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RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF PARENTS
IN REGARD TO
THEIR CHILDREN’S RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
AND BELIEFS.
JTertot
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE
SUNDAY AFTERNOON,
lith
SOCIETY,
NOVEMBER,
1875.
BY
WM. HENRY DOMVILLE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
T I THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR RD., UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1876.
Price Threepence. .
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENBY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W.
�SYLLABUS.
Notice of the first Sunday Lectures at the Philosophical
Institute, Beaumont-square, Mile-end, in 1842.
The question in this Lecture is distinctly social, though
necessarily involving some consideration of theological pro
positions—particularly Eternal Punishment.
That is an open question, even in the Church of England,
by the Privy Council’s decision in the case of the Rev. H. B.
Wilson, one of the writers of ‘ Essays and Reviews.’
Parental claims to rights over their children’s religious
beliefs divided into—
1. —Their having caused their children’s existence.
2. —Their maintaining and educating them.
3. —Their love and devotion to their offspring.
4. —The conviction that want of a correct belief
involves loss of eternal happiness and entails
eternal damnation.
The difference between knowledge and belief.
Tradition.
Difficulty of proving authorship of any writings.
‘The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua.’
Belief in marvellous stories by all nations.
�iv
Syllabus.
Propagandism of beliefs.
Eternal punishment or torment. Its immoral tendencyexemplified by the preaching of the late Dr. Wilberforce,
when Bishop of Oxford.
Inutility of arguing with those who make a merit of
belief though irreconcilable with reason.
Allowance should be made for ‘Probable Error,’ as in
science.
The ground taken by the not strictly orthodox for teach
ing a theological belief, considered.
The theologian stands alone in his endeavour to prejudice
the young.
The Act of 9th Wm. 3rd., cap. 32, rendering liable to
outlawry and imprisonment all who have been educated
as Christians and who assert ‘that there are more Gods
than one; deny the Christian Religion to be true, or the ■
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of
divine authority.’
How far this Act affects modern free-thinkers.
The rights of the two parents when they differ in their
creed.
Children in one family brought up in different creeds.
Protestant bigotry, Sunday observance, &c
A really religious education.
What is it ?
�THE
RIGHTS AND
DUTIES OF PARENTS
IN REGARD TO
THEIR CHILDREN’S RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
AND BELIEFS.
--------- ♦---------
AM undertaking a difficult and delicate theme; "but
if I fail to do justice to it, the failure will not be
through want of care, for the subject has occupied my
thoughts for a long period.
Should I succeed in arousing your attention, and give
you some new points for earnest consideration, I shall have
done as much as the Lectures which our Society undertakes
to give are, as a general rule, intended for. These were in
the outset proposed, not as exhaustive—not as embracing
closely scientific lessons, to be given, as it were, before
students in a class-room; but rather to encourage the
search after desirable knowledge.
I may notice, in passing, that the idea of lectures on
general knowledge on the Sunday did not even originate with
the ‘Sunday Evenings for the People,’ so successfully
inaugurated in 1866 by the National Sunday League,
though temporarily stopped the same year by the equally
conscientious, though, as we believe, much mistaken Lord’s
Day Observance Society. The opening lecture at St. Martin’s
Hall, Sunday, January, 1866, was by Dr. Huxley, ‘On the
Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge.’
I have a lecture before me, dated in 1842, by Mr. Philip
Harwood, explaining the object of the Sunday Lectures at
B
I
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The Rights and Duties of Parents.
the Philosophical Institute, Beaumont-square, Mile-end a
liberal institution, founded by the late Mr. Barber Beau
mont, but afterwards closed by others who held different
views. I name some of the Lectures, that you may see they
were much on a footing with those of our Society :__
Two Lectures ‘ On Falsehood, as generated and
upheld by Social Usages and Institutions.’
One ‘ On the Love and Pursuit of Truth.’
Two ‘On Cheerfulness.’
Our ‘ Sunday Lecture Society,’ distinguished from the
‘ Sunday Evenings for the People ’ by its being confined
strictly to the delivery of Lectures on Science—Physical,
Intellectual, and Moral—History, Literature, and Art;
especially in their bearing upon the improvement and social
well-being of mankind, was, as many of you will recollect
formed at a public meeting held at the Freemason’s Tavern’
at which Dr. Huxley presided, on the 25 th of November’
1869. Our first Lecture was delivered in this hall by Dr’
W. B. Carpenter, on the 16th of January, 1870, on ‘The
Deep Sea; its Physical Conditions and its Animal Life,’
to an audience of nearly 800 persons,—a signal success for
a new institution.
The question I am bringing before you is a distinctly
social one ; one at the very root of family government, of
family ties. It is, therefore, strictly within the subjects
for discussion contemplated by our Society. I cannot,
however, avoid considerable reference to the popular theo
logy of the day, and particularly to that one dogma which
is so repulsive to many of us—probably the most extra
ordinary of all dogmas it has ever entered into man’s
imagination to invent—Eternal Punishment in Hell Fire !
In touching upon this dogma, I gladly remind you that even
the Church of England, by the decision of the Privy Council
in the case of Fendal v. Wilson (decided the 8th February,
1864, and reported in Jurist, vol. 10, p. 406,) is obliged to
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
j
treat it as an open question. That judgment lays down
with most naive caution, but still in distinct language, that
they are not required ‘ to condemn as penal the expression
of hope by a clergyman that even the ultimate pardon of
the wicked who are condemned in the day of Judgment may
be consistent with the will of Almighty God.’
It is a dogma nowhere touched upon in the Thirty-nine
Articles of our Church, nor in the Apostles’ or Nicene
Creed. It is only to be found in the Athanasian Creed, and
it is there confined to those who do not believe in the Trinity.
It depends only upon a few isolated texts scattered through
the four .Gospels.
However, you will bear in mind that my lecture to-day
does not rest upon the truth of any dogma. It may be
absolutely true, for instance, that a God was born of a
Virgin Mary. It may be equally true that the twin demi
gods, Castor and Pollux, were the children of Leda. I
shall have little or nothing to say as to the actual truth or
falsehood of theological propositions of any kind. The
question is, Whether parents (orthodox or unorthodox) have
a right to instil any creed whatever into their children. At
the conclusion of the Lecture I shall briefly touch upon the
question what a religious education ought to be.
It would seem that, as in still earlier times the head of
the family looked upon his slaves or servants as his absolute
property, so, to this day, a sort of absolute right is tacitly
assumed by parents over their children, invariably up to a
certain age, and oftentimes comparatively late on in life ;
and not merely a right to obedience to the laws and regula
tions of the household, similar to what the civil govern
ment of a country requires of its citizens for maintenance
of peace and order, and a right to the profits of their
children’s labour (without which it would be often impos
sible for the poorer parents to clothe and maintain them) ;
but a right of far greater moment, namely, to control and
regulate, may I not say appropriate, their minds, so that, in
future years, these children shall not, except with great
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The Rights and Duties of Parents.
difficulty, and often after the most painful mental struggle,
emancipate themselves from this early training, this mental
bondage—break a chain, in fact, which all the subtle skill
of a priesthood has carefully welded, and which ecclesias
tical tyranny has been employed for centuries to rivet!
I have to consider, with you, the justice or injustice of this
assumed right. Whether or no the comparison between
slaves and children is a true one ? and that, having abolished
ordinary slavery, we are not bound to abolish one as great,
perhaps still greater, in our own homes ?
The subject has to be considered in relation, firstly, to
the joint right of the two parents; and, secondly, to the
separate right of each parent.
Now upon what are their claims founded ?
1st. Is the claim that the parents have, in a secondary
way, caused the child’s existence, a valid one ?
2nd. Is the claim that the parents have of necessity,
during longer years than in the case of the lower animals,
maintained and educated their child until it is able to gain
its own livelihood, a valid one ?
3rd. Is the claim based on the parents’ intense love and
unwearied devotion a valid one ?
4th. Finally, and especially, is the claim based on the
parents’ unfeigned belief that, in seeking to mould the
child’s opinions by their own, they are doing the one thing
necessary for that child’s perfect happiness—salvation as it
is called—in a life supposed to commence after this one has
terminated, and then to last for all eternity, is even this
claim a valid one ?
Firstly.—Can mere parentage, the exercise of functions
common to nearly the whole animal and vegetal creation,
can the mere fact of the parents being in a limited measure
the cause of a child’s existence give them such extraordinary
power over its future life as that which we are here con
sidering?
The child may surely maintain the same argument that
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
9
many of us are disposed to use with reference to eternal
punishment. Even for this life, he might say, he has pos
sibly little to thank for; his chance of happiness being not
so much greater than his chance of misery. While, if the
doctrine of eternal punishment is believed in by the parent
and by the child as it grows up, would a sensible child do
otherwise than say, “ I do not want to speculate ! I am no
gambler! According to the marvellous tenets about God
which you have taught me when a helpless child, it is clear
my chance of a happy life hereafter, whatever it may be
here, is infinitely small in comparison with my chance of
hell torment for eternity I I would far sooner never have
been born ! What right had you, my parents, to connive
at bringing me into existence ? Talk of my owing you
gratitude and obedience! No I You have for your own
selfish gratification committed a gross wrong in probably
adding one more victim for the devil and his angels ! ”
I maintain that the child has not, from the one fact of
its being born, any duties towards its parents, and the
parents whatever their other duties may be, cannot have
gained an arbitrary right to take possession of a child’s mind
and mould it to their own narrow theological belief. A
child’s gratitude for mere birth is on a par with that which
the young of the lower animals owe to their parents.
Secondly.—The lower animals nurture their offspring
but for a very short time, and their duties in this respect
are soon over. The young of man require this care
for a longer period and in a higher degree. Still this
increase in quantity and quality cannot affect the relative
duties between parents and child ? It seems sufficient on
this head to say that the parents having brought the child
into the world are, in keeping it alive by proper food and
clothing, and by educating and putting it in the way of
gaining its own livelihood, or by otherwise providing for
its future sustenance and comfort, only continuing the
work they have voluntarily taken upon themselves and
which they have no right to abandon.
