences
of that fall cannot be believed. Both in Great Britain
and in the United States the Old and New Testaments
are forced on the people as part of Christianity; for it is
blasphemy at common law to deny the scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments to be of divine authority; and
such denial is punishable with fine and imprisonment,
or even worse.
The rejection of Christianity intended
throughout this paper, is therefore the rejection of the
Old and New Testaments as being of divine revelation.
It is the rejection alike of the authorised teachings of the
Church of Rome and of the Church of England, as these
may be found in the Bible, the creeds, the encyclicals,
�6
HUMANITY S GAIN FKOM UNBELIEJ’.
the prayer book, the canons and homilies of either or both
of these churches. It is the rejection of the Christianity
of Luther, of Calvin, and of Wesley.
A ground frequently taken by Christian theologians is
that the progress and civilisation of the world are due to
Christianity; and the discussion is complicated by the
fact that many eminent servants of humanity have been
nominal Christians, of one or other of the sects. My
allegation will be that the special services rendered to
human progress by these exceptional men, have not been
in consequence of their adhesion to Christianity, but in
spite of it; and that the specific points of advantage to
human kind have been in ratio of their direct opposition
to precise Biblical enactments.
A. S. Farrar says1 that Christianity “ asserts authority
over religious belief in virtue of being a supernatural
communication from God, and claims the right to control
human thought in virtue of possessing sacred books, which
are at once the record and the instrument of the communi
cation, written by men endowed with supernatural inspira
tion ”. Unbelievers refuse to submit to the asserted
authority, and deny this claim of control over human
thought: they allege that every effort at freethinking must
provoke sturdier thought.
Take one clear gain to humanity consequent on unbelief,
i.e., in the abolition of slavery in some countries, in the
abolition of the slave trade in most civilised countries, and
in the tendency to its total abolition. I am unaware of
any religion in the world which in the past forbade slavery.
The professors of Christianity for ages supported it; the
Old Testament repeatedly sanctioned it by special laws ; the
New Testament has no repealing declaration. Though we
are at the close of the nineteenth century of the Christian
era, it is only during the past three-quarters of a century
that the battle for freedom has been gradually won. It is
scarcely a quarter of a century since the famous emancipa
tion amendment was carried to the United States Constitu
tion. And it is impossible for any well-informed Christian
to deny that the abolition movement in North America was
most steadily and bitterly opposed by the religious bodies
in the various States. Henry Wilson, in his “Itise and
1 Farrar’s “ Critical History of Fieethought ”,
�humanity’s
GAIN
from unbelief.
7
Fall of the Slave Power in America ” ; Samuel J. May, in
his “Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict ” ; and J.
Greenleaf Whittier, in his poems, alike are witnesses that
the Bible and pulpit, the Church and its great influence,
were used against abolition and in favor of the slave
owner. I know that Christians in the present day often
declare that Christianity had a large share in bringing
about the abolition of slavery, and this because men pro
fessing Christianity were abolitionists. I plead that these
so-called Christian abolitionists were men and women
whose humanity, recognising freedom for all, was in this
in direct conflict with Christianity. It is not yet fifty years
since the European Christian powers jointly agreed to
abolish the slave trade. What of the effect of Christianity
on these powers in the centuries which had preceded ?
The heretic Condorcet pleaded powerfully for freedom
whilst Christian France was still slave-holding. For many
centuries Christian Spain and Christian Portugal held
slaves. Porto Rico freedom is not of long date; and
Cuban emancipation is even yet newer. It was a Christian
King, Charles 5th, and a Christian friar, who founded in
Spanish America the slave trade between the Old World
and the New. For some 1800 years, almost, Christians kept
slaves, bought slaves, sold slaves, bred slaves, stole slaves.
Pious Bristol and godly Liverpool less than 100 years ago
openly grew rich on the traffic. During the ninth century
Greek Christians sold slaves to the Saracens. In the
eleventh century prostitutes were publicly sold as slaves in
Rome, and the profit went to the Church.
It is said that William Wilberforce, the abolitionist, was
a Christian. But at any rate his Christianity was strongly
diluted with unbelief. As an abolitionist he did not believe
Leviticus xxv, 44-6; he must have rejected Exodus xxi,
2-6 ; he could not have accepted the many permissions
and injunctions by the Bible deity to his chosen people to
capture and hold slaves. In the House of Commons on
18th February, 1796, Wilberforce reminded that Christian
assembly that infidel and anarchic France had given
liberty to the Africans, whilst Christian and monarchic
England was “obstinately continuing a system of cruelty
and injustice”.
Wilberforce, whilst advocating the abolition of slavery,
found the whole influence of the English Court, and the
�8
HUMANITY S GAIN FBOM UNBELIEF.
great weight of the Episcopal Bench, against him. George
III, a most Christian king, regarded abolition theories
with abhorrence, and the Christian House of Lords was
utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. When
Christian missionaries some sixty-two years ago preached
to Demerara negroes under the rule of Christian England,
they were treated by Christian judges, holding commission
from Christian England, as criminals for so preaching. A
Christian commissioned officer, member of the Established
Church of England, signed the auction notices for the sale
of slaves as late as the year 1824. In the evidence before
a Christian court-martial, a missionary is charged with
having tended to make the negroes dissatisfied with their
condition as slaves, and with having promoted discontent
and dissatisfaction amongst the slaves against their lawful
masters. For this the Christian judges sentenced the
Demerara abolitionist missionary to be hanged by the
neck till he was dead. The judges belonged to the Estab
lished Church ; the missionary was a Methodist. In this
the Church of England Christians in Demerara were no
worse than Christians of other sects : their Boman Catholic
Christian brethren in St. Domingo fiercely attacked the
Jesuits as criminals because they treated negroes as though
they were men and women, in encouraging “two slaves
to separate their interest and safety from that of the
gang ”, whilst orthodox Christians let them couple pro
miscuously and breed for the benefit of their o wners like
any other of their plantation cattle. In 1823 the Royal
Gazette (Christian) of Demerara said :
“We shall not suffer you to enlighten our slaves, who are by
law our property, till you can demonstrate that when they are
made religious and knowing they will continue to be our
slaves.”
When William Lloyd Garrison, the pure-minded and
most earnest abolitionist, delivered his first anti-slavery
address in Boston, Massachusetts, the only building he
could obtain, in which to speak, was the infidel hall owned
by Abner Kneeland, the “infidel” editor of the Boston
Investigator, who had been sent to gaol for blasphemy.
Jlvery Christian sect had in turn refused Mr. Lloyd Garri
son the use of the buildings they severally controlled.
|jloyd Garrison told me himself how honored deacons of
�humanity’s GAIN UHOM UNBELIEF.
9
a Christian Church, joined in an actual attempt to hang
him.
When abolition was advocated in the United States in
1790, the representative from South Carolina was able to
plead that the Southern clergy “did not condemn either
slavery or the slave trade ” ; and Mr. Jackson, the repre
sentative from Georgia, pleaded that “from Genesis to
Revelation ” the current was favorable to slavery. Elias
Hicks, the brave Abolitionist Quaker, was denounced as
an Atheist, and less than twenty years ago a Hicksite
Quaker was expelled from one of the Southern American
Legislatures, because of the reputed irreligion of these
abolitionist “ Friends ”.
When the Fugitive Slave Law was under discussion in
North America, large numbers of clergymen of nearly
every denomination were found ready to defend this
infamous law. Samuel James May, the famous aboli
tionist, was driven from the pulpit as irreligious, solely
because of his attacks on slaveholding. Northern clergy
men tried to induce “silver tongued” Wendell Philips to
abandon his advocacy of abolition. Southern pulpits rang
with praises for the murderous attack on Charles Sumner.
The slayers of Elijah Lovejoy were highly reputed
Christian men.
Guizot, notwithstanding that he tries to claim that the
•Church exerted its influence to restrain slavery, says
(“European Civilisation”, vol. i., p. 110) :
“It has often been repeated that the abolition of slavery
among modern people is entirely due to Christians. That, I
think, is saying too much. Slavery existed for a long period
in the heart of Christian society, without its being particularly
astonished or irritated. A multitude of causes, and a great
development in other ideas and principles of civilisation, were
necessary for the abolition of this iniquity of all iniquities.”
And my contention is that this “development in other
ideas and principles of civilisation ” was long retarded by
Governments in which the Christian Church was dominant.
The men who advocated liberty were imprisoned, racked,
and burned, so long as the Church was strong enough to
be merciless.
The Rev. Francis Minton, Rector of Middlewich, in his
recent earnest volume1 on the struggles of labor, admits
1 “ Capital and Wages”, p. 19.
�10
humanity’s gain from unbelief.
that “ a few centuries ago slavery was acknowledged
throughout Christendom to have the divine sanction..........
Neither the exact cause, nor the precise time of the
decline of the belief in the righteousness of slavery can
be defined. It was doubtless due to a combination of
causes, one probably being as indirect as the recognition
of the greater economy of free labor. With the decline
of the belief the abolition of slavery took place.”
The institution of slavery was actually existent in
Christian Scotland in the 17th century, where the white
coal workers and salt workers of East Lothian were
chattels, as were their negro brethren in the Southern
States thirty years since; they “ went to those who
succeeded to the property of the works, and they could be
sold, bartered, or pawned”? “There is”, says J. M.
Robertson, “no trace that the Protestant clergy of Scot
land ever raised a voice against the slavery which grew
up before their eyes. And it was not until 1799, after
republican and irreligious France had set the example,
that it was legally abolished.”
Take further the gain to humanity consequent on the
unbelief, or rather disbelief, in witchcraft and wizardry.
Apart from the brutality by Christians towards those
suspected of witchcraft, the hindrance to scientific initia
tive or experiment was incalculably great so long as belief
in magic obtained. The inventions of the past two centuries,
and especially those of the 18th century, might have benefitted mankind much earlier and much more largely, but
for the foolish belief in witchcraft and the shocking
ferocity exhibited against those suspected of necromancy.
After quoting a large number of cases of trial and punish
ment for witchcraft from official records in Scotland, J. M.
Robertson says: “The people seem to have passed from
cruelty to cruelty precisely as they became more and more
fanatical, more and more devoted to their Church, till after
many generations the slow spread of human science began
to counteract the ravages of superstition, the clergy resist
ing reason and humanity to the last ”.
The Rev. Mr. Minton1 concedes that it is “ the advance
2
of knowledge which has rendered the idea of Satanic
1 “ Perversion of Scotland,” p. 197.
2 “ Capital and Wages ”, pp. 15, 16.
�HUMANITY S GAIN FROM UNBELIEF.
11
agency through the medium of witchcraft grotesquely
ridiculous”. He admits that “ for more than 1500 years
the belief in witchcraft was universal in Christendom ”,
and that “ the public mind was saturated with the idea of
Satanic agency in the economy of nature ”. He adds:
“ If we ask why the world now rejects what was once so
unquestioningly believed, we can only reply that advancing
knowledge has gradually undermined the belief ”.
In a letter recently sent to the Pall Mall Gazette against
modern Spiritualism, Professor Huxley declares,
“that the older form of the same fundamental delusion—the
belief in possession and in witchcraft—gave rise in the fifteenth,,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries to persecutions by Chris
tians of innocent men, women, and children, more extensive,
more cruel, and more murderous than any to which the
Christians of the first three centuries were subjected by the
authorities of pagan Borne.”
And Professor Huxley adds :
“No one deserves much blame for being deceived in these
matters. We are all intellectually handicapped in youth by
the incessant repetition of the stories about possession and
witchcraft in both the Old and the New Testaments. The
majority of us are taught nothing which will help us to
observe accurately and to interpret observations with due
caution.”