Thirdly.—It will be said, granted that the parents are
�io
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
not entitled to any right over their child’s mind by reason
of the ordinary care necessary for supporting a healthy
existence, they must be entitled to some in respect of
their intense love and their unwearied devotion and selfabnegation in the interest of their child.
On the other hand, there is often a long account of mis
management, foolish indulgence, ignorant departure from
Nature’s requirements and laws, gross neglect in teaching
the child even in a cursory way the mere rudiments of
those very laws on which its health, its happiness, its
existence depend—to say nothing of grosser faults on the
parents’ part. But passing this over, and assuming that
all these higher duties are performed to the full, it will at
most but give the parents a right to a return in kind.
And is not this—to the credit of humanity with few
exceptions—duly rendered and often rendered in abundance
and with interest ? Filial love and veneration, accom
panied by pecuniary support if necessary,—by the sacrifice,
particularly in the case of young women, of the best days
of their lives, their prospect of a home and family of
their own, and by the tender care bestowed on their
parents through years of failing health, peevishness, and
infirmity 1
Care such as this—willing suppression of self—these
are the returns constantly required and willingly rendered
for affection and tender care bestowed by the parents in
the years of infancy and youth ! But where do we find a
ground for saying that this previous care and devotion on
their part has given the parents the least right over the
child’s intellectual independence ? I fail to detect any,
and I cannot be far wrong in saying the burden of proof
lies on the parents, and that none can be shown.
Fourthly —We come to the claim, which, in the present
state of popular theology, requires special consideration;
—the duty which many parents assume to be most highly
incumbent upon them, of giving a peculiar theological
bias to the child’s mind, so that it may escape a frightful
damnation in a life to come.
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
II
I must here make some observations as to the basis of all
religious beliefs. Let us be clear upon one point—Reli
gious Knowledge is a misnomer. There can be no such
thing. To prove this assertion, consider what real Know
ledge is, as distinguished from belief.
It will be sufficient if I here allude to two of the kinds
into which knowledge has been divided, demonstrative and
sensitive.
Mathematical truths of which the mind has taken in
the proofs afford instances of demonstrative knowledge.
Astronomers at the present day possess such knowledge
and prove it by forfeiting correctly the motions of planetary
bodies through space. They are true prophets. Thus
you will find stated in the ‘ Nautical Almanac ’ the exact
position of the Moon at a given time three years hence,
besides other information of the same kind.
When, through the agency of our senses, we obtain a
perception of the existence of external objects, our know
ledge is said to be sensitive. Here, however, the door soon
opens for belief instead of knowledge. Nothing but the
greatest nicety of observation, the most perfect memory,
the most disciplined habit of accurate thought, and a
sound judgment, will prevent errors arising in the search
after knowledge through the senses. How little is there
of this! What constant errors of perception do we meet
with ! Many believe in tables rising or levitating to the
ceiling, because their eyes have seen the occurrence. A
cautious observer, if a table thus seemed to him to move
upwards would not trust to his sense of sight alone. He
would go to where the table stood, and you may rely upon
it, the table, as he approached, would appear to descend
again, and by his sense of touch he would satisfy himself
of his illusion. But, even the use of two or more senses
by no means insures an accurate conclusion. The brain
and all the faculties must be in a normal, healthy state.
But time will not permit me to say more.
Now as to beliefs. Although on some matters our per
ceptions or the evidence furnished may lead to a strong
�12
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
conviction or belief, it is not accurate to speak of this as
‘ knowledge.’ A child will say he knows his own mother.
Not so ! A mother may know her own child, though not
always, as occasional histories of changelings will show.
A child’s actual knowledge is this : that from the earliest
time in his memory he has been nurtured by one who has
called him her child and whom every one around has called
his mother, while another has been called his father. He
has, moreover, learnt to distinguish truth from falsehood,
and has found (I wish it were universally so) that those called
his parents have, so far as he can judge, always spoken the
truth, that they have never wilfully misled him, and con
sequently he has every reason to believe he is their child.
Such is usually the goodness of the evidence that he is
almost entitled to say he knows the fact. Still, this is
belief, not knowledge.
You will see that there must be various degrees of
belief. These may be classified thus :—
Firstly.—Beliefs based on accurate observations, and on
proper deductions from those observations.
Secondly.—Beliefs on matters coming within the scope
of our human faculties, and supported by the direct and
unbiassed testimony of capable persons.
Thirdly.—Beliefs incapable of verification—traditions,
dreams, and wild fancies—opinions formed at random or
accepted simply because some one in the present day has
so said, or some one ages ago is reported to have so said or
written.
Under the first and second heads will be found much of
what is called scientific discovery and scientific truth.
Under the third head you will perceive that all the
religions of the world must come. And while giving to
the holders of these beliefs full credit for honesty and
singleness of purpose, for lives of admirable purity, for
devotion to what they believe the will of God, it is still
of the greatest importance to keep in mind the difference
here pointed out.
4 Is it not written ? ’ is the ultimate, may I not almost
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
13
say the only, argument of the theologian. ‘ Is it not
written in the Book of Jasher ’ has made whole nations
believe in the most extraordinary of all the curious stories
to be found in the Books of Joshua and Judges. ‘Sun,
stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, Moon, in the valley
of Ajalon. And the sun stood still and the moon stayed
until the people had avenged themselves upon their
ptiArnies
Is it not written in the JBooh of lasher? So
the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and hasted not
to go down about a whole day. And there was no day
like that before or after it that the Lord hearkened unto
the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.’ ’
(Joshua x. 12-14.) [Note A.]
A ‘ Thus saith the Lord ’ (an expression, by the way,
which a man of science might now use in expounding any •
laws of the universe) has been sufficient to convince
millions upon millions of our fellow mortals that the
several varying editions of the ten commandments [compare ■
Ex. xx. with Deut. v.] as well as the other laws and rules
of conduct propounded in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus,
and Deuteronomy—the result of human thought and wisdom
__ (some of which we at the present day accept, others we
reject as incorrect), were all written by the very finger or
at the immediate instance of God !
What is true as to the child’s want of knowledge of
who are his parents applies with greater force as to his
grandparents and more remote ancestors. The child
believes four human beings are his grandparents. Why ?
Because he accepts his parents’ belief as his own ; but this
is not to him so good evidence as when they can tell him
of their own knowledge that he is their child. And the
evidence increases in weakness as we go back each,
generation.
How uncertain, then, must be the exact accuracy of
every fact and statement in history, even of times com
paratively recent; how far more those of remote ages I
All we can venture to say is, we think it possible or
probable such and such events may have happened
c
�14
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
thousands of years ago, when all we actually know is, that
there are certain books or parchments still in existence—
old MSS. often in a dead language—most of which there
is good reason to suppose are only copies of copies of writings,
and all of which (by whomsoever written and whether
originals or copies) were written very long ago. As to
actual authorship, why you would find it difficult to prove
this lecture I am reading to you is my own composition.
I tell you it is, and you may believe my statement, but this
is not knowledge on your part. Imagine, then, the futility
of an attempt to prove the actual authorship of a work
supposed to have been written ages ago. Now, I do not,
in saying this, wish to decry the work of a noble Bishop of
the Church of England, one whose name, here at least, has
only to be mentioned to be received with a fitting tribute
of respect—Dr. Oolenso, Bishop of Natal! Applause is
due to the Bishop, not for his particular views, but for his
honesty and manliness in expressing them in the face of
bitter fanatical abuse and calumny heaped upon him by
his brother clerics. His six stout volumes on the supposed
authorship of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua
were necessitated by the immense hold that a superstitious
belief in the peculiar divine origin of these writings has
upon the Christian world, the infatuation of early-instilled
belief that every word in the Bible is of direct inspiration
from God! [Note B.]
This attempt by a Bishop of the National Church to
ascertain if the Pentateuch was written by its supposed
author, Moses, was hailed by such a torrent of abuse from
the Christian public—more particularly from his episcopal
brethren—as to be perfectlyastounding. Let me recall to you
some of the epithets applied to the Bishop of Natal. One
instance will suffice. In a single short letter of a brother
Bishop, forbidding him to minister in this particular
Bishop’s diocese, the following expressions occur, applied
either to him or to his work :—‘ unfounded,’ ‘ false,’
1 childish,’ ‘heretical,’ ‘blasphemous,’
‘abominable,’
‘unhappy,’ ‘blind,’ ‘daring,’ ‘ignorant self-sufficiency,’
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
15
* instrument of Satan,’ ‘ poor Bishop Colenso ’ (Bishop
Colenso’s ‘Pentateuch,’ Part III., Preface, page 15).
We may hope for the day when even the hierarchy will
regret such language as this, but the time certainly is not
yet. And this reception of his work is to me one of the
strongest proofs of—worse than inutility—the immorality
of filling the minds of children with beliefs instead of
knowledge.
For every separate contribution to the Bible we have
belief founded upon most insufficient evidence as ground
for its date, or for attributing the authorship to one par
ticular man. We may have fair grounds for believing that
a man called Saul or Paul wrote certain of the letters
which are usually known as the Epistles of St. Paul. We
may have fair grounds for believing that another book
called the Gospel of St. John could not have been written
by any one contemporary with the writer of those epistles ;
but it is impossible to say we know who were the writers of
a single sentence in any of these works. All is bebief. To
us, however, the name of the author of any book, ancient
or modern, is quite of secondary importance. What is of
importance is, can we learn anything from the book ? If it
contains instruction that assists us in our course through life,
if it hands down to us any experiences in nature which we
can verify as true, calls attention or leads us on to the dis
covery of facts, to the comprehension of any phenomena
of this universe, or if we can merely gather from it the
thoughts and ways of life of the former inhabitants of
this earth, then we may feel thankful to the author of it,
whether we have his name correctly or not, and though
we fail even approximately to guess the date at which he
lived. What, for instance, does it signify to us who wrote
the book of Job ? That ancient work is still a most
interesting record of the clear thoughts of some man
who probably lived several thousand years ago.
When, however, ancient books tell us stories of other
worlds, and of supposed beings living out of this world,
in a firmament just over our heads; when they tell us
�16
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
that these extra-mundane beings visit us; talk to us,
advise and do battle for us with each other, or against our
enemies ; answer us in oracles or through inspection of the
entrails of sacrificed animals or the flight of birds; that
they come and eat meat and drink wine with us ; tempt
us to sacrifice or murder our children; wrestle with us in
the darkness and put our limbs out of joint; that some
have actually become the half-parents of human beings-;
and that men have been carried away alive from this earth
to dwell with these extra-mundane beings; and when,
moreover, we are told that these beings, some of them, at
least, are not only all-powerful, but, with one breath, that
they are all-wise, all-good and benevolent, and, with
another breath, that they are jealous, angry, and unfor
giving, and endowed with other bad human passions, we
have to place ourselves in the position of the Zulu of
whom we have all heard [Note C.J ; and, bewildered, ask
why are we to believe, still more why are we to force our
children to believe all this, because it has been written and
believed in in ancient times, times in which we have every
ground for considering the dwellers on this earth were
extremely ignorant; ignorant of very much that we now
know, and were perhaps in some respects more superstitious
than the average of the present race of human beings I
Still more may we pause, on finding, by comparing the
old writings of different peoples, that one nation has vied
with another nation in the marvellousness of their mytho
logies ; that one set of religious stories is quite inconsis
tent with another set, and that all that they agree in is,
in detailing events generally which our experience tells us
do not happen in our day, and which are indeed violations
of the established order of Nature, as science proves it to
have existed for ages.
A minor peculiarity to be observed with regard to these
ancient writings, is the anxiety with which one race strives
to compel another to give up its beliefs, and, in exchange,
to accept the beliefs derived from the ancient writings of
the former! Why should they ? The stories and myths
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
17
of one race are just as marvellous, and are supported by
just the same kind of belief or faith as those of another,
and the records of one are possibly quite as ancient as
the records of the other, even if antiquity could be brought
forward as a proof of veracity 1
Let us now turn to the dogma of Eternal Punishment,
or as it may be more fittingly styled, Eternal Torment.
When this dogma is propounded in all its abhorrent
repulsiveness, it means that an all-good, an all-wise God
has brought us into this life without our consent, and has
decreed that for certain errors, and more particularly for
certain errors of intellect, we should, after a few years of a
possibly miserable existence here, suffer perpetual torment;
that he has doomed us to everlasting fire where there shall
be ‘ weeping and gnashing of teeth ’ without end.
It is to be remarked that the passages relied upon for
proving this dogma of eternal damnation are only to be
found in the New Testament; in the books that promul
gate the religion of Jesus of Nazareth, a religion, the pro
fessors of which delight in calling one of peace and good
will! On the contrary, this dogma, it would seem, has a
most demoralising effect on the believers in it, making
even otherwise good men gloat over an abomination, all
for the greater glory of their God. Pagans of old were
satisfied with bodily torment in their Hell. It remained
for the clergy of a Christian Church to invent the perfect
refinement of cruelty—mental, torture! The late Bishop
of Winchester (Dr. Samuel Wilberforce), when Bishop of
Oxford, preaching in the parish church of Banbury, on the
24th of February, 1850 (I quote from ‘Eternal Punish
ment,’ by Presbyter Anglicanus, a pamphlet in Mr. Thomas
Scott’s series, published in 1864), mark the fact, specially
to school children, dramatised the day of judgment. After
describing the death of the impenitent of all classes and
their coming up to the judgment seat, to be doomed to the
lake of fire for ever; ‘ What,’ asked the Bishop, ‘ will it
be for the scholar to hear this, the man of refined and
�18
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
elegant mind, who nauseates everything coarse, mean, and
vulgar, who has kept aloof from everything that may
annoy and vex him, and hated everything that was dis
tasteful. Now his lot is cast with all that is utterly
execrable. The most degraded wretch on earth has still
something human left about him ; but now he must dwell
for ever with beings on whose horrible passions no check
or restraint shall ever be placed.’ But more terrible still,
and as being addressed to children, coming home to the
subject we have now under discussion, was the picture of
a school girl cut off at the age of thirteen or fourteen. In
her short life on earth she had not seldom played truant
from school, had told some lies, had been obstinate and
disobedient. Now she had (for these paltry errors, crimes
if you will) to bid farewell to heaven, to hope, to her
parents, her brothers and sisters, and then followed her
parting words to each. What was her agony of grief that
she should never again look on their kind and gentle faces,
hear their well-known voices ! All their acts of love return
to her again ; all the old familiar scenes remembered with
a regret which no words can describe, with a gnawing
sorrow which no imagination can realise. She must leave
for ever that which she now knew so well how to value,
and be for ever without the love, for which she had now so
unutterable a yearning. She must dwell for ever amongst
beings on whom there is no check or restraint, and her
senses must be assailed with all that is utterly abominable.
The worst of men are there with every spark of human
feeling extinguished, without any law to moderate the fury
of their desperate rage ! 11
I pause in amazement at this language by a Christian
Bishop. An Almighty so foredooming the children of his
creation, would not be a god of goodness, but a fiend and
devil 1
Let one Bishop, however, reprove another. Let us hear
and apply the words which Bishop Watson, a century ago,
applied to the monstrous doctrine propounded by the Holy
Father Fulgentius, that children unbaptised (even those
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
19
dying in their mother’s womb) would suffer the endless
torments of hell:—‘ Parent of universal good,’ says
Bishop Watson, 1 Merciful Father of the human race I
How hath the benignity of Thy nature been misrepresented
—how hath the gospel of thy Son been misinterpreted, by
the burning zeal of presumptuous man I ’ (Quoted from
Oolenso’s ‘Natal Sermons,’ Triibner and Co., 1867.)
[Note D.]
The Buddhist and the Roman Catholic have their Pur
gatory ; but the Puritan and the Protestant have discarded
even this slender hope, and now at this very moment a
Bishop of our National Church forbids to a mourning son
the small consolation of a humble epitaph, ‘ Bequiescat in
Pace,’ because it savours of prayer for a departed soul.
With this terrible dogma before him, we may well under
stand any believer in the efficacy of prayer, hoping perhaps
against hope, and in his agony praying for the dead.
[Note E.J
Can it be the absolute duty of parents, can it be their
right, while constantly neglecting to teach a child useful
knowledge for this world, to teach it with the utmost dili
gence and pertinacity, traditional beliefs, such as the
eternal damnation of sinners and the unbaptised,—and
the general scheme of Christian redemption and salvation
—the sacrifice, namely, of the innocent for the guilty ?
The existence of an immense variety of theological beliefs
gives one answer in the negative. How can anyone dare to
assert that his own view must be correct and all others
wrong, and consequently that he is bound to impress it on
the plastic mind of his child ? Admit a God of universal
power and beneficence, how can we couple such attributes
with his making the fate of each individual depend on the
sprinkling of a few drops of water on the baby, and the
pronouncing of a few cabalistic words over it in baptism by
a priest,—or on a correct understanding of a few Greek
texts,—-and with his leaving struggling humanity in such
confusion that no nation thinks as another nation does—
�20
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
that scarcely two individuals exactly agree in all the doc
trines of their faith; while few, with real understanding,
accept even its broader doctrines in the same sense that
their neighbours do,—and then, that for no belief or for
half a belief, or for a mistaken belief, he awards absolute
damnation for eternity I
I confess it is nearly hopeless to argue with those who
are fully possessed with the belief that hell fire awaits all
who, whether from want of knowledge of the so-called
glorious gospel of good tidings, or as we may be told, from
a perverse use of their reasoning faculties, do not accept
the scheme of redemption, through Jesus of Nazareth, laid
down for them by the holy Fathers and Divines of the
Catholic and Apostolic Church. When belief actually
strengthens itself on the ground that it is unreasonable or
beyond reason, then all argument ceases. It is useless to
point out to them:—God, as you represent him, must delight
in pain; for in his omnipotence he could either have pre
vented unbelievers being born, or could have so ‘ inclined
the heart ’ of every child as to have made unbelief impossible.
What shelves-full of patristic argument, what volumes of
casuistry and theological nonsense, what mis-spent energy
in needless prayer, might have been saved from the com
mencement of the Christian era! How well the world
might have got on without the whole army of martyrs,—
preachers and divines I [Note F.]
Again, these earnest over-confident believers, these
orthodox parents, might bear in mind that, if their doctrine
of hell torment is true, and some part of their belief as to
the nature of God false, they may be preparing for their
children the very damnation they hope to save them from,
by this early inculcation of beliefs. They might give some
heed to one modest axiom of the scientifie thinker,—allow,
as Mr. Moulton, in his lecture last year explained to us, a
small margin for ‘ Probable Error ’ on their, the parents,
part. But no ! They will go their way perfectly convinced
that they and they alone are in the right, that they have
had a call, that they know all about God and His ways,
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
21
without the least possibility of error—erring, sinful mortals,
1 miserable offenders,’ as they will, in the Church Prayers,
declare themselves to be. Admitting, in the words of St.
Paul, that now they ‘see thro’ a glass darkly’ (1 Cor.
xii. 13), and actually praying that God will grant them
‘ in this world knowledge of His truth ’—a mere lip ser
vice—they will rise from their knees and be again ready to
declare the absolute truth of their doctrines—claiming thus
infallibility in their own persons !