The English Statute Book under Elizabeth and under
James was disfigured by enactments against witchcraft
passed under pressure from the Christian churches,
which Acts have only been repealed in consequence of the
disbelief in the Christian precept, ‘1 thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live”. The statute 1 James I, c. 12, condemned
to death “all persons invoking any evil spirits, or con
sulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feed
ing, or rewarding any evil spirit ”, or generally practising
any “infernal arts”. This was not repealed until the
eighteenth century was far advanced. Edison’s phono
graph would 280 years ago have insured martyrdom for
its inventor; the utilisation of electric force to transmit
messages around the world would have been clearly the
practice of an infernal art. At least we may plead that
unbelief has healed the bleeding feet of science, and made
the road free for her upward march.
�12
humanity’s gain from unbelief.
Is it not also fair to urge the gain to humanity which
has been apparent in the wiser treatment of the insane,
consequent on the unbelief in the Christian doctrine that
these unfortunates were examples either of demoniacal
possession or of special visitation of deity? For centuries
under Christianity mental disease was most ignorantly
treated.
Exorcism, shackles, and the whip were the
penalties rather than the curatives for mental maladies.
From the heretical departure of Pinel at the close of
the last century to the position of Maudsley to-day, every
step illustrates the march of unbelief. Take the gain to
humanity in the unbelief not yet complete, but now
largely preponderant, in the dogma that sickness, pesti
lence, and famine were manifestations of divine anger,
the results of which could neither be avoided nor pre
vented. The Christian Churches have done little or
nothing to dispel this superstition. The official and
authorised prayers of the principal denominations, even
to-day, reaffirm it. Modern study of the laws of health,
experiments in sanitary improvements, more careful
applications of medical knowledge, have proved more
efficacious in preventing or diminishing plagues and
pestilence than have the intervention of the priest or
the practice of prayer. Those in England who hold
the old faith that prayer will suffice to cure disease are
to-day termed “peculiar people”, and are occasionally
indicted for manslaughter when their sick children die,
because the parents have trusted to God instead of
appealing to the resources of science.
It is certainly a clear gain to astronomical science that
the Church which tried to compel Galileo to unsay the
truth has been overborne by the growing unbelief of the
age, even though our little children are yet taught that
Joshua made the sun and moon stand still, and that for
Hezekiah the sun-dial reversed its record. As Buckle,
arguing for the morality of scepticism, says1 :
“ As long as men refer the movements of the comets to the
immediate finger of God, and as long as they believe that an
eclipse is one of the modes by which the deity expresses his
anger, they will never be guilty of the blasphemous presump
tion of attempting to predict such supernatural appearances.
1 “ History of Civilisation,’’ vol. i, p. 345.
�HUMANITY S GAIN FROM UNBELIEF.
13
Before . they could dare to investigate the causes of these
mysterious phenomena, it is necessary that they should believe,
or at all events that they should suspect, that the phenomena
themselves were capable of being explained by the human
mind.”
As in astronomy so in geology, the gain of knowledge
to . humanity has been almost solely in measure of the
rejection of the Christian theory. A century since it was
almost universally held that the world was created 6,000
years ago, or at any rate, that by the sin of the first man,
Adam, death commenced about that period. Ethnology
and Anthropology have only been possible in so far as,
adopting the regretful words of Sir W. Jones, “intelligent
and virtuous persons are inclined to doubt the authenticity
of the accounts delivered by Moses concerning the primi
tive world ”.
Surely it is clear gain to humanity that unbelief has
sprung up. against the divine right of kings, that men no
longer believe that the monarch is “God’s anointed” or
that “the powers that be are ordained of God”. In the
struggles for political freedom the weight of the Church
was mostly thrown on the side of the tyrant. The
homilies of the Church of England declare that “even the
wicked rulers have their power and authority from God ”,
and. that “such subjects as are disobedient or rebellious
against their princes disobey God and procure their own
damnation ”. It can scarcely be necessary to argue to the
citizens of the United States of America that the origin of
their liberties was in the rejection of faith in the divine
right of George III.
Will any one, save the most bigoted, contend that it is
not . certain gain to humanity to spread unbelief in the
terrible doctrine that eternal torment is the probable fate
of the great majority of the human family? Is it not
gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty of
the wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot
in life which providence had awarded them ?
If it stood alone it would be almost sufficient to plead as
justification for heresy the approach towards equality and
liberty for the utterance of all opinions achieved because
of growing unbelief. At one period in Christendom each
Government acted as though only one religious faith could
be true, and as though the holding, or at any rate the
�14
humanity’s gain from unbelief.
making known, any other opinion was a criminal act
deserving punishment. Under the one word “ infidel”,
even as late as Lord Coke, were classed together all who
were not Christians, even though they were Mahommedans,
Brahmins, or Jews. All who did not accept the Christian
faith were sweepingly denounced as infidels and therefore
//ors de la loi. One hundred and forty-five years since, the
Attorney-General, pleading in our highest court, said1 :
“What is the definition of an infidel? Why, one who
does not believe in the Christian religion. Then a Jew is
an infidel.” And English history for several centuries
prior to the Commonwealth shows how habitually and
most atrociously Christian kings, Christian courts, and
Christian churches, persecuted and harassed these infidel
Jews. There was a time in England when Jews were
such infidels that they were not even allowed to be sworn
as witnesses. In 1740 a legacy left for establishing an
assembly for the reading of the Jewish scriptures was
held to be void2 because it was “ for the propagation of
the Jewish law in contradiction to the Christian religion”.
It is only in very modern times that municipal rights have
been accorded in England to Jews. It is barely thirty
years since they have been allowed to sit in Parliament.
In 1851, the late Mr. Newdegate in debate3 objected “that
they should have sitting in that House an individual who
regarded our Redeemer as an impostor”. Lord Chief
Justice Raymond has shown4 how it was that Christian
intolerance was gradually broken down. “A Jew may
sue at this day, but heretofore he could not; for then they
were looked upon as enemies, but now commerce has
taught the world more humanity.”