Many, however, who do not believe in the dogma of
eternal torment, or who do not entirely believe in the gene
ral scheme of Christian redemption, are under the vague
impression that it is well to impose upon their children
some sort of theological, or, as they would call it, religious
faith. Why ?
The reason usually given by priests and clergy of all
denominations, and by other people, for trying to seize hold
of the minds of the young is this, ‘ If we do not train
their minds early to a belief in the true religion ’ (that is,
their own particular creed) ‘ they will grow up infidels,
atheists, &c. We shall lose them altogether.’ If this be
so, can a more conclusive argument against such special
teaching be found ? What a sickly kind of theology must
that be which cannot satisfy the doubts and criticisms of
an unsophisticated, well-developed intellect!
In no other case would a teacher venture to argue thus.
The man of science prefers pupils coming to him with
awakened faculties and with unprejudiced minds. The
Spiritualists, even, do not care to convert children to their
beliefs, nor to press into each private house—spiritualistic
manual in hand—and preach to parents the obligation
they are under to prepare their children for ‘Spirit Belief.’
They do not molest passengers in the street each Sunday,
pressing on them their leaflets or texts, their little tracts.
Yet they would have as much right as the theologian to
do so.
The theologians, in truth, stand alone in the world as
�22
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
desiring to prejudice the tender mind of a child before it
has gained fair power of judgment; though even they are
quite ready to parade the conversion of a grown-up person
—be he in the vigour of health, or on a death-bed—to the
true faith, and to lay more value upon one such than on
ninety-and-nine believers according to parental and priestly
injunction.
If the marvellous doctrines to which I refer are true,
it must be unnecessary to impress them upon children in
the nursery; and, if they are not true, what an abomina
tion must it be for parents to take a mean advantage of
their innocent, confiding children in forcing their doctrines
upon them. Nothing can more show the want of faith in
the power of truth, nay, in the goodness of the God they
profess to worship, than the assertion of these well-meaning
people that, by omission of the earliest training of the
young in theological beliefs, their souls will be imperilled
for eternity.
In considering the duty of parents, I must say a few
words on the wisdom of our ancestors as exemplified by an
old, but still only partially repealed, Act of Parliament. In
the ninth year of King William the Third, therefore nearly
two hundred years ago, our legislature thought fit to enact
that ‘ If any person or persons, having been educated, in
or at any time having made profession of the Christian
religion within this realm, shall by writing, printing, teach
ing, or advisedly speaking, [deny any one of the persons
of the Trinity to be God] ’ (this sentence was repealed
in 1813), ‘ or shall assert or maintain there are more
Gods than one, or shall deny the Christian religion to be
true, or the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament
to be of divine authority,’ and shall be lawfully convicted
on the oath of two or more witnesses, he shall, for the first
offence, ‘be adjudged incapable and disabled to have or
enjoy any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or mili
tary; ’ and, on a second conviction, ‘he shall be disabled
to sue, prosecute, or plead, in any action or information, in
any Court of Law or Equity, or be guardian of any child,
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
23
or executor or administrator of any person, or capable of
any legacy or deed of gift, or to bear any office, civil or
military, or benefice ecclesiastical for ever within this
realm, and shall also suffer imprisonment for three years
without bail.’ This is outlawry in the sharpest terms!
This Act is not only not obsolete, but, by being included in
the revised statutes, has practically been re-enacted within
the last few years.
You will observe it applies to those who are 1 educated ’
in the Christian religion. Here, therefore, I find another
distinct ground for saying we ought not to educate our
children in the popular, any more than in any other, faith.
For what right can we have, on a mere belief of our own,
to expose them to outlawry, if in after-life they conscien
tiously give up their inherited religion, and find it in their
duty openly and advisedly to say so !
It is curious to note how little this Act affects modern
free-thought. No earnest free-thinker would for a moment
deny that there may be 1 one God ’ or that God may
be a compound of any number of persons, or assert that
there are two or more Gods. The most he would presume
to say is, ‘ I do not think it is given to human beings to
prove the existence of a God, let there be one or ever
so many.’ A crazy man might assert that an omnipotent
God or Devil lives in the planet Jupiter. A sensible man
would not deny this. He would say, ‘ You cannot prove
it; I decline to argue the matter with you.’
With regard to the existence of more Gods than one, it
would be interesting, but is unnecessary here, to consider
whether among orthodox believers in a God and a personal
Devil there are not many who do, in effect, assert that there
are two Gods. The belief in a Devil affords many of the
orthodox the greatest comfort, while the peculiar powers
attributed to him are little short of omnipotence, even if
they do not occasionally exalt him above their very God!
It was but the other day the Archbishop of Canterbury,
through the Judge of the Arches Court, declared that a Mr.
Jenkins, of Clifton, was rightly deprived of the privilege of
�24
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
partaking the Holy Communion—in other words, was
excommunicated—for not believing in the personality of
Satan. [See the Times newspaper of 17th July, 1875, for
report of Jenkins v. Bev. Flavel Cook],
Again, a cautious free-thinker would not deny the truth of
the Christian or any other religion. He might say, ‘ I do
not know, in the conflict of sects, what is and what is not
the Christian religion. There are many laws accepted by
Christians which I heartily accept; but there are also
dogmas, by some of you considered as essential, which I
think unimportant or absurd; but I hold them to be nearly
all beyond man’s power to decide upon, and, therefore, keep
my opinions in suspense.’
Further, the free-thinker may have no objection to the
term ‘ Holy ’ as applied to the books constituting the
canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, nor
may he care to dispute that they may be of divine autho
rity ; for the Act does not exclude his maintaining that
other ancient writings are holy. He looks upon every truth
as divine, and considers the writings of every reasoning
being in a certain measure inspired—produced through the
divine faculty of reason. The author of the Book of Job
may have been a finer, more inspired poet than our Milton;
the author of the Book of Proverbs may have been more
clear-sighted than our Locke, and may have written a book
more instructive, more inspired, than his on the ‘ Human
Understanding and the Song of Solomon may have been
finer than any that have been written by our Byron. Never
theless, there may be inspiration in all. The Church of
England, it is to be noted, does not require a belief, even by
the clergy, in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. [Note G.]
I will now consider the rights and duties of parents be
tween themselves.
If I am correct in stating that the parents are jointly
bound to abstain from taking advantage of their child’s
feebleness and mental inability to resist the imposition of
a creed (just as the poor little North American Indian
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
2$
cannot resist having its skull flattened by its parents apply
ing constant pressure with boards), so still less ought it to be
permitted to one single parent to educate the child accord
ing to his or her individual tenets. The law of England
gives this absolute power to a father in preference to a
mother. This may be declaimed against as an injustice
towards the latter. But, admitting that we have a right
over our children’s creed, the law clearly can give that
right but to one parent; and, while sympathising with
women in their efforts to obtain a more equal social posi
tion, I incline to think the power in question, so long as
parents continue to exercise it at all, is better legally given
to the male parent. I would ask, however, all, and par
ticularly those who advocate women’s rights, to ascertain
where the injustice lies; whether it is not an injustice alto
gether towards the child, and consequently not one to the
mother.
I use this very difficulty between two parents as a strong
argument to show the impropriety of the present system.
If, as is not unfrequent, the parents differ between them
selves, the actual arrangement must be a compromise. But
the idea of a compromise on such a subject ought to be
odious to any serious, religious person. Where one parent
gives up the assumed right to the other, must there not be
a constant sense of a duty neglected in not impressing on
the child the faith of that parent in preference to the faith
of the other ? Still the claims of both are distinctly equal.
Law, or compromise, or the nurse, must settle the child’s
creed. Probably in most cases it is the latter individual
who fills the mind of the child with hobgoblin tales,—with
foolish superstitions of every kind, and leads the way to,
if she does not actually inculcate, that belief or supersti
tion which, under the vague term of his religion, even
tually takes possession of the child.
Let me quote the words of our poet Dryden :—
‘ By education most have been misled,
So they believe because they were so bred ;
The Priest continues what the Nurse began,
And so the child imposes on the man.’
�16
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
Now, even in mixed marriages, all will be clear sailing,
if both parents concur in and see to the strict carrying out
of the ‘ no creed ’ system of education, both in the nur
sery and elsewhere ; while all may be discomfort and irrita
tion, dispute and anger between the parents where they
differ, and both think it a duty to impress their own views
and convictions on the child. But why is even the
unanimity of the parents to give a right which they can
neither of them individually claim ? I fail to see it.
This consideration of mixed marriages—marriages of
parents of different faiths—is of sufficient importance in
my general argument for me to dwell upon it more fully.
Consider cases of the kind. The Boman Catholic priest
and Church interfere where they can. They require, when
a Catholic lady is about to marry any one of a different
religion, that the girls, at least, shall be educated in the
true faith, and they choose wisely, for they well know who
in.the household have the power of instilling into the infant
mind any amount of fear, fables, and narrow beliefs, and
that if they only get the girls of one generation educated
in the Catholic faith, they are preparing so many more
mothers of the next generation to carry on their system;
let alone the almost certainty that some of the boys will
be affected in the nursery or school-room by the peculiar
atmosphere that will hang about them.
When the bargain is between a Boman Catholic mother
and a High Churchman, it may be said, and with bitter
truth now-a-days, that there is no essential difference be
tween the Boman Catholic and the Protestant (a name
which by-the-way the High Churchman is quite right in
repudiating) ; but the father may be, for our argument, a
Unitarian, a Bationalist, a Mahomedan.
We may in any case have a family strangely divided.
The boys, if following their father’s creed, will have little
sympathy with the feelings and sentiments of their sisters,
even if they have the good manners not to indulge in
ridiculing them for their narrow-mindedness and bigotry.
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
2?