Lord Coke treated the infidel as one who in law had no
right of any kind, with whom no contract need be kept, to
whom no debt was payable. The plea of alien infidel as
answer to a claim was actually pleaded in court as late as
1737.5 In a solemn judgment, Lord Coke says6: “ All
infidels are in law perpetui inimici; for between them, as
1 Omychund v. Barker, 1 Atkyns 29.
2 D’Costa v. D’Pays, Arab. 228.
3 3 Hansard cxvi. 381.
4 1 Lord Raymond’s reports 282, Wells v. Williams.
5 Ramkissenseat v Barker, 1 Atkyns 51.
6 7 Coke’s reports, Calvin’s case.
�humanity’s gain from unbelief.
15
with, the devils whose subjects they be, and the Christian,
there is perpetual hostility ”. Twenty years ago the law
of England required the writer of any periodical publica
tion or pamphlet under sixpence in price to give sureties
for £800 against the publication of blasphemy. I was
the last person prosecuted in 1868 for non-compliance
with that law, which was repealed by Mr. Gladstone in
1869. Up till the 23rd December, 1888, an infidel in Scot
land was only allowed to enforce any legal claim in court
on condition that, if challenged, he denied his infidelity.
If he lied and said he was a Christian, he was accepted,
despite his lying. If he told the truth and said he was an
unbeliever, then he was practically an outlaw, incompetent
to give evidence for himself or for any other. Fortunately
all this was changed by the Royal assent to the Oaths Act
on 24th December. Has not humanity clearly gained a
little in this struggle through unbelief ?
For more than a century and a-half the Roman Catholic
had in practice harsher measure dealt out to him by the
English Protestant Christian, than was even during that
period the fate of the Jew or the unbeliever. If the
Roman Catholic would not take the oath of abnegation,
which to a sincere Romanist was impossible, he was in
effect an outlaw, and the “jury packing” so much com
plained of to-day in Ireland is one of the habit survivals
of the old bad time when Roman Catholics were thus by
law excluded from the j ury box.
The Scotsman of January 5th, 1889, notes that in 1860
the Rev. Dr. Robert Lee, of Grey friars, gave a course of
Sunday evening lectures on Biblical Criticism, in which he
showed the absurdity and untenableness of regarding
every word in the Bible as inspired ; and it adds :
“We well remember the awful indignation such opinions
inspired, and it is refreshing to contrast them with the calm
ness with which they are now received. Not only from the
pulpits of the city, but from the press (misnamed religious)
were his doctrines denounced. And one eminent U.P. minister
went the length of publicly praying for him, and for the
students under his care. It speaks volumes for the progress
made since then, when we think in all probability Dr. Charteris,
Dr. Lee’s successor in the chair, differs in his teaching from the
Confession of Faith much more widely than Dr. Lee ever did,
and yet he is considered supremely orthodox, whereas the
stigma of heresy was attached to the other all his life.”
�16
humanity’s gain from unbelief.
And this change and gain to humanity is due to the
gradual progress of unbelief, alike inside and outside the
Churches.
Take from differing Churches two recent
illustrations: The late Principal Dr. Lindsay Alexander,
a strict Calvinist, in his important work on “ Biblical
Theology”, claims that
“ all the statements of Scripture are alike to be deferred to as
presenting to us the mind of God ”.
Yet the Rev. Dr. of Divinity also says:
“We find in their writings [i.e., in the writings of the sacred
authors] statements which no ingenuity can reconcile with
what modern research has shown to be the scientific truth—
i.e., we find in them statements which modern science proves
to be erroneous.”
At the last Southwell Diocesan Church of England Con
ference at Derby, the Bishop of the Diocese presiding, the
Rev. J. G. Richardson said of the Old Testament that
“ it was no longer honest or even safe to deny that this noble
literature, rich in all the elements of moral or spiritual grandeur,
given—so the Church had always taught, and would always
teach—under the inspiration of Almighty God, was sometimes
mistaken in its science, was sometimes inaccurate in its history,
and sometimes only relative and accommodatory in its morality.
It assumed theories of the physical world which science had
abandoned and could never resume; it contained passages oi
narrative which devout and temperate men pronounced dis
credited, both by external and internal evidence; it praised,
or justified, or approved, or condoned, or tolerated, conduct
which the teaching of Christ and the conscience of the Christian
alike condemned.”
Or, as I should urge, the gain to humanity by un
belief is that “the teaching of Christ ” has been modi
fied, enlarged, widened, and humanised, and that “the
conscience of the Christian ” is in quantity and quality
made fitter for human progress by the ever increasing
additions of knowledge of these later and more heretical
days.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Humanity's gain from unbelief
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
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Notes: Reprinted from the North American Review of March 1889. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Atheism
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Text
(Llj£ Cbljnmwl ®nnnd:
OUGHT THE DEMOCRACY TO OPPOSE
OR SUPPORT IT?
<*
--------------------- -
By CJ^LEg BHJTOIiJlU'QjI, JI.P.
LONDON:
Printed and Published by A. Bonner,
34, BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET STREET, E.C.
Price 2d.
��THE CHANNEL TUNNEL:
OUGHT THE DEMOCRACY TO OPPOSE OR SUPPORT IT ?
---------- +----------
I went down to the House of Commons on August 3rd
intending to speak and vote in favor of the second reading
of the Channel Tunnel Experimental Works Bill, but on
the appeal made first by the Chairman of Committees, and
repeated by the leader of the House—an appeal also con
curred in by Mr. John Morley, speaking on behalf of the
front Opposition bench—I refrained from speaking, and
contented myself with a silent vote in favor of the measure.
Since then I find such a concurrence of opinion in the
press hostile to the Channel Tunnel that I think it my
duty to publicly state my reasons for my vote, especially
as Sir Edward Watkin, in moving the Bill, directly asked
for an expression of opinion from the English democracy,
and on the division being taken the representatives of
labor in the House were in opposing lobbies on the
question. A circular signed by Mr. C. Sheath, Secretary
pro tem. of the Channel Tunnel Company, clearly stated
the objects of the Bill voted on, i.e., “To authorise the
promoters to prosecute the experimental works which they
have commenced at their own cost under authority granted
�4
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
by Parliamant in 1874, to test the practicability of con
structing a tunnel beneath the Straits of Dover”; and
explained that “the Bill empowers her Majesty’s Govern
ment, in the event of the experimental works proving
successful, to sanction the prosecution of permanent works
under such conditions and safeguards as the Government
in their absolute discretion may impose. The experi
mental works for which permission is now sought will be
made upon the promoters’ own property and at their own
cost. The public are not asked to contribute towards the
work, which will not impose any pecuniary obligation
upon the country.”
I, however, quite admit that those who are prepared
to support the experimental works ought also to be pre
pared—in the event of these workings proving successful
•—to authorise the construction of a complete working
tunnel, and that any objections which might be valid as
against the complete undertaking ought to be admitted
as conclusive against the experimental proposal. I am
personally in favor of the Channel Tunnel because I
believe it would promote peaceful relations between the
peoples of France and England. I am not a shareholder
in either the French or English scheme solely because I
have not the pecuniary means to acquire shares.
I believe that peaceful relations between Great Britain
and Europe would be rendered more probable by the
facilities afforded for commercial intercommunication. I
hold that the more peoples trade with each other, the
more they know one another, the less likely they are to
fight one another. It is because I am in favor of peace
between France and England that I am in favor of the
Channel Tunnel. Here I only reaffirm what was so well
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
5
•said by the late Richard Cobden, speaking on this very
question of a tunnel between England and the Continent:
“It is not enough to put the Government and the higher
■classes of each country on a friendly footing; that good
feeling ought to penetrate the masses of the two nations ;
and it is our duty to multiply all the means for an inces
sant contact, which will certainly put an end to super
annuated prejudices and old ideas of antagonism?’
The horribly increased and always augmenting Euro
pean army and navy expenditure of the last twenty-five
years, the British share of which Lord Randolph Churchill
now strongly denounces, can only be efficiently checked by
concurrent and decided peace action on the part of all
European peoples. The great need for early disarming is
admitted. The peaceful co-operation of France and
England would enable each, relying on the other’s good
will, to waste less money in warlike preparations. It is
in this interest that I support the proposed submarine
pathway between this island and the Continent. I believe
that increased facilities for friendly intercourse would pro
mote and secure the peaceful co-operation I desire.
Something has already been done towards showing that
the Channel betwixt Kent and the Pas de Calais can be
tunnelled. Last year I visited the works, near Shakspere’s
Cliff, on the west of Dover, and penetrated under the sea to
the place where the engine, worked by compressed air, had
bored from England through the greyish clay chalk If miles
in the direction of France. I found the piece of tunnel
already executed quite dry; the air was perfectly pure, the
ventilation being provided by the compressed air which
works theboringmachine; and the work of tunnelling—which
under the supervision of a Government official was allowed
�6
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
to be continued for a few seconds—seemed astonishingly
easy, as the revolution of the machine cut the chalk away
and delivered it into the waggon behind ready for removal..
The experimental tunnel is bored in the strata which are sup
posed to represent the continuous earth surface—between
what are now the coasts of France and England—in pre
historic times when the land, now these islands, formed,
part of the great European continent. Messieurs Lavalley,
Larousse, Potier, and Lapparent, in their report to theFrench Channel Tunnel Company, presented in 1877, say:
“Examination of the cliffs on each coast of the Straitsshows that the geological strata are the same in the area
which concerns us, and which includes especially thecretaceous formation. On both sides are the same strata,
with the same characteristics, and, remarkable to say, with,
the same thickness. Hence the presumption—authorised
indeed by other considerations—that in the prehistoricperiod, instead of an arm of the sea, separating two coasts,
there stretched here a continuous, more or less undulating,
plain, between the points at which have since been built
Calais and Boulogne on the one side, Folkestone and Doveron the other. According to this hypothesis, the Straits
would be due to the gradual erosion of a soil of slight
consistency, such as the cretaceous formation in general,
which yielded before the ceaseless repetition of blows from,
the waves of the Northern Sea, a sea so stormy during therougher months of the year. From this we gather thehope that the strata encountered beneath the sea, through
which the tunnel must be driven, will be free from seriousdislocations, and will only present slight undulations to
which it will generally be possible to conform the plan of.'
the subterranean railway without any great difficulty.
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
7
“ This hope is confirmed by the following circumstance:
the strata of the chalk formation on the two sides of the
Straits, although thrown out of the horizontal plane they
first occupied, have not acquired a steep inclination. The
inclination is always slight. Over the greater part of the
area of the Straits, starting from France, the gradient is
but f, a fact that seems to indicate that the force of the
upheaval which threw the strata out of the horizontal
plane was not violent.”
I am told that on the French side a similar boring
to the one which I visited near Dover has been
made towards this country, so that about one-eighth
of the experimental work has already been executed.
Why is it not continued to completion? The promoters
on both sides are ready enough; the French Government
is willing; but the British Government—influenced as I
think by the worst form of national prejudice—absolutely
forbids further working on this side, and the French are
of course unwilling to continue costly works—which can
only be completed with our full consent—until that con
sent is officially secured. The only reason for objecting to
the Channel Tunnel is that it will render us specially
liable to invasion. Some contend that the Tunnel will
not pay ; but that, as the British Government said thirteen
years ago, is rather the business of those who, believing
in the probabilities of its financial success, are willing to
risk their moneys in the hope of reasonable financial
profit. The war danger is the only cry to which the
democracy need pay any attention. When the matter
was discussed between the Governments of Great Britain
and France thirteen years ago, this war danger was
examined by the Government of the day of this country
�8
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
and dismissed as not serious. In a despatch from the
Foreign Office to Count de Jarnac, the French Ambassador,
dated 24th December, 1874, the Earl of Derby wrote that
“Her Majesty’s Government consider that it is for the
promoters of the undertaking to weigh well the questions
of the physical possibility of the undertaking, and its
probable financial success; but they see no objection to
the proposed preliminary concession to the French pro
moters, for the execution of the preliminary works, for
a term of three years, nor to the concession of five years
for making a definite contract with an English Company
for the completion of the undertaking, on the understand
ing that, should the promoters fail to fulfil these condi
tions, the land in England occupied by them, and the
works upon it, should revert to the Crown, or other present
owners thereof, so that the occupation of the land by a
Company which has failed, may not stand in the way of
any other undertaking.