The girls will be brought up to pray in Church that
God shall have mercy upon their brothers, the ‘ Turks,
infidels, and heretics ’ [Good Friday collect], and if they
are of the Church of England, on the thirteen occasions
when the Athanasian Creed is read, they will piously doom,
these very brothers to eternal torment for their want of a
correct belief; and further, by the 18th Article of that
Church, will declare a curse upon all who presume to
say, as I am glad many in the present day most heartily do,
‘ that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which
he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life
according to that law and the light of Nature.’
How, by the way, can a Church with the least con
sistency bear the name of a National Church when it
deals out so liberally curses and anathemas upon half the
nation ?
Nothing can be more baneful than this division of a
family. Think, too, what a mother's agony ought to be,
at every moment firmly convinced that her sons are
growing up with a belief that shall ensure for them
eternal damnation.
With the impossibility of any honest compromise, the
conviction stares us in the face that this is a case in which
neither parent can have any right of control.
To educate and train a child in the best way to fit him
as he grows in years to form his own judgment must surely
be the duty of a Protestant. If our forefathers were right
in breaking from the Roman Catholic Church, with a
declaration that every person is responsible for his own
opinions, how miserably did they, how miserably do the
present generation, fail to bring their principles into
action. How can any one judge freely for himself in
the matter of religious belief if, while still of tender years,
his whole mind, his thoughts by day and by night are
warped by those who profess to be his guardians, whose
sole object is (with praiseworthy motive, I admit) to fill
every corner of his existence with their own belief ? Look
�28
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
to the houses of any of these good people. Bound the
rooms pictures of holy saints or Bible subjects, texts of
Scripture over the very beds of the little innocents ; crosses
if not crucifixes, hung round the room and round their
bodies, crosses on their books ; prayer the first moment of
waking, the last moment before the night’s rest; the
volume containing a singularly miscellaneous collection of
writings (embracing, besides many wise and ennobling
thoughts, stories more marvellous [Note A.] than those
of Jack the Giant Killer or Aladdin’s Lamp, and a love
song, and erotic stories such as the Song of Solomon and
Susanna and the Elders), this volume in every room in the
house with such a halo of sanctity thrown around it! So
much for the week days, while for the Sunday additional
theological atmosphere is introduced, with attendance at
Church once, twice, or thrice. Not a game allowed, no
cheerful dance, not a song nor a note of music except such
as shall intensify the theological aspect of the day. The
child’s Sunday story-book (a modern invention to prevent
actual nursery rebellion), and the Noah’s Ark (a tradition
wholly inconsistent with our present knowledge) judiciously
brought forward to instil into the mind, as it were, at
every pore, the belief of one if not both of the parents.
What a farce to tell a child after this that he has been and
is free to choose his own religious belief.
Few consider what they are doing in teaching their chil
dren our Church Catechism. We were ourselves made to
learn it without understanding, and we hand down the
practice to the next generation without a thought. I will
here but refer to one point. Children of tender years are
asked if they do not think they are bound to believe all
‘the Articles of the Christian Faith,’ and are compelled
to answer, ‘ Yes, verily, and by God’s help so I will.’ A
pledge, therefore, a vow, of present and of future belief in
Christian dogmas and mysteries is thus exacted from them
at an age when the asking for any answer is, I maintain, a
mockery and irreverence I
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
29
I am not sanguine of seeing the views here expressed
speedily accepted.
Still we do progress rather more
rapidly than formerly in shaking ourselves out of precon
ceived theological opinions. It has taken some centuries
[Note F.J to emancipate geology from the trammels of the
Mosaic Cosmogony and Deluge ; it has taken some centuries
to shake off a belief in the divine institution of slavery.
Four centuries ago, the action of the Pope with reference
to the Jewish child Mortara, stolen not long since from his
parents and educated as a Christian against their will,
would have been accepted by the Christian public as morally
right. Thousands still consider it so. Coming to our
times, it has taken half a century to convince the clergy
and the orthodox laity of the justice of a ‘ conscience
clause ’ in our schools of primary education. The crown
ing fact in this direction took place but five years ago, when
the Legislature enacted (33 Vic. cap. 75) that ‘no religious
catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any
particular denomination ’ should be taught in our new
parish schools. One venerable Archdeacon, at least, and
thousands of our Christian public, still look upon this as
most ungodly ! I am here only advocating the extension
of the same principle from the elementary school to the
family circle. There is no more ground for the exercise of
parental, than there was in the Mortara case for the exer
cise of Papal, authority. But more than one generation will
pass away before this will be generally accepted as a truism.
Reviewing the whole subject, there seem to be but two
consistent positions. Parents must either declare them
selves to be infallible Popes and claim an absolute right of
dictating to their children the sole belief they are to enter
tain ; or the children should be carefully guarded, from
the earliest period of their existance, against the tyranny
of any prejudiced belief, be it in a fairy tale, or ghosts, in
portents, or in any one of the numerous and complicated
theological propositions with which humanity is oppressed.
[Note H.]
�30
The Rights and Duties of Parents.
That this latter position is possible we have an example
in one whom we have but so recently lost, John Stuart
Mill! Though trained in no Greed,—no one, however
much opposed to him in politics and even on social
questions will deny him the tribute of a well-spent life,
a life of devotion to the cause of humanity, and it will
not be too much to prophecy that before long he will
be quoted (very awkwardly indeed) as a defender of
orthodoxy!
No barrier was placed in his way to accepting, when he
grew up, any one of the religions of the world. He was
free to study and did study these various religions from a
purely philosophical standpoint. He, among very few
indeed of our countrymen, had the good fortune to be in
this unfettered position ; but it is one that I unhesitatingly
claim for every human being.
Of what value is a religious belief that cannot be
accepted by a matured mind, educated wholly without
prejudice in favour of any particular form of belief or
worship ? Let us bear in mind, too, that not only may
creeds imposed upon the young be hurtful; forms and cere
monies, also, in religion are noxious. The forms and cere
monies of every church, their vestments, and other fantasies,
may be compared to the ivy which grows around the oak,
killing the young and enfeebling the mature. ‘You want
a form,’ says Lessing; ‘ but it so happens that a form
does not simply subsist alongside of the essential; it
enfeebles, tends to weaken and supersede the essential.’
While, therefore, ceasing to keep our children in
mental’ swaddling clothes, let us strive to educate them
in what I will call religious principles, or, adopting
Professor Clifford’s expression in his lecture (‘On Right
and Wrong ’) on Sunday last,—in ‘ Piety; ’ namely,
give them knowledge, not beliefs. With reference to
belief teach them to proportionate it to the evidence
they may find to support it ; and when they see (I quote
John Stuart Mill—Inaugural Address to the University
�The Rights and Duties of Parents.
3i
of St. Andrew’s), ‘that the specially instructed are so
divided that almost any opinion can boast of some high
authority and no opinion whatever can claim all—teach
them to keep their minds open and not on such momentous
matters to barter away their freedom of thought ; ’ train
their powers of observation and reasoning; teach them
from their earliest years to distinguish good from bad con
duct—right from wrong—teach them to speak openly
what is to them the truth, regardless of a mean considera
tion of consequences; teach them a noble selfishness or
self-love, that of seeking their own good in doing good to
others as well as themselves,—impress upon them for their
own sake and the sake of those near and dear to them as
also of every human being, that a strict obedience to the
unvarying laws of nature, those laws both physical and
moral which we study and gradually discover, leads more
and more to the happiness of the individual and the com
munity in general, while the contrary conduct leads to
discord, wretchedness, and misery. If we so teach them,
and further, if instead of pressing on them a compulsory
belief in one particular religion,—be it Christian or
Mormon, Jewish or Polytheistic, Mahomedan or Buddhist,
Confucian or Zoroastrian,—we make them study the lead
ing features—the moral elements—in all religions, we may
fairly say we have done our duty and not exceeded it!
�APPENDIX.
----- o----Note A.—Pages 13 and 28.
Curious Stories in the Old Testament.
A reference here may be convenient to some of the other mar
vellous stories to be found in the Pentateuch and Books of Joshua
and Judges, Samuel and Kings, which the clergy still expect, not
only children, but grown-up men and women to accept as absolute
inspired truths, because they happen to be found in ancient
records of a peculiar people.
The frequent narratives to be found in the earlier of these
books of appearances of God (‘and they saw the God of Israel,’
Exodus xxiv. 10, besides other passages) and of familiar personal
intercourse between God and Moses and Aaron, extending in one
case (Exodus xxxiii. 23) to God showing his back parts to Moses,
are in singular and significant contrast with the more philosophic
notions which must have prevailed in the later days of the writer
of St. John’s Gospel. ‘No man hath seen God at any time,’
John i. 18.
Exodus iv. 2-7.—‘And the Lord said unto him, What is that
in thine hand ? And he said a rod. And he said cast it on the
ground, and he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent;
and Moses fled before it. And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth
thine hand and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand
and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand : That they may
believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee ! ! '
And the Lord said further more unto him, Put now thine hand
into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom; and when
he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. And he
said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand
into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and,
behold, it was turned again as his other flesh.
Exodus vii. 10-11.—The God of the Jews is again represented as
turning Moses’ rod into a serpent—a sort of Indian juggler’s trick,
which was immediately afterwards performed by the Egyptian
magicians, ‘ for they cast down every man his rod, and they
became serpents, but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods’
Pharaoh, not very surprisingly, failed to be impressed by Moses’
and Aaron’s magic.
Exodus xvii. 6, and the similar passage from Numbers xx. 11.
—‘And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the
rock twice, and the water came out abundantly, and the congre-
�Appendix.
33
gation drank, and their beasts also. ’ A scene well fitted for an
Ammergau play or a pantomime. ‘ Harlequin with his wand
strikes the rock twice, and out rushes water. ’
Exodus xvii. 11. — ‘And it came to pass, when Moses held up
his hand, that Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hand,
Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands were 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
on 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. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Write this fora memorial in a book.’ What a singular story!
Aaron and Hur assisting God to perform a miracle !
Numbers xvii. 5. — ‘ The man’s rod whom I (the Lord) shall
choose shall blossom. ’ v. 8, ‘ And behold the rod of Aaron for
the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and
bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. ’ Rapid forcing!
Numbers xxi. 8. — ‘ And the Lord said unto Moses, make thee
a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole ; and it shall come to pass
that every one that is bitten when he looketh upon it shall
live.’
Numbers xxii. 28. — ‘ And the Lord opened the mouth of the
ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee that
thou hast smitten me these three times ? ’
Joshua iii. 16.—The waters ‘ stood and rose up upon an heap ’
—to let priests bear the Ark with dry feet across the Jordan.
Joshua vi. 20.—The walls of Jericho fall down flat at the blow
ing of trumpets of ram’s horns by priests and shouting of the
people of Israel.
Judges i. 19.—‘And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave
out the inhabitants of the mountain ; but could not drive out the
inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.’ In
plain language, even God’s favour to Judah is here represented as
of no avail against the chariots of the valley I
Judges xiii. 20.—‘ When the flame went up toward heaven
from off the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of
the altar. . . Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the
Lord.’
Judges xv. 19.—Sampson having slain one thousand!.'! men
with the jaw-bone of an ass, was naturally ‘ sore athirst ’ after
such a feat. ‘ But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw
and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his
spirit came again, and he revived.”
1 Samuel xxviii. 7.—‘ Behold there is a woman that hath a fami
liar spirit at Endor.’ v. 11. — ‘ Then said the woman, Whom shall
I bring up unto thee ? And he said, Bring me up Samuel.’ v. 12. —
‘And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice.’
�34
Appendix.
v. 15. — ‘ And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted
me to bring me up ? ’ Why, indeed ! No wonder believers in the
inspiration of the Bible easily become Spiritualists. Nay ! The
question rather is how they can help joining in the ranks of these
modern callers and bringers-up of spirits from the dead 1
2 Kings ii. 11.—‘ And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into
heaven. ’
2 Kings iv. 32.—‘ And when Elisha was come into the house,
behold, the child was dead and laid upon his bed.’ v. 34.—‘ And
he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his
mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his
hands, and he stretched himself upon the child ; and the flesh
of the child waxed warm.’ v. 35.—‘And the child sneezed
seven times, and the child opened his eyes.’
2 Kings vi. 5 and 6.—‘ But as one was felling a beam, the ax
head fell into the water. And he cried and said, alas, master!
for it was borrowed. And the man of God said, Where fell it ?
And he showed him the place, and he cut down a stick and cast
it thither ; and the iron did swim. ’
2 Kings xiii. 21. — ‘ And it came to pass, as they were burying a
man. . . they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha ; and
when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he
revived, and stood up on his feet.’
2 Kings xx. 9-11.— ‘And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have
of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken;
shall the shadow [of the sun] go forward ten degrees or go
back ten degrees ? And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing
for the shadow to go down ten degrees; nay, but let the shadow
return backward ten degrees. And Isaiah the Prophet cried
unto the Lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees back
ward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.’ A modem
astronomer, unlike Hezekiah, would have thought it not a ‘light
thing ’ for the sun to jump forward ten degrees any more than for
it to jump backward.
Note B.—Page 14.
Verbal Inspiration of the Bible.
The extent to which the claim is made in this very century
for verbal inspiration of every part of the books now bound up
in one volume as the Bible, will be shown by the following
quotations :—
The Rev. J. W. Burgon, Vicar of St. Mary’s, Oxford—
‘Inspiration and Interpretation’ (page 89.)—‘The Bible is none
other than the Voice of Him that sitteth on the Throne! Every
book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word
of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the direct utterance
�Appendix,
35
of the Most High 1 The Bible is none other than the Word of
God—not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all
alike, the utterance of Him who sitteth upon the Throne—
absolute, faultless, unerring, and supreme.’
The Rev. Dr. J. T. Baylee, Principal of St. Aidan’s -College,
Birkenhead—‘ A Manual on Verbal Inspiration:’—
‘ The whole Bible, as a revelation, is a declaration of the Mind
of God towards His creatures on all the subjects of which the
Bible treats (page 6).
‘Modern science, with all its wonderful advances, has dis
covered not one single inaccurate (!!!) allusion to physical truth,,
in all the countless illustrations employed in the Bible (page 42).
‘ The Bible cannot be less than verbally inspired. Every word,
every syllable, every letter, is just what it would be, had God spoken
from heaven without any human intervention (page 48).
‘ Every scientific statement is infallibly accurate, all its history
and narrations of every kind are without any inaccuracy’
(page 62).
Dr. Longley, late Archbishop of Canterbury. His Primary
Charge, 1864 (page 42) :—
‘ All we would maintain under the title of plenary inspiration
is the universal authority of every portion of it, as written under
the Divine supervision, securing the writers from error and false
hood : the exact words being in some cases dictated as was the
case with the delivery of the Decalogue.’
As a contrast to the above extraordinary utterances see the
sensible and moderate language of the judgment of the Judicial
Commitee of the Privy Council [below. Note G.J a judgment,
by the way, in which Dr. Longley, as Archbishop, concurred !
Note C.—Page 16.
Bishop Colenso and the Intelligent Zulu.
In the preface to Part I., page 7, of the Bishop of Natal’s work
on the Pentateuch will be found the following
‘ Here, however,
amidst my work in this land [Natal], I have been brought face to
face with the very questions I then [when a parish clergyman in
England] put by. While translating the story of the Flood, I
have had a simple-minded but intelligent native, one with the
docility of a child, but the reasoning powers of mature age, look
up and ask. ‘ Is all that true ? Do you really believe that all
this happened thus—that all the beasts and birds and creeping
things upon the earth, large and small, from hot countries and
cold, came there by pairs and entered into the ark with Noah ?
And did Noah gather food for them all, for the beasts and birds
of prey, as well as the rest ? ’ My heart answered in the words
�Appendix.
36
of the Prophet, ‘ Shall a man speak lies in the name of the Lord ? ’
(Zech. xiii. 3.) I dared not do so. My knowledge of some
branches of science, of Geology in particular, had been much
increased since I left England; and now I knew for certain, on
geological grounds, a fact of which I had only had misgivings
before, viz., that a universal Deluge such as the Bible manifestly
speaks of could not possibly have taken place in the way described
in the book of Genesis. ’
The flippant way in which the Bishop of Natal’s earnest argu
ment and honest words, such as those quoted above were met, is
to some extent, illustrated by a passage written by the late Dr’
Longley, when Archbishop of Canterbury, who, speaking of Dr'
Colenso, said his objections ‘are for the most part puerile and
trite; so puerile that an intelligent youth who reads his Bible
with care could draw the fitting answers from the Bible itself; so
trite that they have been again and again refuted. ’
And yet the Archbishop himself having alleged, in his Primary
Charge (see Note B. above), that the plenary inspiration of the
Bible had secured ‘the writers from error and falsehood, the
exact words being in some cases dictated as was the case with the
delivery of the Decalogue,’ failed to answer Mr. Voysey’s plain
question, Which of the two versions (compare particularly the
extraordinary discrepancy between Exod. xx. 11 and Deut. v.
15) was referred to as having been written in the ‘exact words ’
dictated by God!! (Letter from the Rev. Chas. Voysey to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, dated November 15, 1864.)
Note D.—Page 19.
E
’ ternal Punishment of Enbaptised Infants.
Quoted from Bishop Colenso’s ‘ Natal Sermons ’ (Triibner, 1867).
Fulgentius lived a century after St. Augustine, who was the great
Father of the African Church, and is at the present day a great
authority with a certain party in the Church of England.
St. Augustine proclaimed in the following passages the damnation of unbaptised infants
‘I do not say that infants dyinowithout the baptism of Christ will be punished with so great pain
as that it were better for them not to have been born.’ Else
where he writes more fiercely :—‘ Our Lord will come to judge
the quick and the dead; and he will make two sides, the right
and the left. To those on the left hand he will say, Depart into
everlasting fire ; to those on the right, Come receive the Kingdom.
He calls one the Kingdom—the other, condemnation with the
Devil. There is no middle place left where you can
PUT INFANTS. ’
�Appendix.
37
And again:—‘Thus I have explained to you what is the
Kingdom, and what everlasting fire, so that when you confess the
infant will not be in the Kingdom, you must acknowledge he will
be in everlasting fire.’
Note E.—Page 19.
Prayer for the Pead.
The following paragraph is copied from the Times of the
23rd October, 1875 :—
‘ A letter has been received from the Bishop of Ripon (Dr.
Bickersteth) in reply to Mr. David Hoyle, of New York, U.S.A.,
who desired to have cut on the gravestone over the grave of his
father in the churchyard of Marsden, near Huddersfield, the
words Requiescat in Pace. The incumbent of Marsden, the Rev.
T. Whitney, refused to allow the inscription, and on an appeal to
the Bishop of Ripon, his Lordship has replied to Mr. Hoyle as
follows :— “I am truly sorry to find myself unable to comply
with your request. I cannot sanction on a tombstone Requiescat
in Pace. I need not remind you that this is, in fact, a prayer for
the dead. All true Protestants believe that the state of the
departed is fixed the moment after death. The souls of the
faithful are in joy and felicity, and do not need our prayers.
Lost souls cannot he benefitted by them. The inscription which
you refer to is constantly used by Roman Catholics, and is quite
in harmony with Roman Catholic doctrine. It may be found in
some Protestant churchyards, but this is rarely the case ; and
the fact that it is sometimes met with is no defence for adopting
an expression which is both misleading and erroneous. ” ’
Note F.—Page 20.
Theological Beliefs, the Hindrance to Science.