“Her Majesty’s Government have no objection to offer
to the proposed grant to the promoters of a monopoly for
thirty years after the final completion of and opening of
the tunnel, nor to the concession itself extending to a
period of ninety-nine years from the same date, the ques
tion being reserved of some limitation being imposed as tothe date of the final completion.”
And it is clear that the military side of the question had
not been overlooked, for Lord Derby in a dispatch of the
same date to Lord Lyons says: “In regard to the refer
ence made in the papers received from Count de Jarnac
to the military necessities of either country, her Majesty’s
Government will only now observe that they must retain
absolute power not only to erect and maintain such works
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
9
at the English mouth of the tunnel as they may deem
expedient, but also, should they apprehend danger of war,
or of intended war, to stop traffic through the tunnel; and
it remains to be considered whether they should not have
the right to exercise their power without claim for com
pensation.”
Nor was the military question neglected or glossed
over, for two months later the following memorandum
was submitted to the Surveyor-General of Ordnance by
Sir W. Drummond Jervois, Deputy-Director of Works, on
3rd March, 1875, Sir Frederick Chapman being at that
time the Inspector-General of Fortifications :
‘1 Memorandum with Deference to the Proposed
Tunnel between England and France.
“ There appears to be no military objection to the pro
posed tunnel, provided due precautions be adopted.
“Should this country, in alliance with France, be at
war with another Continental power, the existence of the
tunnel might be advantageous.
“ Should this country be at war with France, the pro
posed tunnel could no doubt be readily closed. Having
regard, however, to the possibility of the tunnel being
unnecessarily injured under the influence of panic, and to
the probable cost of repairing such injury, it is desirable
to obviate, as far as possible, the necessity for adopting
extreme measures, and with this object to pay due regard
to defensive considerations in the construction of the
tunnel.
“ Moreover, unless proper military precautions be taken,
it might under some circumstances happen that France
might be able, in anticipation of a declaration of war, to
�10
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
send a body of troops through, the tunnel, and thus obtain
an important military advantage. Such a body of troops
could readily intrench themselves, and could be rapidly
reinforced.
“ If, however, suitable defensive arrangements are made,
such an undertaking would be impracticable, and even in
case of war being imminent, no fears need be entertained
which might lead to the partial destruction of this costly
work.”
In April, 1876, the French Ambassador at the Court of
St. James applied on behalf of La Societe Frangaise Concessionnaire du. Chemin de Fer Sous-Marin entre la France
et l’Angleterre for the permission of her Majesty’s Govern
ment to take soundings in British waters near Dover for
the purpose of ascertaining the nature of the bottom
of that part of the English Channel, and the Board of
Trade were informed by the Lords Commissioners of her
Majesty’s Treasury, on the 10th June following, that the
necessary application had been granted.
Although a Channel Tunnel Company, with Lord Stalbridge (then Lord R. Grosvenor) as chairman, had ob
tained an Act of Parliament in 1875 authorising the com
mencement of experimental tunnelling works, nothing was
really done by way of submarine boring from the English
coast until the summer of 1880, when the borings just
referred to were commenced by the South Eastern Railway,
which obtained special powers from Parliament in 1881
for continuing the work and purchasing the necessary
land. These works and powers were taken over and con
tinued in 1882 by the Submarine Continental Railway
Company, Limited. The new company, however, found
itself almost immediately interrupted in the work by the
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
11
intervention of the English Government, such intervention
being the result of a panic created by military alarmists.
In August, 1881, the Board of Trade wrote to the
Admiralty that “ the work of forming a subway under
the Channel was making considerable progress ”, and
that “public susceptibility having been aroused as to
possible danger to this country from a tunnel under the
Channel”, the Board desired “to be fortified with the
opinion of the naval and military authorities ”.
In January, 1882, Admiral Cooper Key sounded the
panic trumpet, and did much to excite the opposition
which has, up to the present, proved fatally obstructive to
the progress of the English borings.
In May, 1882, a memorandum—most important because
issued after the panic opposition had got into full cry—
was issued by Sir John Adye, then Surveyor-General of
the Ordnance, embodying the report of a military com
mittee, presided over by General Sir A. Alison, which had
been instructed to consider “the means by which, sup
posing the Channel Tunnel completed, its use could be
interdicted to an enemy in time of war ”. Sir J. Adye says :
“The military precautions necessary to provide against
such a contingency almost naturally divide themselves into
two parts:—1. The defence or command of the exit by
means of batteries and fortifications. 2. The closing or
destruction of the tunnel itself, either temporarily or per
manently, both as regards its land and submarine portions.
The Committee have dealt with both points in some
detail. As regards the former they urge, that whilst the
land portion of the tunnel should be constructed in the
vicinity of a fortress, it is also important that its exit
should lie outside but under the full command of the
�12
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
batteries in the outworks of the fortress itself. With
respect to the partial closing or entire destruction of the
tunnel, both in its land and submarine portions, the Com
mittee have entered into various details, and have made
numerous proposals by which, if necessary, these objects
may be accomplished. According to my judgment their
recommendations, both as to defence and closure, are
sound and practical, can be carried on without great cost
or difficulty, and will amply suffice for the objects in view.
I agree with them that the general line of the land portion
of the tunnel had better be constructed not far from the
lines of a fortress, whilst the exit should also be under
the command of the guns of its outworks. Such a dis
position of the tunnel will facilitate the arrangements in
respect to the preparation of mines, etc., whilst a full
command of the mouth will render its use or occupation
by an enemy practically impossible. The various details
and proposals of the Committee as to obstruction and
closure, partial or permanent, are such as, I think, will
commend themselves to engineers, civil or military, as
being efficacious for the purpose; and I would further
point out that whilst they are comparatively simple, it is
evident they can be multiplied indefinitely, and have the
further advantage, that the possession of the tunnel and
its exit by an enemy would not prevent their being carried
into effect; and even should some of them fail, such a
contingency would not necessarily entail the failure of
others. The means of obstruction, in short, are not only
various but are independent of each other, and many of
them could be improvised or multiplied even at the last
moment. Nothing, indeed, is more obvious than the
facility with which the tunnel can be denied to an enemy,
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
13>
by means which no vigilance on his part could prevent or
remove.” And yet the British democracy are in 1887
asked to reject the tunnel scheme because a real or
counterfeit fear, in any case begotten of ignorance and
prejudice, has seized on some of our “great generals”
and hysterical journalists.
In April, 1883, a joint Select Committee of the Lords,
and Commons, five members from each House, was.
appointed ‘ ‘ to inquire whether it is expedient that Par
liamentary sanction should be given to a submarine com
munication between England and France ; and to consider
whether any or what conditions should be imposed by
Parliament in the event of such communication being
sanctioned
This Committee, presided over by the
Marquis of Lansdowne, held fifteen sittings, but although
several draft reports were prepared none was accepted,
but the majority of the Committee, six against four, wereof “opinion that it is not expedient that Parliamentary
sanction should be given to a submarine communication
between England and France
The minority report pre
sented by Lord Lansdowne is a paper of remarkable
ability, and sets out with great clearness the reasons for
and against the proposed tunnel.
General Sir Edward Hamley, M.P., who rose to speak
against the tunnel, as I rose to speak in its favor, but who
did not deliver his speech for the same reason which kept
me silent, wrote a letter to the Times, which the editor,
also hostile to the tunnel, says, “contrasts the position of
an invading army which had succeeded in effecting a
landing before a tunnel was formed with that of such
an army in the event of a tunnel being constructed—its
helplessness and peril, the difficulty in getting supplies
�14
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
or reinforcements, the risk that we should again obtain
command of the Channel in the former case, and the power
to draw indefinite supplies through the tunnel in the latter
case. The letter brings into relief the fact that even if we
succeeded in preventing an invader from coming on our
soil by means of this communication, it would be a great
.aid to invaders who had actually made good their footing
■otherwise.” 11 1 The possession of both ends would render
the invader independent of the sea. . . . Night and day
a stream of troops and supplies would be pouring through
the tunnel, possibly under the keels of our victorious but
helpless Channel fleet. Now, in this case—and I would
impress this point—it would no longer be a contest between
two armies, but between the entire military resources of
France on the one side and what we could oppose on the
other.’ Thus a tunnel makes hostile occupation, if not
invasion, easier.”
I submit that this is really carrying panic to madness
point, for, if an invading army, large enough and strong
enough to capture Dover, had landed otherwise than
through the tunnel, our state must have become so hope
less that discussion as to how such an enemy would get
supplies and reinforcement would cease to be material.
Such an army so invading England, otherwise than by the
tunnel, would be as dangerous to England whether or not
the tunnel existed.
The view now put forward by Sir E. Hamley was fully
raised and considered in 1883, and discussed in the
Minority Report of Lord Lansdowne, Lord Aberdare, the
Right Hon. W. E. Baxter, and Mr. Reel, now Speaker of
the House of Commons. The editor of the Times treats
Sir E. Hamley’s objection as not having been answered;
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
15
but it was in truth exhaustively examined and completely
answered in that Report. In paragraph 92 the Report
examines seriatim the principal apprehensions expressed
for the safety of the tunnel. “ These are to the effect that
it might pass into the hands of an enemy—
“(1) By surprise, effected through the tunnel itself;
“(2) By surprise, effected by a force landed in the
neighborhood of the tunnel, with or without the aid of
troops passed through the tunnel;
11 (3) By surprise, facilitated by treachery;
“ (4) After investment by an invading force;
“ (5) By cession as the condition of a disastrous peace.”
All these apprehensions are really expressions of fear
of hostility from Prance. If anyone of these apprehen
sions had carried weight with Italy, Germany, or France,
the St. Gothard Tunnel, or the Mont Cenis Tunnel would
never have been made. The three suppositions, 1, 2, and
3, are possible in case of an attempt made by Frenchmen
when France and England are both at peace, and indeed
this is Lord Wolseley’s contention. “ The seizing of the
tunnel by a coup de main is, in my opinion,” says his lord
ship, “ a very simple operation, provided it he done without
any previous warning or intimation whatever by those who
wish to invade the country.” “My contention is, that
were a tunnel made, England, as a nation, could be
destroyed without any warning whatever, when Europe was in
a condition of profound peace............. the whole plan is based
upon the assumption of its being carried out during a time
of profound peace between the two nations, and whilst we
were enjoying life in the security and unsuspicion of a
fool’s paradise.”
My short answer to this wild contention is that all
�16
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
intercourse between nations would be impossible and
life would be unendurable, if in time of “ profound
peace ” we are always to treat neighboring nations as ever
ready without provocation to suddenly assail our shores in
order to rob and destroy. The European experience of
the past century is entirely against the monstrous con
tention put forward by Lord Wolseley that Erance might
suddenly surprise us whilst we were in peace and alliance
with her and all European powers. It is an insult to
suspect our French neighbors of any such possible treason.
The repetition of such insulting suspicions is in itself a
provocation. In modern times there is no instance of
any outbreak of hostilities between two great powers
which has not been preceded at least by rumors and ex
pressions of uneasiness and highly strained diplomatic
negotiations on the points likely to culminate in rupture of
peaceful relations. Yet, except on such a traitorous sur
prise, Lord Wolseley himself guarantees the safety of the
tunnel, for he says that, if sufficient notice were to be
given, “fifty men at the entrance of the tunnel can pre
vent an army of 100,000 men coming through it ”.