The obstruction caused by theological beliefs to the spread of
knowledge is well pointed out in the following passages, extracted
from the late Sir Charles Lyell’s ‘ Principles of Geology,’ Vol. I.,
pp. 37 and 57, 11th Edition :—
‘ The theologians who now (the latter half of the 17th cen
tury) entered the field in Italy, Germany, France, and England
were innumerable, and henceforward they who refused to sub
scribe to the position, that all marine organic remains were proofs
of the Mosaic deluge, were exposed to the imputation of disbe
lieving the whole of the sacred writings. Scarcely any step had
been made in approximating to sound theories since the time of
Fracastoro (about A.D. 1517), more than a hundred years having
�38
Appendix,
been lost in writing down the dogma that organised fossils were
mere sports of nature. An additional period of a century and
a-half was now destined to be consumed in exploding the hypo
thesis, that organised fossils had all been buried in the solid strata
by Noah’s flood. Never did a theoretical fallacy in any branch of
science interfere more seriously with accurate observation and the
systematic classification of facts. ... In short, a sketch of the
progress of Geology from the close of the 17th to the end of the
18th century is the history of a constant and violent struggle of
new opinions against doctrines sanctioned by the implicit faith of
many generations and supposed to rest on Scriptural authority. ’
The celebrated naturalist, Buffon (1751), was made by the Sor
bonne, or Faculty of Theology in Paris, to recant some opinions on
Geology. Sir Charles Lyell gives the words of his Declaration
which he was compelled to publish in the next edition of his
‘ Theory of the Earth ’:—
‘ I declare that I had no intention to contradict the text of
Scripture ; that I believe most firmly all therein related about the
Creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact; I abandon
everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth, and gene
rally all which may be contrary to the narration of Moses. ’
Note G.—Page 24.
The Judicial Privy Council on the Verbal Inspiration
of the Bible.
Under the decision (8th February, 1864) of Her Majesty’s
Privy Council, in the case of the Bishop of Salisbury v. Rev.
Rowland Williams (one of the Essayists and Reviewers), it is
not an ecclesiastical offence, even for the clergy ‘ to dispute the
dates and authorship of the several books of the Old and New
Testament’; ‘to deny the reality of any of the facts contained
in the Holy Scriptures’; ‘to reject parts of Scripture upon their
•own opinion that the narrative is inherently incredible’; ‘to
disregard precepts in Holy Writ because they think them evi
dently wrong,’ so long as they keep clear of contradicting any
doctrines laid down in the Articles or Formularies of the Church
■of England. This case is reported in the Jurist, Vol. 10, p. 406.
Note H.—Page 29.
Social and JSvery-day Superstitions and Presentiments.
How degrading are the minor superstitions and presentiments
still current even among well-educated persons ! It will be said
that it is absurd to object to fairy tales ! Yet, thanks to such
�Appendix.
39
and other nursery teaching, what may have been jokes and fan
cies originally become so interwoven into the child’s mind as to
constitute actual beliefs, or half beliefs nearly as bad in insen
sibly influencing conduct.
I would point to, among others, the passing under a ladder, the
spilling of salt, sneezing (on the Continent of Europe looked upon
as an omen of ill), the belief in lucky and unlucky days, and,
possibly the most strange and prevalent of all, the unlucky
number of thirteen at table, presaging the death of one within
the year. The two latter probably have a distinctly Christian
parentage. The belief in Friday as an unlucky day and Sunday
as a lucky day, especially prevalent among sailors, is to be traced
to the supposed days of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus ;
the ill-luck of the thirteenth at table must have arisen in connec
tion with Judas Iscariot, the thirteenth apostle.
It would be interesting in the next census to ascertain how
many people in England, numerous even among the better edu
cated, have a half-belief in gipsy fortune-telling, palmistry, second
sight, or ghosts !
Every person who for one moment is made to feel uncomfort
able by a superstition such as I here allude to is in a state of par
tial belief.
A most excellent Protestant lady is known to have seriously
told her child that the black mark in the rough shape of a cross,
which is seen on the backs of many donkeys, comes by descent
from the Donkey that carried Jesus in triumph, and who was
consequently thus honoured by a peculiar badge : ‘ See how the
very asses bear testimony to Jesus! ’ But the folly of so-called
Religious teaching is endless !
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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The rights and duties of parents in regard to their children's religious education and beliefs; a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 14th November, 1875
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Domville, William Henry
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Domville writes that children should be educated on the moral elements of religious principles without prejudice in favour of any particular form of belief or worship.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 39 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: One marginal annotation in pencil. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
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Thomas Scott
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1876
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
' CW-H*
11 •
THE FREETHINKER’S
BURIAL
Reprinted from The Examiner of February 22, 1873.
Sir,—A recent pamphlet, one of Mr. Thomas Scott’s
series, entitled ‘ The Book of Common Prayer Examined in
the Light of the Present Age,’ by Mr. William .Jevons, and
in which the varying views of St. Paul on a future life are
pointed out, has turned my thoughts to the position ’which
Freethinkers of the present and future generations are
likely to take with reference to the burial service of
the Church of England, and to the question of burials in
general.
It will be well known to many of your readers that both
in France and Italy Societies of Freethinkers have been
established for the express purpose of preventing the
clergy from obtruding themselves unsolicited into the
presence of dying members of the Society. In this
country Freethinkers at present need not much fear beinginterfered with on their death-beds against their will by
the clergy; but still kind or officious friends may try to
make the world believe that those who have in their mature
years rejected the creeds and fables taught them in their
childhood, did at the last hour see the error of their way,
give up their deliberate convictions, and accept the orthodox
belief that their only chance of a future life of happiness
depends upon the merits of a crucified man. Under these
circumstances, and even independently of them, many a
Freethinker may, if he turns his attention to the subject at
all, be desirous of putting on record, as solemnly as
possible, his opinions and his wishes, and to such as do so
it may occur that, following the fashion of our ancestors,
but in an opposite direction, they may, instead of
invoking the Holy Trinity and professing to commit
their bodies and souls to the keeping of the Almighty,
and declaring their belief in the certainty of their
resurrection to a future life, or in any other speculative
matter, make their will as far as regards their burial
somewhat in the following form :—-
�With respect to my burial, although ! have no objection to being
buried in what is commonly called consecrated ground, I should
prefer non-consecrated ground, being not only fully convinced that t he
act of no man, be he pope, bishop, or priest of any kind, can make
any portion of this earth more holy or sacred than another, but
also wishing to enter my protest against the superstitious reverence
generally paid to this act of consecration.
Not believing in the dogmas of original sin, the fall of man, the
atonement or redemption, and not believing that the man Jesus
of Nazareth was born of a virgin, nor in his resurrection after
death by crucifixion, nor that he descended into a place called hell,
nor that, he ascended into a place called- heaven, and then sat on
the right hand of God, and as I shall not die “in the Lord’
according to the views of those who style themselves Orthodox
Christians, I express my desire that neither the burial service of
the Church of England nor any other religious service shall be
performed on the occasion of my remains being consigned to the
earth, as it would, in my case, be merely a farce and mockery.
I desire that as little funeral ceremony shall be allowed as
possible—a plain coffin [single, and of perishable wood or wicker], a
hearse with not more than a pair of horses, no trappings of any
kind and no mourning coaches. I request those of my friends who
may be present on the occasion will go in their own clothes, and not
allow themselves to be dressed like mutes or undertakers’ men in
grotesque hatbands or scarves.”
The above will probably express the real views of a
great number among us, and even if surviving friends
and relatives differ from those views and would gladly
think matters were otherwise, they ought to bear in mind
that concealment is not honest, and that the allowing what
they will consider a very solemn service of the Church to
be performed on such an occasion would simply be acting
a lie, and ought to be far more abhorrent to them than
their acknowledgment of facts that cannot be altered.
I am. &c.,
W. H. D.
P.S. — The following extract from the Musee de&
Monumens Francais, by Alexandre Lenoir (Paris, 1806),
may interest your readers: “ The refusal of the Clergy
to bury Moliere caused a great scandal in Paris. The
king Louis XIV., being informed of this abuse of the
�3
ecclesiastical power, sent for the priest of St. ■ Eustache
(to which parish Moliere belonged), and ordered him
to bury the poet. This he declined to do, on account of
his being an actor, saying that such a man could not be
buried in consecrated ground. ‘ To what depth is the
ground consecrated?’ inquired the king of the narrow
minded priest. ‘To the depth of four feet, sire.’ Then
bury him six feet deep, and let there be an end of it,’
replied the king, turning his back on the priest of St.
Eustache.”
THE
FREETHINKER’S
MOURNING.
Reprinted from The Examiner of March 8, 1873.
Sir,—As you have kindly favoured me by inserting my
letter on “ The Freethinker’s Burial,” I now venture to
trouble you with one on possibly a more delicate subject
“ The Freethinker’s Mourning.”
In these days, when men and women allow and encourage
their stationers to go on increasing their depth of mourning
borders till space is scarcely left for any writing, a few
words on the exaggeration of mourning, internal as well as
external, may perhaps be permitted. That the Orthodox,
full of their “certain hope” that the departed has at once
been translated to realms of eternal bliss, where they
themselves will (after an interval of the briefest as
compared with eternity) in the due course of nature join
them, should give way to weeping and wailing—that
grown-up children, themselves old enough to be parents, or
even grandparents, should be completely unnerved at death
laying its hands on their parents, who simply appear to fall
asleep, their bodily frames having gradually given way and
decayed like the leaf on the tree that has performed its
allotted task and drops in its autumn season, is a
psychological phase in human nature singularly puzzling to
an outsider; but as the ways of the Orthodox are not my
ways, I pass them by. My letter is addressed to those who may
�4
be, like myself, Freethinkers; and to them I would say,
ought we not always to be prepared for death ourselves,
and therefore equally prepared for it in the case of our
friends and relatives ? Shocks are disagreeable to all; but
constant contemplation of what is happening around us
will, in every respect, prevent the shock otherwise caused
by sudden bereavement. As we learn to look upon our own
deaths as the result of laws partly hidden and partly known
but never varying, so exactly shall we learn to look upon
the deaths of those most dear to us. This uncertainty of
life, so far from being an evil, ought to be one of the
strongest inducements to all good work. To an earnest
Freethinker it should never be possible to grieve over lost
opportunities of making those around him better and
happier. As I have lived so shall 1 die. Let my daily '
thoughts be—This is possibly my last day here ; how ought
I to act for the best towards myself and others ?