The strongest military objections to the proposed tunnel
are those stated with considerable literary skill, heightened
by strong flavor of romance, in the long Memorandum of
Adjutant-General Sir Garnet (now Lord) Wolseley, dated
16th June, 1882. The weight of Lord Wolseley’s objec
tions on military grounds is a little weakened by the
almost special pleading in which he indulges on the com
mercial and diplomatic aspects of the question. The
whole attitude of Lord Wolseley towards the Channel
tunnel is that of an advocate who has a very hostile
brief. He is not in this memorandum a serious military
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL,
17
counsellor, warning his countrymen against real dangers.
He has recourse to poetry, pathos, general denunciation of
treaties as valueless, and to tricks of curiously irrelevant
appeal to national passion and national fear.
Every objection stated by Lord Wolseley was seriously
weighed by Lord Lansdowne and those who concurred in
the minority report.
‘‘With regard to the possibility of seizing the English
end of the tunnel by means of a small force landed in its
neighborhood,” Lord Lansdowne and those concurring
with him report: “we have endeavored to ascertain pre
cisely the conditions, of which the presence would be
indispensable if such an attempt were to have any chance
of success. Those conditions would, we understand, be
the following:
“(1.) It would be necessary that the invading force
should be despatched with absolute secrecy.
“ (2.) That it should cross the Channel unobserved and
unmolested by our fleet.
“ (3.) That the state of the weather should offer no
difficulties to the disembarcation.
“(4.) That its landing should be effected without
hindrance.
“ (5.) That it should advance without molestation from
the point at which it might be landed to the works by
which the exit of the tunnel would be protected.
“(6.) That it should find the garrison in a state of
absolute unpreparedness.
“(7.) That it should succeed in carrying by a simul
taneous rush the whole of the various works surrounding
the exit of the tunnel.
“ (8.) That this capture should be effected so rapidly as
�18
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
to render it impossible for the defenders of those works
to have recourse to any of the means which would be
in existence for the purpose of closing or destroying the
tunnel, or, that the whole of those means should simul
taneously chance to be out of working order.
“ That every one of these conditions should be present
at the same time appears to us most improbable. We
can well conceive that, with the rapid communications
now available for the movement of troops by land or sea,
a force such as that contemplated might be collected and
despatched, and possibly reach our coasts without warn
ing. That its landing, formation, and forward movement
could altogether escape detection we can scarcely conceive.
It would, we learn from Admiral Rice, take twelve hours,
even under the most favorable conditions, and assuming
the landing to be unresisted, to land 20,000 men, the force
contemplated by Sir Lintorn Simmons. Such a force could
not, however, in Admiral Rice’s opinion, be landed with
out attracting attention. A smaller body could, of course,
be landed with greater rapidity, but the diminution of
its numbers would not increase its chance of success. A
force of 1,000 men could, Sir Cooper Key informs us, be
landed under favorable circumstances in an hour; ‘the
larger the number of men,’ however, this witness adds,
‘ the more the difficulties that would arise against the
time, but I have no hesitation in saying, that if they were
equipped for it, with boats properly prepared, and a good
clear beach, they could land 10,000 men under ten hours.’
That such a force, or one approaching to it in strength,
should be able to traverse without detection or hindrance,
the distance intervening between the point of landing and
the exit of the tunnel, which, unless the recommendations
�THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
19
of the military committee are altogether disregarded,
would be at a considerable distance from the shore,
appears to us difficult to conceive; were it to be detected,
and the alarm given, the complete surprise of the garrisons
of the different forts would no longer be possible.”
One most extraordinary objection to the tunnel was
gravely urged before the joint Committee of Lords find
Commons in the evidence by the late Mr. Eckroyd, M.P.
for Preston, in answer to a suggestive question from the
Earl of Devon : “ Earl of Devon : You spoke of the
probable influence you anticipated from the introduction
of Erench labor upon the pecuniary interests of the British
workman in the manufacturing departments of industry
with which you are concerned; does it occur to you that any
other evil might arise by the spread of Socialistic or Com
munistic views from an increased intercourse between the
large body of French and English workmen ?—Mr E.:
That is an apprehension that is very often felt; and I
believe we have found that, specially in periods of slack
ness of employment and discontent, there would be an
active propaganda of an Atheistic and Socialistic kind ”
As though any ideas now circulated in France or on the
Continent could be hindered from permeating here by
mere refusal to construct a submarine tunnel! Lord
"Wolseley and the Duke of Cambridge fear that French
soldiers may conquer us bodily, coming for that purpose
secretly through the tunnel. The Earl of Devon and
Mr. Eckroyd have like fears of French Atheists and
Socialists, who would find in the Channel tunnel a con
venient conduit-pipe for their propaganda!
The great plague of Europe just now, and one that has
been increasing in its virulence and oppressiveness for the
�20
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.
last quarter of a century, is the huge waste of men and
material in every European country in preparing for armed
offence and defence. If the figures compiled by Mr. Lewis
Appleton are correct, then during the year ending 31st
December, 1886, Europe had under arms, not including
reserves, no less than 4,123,675 men, and the European
forces available for war, including reserves, were 16,697,484.
In 1886 Europe spent on army and navy no less than
£187,474,522. Unless there be disarmament, there must
be fierce war or terrible revolution. The burden of in
creasing taxation is too continuously heavy for long
peaceful bearing. The rulers find pride and pomp in the
controlling and array of huge masses of armed men. It
is the peoples who pay and suffer.
Commerce is an eloquent peace preacher; the frequent
and more complete intermingling of unarmed peoples
begets distaste for war; national prejudices die away
under frequent contact; explanations are easier as peoples
know one another better. I am in favor of this Channel
tunnel because it will give to us in this island easier moans
of seeing our European brethren in their own cities. It
will afford to the folk of France the opportunity of knnwing for themselves that the English workmen do not desire
quarrel or war.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The Channel Tunnel : ought the democracy to oppose it or support it?
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 18 cm.
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A. Bonner
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1887
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N082
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International relations
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Text
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English
Channel Tunnel
France
Great Britain-Foreign Relations-France
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