So when even the young are cut off from us, let our true
regret be lightened by the feeling that, while in no way
wasting our time and energies in the study of dogmas on
subjects beyond human knowledge, or troubling ourselves
about creeds and articles of faith, we have to the very best
of our abilities made ourselves masters of the laws of nature,
have done all in our power by obedience to these laws to
preserve the life of that dear one. When life is cut short
by our self-willed ignorance of, or our carelessness about
these laws—then, indeed, is there true cause for mourning
over an untimely death.
I am, &c.,
|
j
’
W. H. D.
1
1
4
�
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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
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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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
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
The freethinker's burial [and, The freethinker's mourning]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Domville, William Henry
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 4 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Reprinted from The Examiner of February 22, 1873 and March 8, 1873. Letters to the editor, signed W.H.D. Author's name handwritten in pencil on title page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1873
Identifier
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N196
Subject
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Death
Rights
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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 freethinker's burial [and, The freethinker's mourning]), 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>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Death
Freethinkers
Mourning
NSS
-
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PDF Text
Text
W ”8
'
"
SUNDAY HARVESTINC.
To the Editor of the “ Free Sunday Advocate.”
October, 1881.
I am glad to see that in your paper for this month you
have copied the letter of a South Oxfordshire “ Landlord and
Parmer,” inserted in the Times of the 1st Sept., in which he
forcibly points out how much better the Clergy would have
been employed on Sunday, the 28th August, if, instead of
offering up the weak prayer of their well-meaning, amiable
Primate, they had given their parishioners words of en
couragement, bidding them gather in the harvest while yet
it could be saved. To those who like myself believe that
no divine commandment has ever been laid upon man to
abstain from work on any day; that neither Jesus of Nazareth
nor any of his Apostles ever said a word to enforce the Sab
bath which Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, promulgated as
a command emanating from their God; and more particularly
believing that no God “answers prayer” in the ordinary sense
of these words, and which if they mean anything, mean this,
—that an almighty, all-wise, all-beneficent Being is to be
stirred up by a few of us puny mortals, (a mere handful out
of the teeming millions of the inhabitants of this earth) into
altering at their dictation or persuasion, the fixed laws of this
Universe,—Sunday harvest work in seasons like the present
would be a matter of course. But that this ‘ Christian
liberty’ may be accepted universally we must first break
down that rigid Sabbatarianism so naturally engendered and
kept alive by the reading out in solemn form, in all our
churches Sunday after Sunday, the Fourth Commandment
of the Jewish Decalogue.
It may help to this end if I summarize the grounds upon
which Christians should hold themselves unfettered by that
commandment, as well as the grounds for my assertion that
it was no divine commandment but a mere piece of human
legislation, by Moses or some other J ewish Legislator.
The introduction to the Ten Commandments £ I am
the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt’
__ the reason given to the Jews in the Fourth Command
ment, as written in Deut. V.15,‘ remember that thou wast
a servant in the land of Egypt ’ —and ‘ It is a sign between
�2
me and the people of Israel for ever ’ (Exod. 31, 17) prove
conclusively that it was not designed for observance by
any other people.
Next, note how little respect Jesus had for Moses’ Sab
bath law. He went out of his way on many occasions to
offend the Jews by needlessly “ breaking ” it and never
denied that his acts were breaches. (See Mark II. 23, allow
ing his disciples to pluck corn on the Jewish Sabbath—Mark
III. 5—Luke XIII. 14—LukeXIV. 4—John IX. 16) while
as above stated, not one word is to be found in the New
Testament, attributed to him or to his Apostles, in favor of
or urging its observance. On the contrary, what an oppor
tunity was lost by Jesus of enforcing a Sabbath had he so
intended—when asked (MarkX. 17) what we should do to
inherit the kingdom of God and he repeated only the fifth
and other moral commandments of the Decalogue; and again
St. Paul in well known passages in his Epistles, while unwil
ling to interfere with his disciples’ liberty, as nearly as
possible forbids sabbatizing and the observance of days.
‘One man esteemeth one day above another; another
esteemeth every day. alike. Let each man be fully assured
in his own mind.’ (Romans XIV. 5) ‘Let no man, there
fore, judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of a feast
day or a new moon or a sabbath day ’ (Colos. II. 16) ‘ 0 foolish
Galatians . . Ye observe days and months and seasons and
years. I am afraid of you lest by any means I have bestowed
labour upon you in vain’ (Gal. III., 1 and IV. 10-11)
When Jesus, healing a man of a long standing in
firmity and telling him to take up his bed and walk, was
properly accused of sabbath-breaking, he replied ‘My Father
worketh hitherto and I work,” and thus used words in express
contradiction to the reason assigned in the Fourth Com
mandment for keeping a Sabbath, namely, that God had
‘ rested the seventh day.’ This singular and absurd sugges
tion of a God Almighty taking rest afterthe labor of creating
our little globe, put forward as a ground for human beings
keeping a Sabbath, ought to satisfy both Jews and Christians
that the Sabbath of Moses was a mere human institution.
Some later lawgiver of the Jews, probably seeing this ab
surdity, rewrote the Fourth Commandment and substituted
the other reason for the Jew keeping it, that ‘ thou wast a
servant in the land of Egypt.’ But thus with two varying
�3
versions, it is impossible to say we even know what the
Fourth Commandment was, for both versions cannot be
correct and we know not which to choose.
I conclude with words of St. Augustine’s, 4 Qui labored,
orat.‘ 4 He who works prays.’ Your obedient Servant,
W. Henry Domville.
It is also interesting to note that the Roman Emperor
Constantine, the first recorded lawgiver to the Christians
who ordered any abstinence from ordinary work on the
first day of the week—‘the venerable day of the sun,’
as he terms it—in his Edict (a.d. 321) expressly reserved
to the dwellers in the country the free use of the day
for agriculture, lest haply the crops “ bestowed by
heavenly provision, should perish,” in this respect showing
greater wisdom than those 44 foolish Galatians,” and, let
me add, greater reverence, than those modern Sabbatarians
who would rather see the whole harvest perish than lift
up a hand to save it on a Sunday. The Act of 29 Charles
2nd c. 7 in more general terms excepts 4‘ works of
necessity and charity ” from its penal clauses.
The letter above quoted of 44 A Landlord and Farmer ”
on the subject of Sunday harvesting, is as follows :—
44 Many country congregations who last Sunday on
their way to church passed acres of cut corn, which
through the last three weeks of bad weather has been
ready for carrying, must have thought of the second
lesson (Mark II. 23) they would hear read in their churches,
and have wondered why the saying of Jesus 4 the Sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath ’ was not
applicable to the present time. As the precious hours of
sunshine—sunshine for which the Archbishop had
ordered a prayer to be offered up in all congregations—
passed by, how many in the congregations must have
thought of the proverb 4 God helps those who help them
selves,’ and have longed for words of encouragement from
their clergy, bidding them gather in the harvest while it
could yet be saved. No such words of practical religion
came, I fear, from any pulpit in the country; and the
rain, which recommenced on Monday, has injured and
destroyed thousands of quarters of corn which, but for the
�4
bitter observance of the Sabbath, might have been saved.
In the face of the bad seasons we have now had for so
many years, is it not a question for the country to decide
whether or not the superstitious, and I might add
un-Christlike, views entertained with regard to Sunday
labour should be allowed to endanger the capital and
industry of our country? Daring the present season
could the fine Sundays that have come between days of
rain have been utilized, a large portion of our crops
would have been saved, and the harvest thanksgivings,
which have become a general institution in the Church,
would have had more of genuineness in them than they can
have had of late years. In this county finer crops of wheat
and oats have seldom been grown, and the peas and beans
have been fairly good. Of the former crops only a small
part is housed in any condition, the remainder, still lying
in the fields, is day by day becoming less fit for food.
The crops of peas and beans still out will serve only as
food for the pigs, which will be turned into the fields to
pick up the seeds shed abroad through the wet weather.
That landlords, farmers, and labourers must suffer in
consequence of this needless waste of their capital and
labour every one will see at a glance; but all do not
recognize the fact that an insufficient or bad harvest
means depression to every trade and industry in England.
It is for the press to point this out; and if you, Sir, will
use your powerful influence in teaching that it is no more
a sin to save the hay and corn crops from needless
destruction on a Sunday than to lift an ass or an ox from
a pit they may have fallen into, you will confer a
material and moral benefit on this country.”
Copies of the above will be forwarded on receipt
of a ready directed pre-paid wrapper, enclosed to
W. Henry Domville, 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde
Park, W.
The Second Volume of the late Sir Wm. Domville's
work on ‘ the Sabbath,' (now out of print) is entitled
i An inquiry into the supposed Obligation of the
Sabbaths of the Old Testament ’ and comprises an
elaborate statement of all the arguments on this subject.
Women’s Printing Society, Limited, 21&. Great College Street, Westminster, S.W.
�
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
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
Sunday harvesting
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Domville, William Henry
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 4 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Letter to the editor of the Free Sunday Advocate, October 1881. Author's name handwritten in pencil on title page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Women's Printing Society, Limited
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1881
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N198
N199
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christianity
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<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 (Sunday harvesting), 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>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Farming
NSS
Sunday Observance